a change of season..

does anyone know what sort of pod this is?  i found it in the yard, but it was under a tree that was clearly not dropping these.  someone on instagram said maybe magnolia?  so i will run out and look at the magnolias, which are back in the woods.  actually i'll do that now!  yes, it is a magnolia!  one of the dogs must have moved it to a different part of the yard.  how beautiful these are, and i never noticed them before.

anyone who visits here has probably noticed my absence...  i'm not sure what has happened,  except possibly for burnout.  i'm still in love with fiber and sheep, but i'm very, very tired of spinning for production and sale.  i need to shift things.  this happened to me some years ago, when my new husband's dog ate my first wheel, an ashford joy, and i took it as a sign that i should follow my muse and shifting interests, and i did - even started grad school during that time - and then came back to spinning about three years ago..

i also have realized since then that i'm what author Barbara Sher calls a scanner.  someone who has lots of different interests rather than one main calling.  i tend to have the same basic set of interests, mostly related to old country skills, but i tend to cycle through them over and over.  right now i am feeling called to study herbs and have signed up for two classes which will stretch out over the next year.  this is something i've wanted to learn about for years, but never took the time.  i don't really have the time now either... because..

this scanning thing has also made it really difficult to finish my dissertation, because i got really messed up in my head by the topic, and so then totally lost interest in it for the last few years.  i actually think i needed some distance to process and heal from that research, but now i'm facing a new set of circumstances.  the most important being that i have an amazing new adviser.  a dream adviser, my academic idol.  this is a huge deal for me, one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  i've had such a lack of support at my grad program, which has also made it difficult to finish up.  the other thing is that now, my graduate program has been cut!  suspended, no more grad students, and tenured faculty reassigned to other departments.  everybody else is out.  so i can finish, but it has to be by this spring!  so i must, must, must and will get busy.

and then there's my sweet Papa, who has been in the hospital with a pneumonia, then a scary vascular surgery, then more heart problems from his existing heart disease.  he's been so sick, and my family is so worn out.  my usual depression and IBS are acting out in full force with the stress of this, but i'm hanging in.  just so, so worried about him.

so i've wondered about maintaining this blog when for a long time it has been fiber-focused.  whether i should start a new blog that's more about writing my dissertation, or about my progress with herbs, or whatever else i'm on about.  do my friends here want to read about any of that?  and then i also have some self-consciousness about it... am i "keeping going" in the sense that Jude talks about, or am i somehow unable, always trying to escape myself?  i've blogged and loved it for a very long time, but i also worry about not being able to be a great blog friend and reader right now...  time is just so tight.  it's much easier to keep up with folks via facebook, but i know a lot of you aren't there (if you are, and we're not friends yet, please let me know how to find you there!)  so i'm trying to figure out what sort of blog this could be and whether i'll keep with it ... i guess time will tell.

mara xmas to mee

i love this pic of mum modeling the shawl i finished on christmas (it wasn't really taken in '81, that's a hipstamatic thing). it's a simple design, madeline tosh's mara, but i made mine huge and it's such a nice weight. i've not been a shawl person, but this is such an easy shawl to wear. it's been a good, soulful season, it really has.

i feel much more clear about things, in part because hub and i started juicing and having some greens and nutrition means that my health has improved. and i'm deciding, here as i write: my gift to myself is to leave school behind. i got a lot out of it back when i was doing course work, but i mustn't keep torturing myself with it. it doesn't fit my life any more. it's a kind gesture to let myself off the hook with this. it's time for life without hooks. and if it's a safety net i've been hanging onto, it's a very false and temporary one. i've gone back and forth with this so many times, but putting it here makes it real. no more whining about it or endless what-iffing. i want to put my energy into moving forward, being brave and having faith. thank you all for listening to me through all this and supporting.

i was making a list of all the things i want to do in 2012, the things that make me want to live, that fill me up. they involve a lot of making and growing of things. tinctures, and stitches, and friendships.


