FINER ARTS FINER CRAFTS
There are certainly people who try almost everything once. I may be counted among those people. anything that interests me mightily, if only for a while, I try to do...some I have done pretty-well...others, not well at all. Take Arts and Crafts...I have practiced Arts and Crafts. all of my childhood and all of my adulthood. The results are, well...Mixed. to say the least!
When I was in second grade, I changed my writing-and-doing-art 'hand' from Left to Right. There were good reasons for this move. The thin, black-habited nun who was our teacher had slapped the left-handed kid two seats up from me, with a ruler, on his hand. He changed hands from left to right. I changed hands from left to right. Being a wee bit ambidextrous, this worked for me. No hits with the ruler. I gained a right-handed penmanship that is, to this day, an amazingly ugly scribble of a backhand. I also fixated all my art talent of any kind, I believe, at a seven-year-old level.
This is my rationalization for being such a klutz for the rest of my born days in the arena of Arts and Crafts. So bear with me here. I have a good excuse for my bad behaviors, especially in the Crafts Department. Really, I do!...Really!
Day Camp. In the summers, my sister Pat and I went to Day Camp. There, under the shade of the trees, on picnic tables, we learned Arts and Crafts. We made Rubbings on Paper with crayons, of interesting shapes. Lanyards woven from plastic strips, which we all loved. Clay Objects to fire in an Oven, which over-dried and broke. Clay ashtrays glazed and fired in a Kiln that were beyond the pale. Water-colors that dripped pastels all over the place. Paint-By-Number kits. even on Velvet! We were busy little artists and craftspeople!
By high school I had mastered all the Arts and Crafts of childhood and was satisfied that, along with being a ballerina and a famous singer and a brilliant writer, I also had it in me do do any Art or Craft of Adulthood. All had to do was learn them all. The raw talent, I was sure, was there.
The Singer and the Writer plans were all coming along nicely. Second Soprano. Some solos. Success, on a very tiny scale in a very small school. But, confident! Same for writing. Creative Writer. Destined for Greatness! The Arts and Crafts part wasn't going so well....
There was an Art Department of course. And, a Home Ec Department, that taught maidenly crafts, including knitting and crocheting and stuff...but my schedule was too full of academics and music to attend those classes. If I had, a little reality check would have surely happened. But, alas....
I began to take up the World Of Textiles Crafts. I had a little Inkle Loom, and wove some pretty useless belts on it. I wove several unusually unattractive small baskets, which my mom actually used, bless her...I attempted knitting, taught by people who could knit. Crocheting as well. Approximate ten or so rows in I would always lose interest in the "project", usually after pulling out dozens of rows where mistakes had been made and not corrected in time. The yarn would grow "tired" as they say, of all this pulling about, and would give up being compliant. Good call by the yarn...Embroidery. Ditto. I puckered up plenty of material in little knots that looked like tiny bird droppings on the cloth. Discard! I tried to sew using my mom's machine, and ran the needle into my finger, twice. My rows were, well, not rows...never mind Straight Rows. my mom gave up on me before I did. These were not good beginnings, I thought, in the Maidenly Textiles Crafts.
Art would be another story, but it was not another story. I tried water colors, chalks, crayons, pens, acrylics, and even oils. I used books to teach myself...the results looked, well, a lot like a second-grader's art....I told you so!
High School was over. I was in Nursing School, to become an RN. Many of the young women in my school knitted and crocheted. I continued to try to learn. Same ten rows. over and over. this was supposed to relax one. It didn't relax me at all. I switched to writing poetry. Ah, much better....
Now I was all grown up. surely I would pick up Arts and Crafts by osmosis by now. Around me, especially when I was on the Farm in Wisconsin, every woman was good at Some Art or Craft. I learned a lot from them...
I learned that, no matter how many kinds of needles and wonderful yarns you try to use, if you don't get past those first ten rows, you are doomed for all eternity in the knitting/chrocheting department. I did not get by those first ten rows. ever...
I learned that weaving a Willow Wands Basket is easy and fun and makes people admire your work who do not know how easy it is...
I learned that throwing clay pots on a kick wheel is truly impossible if you have no hand/eye/foot coordination whatsoever...
I learned that sewing is not so hard if you lay your kids down on the piece of cloth and just draw the pattern around them. And! that a Treadle Sewing Machine is fine for most sewing work, and you can stop the needle fast before it goes into your finger, since the needle is going slower anyway than the ones on the electric machine...
