IMPERFECT Lady

My Storyline

My Storyline quilts were requested to be shown - and I said Yes.  

The Keweenaw Storytelling Center is interested in showcasing stories and someone gave them my name.  

 

This seems like the perfect venue.

 

I was shown around the center, a work in progress - with lots of potential.  Bringing humanity together through our shared experiences - a place for voices to ring out in a variety of ways.

 

As I unrolled the quilts - it was interesting to see my art from so long ago.  

I believe the first ones were created in early 2005.

It has been 9 years since my quilts and I made our public appearance - well some where actually at an Art Quilt show - but I can't recall how far back that was.

Anyway it has been a long while.

I wondered about our relevance or integrity or even art form. My inner critic comes alive anytime my art is heading out in public - an unflattering soundtrack from long ago. 

I went back in my blog - way back to the beginning to see if I had recorded when my quilts were in the Quilt Show - but it only goes back to 2009.

It was interesting to read me back then. To read about my determination and confusion and trying to explain the unexplainable.  I feel for her.  

All these years later I still feel the misfit or the one who is unlike the others. I love my words though and my exploring and the books I read and who and how I quoted.  I love how I began seeing the world with a new perspective.  I can see that my storyline is still relatable.

 

My Storyline quilts are not scheduled to be hung until January and the space, or gallery wall, will be painted to showcase my art in ways that will flatter them.  I love how my art is always handled with care - and my story line too.

The woman who runs the place has great ideas and it will be another interesting walk on my journey.

Imagine them up in Calumet just few miles from the church.

I wonder who will happen upon them.

I wonder who they will comfort and who they will disturb.

 

All in all, it was a weird step into the past, and even more a step out into the public with my story.

Re-reading about my Keynote with Dial Help 9 years ago, I remember waiting for the rebuke and insults, the anger and rage for me speaking out - and that did not happen. 

It is odd, that we fear the reprisals and our story is often met with silence.

Nothing.

From those closest to us.

 

I have time to prepare and sit with each quilt to travel once again along my storyline; putting my story together to offer words and art to someone who feels alone in her journey.

These quilts have already given me courage and allowed me to be brave. They stand louder and bolder before me - telling my story in fabric. 

This time out I am stronger - more time has passed and I have grown - emotionally and spiritually. I know who I am now - I know my depth and love.

I could actually stand before my art.

Yet, I am so grateful to have it with me.

 

Soon, I will hang them back on the clothesline and take their pictures again. Perhaps take them out on a photoshoot.

Looking at them was like looking at old friends.

Parts of me that I didn't really know - then.

 

I am now excited to re-visit My Storyline.

 

I am now brave, bold and a badass - with my truth.

 

 

 

Before It Is Okay

"Freedom is being okay, before things are okay."

 

Freedom is when you are okay - before this or that happens.

Being okay with this present moment, and knowing you can be okay if things go differently than you would like them to.

 

Being okay, is about you.

It isn't about what the world outside is or is not doing.

 

There truly is very little we control - it all comes down to self.

 

Perhaps it is best to decide today, how you will respond to the election IF it doesn't go according to your vote. Decide how you will feel; but mostly how you will act. What will you change in your life?

 

The whole country seems to be in an heighten state of anxiety; both from the Covid Virus and the Election that has filled our worlds in the past many months.  And, social media feeds are fueling both - and we can chose to engage or not engage or even perhaps how to engage in things that pop up on our feeds.

 

If you haven't watched "Social Dilemma" you may want to check it out.  It is on Netflix.  Some of us fear the political party opposite of who we voted for. We may want to look deeper into what is driving the dialogues and how much of our days are spent on social media and what are our gains OR more what we lose.

 

Being cognizant on what you are putting out into the world - means being aware of your own thoughts, beliefs and what they mean to the world at large. What it means to your future and those around you.

Does everyone in your circle think alike?  Do they all believe like you do?  How do they bring in good energy and block toxic behaviors?