bye-bye, academe. nice knowing you.

musing forward

thinking a lot lately about continuing, and with things that aren't always so easy to keep going. like the hotel as studio space (although i did get that grant to help pay for it!), and then school. the last two proposals i turned in didn't make my advisors happy. and so i thought i would probably quit, or even apply to the fiber arts program at NC state, but i haven't been able to make that decision yet.

now i've got another, related project proposal brewing in my head. it has to do with things that have been right under my nose all this time.. studying the connection between fiber and animals. what kind of relationships are there between farmers and animals, and fiber workers and the animals that produced their fiber? if i stay on-track with documenting these relationships, it should be ok with my anthropologist advisor.

i love my etsy business. i absolutely adore working it in all its aspects. the people i've met are incredible, and in many ways it suits me so well that i think, just forget academia already, who needs it? it's been such a great year in this way, and my business has shown real potential!

the only thing is that it's hard being focused on production. i knew this and have heard it many times, but i had not experienced it myself before this season. i don't want to get caught up in working faster, producing more more more. although i love that there's been a demand, i'm not a fast crafter. sometimes the pace is fun and energizing, but ... if i have a choice, i'd rather be able to focus more on what i'm doing .. than on doing more.

looking forward at goals and plans... in order to make my etsy business a living, i would need to grow it quite a bit. perhaps that will happen anyway in ways that feel good. i have some ideas for how that could work. but i still wonder if i don't also want an academic component with some writing and teaching, especially since it's an opportunity i have now, to try and integrate these worlds, and once i quit, i won't have it again. can i make a real, honest commitment to it, finally? and, is it worth it?

i think that i'll spend the next few weeks brainstorming this and i can spend some time at the uni library while i'm visiting mum over the holidays.

ghosts are converging

elderberry and rust-dyed yarns. i just love the odd shades of these. i do have a grey sheep, so maybe they are not all that incredible, but still, it's different.

the yarns contain the ghost of the sheep and also of the elderberry bush (both happily living down the road, but the sheep is elderly). and the ghost of the horse-shoe that one skein was wrapped around in the dyebath. or no, actually this one was wrapped around a rusty car part. well, maybe a less romantic ghost. but that brings up this question about plant and animal fibers that i'm working through... are these ghosts, traces, remnants - are they works of imagination? or is the fact that the sheep or plant or horseshoe or car part was really There, how much does that matter?


the fiber is There, and it is marked. it has qualities specific to its ghosts. so even though someone who ends up with this yarn (or the yarn made into mittens) may not see the ghosts, they were, are There.


everyone is talking about ghosts. or i'm just noticing the ones talking about ghosts. jude's concept of ghosting from magic diaries. also this chapter by carla freccero on queer spectrality. and last night, sarah seeing in my eco-prints their ghostly potential for quilting. working through how these are related.. this is my task.

happenings

i spent a nice afternoon cuddling the kitty and devouring india's new book (long awaited and even better than imagined... i'll probably be obsessively huddled with it for a few days). and in other news..

one of the feathers from my flock floated off to jude today...


it seems our last show at the Hadley made the Greensboro paper!


dear miss hadley is showing off her lovely figure..


and here's a block i stitched for the elder cloth with the paperless piecing method..

i have a general design plan now using the old quilt as a center, and i was planning to use this fabric from a thrifted dress for part of it. i like the pattern in this fabric, but now after stitching it, i'm not sure how it'll work with the other fabrics. i thought it was all linen but there's some rayon lurking in there skewing things. it's just so bendy. anyone have thoughts on rayon??

and i am actually, finally working on my proposal for school with an actual plan. and yes, it involves cloth making. it's gobbledygook right now but it is coming along, which is a relief. hope with me that i can persuade them!

well, crap. or, possibly a plan.

