Red Thread Studio

All That You Have Is Your Soul

Every day I think about my poor neglected blog, and send out a silent thank-you to my readers who are still stopping by. It's been kind of a crazy month.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the loveliest e-mail ever from a woman named Maria, blogging here, who is living in Switzerland and working with Peruvian Indian textile artisans on a wonderful Slow Cloth project. Her message was extraordinarily kind, and extraordinarily well timed, reminding me that there is value to this blog and the efforts I've made here as a global textile explorer. I've been discouraged this month with my "day job" swallowing my life and possibilities, and I still hit roadblocks related to certain people who know me in real life lurking here--that came up for me big-time earlier this month. But Maria's message, her commitment to her work and her level of achievement, inspired me anew and reminded me of what matters.

A lot of what's mattered this month has been current events. The health care reform ugliness makes me heartsick. Every life decision I make is affected by whether or not I can get health care with my pre-existing condition; I am sure my health habits are as good or better than most Americans, but I'm considered a risk outside of an employer plan. And all of the hope and astonishment and joy of electing a man with intelligence and integrity is being drowned in the reality of our political system and our pathetically anti-intellectual, intolerant, violent and fear-driven culture.

Meanwhile, my brother's farm in California was at the center of the destructive Lockheed fire. There was no loss of life or structure, but the fire and the necessity of bulldozing to cut fire lines did significant damage. And there were some very tense days, not knowing if the incredibly courageous and dedicated firefighters could contain the fire. Everyone is okay, and I'm grateful for that.

Since we talk a lot in this blog about world cultures and their inextricable link to textile traditions, please take a look at the New York Times Magazine's special issue on women and girls this week. Some of this previews a new book by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl, called Half the Sky, and the accompanying Web site here. I don't always agree with Kristof's position on sweatshops but I do understand his point of view and greatly admire his commitment to giving voice to the silent female majority in the world, whose rights and freedoms are too often limited. Maybe we should start a group to make microloans to women and girls working with textiles. Anyone game?

I think all things are connected, and the article we read about women in Africa can inform every stitch we take or every piece of art we make, so I hope you don't mind these news-focused posts.

Oh, and one more thing! Maiwa has a blog now -- I was so hopeful about going to the symposium this year and it is not to be, but I am glad for all the material they're posting.

So that's about what I've got to say. I'm trying not to let the commute and the cubicle kill my spirit, to be grateful for the chance to work with interesting material and authors, and to believe that there's more for me and it will appear in time.

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul
All that you have is your soul.
            Tracy Chapman, All That You Have Is Your Soul

Bodhisattva, Would You Take Me By The Hand

Lots of walking today. My favorite way to explore a city is on foot; there's really no substitute. I've walked miles across London, through the vertical mazes of Hong Kong, and as a resident in the streets of New York and Chicago and San Francisco. Why be in a dank, crowded subway when you can see the city? 

Here in Washington, I've usually been here for trade shows and not as a tourist; I've often been to the National Gallery but not done the full-on walking thing, and now I have the chance. My suite is only a little more than a mile from the White House, but once you're down in the museum zone, you're clocking some miles. 

I think it's worth noting that our highest halls of government and power are surrounded by art, lots of art, and culture. These museums are open 364 days a year, and you just walk in; no charge, they belong to We the People, damn it. And, at least at the Freer, where I went today, there were no guards in the rooms; nothing but -- come on in, make yourself at home, a quick security check of the bag, and enjoy. There didn't even seem to be restrictions on photographs. 

The Freer Gallery is a little jewel of a museum that had an interesting show of paintings by James McNeill Whistler in the context of his interest in Asian art. Charles Freer, who founded the museum, had parallel interests in ancient Asian and contemporary American art, and he felt that in Whistler these two paths converged. I also saw the beautiful Japanese tea bowls repaired with silver and gold; in a year when I've felt so irreparably damaged and broken sometimes, there's surely a message there. I saw galleries of Japanese screens and scrolls, Islamic decorative gorgeousness, Buddhist art, and some beautiful statues of Shiva. Below is a large 12th century Bodhisattva (the best photograph I could get with my limited skills and the museum lighting). 