 

I am guilty of writing about things that confound me and trying to raise critical thinking; especially towards cults and strict religions and dysfunctional families.

I wonder what is a better use of my time?

 

What makes you think differently?

How can we entertain new thoughts and evolve humanity in directions that will cause more harmony, and less division?

I don't think we need to be passive or to live in a non-reality. But, each of us make up the landscapes we live in. Each of us are participating in creating the world we will leave behind.

Our individual legacies will be what echoes after we are gone.

Do we want to leave outrage and disgust OR hope of changing the world; by changing our world and growing a more open mind.

In my experience, the more my mind has opened; so has my heart.

I have a broader sense of humanity and the myriad of differences that are being expressed.

I am less certain that I and my limited beliefs and knowing, have any answers for others.

I leave others to know what is best for them.

Which reminds me of Byron Katie's words -

"I don't know what is best for me or you or the world. I don't try and impose my will on your or on anyone else. I don't want to change you or improve you or convert you or help you or heal you. I just welcome things as they come and go.That's true love. The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way."

 

As we all continue to find our own ways. Let us try and be kinder to what we don't know or understand or believe.

Let us be okay; before it is okay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Year of Naked Truths

I am working on the nudes and putting together a calendar for next year.  In sitting with them and pondering words or ideas, I recalled a conversation I had with a friend.

She said, "You have to be okay - before things are okay."

 

Learning to be okay where we are right now, in the circumstances we are with - and being okay with it down to your soul, is true power.

 

I want my naked ladies to inspire other women to be with their naked truths.  Regardless of what that is.

We were taught that the truth is ugly or shameful - and not to be exposed.  

We were taught to lie in order to be liked, loved and approved - to fit in and keep the peace.

 

There is a legacy that women in my family have handed down generation to generation. I don't know what the correct word is that I am seeking to describe this woman.

A woman who was invisible to herself.  

 

In front of her stood family, spouse, religion and social niceties.

She, the real her, was nowhere to be found.

A legacy of living without yourself.

A life without you.

Living your life for everyone but you.

 

She didn't matter.  

And, when she didn't matter, she passed her value down to her children.

They didn't matter enough.

 

This may not seem right or that it even matters, how much or how little a woman dances with her truths.

How truthful she is, or not, will color the love she has for herself.

 

Can you love yourself and be living lies?

Can you lie to yourself and feel what love is?

What I learned was the truths that were the hardest to acknowledge to myself, held love.

 

It seems that it is the opposite.

That when you bring in sexual abuse, you will lose value.

When you bring in a pedophile for a father, you will decrease your value.

When you admit you have a mother who knew and did nothing - it is a loss.

However, oddly it can raise your worth.

 

I was worth enough to walk away.

 

Sitting with my wounded self - I felt more valuable to me.

It doesn't matter to me, how others see me.

 

In fact, there seems to be a consorted effort to keep us from ourselves.

And, our naked truths of our own life.

A religion whose main theme is to forgive the 'sins' or truth of what is.  Creates a false place to live.

Families who are silent about the abuse - from one generation to the next.

Society that rewards pretend over real.

The list is long and uninspiring.

 

I would love a revolution of truth baring women.

Growing the next generation in love.

Real love.

Imperfect looking love.

Wild, tough, fierce, strong, empowered, fearless, love.

Love that is inspiring and worthy to hand down.

 

I know where I came from and its cost.

I also know the cost of returning there.

 

I turn towards the future by holding truth sacred with me.

By knowing and living with the darkest parts of me and gathering them close.

It has allowed me to have boundaries and to walk the walk I want my grandchildren's mothers to walk.

 

These ideas will be the seeds for my naked lady calendar.

Beauty and strength arise when we can bare our truths to our own hearts.

 

2021 will be a year of naked truths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the parade of life.

There are many different small pieces of myself I have been working on.

The integration of my mother's image and mine.

The lack of control of have of the next generation.

Mostly just focusing on being a single me.