alrighty, so. i think many of you know i've been struggling with grad school for ages. i imagine that some friends are really so, so tired of me talking about it, talking about quitting, talking about topics, blah blah. i finished everything except my dissertation, so i've been ABD since 2008. then i went on a leave of absence, but came back and have had a series of false starts. the program is interdisciplinary but something like cultural studies. my advisor is a visual anthropologist.. she makes ethnographic films. my interests have centered on folklife, usually in the u.s. south, and usually related to rural skills, and especially animal husbandry and related practices. at one time, i wanted to be a professor, but i'm an artist at heart, or at least a wannabe. so that's one reason i haven't been motivated to finish - because i don't think a ph.d will help me be an artist. but i haven't been able to quit, either.

but so recently i've learned that my school will accept a dissertation that consists at least partly of an art work. it's not an MFA program, but since it is interdisciplinary, they have been talking about nontraditional dissertation forms for ages, and apparently they are now starting to accept them. so i'm told that i could do an art work and then write about it. presumably the art would fulfill a chapter, and then there would be a chapter contextualizing it, and maybe a chapter analyzing it... or something. did i already tell you all this? i feel like i have.

so what about having this elder cloth be part of my dissertation? the subject of it, i mean. i have a glimmer of how this could work. everything from the materials to the process to the story. and situated ... somewhere. historically, and within stitching (and perhaps spinning, weaving or farming) communities and now online art communities. within the slow cloth movement. among women who are also making.

there are some parameters. it has to fit within my previous areas of study. otherwise i will have to re-do my comprehensive exams. then it has to fit within my advisors' areas of expertise. and then it has to fit with what the graduate committee has already approved for me. it's possible to change or shift some of these, but not ideal. i think all this means that i need to conversate with academic work in visual anthropology, memory studies and animal studies. so that it's consistent with what i've done before, it's important that it be related to animals, not just that the cloth is 'for' elderberry, but probably that some of the materials derive from animals. i *think* it could fit... but maybe not, i'm still reaching.

if i could do this in the context of my current program, i think it would be great. i'd be motivated to work on it, because it's work i want to be doing anyway. i'm inspired, of course, by jude. not that i should try to do what she does, i couldn't possibly, but i can imagine some sort of a slow cloth journey being documented and all of that forming the basis of a dissertation. why not?

so now i need to brainstorm, refine, and convince.

i've been tasked to map out my plan by August 31 and so i am overdue on the getting-with-it. here are the questions i need to answer:

Describe your research question/hypothesis or research objective? What will the focus of your investigation be?

How does your research build on your existing dissertation research and what fields/disciplines will it draw upon?

What evidence/materials do you need to collect to answer your research question and how will you go about collecting it?

What skills and training are required for this work and what has prepared you to do this research?

What is the significance of your project? What fields/disciplines will it contribute to and how?

so i'm going to take some time and think on these questions and brainstorm. this is all very early, draft-y and provisional. i don't want to self-edit too much here or be embarrassed for trying. i don't feel like i can do this alone.

they found me

the smell of honeysuckle right now is tremendous. still, it didn't feel like beltane yesterday. the light is still spring-like. and it was so ... quiet. then again, i haven't felt like venturing beyond the yard, so the sounds of hgtv and birds are about all there is. i should feel like celebrating the amazing art love i've had lately! but instead i have been in hermit homebody mode.

part of staying home is that i'm actually writing. i randomly met someone on ravelry who is coaching me. her name is elithea, and she singlehandedly convinced me that i must write my dissertation, and she is showing me exactly how to do it. i've followed her plan for the last four days, and i've written more than i have in years. i feel so lucky that she is doing this for me, and that she knows what she's talking about! i was skeptical and thought i was beyond help, but so far her advise is working, and the words are flowing painlessly. (psst: i'm sort of even enjoying it!)

