Die Here het geskommel

"Die Here het geskommel
en die dice het verkeerd geval vi' ons,
daai's maar al" -Adam Small (1936 - )

Translated into English (help! I will not to be able to do this justice, and if by any remote chance you ever read this, Prof Small, please forgive me!)

"The Lord rolled,
and the dice fell badly for us,
that's all"

Adam Small wrote this about the "bruin mense" (mixed race folks, of whom he was one) who, despite their unique and distinct culture and beingness , got sidelined in the big black/white struggle, as they were never quite "black enough" and never quite "white enough".

I was feeling particularly bitter and "bummed" about having become unwittingly and unwillingly, wedded to this illness called bipolar, which I've likely had most of my life, just misdiagnosed over all these years (it's life-long, can be managed but not cured) that these words came to mind, and I relate so strongly to them right now - as they might apply to those of us afflicted with a mental illness, for whom the dice also just landed badly. I have to keep reminding myself that it's "not about what cards you were dealt, but how you played the hand you were given", but sometimes even that isn't quite enough, either.

We studied several of Adam Small poems at school and I was captivated by them. He is now retired from his job as a sociology lecturer. Many of his poems were written in the distinct Afrikaans dialect of his people, so that the text begged to be read out loud and came alive and very evocative when spoken. I think they played a large role in conscientising me(yes, that is a real South African word now!) back in the late 1970's, when I was in high school.

It grows!

It's green and it's growing...! I have set a deadline of 6 Nov (and seem to be steadying as far as concentration goes - each pattern piece is different, so I have to figure out how to join each piece anew) as I like to take along my most recent art to my psychologist appointments in the next big town (PE). I go only about once a month, and want this completed by then. (That little trip now costs about R300 in petrol there and back, btw, apart from the actual cost, part of the reason it's only once a month or sometimes every 6 weeks) But I find the art useful for showing what's on my mind at the time.

This was originally inspired by Windows Media Player (believe it or not, since it's ended up being quite organic) - WMP has a swirling pattern as the music plays, called "smoke or water", which competely captivated me. When I started drawing it, it evolved (a lot!) and now looks very unlike how it began, but that's fine. It's also similar to the swirling patterns I often see in my head and in dreams (you could call it artistic inspiration, or you could just say it's the cocktail of medicines firing all sorts of neurons in my brain! Either way, I am going to use it!!)

Detail shots:
I've hand-pieced this with (almost) an English paper piecing method except that I only pin around the pieces of one of each ajoining seam and don't baste. Basting is just... like stuffing a tomato - life's too short! My fingers are pricked to shreds, ouch, ouch and ouch again. Now that's suffering for your art. I'm now at work and hitting keys on the keyboard hurts (and it would be one of those silly admin data-capture days today, of all times). The next one like this WILL be sewn together by machine, if only to have some intact skin left on my fingertips...

What a challenge it has been to keep this piece flat! Ironing will help at the end and fortunately the quilting process, hides mountains and valleys of unflat flaws!

A "principle" or tip I leaned in a workshop with Sally Scott on Afro-American patchwork is to put just tiny bits of an unexpected colour in a piece, which somehow gives it a bit of "zing" and unexpectedness, that adds that "look-again-and-find-something-new-each-time-you-look" quality. I LOVE this when looking at art - that you don't just look and go "okay, I've seen it", but that you're drawn back several times.

And now I'd better get some work done.... {skulks off}

"Some say I'm a visionary, others say I'm, just seeing things..."

Words and drawing

I've been wanting to put more words on my art for quite a while now. Sometimes, when ideas are more cognitive and can be expressed in words, I like to write. At other times, words can't do the job - and shapes, colours, symbols and 3-D forms that are wordless, but communicate on a deeper level, are needed. The latter tend to be more abstract than pictorial for me. I was going to insert some writing I did recently, here, which I want to, somehow, incorporate into some work, but this post seems to want to go elsewhere, so I'll just take it where it wants to go.

