Many Little Things

We sometimes underestimate the influence of little things... -Charles W. Chesnutt

Cotton cloth hand dyed with coffee, and hand quilted with cotton embroidery thread.

      This is a whole cloth quilt.  I think it is rich with potential to resemble the far smaller drawings that I've been making with thread.  The Japanese sashiko and Indian kantha quilting techniques are beautiful, and emphasize the stitches so much in contrast to the tiny western standard of 8 stitches to the inch.

The original 'tea stained' muslin on the left, hand dyed with coffee on the right.

The 'back,' just as beautiful as the front!  58x64"

This side was hand dyed with Rit Azul dye.

This quilt is a gift for my dad, he loves woodworking, so it is inspired by the growth rings of a tree.

This quilt was made entirely over winter break 2013/14.

Instagram @Haparkes

All natural cotton batting inside.

Bamboo crochet thread was used for the neural external rings.  The binding was sewn with cotton quilting thread.

Inside the dye bath, coffee.

Rit Azul dye.

Now folded and ready for quilting: turmeric on the left, and pinot noir on the right.

In progress.

Cloth and Memory

“It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”

― Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows

The second quilt I made was not directly inspired by Gee's bend as the first one was.  Instead, I used their improvisational approach on my own.  I did not purchase any new fabrics, but instead, found a variety of old neutrals and prints.  The rainbow polkadots are from the remnants of a fabric my mother used when I was a toddler to make bedding.  The strawberries are from fabric my mother purchased to cover the lids of jam jars.  We used go strawberry picking with my grandpa Moosbrugger at Lurvey's farm near Pretty Lake in Wisconsin every summer.  We would nibble on a few strawberries in the fields, and then devour heaps of them with Gilles custard when we returned to my grandpa's cottage.  It is indeed strange and wonderful how a memory can burst forward with just a small square of printed cloth.

My second quilt, machine pieced on Columbus Day 2013.

Hand quilted over Thanksgiving Break 2013

It began as a log cabin here, but became an improvisational quilt.

Add caption

The quilt top before hand quilting.

65x46" On Instagram under @haparkes

A taste of what I see when I see this quilt. (Me sometime in the late 80's)

A Collaboration with a Stranger

"How many times in the course of my life reality had disappointed me because at the moment when I perceived it, my imagination, which was my only means of enjoying beauty, could not be applied to it by virtue of the inevitable law which only allows us to imagine that which is absent."  ~Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Last book, Last chapter.

      I have become a quilter.  I have made 4 quilts now, but this post is about the first.  My grandmother purchased a hand pieced quilt top at an estate sale years ago.  My mother gave the quilt top to me this summer when I moved in to my new home, and eventually I felt inspired to complete it.  My friend Kat knows all about quilting, and reassured me that quilts could be 2-sided, and shared essential info like the fact that quilts are safety pinned together before sewing.

A found quilt top, from an unknown maker. Hand pieced.

   At SAIC in 2003 I took a class called, "Sampling." with Diana Guerrero-Macia.  It was about the connection between quilts, DJ's, and the act of creating art with a variety of materials assembled and sampled together to create one whole.  I was drawing and sewing paper together at the time, making art about love- but, I was moved when she introduced us to the Quilts of Gee's Bend, and fell quite in love with them and their aesthetic.  In 2007 I did set design for a play called 'Tapestries,' that sampled many African American works of art and literature   I suggested that Gee's Bend was an essential element to include in the production, and we sewed a 50x25' quilt top to use as a backdrop for several scenes.  I did the sets for 7 plays, and this was my favorite show by far.  The quilt began with the center square of Annie Mae Young's work clothes quilt, and grew outward from there. 

A detail of the found quilt top, after I hand quilted it to my side.

   When presented with the occasion to create a back for the beautiful quilt top my mother gave me, Gee's Bend was the clear point of reference for me to begin with.  I found a quilt by Arlonzia Pettway that inspired me, and I began.  I have many fabrics from my mother, grandmother, and late neighbor Jean.  As I hunted through my plastic tubs of fabric, I felt chills at times at the sight of a fabric from my childhood.  So many memories of dresses, halloween costumes, bedding, and homemade jam jar covers!  

This is the back that I machine pieced.  The sheep was given to me by my friend Matthew back in the early 2000's.

Kat explained that the red center of the log cabin pattern represents the 'heart and hearth of the home.'

Growth, a detail.

My signature, and details about the creation of my quilt.

The hand stitches remind me of the 'wabi-sabi' aesthetic that I love so much in my pottery and drawing.

    I feel now that quilting combines so well many of the things I love about art making in general.  Function, creating a large, meditative space to look at, adding to the meaning of the work with the materials...  I also love the meditative state that this and the recent weaving of my bench create- along with the ability to combine art making with reading, or marathon tv.  It matches my passion for yoga and meditation in theory, and with necessity- the hours of quilting seated on my couch make my yoga practice essential.  The care and warmth inherent in a quilt continue to express my interest in art as a medium through which one can both express and question love.

    In researching quilts more on Pinterest and other sources, I have found an aesthetic that continues to embrace the improvisational quality of Gee's bend, along with the Japanese philosophy's I strive for in my other work.  It is a slow process making quilts, but that investment in time, detail, and attention  adds even more to their inherent beauty.

   I think of the 40+ hours I spent listening to Proust over the last year, the way this last quote has lingered in my mind.  Is a memory more lasting and beautiful that the present moment?  Is it only in a memory that we can fully appreciate the intricacy and beauty of our lives?  The repeated motions of hand quilting, the hours spent between myself and that 6x8' cloth feel inextricably linked.  To see that quilt is to remember September 2013.  Hand and Memory.  

   As I sewed, I wondered, who is this person, likely a woman, that has inspired me so?  Unable to picture, or know her- I feel a bond.  She likely spent 100 hours hand cutting and piecing her side.  I too, spent 100 hours piecing and hand quilting our two sides together.  Now, her work keeps me warm as I sleep, & wraps me in warmth when I am cold.  As a single person, at times the thought of one day loving a stranger is both daunting and coarse. Yet, I remember that upon leaving my mother's womb, everyone has started out as a stranger to me.  Like the waves of the ocean, my dearest friends have moved in and out of life.  Some that I have loved deeply have now become just as strange to me as the creator of this quilt.  Currently, I do not know them.  However, life is better since this woman's work left her sphere and entered mine.  Life is better thanks to all those that I have loved, whether they are currently with me or not.  They live in that beautiful space called memory- where the taste of a madeleine cookie, or a quote from William Blake, or the smell of a small mirto berry from Sardinia can conjure them up and allow me to imagine that which is absent.

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? ~Walt Whitman 

81x68"

Trick or Treat? Is it Real?

                                            

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose, that makes your rose so important."   

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince. 

"Lazy Love," 6x6"  Drawing with thread, inspired by a work of 17th cent Meissen porcelain.

"To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness." ~Robert Brault

Dabbling in photography while visiting my brother in Boston, June 2013.

"And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course." Khalil Gibran, The Prophet. 

These photos of water connect very much with the abstract paintings I've made like those featured in my post on 1/1/13

"Love isn't something you find.  Love is something that finds you."  Loretta Young

I took this by the harbor.

I made this invite and accompanying postcard for a recent show, my painting of Balbec is featured on the middle left.

These photos are from 10/10/13, when we were tie dying in Art Club.  

"Love makes you do crazy things, insane things. Things in a million years you'd never see yourself do. But there you are doing them... can't help it."  ~Brandon Boyce, Wicker Park

I loved the way the sink photos from my 12/12/12 project worked out in the D204 show flier above and, I was excited by the opportunity to take a few more!

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom." ~Anais Nin

Kathy and I in Art Club, as reflected in some purple dye.

   I've been making art about love for years.  Many times inspired by fairy tales and favorite books- looking at the way I want things to be, or wished it was, or wonder if it could be, or even marveling that others want it to be one way or another.  To invite some balance, last weekend I began reading Charlotte Kasl's "If the Buddha Dated; A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path."  An excerpt on identity that I particularly enjoyed is below.

