this is reference to Jude's Boro 2 workshop. i don't know if i'm totally up to this this evening, but...
looking at her posts, looking at all the incredible posts of Others in the workshop, i have been thinking deeply about what cloth i put on my body and why...AND... why Not..... it 's not at all over and i am surprised with what has arisen so far. Body Cloth...clothing. Impressions come from so long ago, remembering when is was a child, in grade school, with only a few things that felt like "me", and the more worn they got, the better. then early adolescence when you just wanted to "fit". through high school when NOTHING was right and then the flying free of early adulthood when clothing was a STATEMENT on into a long period of time when clothing i wore was really, i hate to admit it, was to elicit a response. but/and again, making a Statement. my clothes talked. they talked about who i was at that time. Come Near, or, Stay Away was the message.
All my clothes, except for the early adolescent, i have loved. all the ways i have "dressed", which could mean, all the costumes i have worn, i have loved.
(ok, grace, cut to the chase)
and here i am. 66 years old. all this behind me. ok. so....Who Am I Now? really. How does what i wear, wrap my body in, speak to this. and most IMPORTANTLY, to whom....does it speak?
for reasons, in the last some years, i have i think i realize now, made an effort to be non existent. well, i guess really, it was a style, but not one that would attract any attention.
this workshop has brought into the present so much and i find myself really ambivilent. do i create something that Pleases me deeply, but also might cause uhhhhh, Notice? Thinking.
and then...things that Please me Deeply can also be things that are so functional with the way i live...which is called LifeStyle.
so, here. the first. the Goat Shirt. it's not finished. things will go on the Inside of it...remain hidden to the eyes of others, but that i will know are there. WHAT AM I DOING WITH THIS??? don't know. we'll see. but here. the first:
from the Thrift Shop. shirt. 56% rayon, 29%cotton, 19% linen. made in Sri Lanka. when i brought it home and for a really long time, it was white with a kind of greenish strip and the dark line stripe and i referred to it as like an awning. but i loved how it FELT when i tried it on, but could not deal with it's awning~ness...stripped~ness. so it sat. waiting to probably be cut up for small fragments somewhere, but also for SO long, NOT cut up. Just sitting. the other day, an onion skin pot out there and....there it went and what a surprise!...a really beautiful color that has completely taken me in and the pics here don't really capture it, but it's .....Amber????, an Apricot???? i don't know but the color was driving me crazy, thinking about it and how the onion skins muted the green stripe to some kind of beautiful greygreen shadow that was suddenly SUBTLE and the dark line was now ok. just very ok. so...it's now the Goat Shirt.
it didn't take they dye evenly. it's most evident here, but it's all over the shirt.
took off all the faux wood buttons. Kantha with a pale but vibrant blue thread down the uhhh, plackets???the button and buttonhole things...disappearing the buttonholes. i made a very large blue thread buttonhole. forgot a pic of that.
a most loved button that has gone from thing to thing over maybe 40 years?
the breast pocket. i like that term. now it has a goat's eye.
and here. if i need to run out in the night, in a hurry, and wander around, making sure things are ok and it's cool, like it gets in the desert....the perfect shirt. one button takes care of covering all that is necessary to cover
and What If, i want to wear it as a jacket shirt over one of the jumpers? like to the store, or the post office? i Could.
and as i am stitching, thinking about ALL this, my attention is drawn to the right, the West, where Sun is heading again for the Rim and where just to see what would happen, i have hung the Diaries Cloth...........and oh Jeez. look!
the light is coming through and it's that SAME amber color and i go out and look, and yes, it's true. it's the color of the goats eyes. amber.
amber.