To my great surprise, I learnt in hospital that I can draw! A wonderful occupational therapist brought me a pencil and paper in High Care. My first few days there went by in a drugged haze, but once I was saturated with anti-manic drug, it was decreased quite a bit and I was still very, very cheerful and bursting with energy, and this is when she brought me the paper, out of the blue, one day. I fell over it and just drew and drew. Mostly, I drew leaves I found outside, all deformed, skew or shrivelled in some way. They resonated with me - well, the symbolism was clear. They were far more interesting than the perfect ones. They were still "working" on the bushes or trees, capturing sunlight and making food, just like all the other leaves, despite their quirks. They were more challenging to draw, but they were also more dimensional and meaningful to me. (I'm hoping to buy a scanner soon, and will be able to scan in some drawings.)

I hope I can translate this recent fire into something artful, that is beautiful for its own sake, just like the leaves.

Small picture

Pic of just a small section of what I'm working on for FOUR days now!! When not at work, of course. Blast this having to earn a living, what a waste of time!

Just as I thought I was OK

... I went back to hospital. This time I was manic, which by the way, despite the romanticism and glamour that somehow seems associated with it, is *anything but that*. Just a touch is fine - you get very creative, energetic and can conceive of and see projects through, but anything more and it's horrible. I was in High Care for 7 of the 8 days, doing a few strange things, of which I will spare you the details! I haven't posted for so long as I've simply been too disorganised, completely distracted and have the concentration ability of a fruit fly. I've started I don't know how many works, but two days max and I am onto the next. I've basically been very, very busy and have accomplished nothing in the past month.
{sad face} I don't want this illness!

Embellishing Mania {grin}

I am still having loads of fun sewing all sorts of things onto backgrounds. It must be the influence of the last few issues of Quilting Arts magazine, which seem to be embellishing a lot these days! It suits me, because of all the million crazy little things that I have hoarded for years, many of which have some personal meaning for me, that I can now use. However, some of those things do not have holes in them, so today I invested in 5 titanium drill bits for this latest passion! They were only about R8 each, and I got small sizes, from 1.2mm to 3.5mm. I'm at work, but can hardly wait to get home to try them out! Some drilling going to be done today!

Even with my battered old drill that has seen distinctly better days! :

Mood cycles

I'm looking back over my life and seeing all the cycles which I now have words for, that explain to me why they were so hard and why I was never able to just be stable. It's not new; I've always just known reality to be that way for me - ever changing, depending on which part of the cycle I was in. A bit like the Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, that I read so avidly when I was a child; when different lands would be at the top of the tree and then blow away to be replaced by the next! :) That is how my thoughts and my reality have been. It didn't occur to me that it isn't like that for everyone.

But, actually, nothing has changed from getting the new diagnosis, I'm just more accepting of how things have been, and more compassionate with myself. I like being seasonal and want to be philosophical about that, since that is just how it is. I want to feel my emotions, as intense as they are - living them is very real and in touch. I'm not keen on the extreme poles, which are not constructive or helpful to my life and in addition, those poles are also not good for my daughters, to whom I owe it, to be less erratic. So I'll just be a good girl and take the pills. For now!

Now if I could only solve the "having to make a living" issue - how boring! - I'll be all set!

This season of the mind

Some fun experimenting with free motion embroidery on velvet with fancy yarns and bits of plastic orange bags added later to mitigate against the pink (I dislike pink so it's a challenge to work with it.) This is such fun and so satisfying that I started a green version, having learnt a few things from the one above - green being my favorite colour :)
Having done the background, I am now embellishing with lots of bits and pieces that I have collected and/or made over the years, and have just been squirrelled away. It's a nice feeling of consolidation - and little things are emerging from long-forgotten boxes of STUFF, which are just right for this.

I'm flitting like a butterfly on speed, from project to project, as I keep getting new ideas and want to get to capturing the idea fast. I'm accepting this phase as part of a bipolar high, which has calmed a little (with the medication) from a way-too-fast, very unfocused stage. It will subdue at some time when the pendulum swings back, so I'm making the most of it now. Then ideas will come slower and I will get to finishing.

Working fast is very hard with a medium that demands Slow! - but I remain completely seduced by fibre and what I can do with it. I am including other media more and more, and am having the most fun finding things and thinking of how to transform them into art - a lemons to lemonade thing which is also very appropriate right now.