I learned that there is no time at all on a Farm for the Fine Arts unless you don't have to work out-of-home on account of your husband is rich. I personally didn't know any women who fit that description. So, no Fine Arts...
I learned that Paint is mainly for keeping up all the tons of wood buildings and gates and fences and stuff on your Land...
I learned that trussing and barding birds is the only real use for a large needle skill...
I learned that leather is punctured by an awl before you can get the needle through to sew it, and it takes a long, long time to sew leather...
I learned to save all my old clothes and cloth of all kinds and rip them into thin strips to make rag rugs. Then you sew them into noodle-like strips on your treadle machine, in your so-called free time. Then you sew them round and round into a very useful, pretty, Rag Rug...
So, I could make some things pretty well...clothes for my two daughters and my self. a willow basket. rag rugs. mended shoes tops. painted walls and fencing....
Now, back to city life. I became an Urban Farm Wife. I refused to give up on the Crafts! For the next couple of decades, I actually did try all that knitting/crotcheting stuff here and there...the same ten rows, eternally! Only recently did I pass on all but one of my knitting needles pairs and all but one of my crochet hooks!
I did weave another basket, when I got involved in working with Pomo Indian Women on the California Coast...I made one really nice pine needle basket. Well, to be honest, my teacher and I made one really nice pine needle basket...she fussed through every spiral with me, and, in the end, gently suggested that this may not be the craft for me...but, I did make the basket! I still have that basket! To prove that I can! And, I made a lot of tule reed baskets. I was determined! I just wanted the skill to make a basket if I need a basket, out in the wilderness or something. Not that I've ever been that far out in the wilderness that I would need to make a basket, but you never know! I still love baskets a lot. now I can make them. if need be....
I dropped the sewing. not enough time at this point in my life. I still mend clothes all the time. I have a lovely sewing box with old fashioned useful sewing things in it. The Treadle Machine is still in good repair, and sits in my oldest daughter's living room, since I don't have room for it. I would sew again on it. It works. I know its ways...lately, I bought another one...it needs repairs...maybe I will sew again some day....
Weaving. I gave a lot of effort to weaving...I did a whole strip of weaving techniques at the Glimrica Weaving Studio in Berkeley, California. my Swedish Weaving Teacher assisted me in building a Navajo Loom. I made all the wooden beaters and spreaders and Tamping Combs by myself. I learned to Warp the Loom. I began Weaving, using good Charro Sheep wool spun on the Navajo Reservation in the southwest. I was so excited about this project! I assumed it would only take time. turns out, it takes a lot, a lot, a lot of skill...half way through the project the weft began to pull in to the center...project over! no way to correct it! That project led to some interesting travels and writing tho...another story....
Then, there's Woodworking...I've a whole story about Woodworking. For me, it's not a craft. It's a Way To Be Alive...Woods....Woodworking for over twenty years...with Walter Fanning, my "Pops"...Together in his wonderful Woodshop, on old 40s iron woodshop machines, we built desks and beds and chairs and shelves and bookcases and tables of all sizes and many chests -especially walnut-cedar chests - and even fences for a Lighthouse Island in the Bay...I worked with him after work, after the kids were asleep, in early mornings...for twenty years...to this day: I cannot design One Piece of Furniture by my self. I was Pop's (Walter's) Apprentice...not a Master, like he was. He was a Master. I was Lucky....
About Art...The Fine Arts...when I went back to university, to get my second BA, and Teaching Credential, I spent part of the three years back in school taking Art History and Studio Art classes. I went crazy with ART! I tried every media I could...especially collage and acrylics...I had such a Good Time! Some of my work in Collage was shown. I even won a prize for one of my collages in a student contest - a second...I still have that Art Piece on my wall...the challenge was to create an art work using a very ugly building as the model, and making it beautiful, or giving it some life... I picked the plainest building on campus, and gave it a blue lake and a blue sky. wisps of clouds....
Well, it's been over a decade now...no further Arts and Crafts explorations in sight...Hard Times came and took the energy away for them, for a long, long time... Still, all the skills are there...waiting for me to use them when I wish and when I want and when I can!
I'm glad I've played with cloth and yarn and wool and paints and wood and leather and reeds and pine needles and willow wands!
Arts and Crafts. a luxury, really... a fine, fine luxury of life...
I'm glad I was given these times to do this 'work'...
I'm glad I made the Time....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment