I’ve been reading the writing of Amy Irvine lately. She lives in Utah and her experience of the four-corners region where she now lives and where I grew up is familiar on a deep level.
“The early-evening light was diaphanous—like a wraith pressing through loosened molecules of sky, stone, and lake surface. I turned to my grandmother, who had dropped to her knees and was sketching furiously. Her skin was practically pulsing with elation.
Wind. Water. Stone. And light changes everything.”
Perhaps my enjoyment of this writing and the memory it brings up is simple. Irvine’s writing about the shifting sands of Utah, particularly of places that I have hiked and camped, and in Desert Cabal, her imagined discussion with Edward Abbey and her thoughts on environmentalism, all place me back in my own memories of sand in my shoes. I haven’t left my house except for walks in the neighborhood in what seems like forever. My summer thru-hike has become mostly a dream, and I’m asking myself what it is I want my life to look like inside our new coronavirus reality and then in the future. Because I don’t think we as humans will get to the other side of this quite the same as we were before. And I’m not sure that is entirely a bad thing.
Being forced to observe the birds in my back yard closely instead of pretending I’m observing them while pushing through a 12-mile hike means that I have to slow down and see the magic that is right outside my very own office window. That seems like a good thing.
It also seems like a good thing for making art. I’m teaching an online design course right now and over and over again I keep coming back to one thing. Being able to create a design starts with awareness and being able to see. I did interviews with six fiber artists for this season’s Design Solutions for the Artist/Weaver course. All of the artists expressed design as being related to seeing and experiencing the world. The clip below from Tommye Scanlin’s interview is a brief example. (If you get the blog via email, please click HERE to see it online.)
“Someone asked me recently what would I say about my work and I said, ‘I’d like to be able to say, look at what I see.’
Look at what I see.”
As I have tried to spend more time sitting still over the last six weeks, the relationship between practicing really looking and seeing and making art returns to me over and over again. The pandemic has brought up so many fears including the fear of not being able to control much of anything at all. But the thing I can control is myself.
I’ve been inviting people into my studio on YouTube Live. For four weeks I did this every day and now am doing it two days a week. I’ve finally found the focus to work on a new large-format tapestry design and I am almost finished with the piece I’ve been showing the most on the YouTube Change the Shed broadcasts. It is time to weave big again.
Below is Wednesday’s recording of Change the Shed. You can find all the recordings HERE or join us Monday and Wednesdays at 10:30 am Mountain HERE.
If you get the blog via email, please visit this post online to see the videos HERE.
Remember to breathe.
Making things helps.
So does reaching out to people who need a little steadying.
Be well.
Rebecca Mezoff, Great Sand Dunes National Park. I lived, for a time, a short drive from this place
What is helping you cope with this new reality? Please share in the comments.
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