I am also doing a mindfulness course with a friend of mine. It is proving to be very difficult, with my mind being so flighty, but ahhh, one cannot time the seasons and the course was running now, so I had to grab the opportunity. What a profound concept mindfulness is, in all its simplicity and stripped-down, honest reality. A real refuge from calamity and worry and brooding! When I get into the zone of just dispassionately watching thoughts go by without having to compulsively grasp them, just accepting them and allowing them to exist, without preference, it's just so peaceful and simple. We do make life and our thoughts much more complicated than they actually are!

Professional photographs :)

I took a bundle of quilts and other work in to have professional studio photographs taken, as I want to apply for membership into Fibreworks. So when I get them, I plan to post them to my Picasa web album, so things can get a little spruced up around here. There are cobwebs in the corners; spring has sprung, and I feel a need for renewal and some good ol' cleaning up!

There, I said it, now I have to do it! :)

A word of thanks to fellow art bloggers for their supportive comments and emails: most especially Robyn from Art Propelled, whose work and blog never fails to inspire and also Jackie from Blissfully Imperfect and Kate from Kate's Quilting.

Thank you, gentleladies. I'm getting to a sustained feeling of having regained myself, and am having a creative spurt :) so it's time to focus outwards and not inwards as I've had a long time doing. My massive oak tree has burst out in fresh green, new leaves and my grapevine is also coming back to life after the winter pruning. Isn't nature just so beautiful and inspiring? Last spring I remember posting "Spring is so beautiful, I wish I felt better" so it's been a long 16-month year of winter. I'm just so relieved and thankful for a time of rejuvenation.

More runes

This is another work I've begun (yes, I usually have about 10 on the go at one time, plus a heap of "Never-Got-Any-Furthers" - My attention wanders easily and new ideas keep coming up, that I just have to follow (and now I understand much better why it is so!) ) So, this work continues the theme of runes, this time as spells or charms such as "For balanced Joy", "For good luck in finding a new job" etc, etc. I'm continuing my theme of symbols holding buried meanings

These spells and charms are used today in neo-Paganism.

This idea for this work was conceived in front of the TV, on SABC 2! (Who says TV is only bubble gum for the mind? LOL) They were promoting an upcoming programme on San Rock Art, because Heritage Day is coming up on Wednesday. So I was thinking, hey, what about MY heritage? - which isn't the San, but the Vikings. They did some nasty things we're not proud of, (the cartoon "Hagar" refers!) but they also did a lot of art and poetry. I think I might call this "Longings". I took a close-up, but it's blurred, so as this develops, I'll take another and post it.

It's made from scraps of fabric cut off from the Melancholia work. The scraps were too good to throw away, so I began playing with them... The work is fairly small, I'll measure it and put that in here, when I get home.

Art springs eternal

Here is the next step of this work, 'melancholia' its working title - (doubt it will remain.) Yes, those really ARE holes!
I've developed a fascination with runes! I was looking for symbols to put in each square, as I didn't just want to go with ordinary letters. So I was looking for something that would symbolise what I wanted to say - of course, old alphabets! I immediately jumped to runes, as they would be my ancestry (born in Denmark) and I've seen runestones in Dk, enscribed with the runes.

It's fascinating! Sometimes the runes are used as letters, spelling out words; and sometimes they are used in charms or spells, where several runes are combined in a form that conveys the meaning of the spell.

So of course I wanted to embed a secret message into the work. Depression is deep and dark and holds secrets long buried. Hopefully if decoded they will bring some understanding.

No, I'm not going to say what it says... sorry....!

{evil grin}

On with Creating

New pictures soon. I promise! I'm feeling great, since I've been on bipolar meds and I'm working away at things I'll show soon. Struggling just a little to focus and concentrate on one thing - I flit from one to the other, then to a new idea. I can feel I'm still pretty high. I managed to flood the bathroom yesterday, as I turned on the basin tap and then got distracted and wandered out of the bathroom! I also forgot the iron on. Not Good. Quite a creative surge though, which is wonderful.

A friend of mine is having an exhibition of her quilts next week, so I'm going to ask her if I can take some pics there and post them to my blog.