Can't we make a law that our political leaders have to just sit with this statue once in a while, and contemplate compassion? It's right down the street from their offices. I know, church and state and all that, but it might do some good.

Now, here's what I especially want to share with you. The Freer Gallery has some fantastic interactive exhibitions online. One in particular is called Style and Status: Imperial Costumes from Ottoman Turkey, and the opening splash, as well as some of the robes, has lots of those beautiful wish-fulfilling cintamani dots. 

On the way home I walked by the Obamas' house, on the north side, and it made me very happy to know we have a really good, not perfect but very, very good, honest man and a totally awesome woman running things inside and trying to fix this country's damage. See? It's like a little party outside all the time.

Everything Changes

I'm doing my best to come back down to earth after our collective lifting of hearts and souls and pride. The world is different, with the possibility of a renaissance of soul and authenticity, and yet the same, and the wolves are still howling outside many doors. But I want to share with you Jude's beautiful flag, stitched on Tuesday; go read her Refashioning America post, as she mentioned Obama's references to patchwork and making, which I too loved and appreciated. 

Jude's work is protected by a Creative Commons license with 

And I think my favorite picture of the week is this, with this boy beaming with pride and joy:

This came from a news source but now I can't find the photographer's name. . . if you're out there please let me know so I can credit it or take it down if necessary.

Between the inauguration and the possibility of a major exciting yet daunting change of life and locale, I haven't been very focused at all this week, so I'm really just dropping in to say hello and then trying to get back to work. By the time I turned 18, I had already had six interstate moves (and at least three additional local moves) where I had no say in the matter, and no consideration or acknowledgement or space for the emotional and psychological cost of those moves. As an adult, for quite some time, I blindly kept moving because it was all I knew how to do, and I  made a lot of disruptive mistakes; I went when I should have stayed and stayed when I should have gone. So now, moving is a big decision. Nothing is final yet, and it may not even happen, so I'm trying to both mentally prepare and relax about it, and stay in the present. Stitch by stitch, things get made. Some days you have to just keep doing the next logical thing, as my friend Steve says.

I'm also feeling a little burned again by some of the writing I've been doing for free on other sites -- for supposed "contacts and exposure" - after 15 years as a professional writer, the first rule is that you just don't do it for free, ever, but the Web and present circumstances change the game. Again I find myself rethinking it all. I'm frustrated, I admit it, by the lack of return on some efforts. I'm sure this weekend I will find myself with something that I really want to write about for my wonderful core readers, and damn the rest, so look for me then.

Oh, I'm also on Facebook now, under Elaine Lipson, so add me as a friend if you're there. I'm also on LinkedIn.

All Together Now

As much as I love textiles, I equally love well-crafted language, and the art of beautiful, truthful writing and oratory. So part of what makes this inauguration/celebration highly emotional and deeply moving for me is the joy of a return to great speeches, the inclusion of poetry, the amazing power of the right words at the right time, delivered with passion and conviction. On CNN, they've just replayed Martin Luther King's speech - the one that's come to be known as I Have A Dream, though that was not its original title. And I'm happily anticipating both Obama's speech and Michelle's clothes tomorrow, for both of their smiles as they arrive at the end of the beginning, and mostly for the audacity of hope for America, yes indeed, unlike anything I've experienced in my lifetime.

The Washington Post has an essay linking Obama's style of orating with King's and other black preachers. The Root has a Q&A with Elizabeth Alexander, the inaugural poet, who sounds like a delightful woman who is equal parts down-to-earth and lofty. You can read some of her published poems on her lovely Web site. 

Poetry is best read aloud; people often feel intimidated by poems, unsure if they're up to the task of appreciating them, but that's because we're woefully underexposed to poetry. Here is Alexander's Ars Poetica #100:

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

Whether we find it in poems, speeches, essays, music, stitching, dance, travel, or some other path that gives us both expression and contemplation, we're all searching for rhythm, melody, cadence, pattern, and beauty -- our collective heartbeat and our collective soul. 

Edited to add: If your idea of poetry is food, food, food, you might love the Obama Foodorama blog. 