Bringing my attention to what is mine to manage and to let go of what is not and creating more fully who I am.

 

I get that we are part of a continuum - I am tagged to the woman above me as well as the women below me.

Yet I am a single me.

 

Becoming a single me has been a journey of extricating myself from the cycles of abuse. And, reconnecting with the self that I was prior to abuse. While living out my life as a mother. 

The woman I am - greatly mattered in how I would mother.

And, there does come a time where your mothering days are over.

Where there isn't a need anymore - there is a letting go - and allowing.

Allowing of lessons to be delivered - learned or ignored. 

It is crucial to know when to bow out and when to engage.

 

What I am feeling the integration mostly of is the boiling down of all my choices that are Me.

The work I have done, is done. The work of assimilating my abused self into reality and then redefining me.

 

I was undoing my false self and becoming my real self  - without a self if that makes sense.

The Who I was wasn't me and who I would be has been slowly growing over the years - a slow process of unraveling and knitting together.

 

I think, I thought that what I was doing was for my kids or the next generation; but in reality it could only be for me.

A old dysfunctional mode of co-dependency had me always believing that I somehow swayed the trajectory of others by how I moved.  

I guess because I was so strongly influenced by mother, I felt that I too could/would/should influence as well.

 

That may be the dysfunction way of legacy.

 

I wonder what is a healthier version of influence.

 

I do know that I have been greatly influenced by women who are strong, brave, resilient and who have swerved when their lives took a turn that left them heartbroken - but pulled themselves up and carried on.

 

What I always come to is the frustration and anxiety of trying to control an outcome - that I have no power in.  And, after days/weeks of wrestling - I get tired and I let go.

I let go out of wisdom - not because I don't care.

I actually care and love deeply - which is why I want to intervene and save.

Yet, that isn't the way the world works.

In Byron Katie's words "There is your business, my business and God's business.  If I am in your business, no one is left in mine."

 

Perhaps the guts of my journey for the past 16 years has been to disengage from dysfunction. To be just in my business.   Or to find out who I am.

 

The lessons I have learned by first doing things for the approval of others, to be liked, to fit in, etc - brought me to a place of being without Me.  I was only alive in the eyes of others.

I literally woke up at 46 and there was no Me - in me.

I had lived empty inside.

The outside created me.

I was asleep in my own life. 

 

And, each time I hop into someone else's business I leave my life empty.

 

Often I go into another's life when I am not eager to play with my own lesson.

My lesson now is integrating myself - with my mother - in a way that leaves me at peace.

 

I don't know how to do this.

Elegantly.

 

Kindly.

 

With love.

 

I sit with where I came from - the woman who is my mother.

What parts -that are in both of us - that can be salvaged.

 

When I feel most strongly repelled.

I feel the rejecting - more than the continuum of family.

 

The solid and complete rejection I have had from my family, I am sure influences this.

For, I feel that character traits - are what flow from generation to generation.

Traits that I saw - held abuse alive.

 

How can you find the string of love - when love wasn't felt.

Or strength of moral value - when none was seen.

 

It is an odd grasping - and trying to integrate the old - when I pick up a piece, to just put it down.

 

Who am I?

 

I sometimes feel like a freak of nature.

One who doesn't fit into the societal roles of what a daughter does - a sister etc.

A misfit or rebel.

 

Yet, I do feel that I am sliding from daughter/mother into just being Me.

Maybe a grandma Me who doesn't hold the same responsibilities that a mother holds.

Grandma Me is freer.

 

I have walked my parts out.

Until I walked here.

To the single Me.

 

Maybe I have defined the traits I was looking for in my mother. I defined them for me. 

The love I feel towards myself is what I have to give others.

The morals and values I have - are what can be pulled to the next generation If they chose.

Maybe the integrating I need to do, is being older.

The mothering days are few and far in between. They will let me know when I am needed.

I no longer am a daughter.

a sister

or even an aunt.

 

The space is wide open to be Me.

