How I learned To Focus

shibori dyed silk using he shade colors

FOCUS

In 1998 a friend suggested I learn to dye fabric, then I could cover my books in silk. I enrolled at the University of Kentucky. Six weeks after starting classes my 26 year old son had a paralyzing accident.

When I first received the call from the emergency room nurse on September 11, 1998, I assumed she was telling me the worst so I wouldn’t be getting my hopes up. I listened as she stated Donnie's condition: collapsed lung, paralyzed, no brain damage. I knew he would pull through. And I knew I was strong and in control.

I marched through those steel gray emergency room doors as if to say: Come on Donnie we can handle this, let’s go on home. Of course we couldn’t—not with all those tubes and that paralysis. The first thing he said to me, the very first thing was, “I’m sorry.” That was before all the tubes were inserted and I’m sure neither one of us knew it would be weeks before any real conversation would take place and that I would learn to read lips and tell him things from some place inside me that could only be spoken then.

Several weeks later as he became stronger and only a few tubes remained in his arm and his throat and other hidden places under sheets that I could never see, we moved on to the mundane. Who will care for his dog while he’s in the hospital and can he live on his own, even if he is paralyzed? I didn’t even ask, can he? I simply assumed. 

"Should I quit school to take care of him," I asked myself. When I realized this was forever and we both had to learn to deal with it, I decided to stay in school and learned the most important lesson of my life: focus.

The only way I could manage classes and intensive care was going to be by picking one thing. I chose the Arashi Shibori technique for dyeing fabric. Not only did I make books, I began designing collections to wear at my performances. What I discovered was that when you wear art it changes your stance. No matter how you wear it, or fold it up in your lap, it is beautiful and has energy. 

ruana using old clothes in all the shades of shade.

Reinventing Oneself

I have been thinking, writing and making changes in my life as a means for changing focus and gaining clarity. I call this process reinventing oneself. I will be writing more, but today when I came across this mini memoir I wrote long ago, I realized that this reinventing has been going on for me for a long time.

Contacts, Pleasure and Pain

1964

The year I graduated from Rome Free Academy in Rome, New York, my Dad was stationed at Griffith Air Force Base. I remember the gate to the base, the fence around the sergeants’ section and the fence around the officers’ section. The base hospital was a few blocks away and the pavilion was up on a hill behind it. They sold Kent cigarettes in the cigarette machine in the lobby of the hospital. They cost thirty-five cents and I bought a pack, took them up to the pavilion to try them out. 

The pavilion was dark and damp. No one else was inside. It was a wet, rainy weekday after school and Lorraine and I walked up there. Lorraine smoked all the time. I hadn’t tried anything and I was going on seventeen.

That summer between my sophomore and junior year when we moved up there from Topeka I decided to change my whole style. First thing I did was remove my glasses. I couldn’t see without them but I felt I looked a whole lot better. Karen was getting contacts. That was the latest. They had just come out with them and I wanted them, too, but they cost eighty dollars and that was with our base discount. They’d be twice that off base so I had to get them before I graduated from high school or I wouldn’t qualify for the discount anymore. And it was me who would have to come up with the eighty dollars. That would require a lot of babysitting so I started figuring ways to talk myself out of wanting contacts. For one thing I’d heard about the getting used to them part and, I didn’t too much like the idea of going through all of that.

 So I started saying to myself the beauty would be more than I could handle. There are benefits in looking good, but there comes a point where you can look too good. I hadn’t reached that point, yet, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Look at Marcie. In sixth grade she was my best friend and had a long blond ponytail and someone wrote I like to f*** Marcie up on the water tower on Burnet’s Mound where everyone went parking. I know it wasn’t true because Marcie was my best friend and if it were true she would have told me so. Somebody must have written that because of her blond ponytail. So anyway, I figured it’d be best if I didn’t get contacts.

Karen got hers, though. There were a bunch of kids in her family, like mine. She worked in a beauty shop sweeping up hair, and she saved her money. She ended up getting murdered in a restaurant bathroom in Florida the summer after we graduated. I decided then and there when I read the murder story in True Detective Magazine and looked at her senior picture with no glasses, staring out at me, the photo blown up to fill the full page, that I was never getting contacts.

The second thing I did moving to a new base was that I decided not to be shy anymore. I didn’t know if you could just up and do something like that, just decide not be shy. I always figured shy was something you were born with but I figured I’d give it a try. I borrowed a white, low cut, sleeveless, cinched waist, circular-skirt dress from Lorraine. I had a suntan from being a water safety assistant at the pool all summer and that white dress next to my dark tan and no glasses, well, when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t believe it was me.

We were going to a CAP dance, Civil Air Patrol. It was an outside dance and since I had this new attitude about not being shy, it must have worked because these cadets and airmen were asking me to dance. It might have had something to do with the fact that guys outnumbered girls ten to one, but I didn’t think about that at the time. I just said yes and danced.

The cadets weren’t bad, the airmen were too old and the base kids who happened to show up were the best. Tony asked me to dance three times. He was a big football player at the school I’d be going to. He walked me home and I let him kiss me good night. That was the second kiss I’d ever had. The first kiss was by Kenny back in Topeka. He was out of high school already and told Marcie I didn’t even know how to kiss.

Well, I figured I did better with Tony because my period was due and not coming. I was certain that sperm crawled out of him, down my borrowed dress and got up inside somehow. It had to: Why else would my period not come. Thank goodness it finally did, six weeks later. I still didn’t go out with Tony anymore. I just stared at his butt at football games.

Lorraine lit my Kent cigarette in the pavilion and handed it to me. I sucked in hard like she said, but it must have been too hard because I coughed forever. This is not fun, I said. Why do you do it? I asked her. It gets easier, she said, but I decided, then and there, I wasn’t going through pain for pleasure. I think of Karen every time I enter a restaurant bathroom.