Now, I'll feel off-topically guilty if I don't include something more specific about art and textiles. Jennifer Falck Linssen is an artist who uses Japanese katagami and katazome stencils to make inventive, graceful sculptures. As it turns out, she lives not far from me, and has a show opening at a local museum that I hope to see. And I've just discovered Laura Tyler, another locally-based artist who works with encaustic techniques. Laura has an excellent art blog. 

I've started another piece with shisha mirrors, beads and stitching; it has a long way to go, but here is the base.  

And one more link: I've been reading Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. If you've had it with all the preachy "happiness science," this book is your antidote. Though I'm finding it to bog down a little at the end, it's very funny, and very sweet. I was that possibly-insane-looking person laughing out loud on the airplane last week while reading it. 

Back at the Ranch

My trip to Washington was good and productive, and my job interview went pretty well. Taking a four-hour, very crowded flight two days in a row is exhausting, though. Washington was cold, and busy and alive with anticipation for next week. The Obama trinket sellers were really, really happy. Back home, it's unseasonably warm here and very nice. 

I feel like I've lost track of any focus on this blog in the past few weeks, though! So let's stay on the political topic for a moment. Like many, I'm as charmed by and admiring of lovely Michelle Obama as I am of her husband. I love reading the Mrs. O blog. It's an education in contemporary, youthful style and unstuffy, modern fashion for professional women. Mrs. Obama doesn't strike me as a knitter or sewer, and may be years shy of a generation that we could assume learned these skills, but she exudes creativity, personality, humor, tremendous intelligence, and a love of beautifully crafted things. I can't wait to see what she wears on Tuesday, and I hope it's dazzling, sophisticated and pretty. 

As difficult as these times are -- and they are, even for people with jobs and money -- it's so refreshing to be  free of the cynicism, materialism, spiritual futility and greed that has characterized this country for quite some time now. As I was watching the broadcast of the speeches along Obama's train route today, I realized that poetry seems to be back in style among the speechwriters; soaring, inspirational eloquence has a place again. I can hear my ex-therapist scorning me for wanting "everything to be meaningful," but that urge for meaning is being satisfied this week. 

So thanks for checking in. I'm curious, do any of my readers live in the Washington area?

Day of the First Snow

I don't have too much to say today . . . our first real snow fell last night, so winter is really here. I'm spending the day with music and yoga and clearing out stacks of paper in my office so I have order and room to be creative.  I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., and a good weekend elsewhere, and are sending your best thoughts to the people of Mumbai. 

At the risk of losing too much time to the Internet beast, here are some links to interesting sites for your pleasure:

• Guys, want to get Obama's look? There are plenty of opinions on Michelle Obama's authentic and lovely style; leave it to The Independent in London to break down Barack's elegant coolness/hotness in this slideshow. Of course it helps if you're tall, lean, brainy, confident to your bones, and have that whole leader-of-the-free-world aura.
• Le Studio Anthost is a textile and surface design studio in Brooklyn making very amazing one-of-a-kind fabrics. The Web site is intriguing and also a little frustrating -- it's beautiful in its design, but fabric views are limited. Still, you can see enough of what they're doing with a whole range of surface design techniques to be inspired. 
• Two blogs that I regularly visit have moved. Sharon B's In A Minute Ago is now Pintangle.com. Jane Brocket's yarnstorm has relocated to this link. Her first post on the new blog includes this link to her list of Top Ten Beautiful Blogs -- and they are beautiful. All have fiber and craft elements. And they all make me realize I seriously need some better photography skills. 

That's all I've got on this modest day. Back to cooking French green lentils and organizing. 

Chimes of Freedom

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind their rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

bob dylan, chimes of freedom

YES WE CAN

Uncertain Hour

Yikes. I'm sorry, readers. I fell into a rabbit hole and ended up in Electionland, and haven't been able to do much but read and watch and worry. Just a few minutes ago, the little town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire cast its votes -- traditionally Republican -- 15-6 for Obama. It will be a momentous day tomorrow, and I don't know any more than anyone else what the outcome will be.

Someone recently accused me of wanting everything to be profound and meaningful and truthful. I guess I'm guilty as charged. This time in America feels like all of the above, but not easy. There's an Obama ad that's been in heavy rotation here in the last few days, with only Paul Simon's beautiful and world-weary American Tune as the audio. It's a moving song. It got to me today, after a solitary day and another job interview that ended with "you're not what we're looking for." I've attached the lyrics. 