Perhaps this is what the mid-life crisis is - where you have to redefine the roles in your life.

The older you get the fewer there are.

 

Maybe what I am really feeling is the birth of just being a single Me - in the parade of life.

 

I am Full

While continuing to play in my basement, I listened to a podcast with Michael Gervais. His podcast is "Finding Mastery" - I can't find the one where I heard this - "Fear is the natural response to the Unknown." 

They went on to talk about breaking down our fear, in how we can take it down to day at a time, an hour at a time, or focus on right here right now.

He also mentioned, that fear that goes on long term - turns into anxiety.

 

This is critical for so many who are in fear of the outcome of our lives with the Covid 19 looming among us.  We have to break the cycle of fear.  Interrupt our thoughts, by doing something that will put fear in the backseat.

 

Which answers the question of whether it is a good thing for me to do Sunday Art.

 

These ladies were created by a wonderful artist seamstress. She was going to toss them out, and I saved them a few years ago.  In the past few days, I thought about putting clothes on them.

So, today I tried.

Working with 3D art is way not in my wheel house.  I was stressed immediately.  

My conclusion is to not try new

things that make you anxious during this time.

I think, if I didn't try real hard, but perhaps sewed them right on, in a weird not clothing creating way, I may like it.  

I tossed some yarn on her head and that was that.  I do like the clothes, and I can see how a personality could rise - depending upon what I could create.  They can afford to wait a few more months until I have a calmer sense of being.

So, I then went back to the Flat Art. 

On the route last week,

I thought about making my own Large Flower Background, and so I tried.

I will now have a canvas to start next week's Sunday Art. And, I finished off my Art time feeling less stressed.

The art in its unfinished stages are seeds for next week.

I have heard it is best to leave things not quite finished, so that you have an easy place to hop onto when you re-enter your art space.

Sitting here feeling like I had a good Sunday of Art!

I am full.

Sunday Art is My Fuel

Continuing to do Sunday Art feels like a luxury that is a staple.  

A frivolous routine that I use to refuel myself, and escape the reality of Covid 19.

 

The heaviness of doing something practical overwhelmed me immediately.

 

Lightness and joy filled me as I decided, Sundays were still for being an artist!  Engaging with this part of me offsets the rest of the week.  My week would be way too heavy without it.  And, if that bright spot is always open for me to enter, I feel normal, safe and that life is okay.

 

That being said, I went down to make large flowers, since all my panels which were few are gone.  

I stumbled upon a fabric with delightful flowers.  I was so happy to quilt them!

I never know where my art will take me, what will appear and how.

I then, looked at this as an Art mural and sidewalk.

Once the drawing is down, I then will select fabric that seems to want to be part of this landscape.

It is fun to see what will appear, work and grow together.  

 

And, then how what makes it come alive.

The words and bird and hearts help!

What I thought of as I sewed, was how we are all being asked to make the best out of difficult situation.  

We are having to keep a tight small circle; and some are down to a circle of one.  

Alone; but surrounded by nature, words, art and those who are our rocks of support.

 

I know when my life was at its darkest, the two huge therapies for me was outdoors and art.  Often the people of my life seemed to complicate an already dark place.  Yet, they were crucial to my wellness. 

Perhaps maybe nature and art - was the fuel I needed to survive what I thought then was the unsurvivable.  And, there were many who cheered me on; but couldn't truly understand where I was.  

In this, many are experiencing our path.  We are not alone; even when we are alone.

We have many who are in the same boats. 

 

Maybe we can share with each other the things that help us through difficult times. The tools that we seem to be drawn to.  

Even when life was 'normal' for me, Sunday Art was critical to my overall wellness. I need a place that is my own, where I can slip into a space where time and reality disappears.

Sunday art is my fuel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story Line of Becoming

I felt like I was taking the records of my mentalness as I left Copper Country Mental Health with my quilts. I was taking them out of a safe space. A place that understands, and holds sacred, our mental being.  