and, just as strangely, my topic seems to have found me. you know that i was planning to write on fiber and memory in three case studies. then i fell down the rabbit hole on ravelry and read everything i could find on antique wheels. i thought that i was wasting endless time reading the forum on Canadian Production Wheels, but it has turned out to be most useful... at first, i thought one of my case studies could be about CPWs, except that it didn't entirely fit with my loose vision for the dissertation. but i kept reading, and reading, and now, after coming up with a very loose and draft-y outline, i'm completely thrilled to say that my entire dissertation is going to be on these wheels, known as CPWs or Quebec Wheels. it may seem narrow, but there's a whole lot to say about them and why they are important! and they are experiencing a renaissance right now. so i'm also diving headfirst into Québécois culture and history (and i better figure out how to make those accents on my keyboard!)

even though i thought i was really set on the antique spinning wheel front, another ravelry friend named kat who was bedelia's foster mom messaged me over the weekend saying that she rescued a full-size CPW with a cast iron treadle, but couldn't keep her because she already has two of these big girls. i would have one already except that they are huge, difficult to ship, and most commonly located in canada - and the shipping is strangely cost-prohibitive between the US and canada. it happened that i got her ravelry message shortly after the hub asked me what i wanted for our five-year wedding anniversary. kat is amazing in that she loves to rescue wheels and give them a spa stay before passing them along - and she also has a police chief friend who happens to travel my way every so often. this new girl doesn't have a name yet, but i am making room for her here already.. hopefully she'll arrive in a few weeks and help me with my research!

so they say that "your wheel will find you." i'm so grateful that my CPW has found me, through a fiber fairy godmother, along with a topic and a academic coach! and a happy, happy five years with my boy, who i'm very lucky is also a homebody and doesn't mind wheels everywhere. bright blessings, indeed.

be linen

BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

so very beautiful...

onward and.. onward

i met with my advisors last week about my new topic and figuring out some logistics. it turns out that they are going to *both* be chairs of my committee, at least for the time being, and we can see how that goes. i'm happy with it. the one who has been my advisor for the last few years is great, but very hands-off, which i've appreciated most of the time, but if i'm ever going to finish, i think some tough love is in order. i'm hoping that will be provided by the new co-advisor, the one who reminds me a bit of mum.

they gave me some incredibly useful feedback. i've been a bit stumped about a couple of things though... first, they were very adamant that i shouldn't look for examples of memory and mourning in craft work... that i should be asking *why people engage in hand work/craft/fiber work (have to refine that still, i think)* rather than presupposing my answer. that makes a lot of sense. it's always better to have questions and let the answers open up. so that's good, *except* that to me, memory and mourning was a way of narrowing such a massive topic. i suppose it could be something of a working hypothesis that helps me choose where to look, but doesn't direct any investigation once i begin. which kind of leads me to the next bit...

they suggested picking three communities for case studies - communities built around a certain technique and/or material. another friend said this too, and i like it. a huge advantage is that it will provide the structure of the whole diss. three chapters, and then some kind of meta argument/introduction. plus, specifics are always more interesting (and easier to write on) than huge generalities. i should choose each community based on how rich they seem, and they should all be different, drawing on different literatures and theories. each section will position the community historically and culturally, but focus on their contemporary work. so far i am pretty clear that there should be one on spinning, and one on quilting, but the third one hasn't crystallized yet... it's gonna sound strange, but i'm thinking about taxidermy as something that would add a whole 'nother dimension. there is something else in the back of my mind working out an organising principle, but i can't put my finger on it just yet..

also, and this is because we are a weird interdisciplinary program, each case study should lend itself to a different journal, field, and employment trajectory. not hugely and widely different fields really, but all the same ones that i am kind of swirling around in... american studies, gender studies, even material culture are just vast. so they suggested memory studies, visual anthropology, and maybe animal studies. that's all good advice, but kind of hard to plan here on the front end. it sounds so weird to read this, that i don't even really have a field... but academia *is* weird, it just is.

some great discoveries that came out of this meeting... they are fine with me not choosing specific geographic boundaries. just have three good case studies. i think it would be best and easiest to defend if they were all American, but they are leaving that open for me to figure out. also, no need for a new prospectus. they freed me up to quit talking about what i am going to do and get started doing it. it'll all get figured out in the writing itself.. i think this will help immensely.

