i just hung up from talking to my friend, My Friend, Jane. she's in Alaska. and here, i say:
Jane...IF you should ever read this, IF you should ever come to this blog, which i don't think you do, but if you do, know i mean this in the most loving way.
anyway, we have been friends since 16 and 17 years old. 50 years. We have HISTORY between us. We KNOW each other. She is a quilter. Has always worked with fabric, with fiber in many ways. Has a gift with it, a Strong Artistic Bent. in the conversation, she emailed me a fiber figure to look at, saying she saw it in a shop recently and it was the closest to anything she'd ever seen like the ones i used to make. we talked about that and i mentioned Charla Khanna, the "doll" maker that is in Taos who used to make dolls way back when we were in our 20's in Ann Arbor and has continued, when i Did and Didn't Did and Didn't and there was a lot alluded to but not really Said., Charla's dolls sell only through Jane Sauer Gallery in Taos and are thousands of dollars. They are in the Smithsonian and in other Fine Art Museums around the world.
i knew what she was getting at.
She came to visit me a while ago...when i was still working on the Magic Diaries Cloth. She saw what i was doing. She has heard long words about the classes with Jude, with Spirit Cloth. She LOVES me. Like really.
and it makes No Sense to her. These rags i make. Crude.
and in the morning i will box up the Grieving Cloth, the Other Cloth, and the more simple 6 bales of alfalfa cloth. i will include words about them. Their stories. and send them off, away from here. It was perfect timing, really. and Judy, Judy Martin, had trepedation about how thinking about selling what i might make would change it. might cause me to changed the Raw. well...it didn't. and it won't. because for whatever reason, i am hopelessly in love with rags. with how the threads live free, the edges are ever so imperfect, that there are holes here and there, things don't meet up, are left dangling, too long or too short and on and on. i am just In Love. Hopelessly In Love. and i don't care. and i don't need to know.
Here is a gift for Us. When i was splitting wood, there was that sudden Felt/Sense....stop!!!!! and there on a chunk that had been wrecklessly dumped by the wood guy
the most elegant Praying Mantis egg case i have ever seen. Ordinarily, they are a carmel color, all the same color, but look, this one has that central cream white color. So, i have set it aside. once the warm comes, i will watch. Every day. All day. and if We are lucky, i will be there when they Release themselves....MANY tiny perfect fully functional Praying Mantis. and in between this Vigilence, i will stitch rags.