I felt sad, for Joe wasn't there for this transition. He would be so excited to know they were going on the road.  I miss his great hug of confidence. And yet his confidence walks with me.

As I took down each one, I didn't dwell on them. But, yet each one felt like a piece of my mental breakdown, and a badge of my courage. My broken self and my healing together. Picking up pieces of my self from long ago.

 

My Story Line quilts, and my most recent quilt, are sharing the same couch today. The history that flows through them, is mine.  Who I was, where I was, and what I was going through, is captured in fabric.

There is a vulnerability in doing art.  It captures our beginner self.  In these quilts, I also captured my mental wellness or the lack thereof.

These quilts feel vulnerable - an openness and yet there is tentativeness in doing so.

I had to look up the definition of Vulnerable.

"the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally."

 

What these quilts carry is vulnerability and courage.

For, I truly felt completely terrified to be attacked for my openness. And so badass for being so open.

At the time these quilts were created, I was a mess and my life shattered. 

 

The woman herself was so small and frightened - and a stranger to me. I had no idea who I was, where I was going, or who I would become.  And, I wasn't even sure of my history.  The state of my world was terrifying and hopeful.  A messy ending and a beautiful beginning.

The quilts are so beautiful in their artistry.  It blows my mind that someone in the state I was in, could continue to do art.

 

There was a desperateness in my art.  Or, should I say to do art. I needed so desperately for there to be something alive and beautiful in my world at that time. And, yet it recorded my inner state of vulnerability and unknown - against the backdrop of life.

For the next three weeks, I will look at these quilts with new eyes and re-read and perhaps re-write captions for them.

Reconnecting with past self and the trauma she was in.

I feel such awe in my ability to be so exposed - both artistically and emotionally.

To share my wounds - not only of being sexually abused, but also that I didn't know who I was or what I stood for etc.  

Like a bleeding broken self who does art.

These quilts oddly seem more valuable today, then they did while I was making them. I feel the history and story line of becoming.

 

 

 

 

 

My Lady and I

My Story Line quilts are heading to Marquette at the end of March. They will be on display in the Huron Mountain Club Gallery, at the Peter White Library, for two months. 

They have been on display at Copper Country Mental Health for about 6 years.  

I was reminded as to how long, when a memory popped up on Facebook, of me and the photojournalist who interviewed me for Call Me Mental.  

I am excited they will have a new audience.  And, they will be there for Sexual Abuse Awareness month, and Mental Health awareness month.  

It will be fun for me to have them home, for me to look them over, and see if the writings I have for each one needs to be updated or re-written in some way.   I had hurriedly created words for each quilt, when I knew they would be recognized at Copper Country Mental Health.  I wanted an explanation, or what the quilt's message was for me.

I will be bringing them home next week.

I can look over each one and see how they are holding up, and sit with each quilt and their message.  A reunion I am looking forward to.

 

I also have to come up with six sentences about the quilts and I.

Six lines that will encapsulate the art, and the artist.

 

I called my show - My Lady and I, the same as the title of the book I created many years ago.

 

My Lady and I collection - Is a fabric journal of a woman's inner journey from denial into self-awareness.  

Denial of self, and my sexual abuse as a child; an inward journey to find love, peace, and joy, by embracing my imperfections.

My art and I evolved together; as my self esteem grew, so did the woman in my quilts.

I loved my lady; the freedom she had to be herself - and found out she was Me.

My lady and I are still doing art, still growing and becoming.  When she and I are not playing, I deliver mail 6 days a week, and I am a mother of 4 and grandmother of 2, and a wife of 32 years.

 

That sounds like a good PR Statement.

I am excited to go on the road again with My Lady!

Six years ago at a reception - that Joe Freed arranged at Copper Country Mental Health.

 

A Mother Who Loves You

Being estranged from my family, I will not experience many of life's natural moments.  Moments that I believe hold sacred empowerment - the handing off of the torch of life - when a parent passes on.