Edit 1 Oct 2008: I forgot to take my camera, and I forgot to ask her. Eeks, I guess I am still VERY distractible. The exhibition was great and I left feeling very inspired!

So, there it is.

I'm bipolar. Thus spake the psychiatrist. And verily, medication was prescribed, as aforesaith psychiatrist pronouneth that I was manic and he needeth to 'cap' it, so it did not spinneth out of control. And so it came to pass, that amongst other changes, an increase of Lamictin was warranteth, aforesaith medication being the best thing since sliced bread (and much, much nicer than lithium, saith I !)

And thus, was I addeth to the company of illustrious forerunners, such as Kurt Cobain, Richard Dreyfuss, Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Gascoigne, Sylvia Plath, Sir Isaac Newton, Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh. ...... Ha ha, I wish !!! - instead I joineth the modest ranks of The Common (Wo)Man, since :

"I, being poor have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
tread gently, because you tread on my dreams..."
(WB Yeats)

September?

So August came and went without a single post. I'm sad and sorry about that. I AM making stuff, but taking photographs feels like an Everest. I'm better than I was, but still not well. I ought to be well, I feel, but something is still not quite right.

Oh, maybe it's me!

How weird is it when you have a hundred and one ideas for art and yet you sit and wonder why we bother at all? I'm working on about 5 things because I can't keep my concentration on one for long. My mind flits like a butterfly yet I'm very tired and not sleeping well. I see the Pdoc on Thursday in PE, so maybe he can re-evaluate this madness...

Ahhh.... weekends

I'm slowly and steadily on the mend. One of my daughters once commented that she loved waking up to the sound of the sewing machine as it meant that Mom was well and happy and things were right with the world. Alas, these days not even the sewing machine does that, as she's in her final school year and they are PILED HIGH with pressure. Apart from the academic work she has far too many other school duties to manage and is constantly exhausted. Just 6 more months to go!

I'm very ambivalent about having chosen to sew on all these roads by machine - it will hold better but trying to manoevre it under the sewing machine with all those pins is a prickly business. Yeah, I could baste.... but, really, life's too short for basting! Or at least my sewing time is too short! I also get some very cute and cuddly companions joining me, who make manoevreing the quilt even more difficult... :)

Melancholia 2

I had the next bit of inspiration for this piece, so spent the last weekend laboriously cutting out 'roads' to go around all the blue blocks, and pinning it all down. (The bottom half is a leftover piece of release paper from fusible, that I used for the pattern. I didn't fuse it (although I like to fuse stuff, I also sometimes find that it makes the fabric quite stiff and all of this stuff is raw-edge and torn, so fusible wouldn't have worked with it.)
Detail shot. I'm now busy sewing it all down, which will also constitute the quilting. Will embellish afterwards, as I want to quilt by machine.

So, as you can see, I'm working again, which feels like a good sign. I really don't want to jinx it, but I 'think' (whispering: ...the medications are working. I think maybe I'm getting better! Shhhhh.)

I bought art!

I don't usually feel I can justify buying Art, as I need the money for more mundane things. But I fell in love with this at the recent National Arts Fest. I went and looked about 5 times, and eventually I was worried that someone else would buy it! It cost R600 for both canvases. I look at it everyday and feel buoyed up - don't regret it for an instant! Isn't it beautiful? It's done by an artist in Port Alfred, Barbara Langley and I bought it directly from her.

Melancholia

Here's what I'm working on (amongst others). All the torn squares have now been sewed onto the background. I'm a little bit stuck over what to do next, so it's hanging here until I get some more inspiration. Although the concept of "things all arranged nicely moving towards disarray" is a little cliched, since everyone else got to do it, I want a turn too.

suddenly, a year older

I'm 47 today. I don't want to think about where I have been or where I am going. I'm trying just to be mindful of each moment as it is here, one moment at a time...

I switched from Cymbalta (no success) to Efexor 4 days ago. Maybe...

Latest

... and here is what I am currently laying out, without any real idea of the end product in mind. I just feel empty, flat and numb - just trying to put one foot in front of the other and plod on - so who knows what will emerge here...?