"You are unique in all the world... just as the oceans rise and fall, just as the moon waxes and wanes, you have an inner world that is fluid and shifting... Staying loyal to your journey means you never abandon yourself by compromising your integrity or discounting your intuition or the signals that come from your body- the knot in the gut, emotional detachment, or loss of energy signals that something is amiss.  You learn to realize when you "hit your edges"- when you feel backed up against a wall, scared to see what you see, know what you know, or feel what you feel.  When people hit an edge they usually run away by going numb, distracting themselves, changing the subject, counter attacking, overindulging in food or drink, or blaming. 

 "We may hit an edge when someone hurts us, or when someone loves us more than we love ourself.  It is harder for many people to allow love to pierce their heart than to have chaotic, painful relationships." ~Charlotte Kasl's Ph.D.

    It is not as romantic to know that we may be afraid to love or of being loved.  It is sorrowful to reflect on the moments when we have given up a piece of ourselves, our identity, our integrity, in the name of love.  I sometimes sit back, and wonder, "Where did I learn to love in this way??"  Disney, my mother, books, Shakespeare?  Love is beautiful, but it is also dangerous, creeping in, appearing out of the blue with no rhyme or reason as Proust pointed out when I quoted him on 2/19/13.  I have been aiming to show some of this complexity in my art, some of the irony in a beautiful couple lazing about under a tree in the afternoon.  If only it could be so simple.  So easy.  I hope that the laborious method I have chosen to depict the already laboriously sculpted image centuries ago has some impact on the viewer.  Centuries later, two artists contemplate the same scene.  So much time, so much effort, going into one flirtatious afternoon.  A beautiful moment that may have only lasted hours or days between those lovers until they quarreled, or parted ways.  There are moments like that which are so fleeting in reality, that I wish I could linger in forever inside my memories.  However, even then, those memories are tarnished by time, the knowledge that it didn't last, it couldn't last.  -As anyone who didn't marry and live happily ever after with their first love knows all too well (Hello Sleeping Beauty, my childhood favorite- whom I emulated 3 Halloweens in a row!!)  Do the 15 hours I spent sewing this love scene change the way it feels, is there a hesitation, a doubt, a wonder at it's very possibility- and yet still a hope, that maybe it can be found again?  This is what I wondered as I sewed while proctoring the PSAT tests, while listening to Proust, and while on my flights to visit my brother in Boston, and back again.

Halloween, 1989.  My brother and I as Prince Phillip & Sleeping Beauty.

"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam. Yet I know it's true, that visions are seldom all they seem... but if I know you, I know what you'll do: you'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream..." ~Princes Aurora, 'Sleeping Beauty', Disney

A New Home

"The happy years are those that are wasted; we must wait for suffering to drive us to work."   ~Marcel Proust, Time Regained, ch III

 I moved this summer, and in the madness & happiness of packing, unpacking, and making art- I have had no time to write!  Well, now that it's getting cold out, there is much to tell:

"Bench; Summer 2013 Watching Game of Thrones."  40x17x17"

I made the legs with my dad this spring, over the summer I spent 40+ hours hand spinning fabric with a drop spindle, and weaving.

It is one of many handmade touches that are making my new house feel like home.

The warp.

The whole weave.

New kitchen set-up.  My first map painting, and some chairs I refinished summer 2012.  

The view from my kitchen to the back porch, I crocheted this curtain.

 I found moving a bit taxing mentally, and I took a very intensive summer course on Yoga Therapy.  My art, in contrast, returned to the comfort of repetitive motions like hand spinning and crochet.  They offer a meditative quality that is so soothing.  I have read every book by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (AKA, the Yarn Harlot); and in All Wound Up, she connects knitting (and other fiber arts) to meditation.  Here are a few of her musings that I'm particularly fond of.

“...the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting. Knitters are so compellingly clever that they simply can't tolerate boredom. It takes more to engage and entertain this kind of human, and they need an outlet or they get into trouble.