A moment that holds more love, than words can eloquently express.

I am not even sure there are songs that can capture the love between a mother and child.

 

A woman passed this week.

Shortly before passing, she was holding her grown son's hand and saying "I love you too."

 

I know he feels great grief and sadness to lose his first love, and the one that has loved him his whole life. The love that began as a child and saw him through his life - the good times and bad.  And, how he too has known her his whole life.  A life-long friend. And, I am sure there will be a hole where his mother's life was.

This feels foreign to me.

While I want to feel sorry for his loss, what I feel more is his years and years of gains.

The love he has had feels like a mountain - to my next to nothing.

 

It is hard to articulate what is missing, for what I am missing, I never had.

A parent's love.

 

The differences in our worlds where one is color and the other black and white.

 

I am grateful I do know what love is.

Love of self.

Love of spouse.

Love of my children and grandchildren.

For that I am very grateful.

 

Even so, I feel the absence of knowing parental love.

And, I am moved to tears knowing what some children have.

The comfort of a mother, like a warm quilt that energetically holds you; always.

 

I feel the nakedness and cold where love is missing.

 

Love is something that is odd to explain, and sometimes we feel it most when it is gone.

Or, when it isn't there.

 

I feel the greatest reason I left my family was to find love. Real love. Love that doesn't hurt. Love that you can see, feel and hear. Love that weaves moments and memories that will last long beyond my lifetime.

I see this love between my daughter's and their girls.

I see this love between my children.

Between me and my grand children

And my husband and I.

And Me.

Love that feels ouch-less.

Love that is pure.

Authentic

Kind

 

I am sorry my friend did lose his mom.

Very sorry.

For that kind of love will rock your world.

 

It is interesting to me, that we all feel pain in our lifetimes.

Pain of not having a mother's love and the pain of losing a mother who loves you.

 

 

 

 

My Natural State

There is something magical about art, and the multifaceted ways in which a person engages with it.  Being the artist, we are often so close to the process, we are not aware of the breadth or depth it contains.  Much like our lives.

 

In creating a piece, I never focus on the whole piece, but am lost in each step.  Any more than I am aware of my whole line of quilts I have made in the 20 plus years I have been quilting.

 

When the nude ladies began to hold my interest, I felt intrigued by their braveness and open acceptance.  It was odd for me to create, minus fun outfits.  

I was then made to grapple with the woman; alone.

 

There are so many layers to who we are, and how we present ourselves to the world.

And, for the most part, we are guilty of 'judging a book by its cover'.

 

It has been an interesting challenge to create nudes in their natural pose.

 

Which leads to what is my most natural state. Who am I beneath what I wear and do?

 

I was used to making woman doing this or that -  a skier, in the woods, and with all its trappings; but now I am challenged with nude woman.  

How to express her?

You don't really realize how much of you is covered up or propped up.

Until you are asked to let them go.

 

Working with nudes is pushing me to express in different ways - which then leads to seeing things differently - or more deeply.

 

I am liking the challenge and feel like a beginner once again.

 

When I began doing art, the background of each piece was where I focused, and then the clothes, and then slowly a body emerged.  

In working with nudes, it brings the focus more deeper into who the woman is, NOT what she is doing.  And yet the props are still there, but instead I feel the vulnerability of the woman.

 

Or bravery.

 

Even her freedom to be seen.

 

Unapologetically 

It is exciting to uncover another layer of life.

 

Being from a religion, where the body was seen as sinful, and how we were born sinners, that we are somehow bad, in our natural state, nudes feel like sin in my mind at times.

I also experienced men losing control because of my body.  Or, that my body was the cause of their wrongness.

There are so many ways in which a body isn't okay.

We were not taught of its innocence; but rather it was shameful at best.

 

Empowering myself, and my art, to reclaim my body.

Getting my mind right happens in Art.

My body has been innocent all along; but my mind has been twisted in ways that have not allowed me to fully sit in my natural state.