so here i am, trying to get going, and committed to sharing a rough chapter draft with the memory studies reading group on march 25. i'm starting with spinning, and trying to figure out parameters for a spinning "community." there are a number of groups of spinners i've come in contact with online, and then there's also a local guild. at least it is a fairly small world compared to other types of fiber work. i've considered narrowing it to the people who are spinning pet hair - that's a very interesting phenomenon, but it might almost be too small of a world. it is actually helping me to try to share this here and organise my thoughts enough to articulate them... so i hope you're not bored to death out there.

the last problem for now, which is really only short-term, is that i can't start interviewing real people until i get through the IRB process, so until that's finished i have to focus on stuff that's already in print.. y'all can still give me suggestions in the meantime!

zero-draft proposal

i want to share with you all the very, very beginnings of my new dissertation project. here's the short description that i had to send to the graduate committee of my department for approval. the 3rd paragraph is basically there to argue that my previous work is applicable so that they wouldn't make me re-take my comprehensive exams. i know it's a little academ-icky in how it's written, which i'm hoping to avoid in the future, and i'm not 100% sure of any of this - especially whether the farming connection works or doesn't. but one has to start somewhere, right? and right now, that means reading everything i can get my hands on that seems related.

and soo... i cannot begin taking oral histories from real people yet because that requires the approval of our institutional review board, which i'll be working on soon. but i hope anyone who is interested will save up their stories to share with me. even if you aren't in the u.s. south, but you have a family history here (i can think of a few of you!), your stories would be relevant. and if in the meantime, anyone has any thoughts, resources, citations, i'd be grateful. this is going to be a collaborative project in that it will depend on the people and their histories and the fabrics that are shared with me.

I have just returned from a leave of absence and am beginning my 7th year in advanced standing. I have decided to write my dissertation on memory and mourning in contemporary textile work in the US South. The notion of craft as a form of therapy is a common refrain among textile artists, and in recent years there has been a marked trend toward making and embellishing of "memory quilts," shrouds, and wrapping-cloths, often by hand. The working-through of memory in and through needlecraft has a long history, but has also taken a collective turn among textile artists who are using their using craft in activist contexts. [actually that's not new at all, not sure what i was thinking.]

Part of the memorial nature of this textile work seems to be the use of materials which have specific histories and meanings, and thus I will focus not only on the artist's experience of making, but also on the materials themselves, including the means of production. New generations of crafters and fiber farmers are in transition, and in many cases are seeking to use humane and sustainable methods and materials. I am interested in how methods of fiber production (and animal fibers in particular) intersect with a textile mourning practice. Gender, race and generation are likely to figure into my analysis as well.

Although the subject matter of this project is new, the theoretical and methodological bases remain the same. I will still be doing visual anthropology (or, "anthropology of the senses") within a skill and memory-based culture. Although I will not undertake an entire ethnography, I will observe and collect oral histories from research participants. Moreover, the historical and cultural context is similar in that I will remain in the US South, and my research participants may be primarily located in rural areas. This project will also deal with animals and animal products, although not as its central concern.

I plan to proceed with obtaining IRB approval right away. I will complete a more detailed proposal for my committee by the end of February, and a new review of relevant literature by the end of March. I will then begin to take oral histories throughout Spring semester and during the summer. I will prepare a detailed outline by September 2011, and produce chapter drafts during the 2011-2012 academic year. I will work steadily toward completion by no later than the end of my 8th year in advanced standing (Spring 2013). [actually it would be Fall 2014, whew!]

so that's it. i think i need to begin with the history of mourning embroidery and memory quilts...

gifts and goals

i was so thrilled and truly touched to receive these original drawings from allyson mellberg - she's an artist i've admired from afar, but i recently learned - when i proposed a trade last month - what an open, generous and sweet person she is..