"...knitters just can't watch TV without doing something else. Knitters just can't wait in line, knitters just can't sit waiting at the doctor's office. Knitters need knitting to add a layer of interest in other, less constructive ways.” 
― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

"It was so simple that I was almost ashamed that it had taken all day to put it together.  Knitting wasn't always about creativity, and neither was writing; it was about creation, bringing something into being.  Making a thing where there wasn't something before. When I was writing, I was coming up with an idea, and then using my skills to make it a reality.  Same thing with knitting. I was imagining a sweater, or socks or whatever, and then using my skills to translate that image in my mind into a real thing you could touch and see.  I had been right (and rather wrong) the whole time.  They were the same, they fed the same human need, they enriched the soul the same way.  They were not an act of creativity, they were a pure act of creation. 

 "Who knew.  To your spiritual self, writing a novel may be exactly the same as knitting a sweater."  ~Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Free-Range Knitter

 While spinning and weaving I watched all of "Game of Thrones," and "Orange is the New Black." The Marathon tv was justified by the art, and the slow paced art was justified by the tv! At the end, I feel lucky to have a beautiful hand made object in my home, and Game of Thrones has left me feeling very lucky indeed to be a woman living Now, rather than any time in the past!

Make a Home

   I spent today weaving a dozen baskets for birds.  On June 22nd I will be in The Growing Place's Gardener's Art Festival.  This being the first week of summer, it is exciting to be able to spend a whole Friday making art, and more appropriate for that art to be garden inspired.  The idea is that birds will take the wool from this basket to make their nests- it promises to be fun to later explore one's garden  looking for brightly colored tufts of wool in the bird's nests.

A hand woven basket, filled with wool, accented with a ceramic heart.  Intended for birds to use the wool to make a nest.

Pink wool, with a stoneware leaf.

Notice my awesome new 50mm F/1.8 lens?!

   I believe that I have found my favorite chapter of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past yet.  The 6th of the 7 volumes, 'The Fugitive.' feels so close to life and love and memory.  I don't believe I'm spoiling any surprises in the book, just a few beautiful thoughts below:

…I had supposed that I knew the state of my own heart. But our intelligence, however great it may be, cannot perceive the elements that compose it and remain unsuspected so long as, from the volatile state in which they generally exist, a phenomenon capable of isolating them has not subjected them to the first stages of solidification. I had been mistaken in thinking that I could see clearly into my own heart. But this knowledge which had not been given me by the finest mental perceptions had now been brought to me, hard, glittering, strange, like a crystallised salt, by the abrupt reaction of grief.  ~Proust, The Fugitive. 

But the infinitude of love, or its egoism, has the result that the people whom we love are those whose intellectual and moral physiognomy is least defined objectively in our eyes, we alter them incessantly to suit our desires and fears, we do not separate them from ourselves: they are only a vast and vague place in which our affections take root. We have not of our own body, into which flow perpetually so many discomforts and pleasures, as clear an outline as we have of a tree or house, or of a passer-by. And where I had gone wrong was perhaps in not making more effort to know Albertine in herself. ~Proust, The Fugitive. 

The woman whose face we have before our eyes more constantly than light itself, since, even when our eyes are shut, we never cease for an instant to adore her beautiful eyes, her beautiful nose, to arrange opportunities of seeing them again, this unique woman — we know quite well that it would have been another woman that would now be unique to us if we had been in another town than that in which we made her acquaintance, if we had explored other quarters of the town, if we had frequented the house of a different hostess. Unique, we suppose; she is innumerable. And yet she is compact, indestructible in our loving eyes, irreplaceable for a long time to come by any other. The truth is that the woman has only raised to life by a sort of magic spell a thousand elements of affection existing in us already in a fragmentary state, which she has assembled, joined together, bridging every gap between them, it is ourselves who by giving her her features have supplied all the solid matter of the beloved object. Whence it comes about that even if we are only one man among a thousand to her and perhaps the last man of them all, to us she is the only woman, the woman towards whom our whole life tends. ~Proust, The Fugitive.

     How do we choose the home that we make for ourselves?  Be it the physical home we live in, or the home we make in the heart of another human being.  Perhaps it could have been somewhere else, someone else-  How much do we imagine and hope for those we love, rather finding those qualities in reality?
  The colorful wool that we can track across our backyards is a small, but beautiful way to know that we have indeed helped another.