This blog will be back on topic soon, I promise. If you haven't done it yet, go vote the way your conscience tells you to vote. I'm going to try to stitch my way through tomorrow, and wait to exhale.

American Tune
  
                 Words and music by Paul Simon

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m alright, I’m alright
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it’s alright, it’s alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we’re traveling on
I wonder what’s gone wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune
Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all, I’m trying to get some rest.

Vote! It Feels Good.

The best lack conviction

Given some time to think

And the worst are full of passion without mercy

Joni Mitchell, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, adapted from The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

As I voted yesterday, I was once again surprised by what an emotional experience it is, participating in the democratic process of the most influential country in the world. And this is no six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other election where there appears to be little difference between two uninspired choices. After eight years of the worst, full of passion without mercy, we can vote for a better choice, with conviction at last. I was very proud and moved to vote for Barack Obama, a person of singular intelligence and vision with a world view that isn't simplistic or violent. Voting is an act of hope and community and determination, so don't miss your chance. It feels good.

And on the back burner, I've got a few post ideas to write this weekend, on Shipibo Indian textiles from Peru, on the value of art, craft and the Slow Cloth approach in our now-slow economy, and on a very thoughtful comment a new reader made on a recent post, about preserving and supporting textile traditions in a sustainable way versus exploiting them while they're fashionable and then abandoning them when styles change. Challenging thoughts.

On the stitching and making front, I successfully copied a pair of Indian-style harem pants for my dance teacher last week; did you know harem pants were in the runway collections of virtually every big designer this year? This pair is actually flattering and fun to wear. And here's an updated photo of the shisha practice piece - I don't know what it will become. As always, click to enlarge.

Enigmatic Equinox

The immeasurably talented Steve reminded me tonight that I haven't posted in a week. I think it's quite amazing that he reads my blog, since he makes music, not stitches, so I'd better write something interesting. I did finish the big work project . . . and my taxes. . . and then promptly fell into a trough of discouragement for a couple of days. Yesterday, though, was art therapy all the way. It was Open Studios weekend in my town, and I went to the studio of my friend and teacher Judith Trager, whose righteous motto is "eschew cute," and to the studio of Susan Wechsler, a prolific mosaic artist who makes beautiful spirit houses aligned with the nine themes of the feng shui bagua (technically eight plus the center), and extraordinary Buddha shrines. 

Last night I went to a concert of classical Indian music and katha dance; my dance teacher was one of the musicians. These are incredibly rich and nuanced art forms with an ancient heritage, and since I've been stitching shisha mirrors, and getting unexpected e-mails from Bombay from someone who read a yoga article of mine, and talking with Acey about India, it all had a lovely synchronicity. They played a beautiful evening raga that brought tears to my eyes with its sense of twilight descending at the end of the day, on the penultimate evening of summer. 

By today I was myself again, regrouping and making plans. I began to configure another blog, to be focused on commercial organic, ethical, sustainable and artisan textiles and apparel. One of the reasons I started blogging was to help redirect my career and move my job search forward; this blog has become more of a personal art space and a place for other artists, crafters, culturalists and the Slow Cloth-minded to find me, and that's just as it should be, but it seems I also need a professional space of some kind. 

For anyone interested, I have an article on the sustainable apparel market in the current issue of Organic Processing magazine, and another article coming out in a new publication in November on sustainable and organic fabrics for home sewers -- more on that soon. And if any of you get the Gaiam holiday catalog, why, I wrote some of the catalog copy for that -- distinctive, I'm sure!

And in the midst of all this, there have been many conversations, internal and external, about where to go from here, what it means to be an artist today and how to commit to a disciplined creative path. It looks like there will be more market research reports to pay the bills, but I'm thinking about graduate school, new book proposals, relocating to a place with more opportunity, all of the above, and trying to be open to it all and patient and ready for the moment when the universe makes its move. How to finance anything is a really good question right now. 

And as you might guess, I'm not done with politics yet! "For the Swing Vote" --