this one is called "God only knows." she drew it especially for me! and anyone who knows me well will see the extreme personal significance (click to see larger).


this is Frannie, isn't she so tender?


and this is my long-awaited dottie. you probably caught a glimpse of him not long ago.. he has a way of popping up here and there..

i've completely enjoyed my time at mum's, and as they tend to do, many things have sorted themselves out. here in this new year, i'm committing to my vintage endeavors... picking, dealing, re-purposing, etc etc. i don't know why i've resisted it.. i will still stitch, of course, but i am not sure i'll ever make any money with it, or that i even want to. i love the slow cloth philosophy and aesthetic... with thrifting on the other hand, i'm all up in there..

also i'm suddenly fascinated with tumblr! i've started chronicling my vintage finds there - even during the hunt and before i've cleaned things up and prettified them. bloggy friends may have noticed i'm still a bit pre-verbal anyway, and the quick-and-dirty tumblr format is kinda what i've been doing here anyway.. i hope you'll visit me there, but i'll still be blogging here to keep track of my crafty, farmy projects and life goals and all that mucky goodness... speaking of which..

it looks like i will be doing a dissertation after all..although it's possible that i may get distracted again. still, i don't seem to be able to let it go. it's mine to do or not-do, and i want to reclaim that part of my life. plus, with this new topic, i have some new-found support from a professor i've always had a feeling about. so it's going to be on textile-work and grief-work, something many of us have discussed and seems to be a common refrain. i'm going to be taking oral histories - both of the process and experience of stitching and also the histories of the cloths themselves... i don't have all my ducks or red tape yet, but perhaps consider if you'd be willing to share your stories and stashes...

wishing us all sweetness and light in this new year,
dru

chops

i got some sublime stitching supplies, including this great set of meaty treats transfers. i've been noticing but not thinking too much about all the meat art and craft around these days. although it may be not so new - paul mccarthy has been writhing in meat for decades. and i even saw some patterns for some felt meat softies in an old work basket magazine from the 1940s. i think i'll make some of these old patterns - they remind me of the cool meat plush at schmancy.

and now there's meatpaper, the journal of meat culture. so anyway i really do think there's something going on with meat. oh and here's an incredible installation of a stuffed boucherie by artist natalie lete:


and then the other day, i met with an old professor who has expressed interest in my embroidery. it was wonderful to hear her responses and thoughts and feedback. she was supportive and insightful, as she usually is, but she also made me think that perhaps there is a way for me to finish up with school, a way to renew my interest and experiment with visual forms for my dissertation - or else just let myself off the hook without too much additional drama.

she was telling me that freud in writing on mourning and "grief work," he uses the language of stitching. she is german and she says this comes through especially in the original german. something along the lines of how stitching and working with the hands allows the working over of memory and the processing of grief.

and she said how pouring over handwork like my embroidery must be filled with love and reparation. i was very honest, and told her how i had completely lost my academic voice, and i had no idea what i wanted to say. i don't think she was just trying to make me feel good when she said that my embroideries (certain ones in particular) were very tender and powerful, and said plenty. and when i told her i hadn't started on or shared some of the "darker" pieces i have planned or in process because they were so morbid, she explained how grieving and death practices have varied so much in history - and how in the victorian age, much time was spent with the dead, and working with their hair, and so forth. i had nearly forgotten the little i knew about all that - and i'm thoroughly fascinated and need to undertake some research on this. it also reminded me how nice it is to converse with people who are so well-versed in history and how maybe i should go back to reading the NY times.

my usual advisor is great but she has a very hands-off sort of style, whereas this person may be able to provide me with the hand-holding i seem to need at this stage. her own work has to do with memory and trauma. it's strange, but i've always noticed how her hands look like my mother's hands. so she will likely be on my committee, and she's sending me references to the specific freud, which i'd love to look over again with this crafty angle in mind. i have a sense that this conversation could be very important to the direction things take.

on an even happier note, i've been tagged! i love this idea and am mulling it over..