---

Luigart Studios, 110 Luigart Ct. Lexington, Ky

My World

There was a secret ingredient for creating my world. I had moved to a city where nobody knew my name. This gave me freedom. I could be anyone I wanted. I never had to explain myself to someone from my past. That little voice from my childhood that asked, "who do you think you are?" Was replaced with, "I know who I am." 

I embraced the concept, I own this place. Not as in I own the whole city. I owned my identity that inhabited this place. Take me as I dress. 

Shibori Silk Charmeuse and Devore Wrap

It's a stance, a posture, the way you walk, the way you set your eyes on the road ahead, your gaze, accompanied by a smile. A confident smile that says, "Hi." A tender smile that says, "underneath I know we're the same. Our hearts beat. Our heart peeks out."

It was a posture that took me downtown for celebratory parades, or on strolls through the park with toddlers and then without when they became teens and wandered on their own. When our car was stolen we rode bikes, a baby seat on the back. In winter I rode my bike wearing a L.L. Bean down coat that covered my artsy haircutting fashion. During the summer I rode my bike to the farmers market wearing a flowing white gauze dress. I dressed for the day. Form followed function. Once after work I went to a Halloween party. Someone said you're supposed to come in costume. I said I am in costume.

I am at home. I defined my borders and they were safe. Take me as I dress. 

Shibori Silk Charmeuse and Devore Poncho

Scenic Gaze

The decision has been made. The shed has been ordered. It will be delivered in two weeks. It's not an original design, built from scratch. It is affordable. We will embellish it later. And it's only two feet less wide than the one I have in the country. Just the right size for my inventory and current wearable art collection. I will be able to keep my colors organized and if you stop by, I can show you my latest designs, my newest color combinations. It's all about color. A way to add a little beauty for others to look at when you walk down the street. When things have gone dark, there can be a tendency to go gray.

The decision has also been made where to put the shed. In the side yard, instead of the back, where it would interrupt our scenic vision through the glass sliding doors when we sit in the overstuffed chair and gaze, sip coffee or tea, and stay warm by the fake-fire space heater with its red glow on late evenings or before dawn. This is where my ideas simmer preparing my ship for sail. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, "When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for." Make color your sail.

Expressing My Womanness

Yesterday we had a big discussion about the shed/studio at our new dollhouse. Larry wants to wait. I don't mind waiting, but not too long. He said what if I don't like the dollhouse? I have to like it. Of course there's always a chance there may be something but we cannot be cavalier. We need to approach this as the right decision with the right options given our parameters.

This is how it turned out. We have worked, lived, and raised children, near and from afar. This is who we have become. What we can afford. And the timing is right. That's the most difficult. Timing. There is an ease at the cabin, for me more so than Larry. In four months he will be 79. He comes in huffing. Tired after a few hours working outside. He hates that fact. There is more firewood to gather. We like to build a fire on cold mornings and see how seldom we need to turn the furnace on during the winter.

The shed is an issue because it is what I need to continue my art to wear operation. Even with a studio elsewhere there is much I need to do at home. (The wind has been blowing hard all night. There is a banging against the house. What is that? Who will do the repair?)

Today I am reading Austin Kleon's blog. https://austinkleon.com/ He's writing about Virginia Woolf and "A Room of One's Own." He’s emphasizing the money part. “A room of one’s own is nice, but if you can’t buy the time to sit in it, what good does it do you?” Virginia had an inheritance which I don't have. I'm working on a 20 year business plan instead. When I am 91, I want to make art to wear, wear art and express my womanness.

Creative Lineage

I'm not saying my mother didn't judge. She just never asked a lot of questions. That was her gift.

We lived in Perry, Kansas in a rented farmhouse when I discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder. Later we moved to Topeka. I rode the bus to the downtown library, spent hours perusing and choosing between Laura and Willa Cather. Then rode the bus home anxious to devour their stories. Laura lived in Kansas also. Therefore, in my mind, we were connected. In my mind we had a personal relationship. It was 1958.

Thirty years later I read Of Women Born by Adrienne Rich. Her edict for women to write the truth about their experiences no matter how painful became my mandate. I was validated. I wrote short, suscinct poems describing my life, then shared them in a community writing class taught by my feminist friend, Lucinda. Feeling Like a Shitty Mother. Discovering the Other Woman. Defining Rape to my Sixteen Year Old Daughter. Lucinda read my work and said, "this woman has something to say.

I read my first poems at an open mic at a bar. Since a number of my poems were about sex, I dressed sexy. Classy sexy. With a slight edge. Not trashy. I dressed to be seen and to be heard. Tables in the front circled the mic. A spotlight defined the stage. An audience gathered, prepared to listen. In the back, a silhouette of men sat at the bar engaged in a low chatter as the poetry reading began. I walked into the light, leaned into the mic and said in a clear voice, soft, yet firm, "this poem is on discovering the other woman." The entire bar fell silent.

I spoke. I was heard. I listened to the applause. I read more poems. I was serious, and yet I heard unexpected laughter. I paused, gazed at the women sitting at the tables in front of me. Why are they laughing? I asked myself, silently. This is my life. Then I realized it was a laughter of recognition.

Yes, this is my life and it is your life and in the absurd details, we are one. We are connected. We have nothing to fear. I let the laughter wash over me as one sordid detail after another revealed itself. After heartbreaking decisions appeared next to painful despair giving birth to a temper tantrum so outrageous there was nothing left but humor and laughter and the revelation of the degrees to which the absurd rules.

In 1989 I went to the Women Writers Conference at the University of Kentucky. I attended a Spiderwomen Theater performance. In a dramatic moment towards the end the women turned to the audience, pointed their fingers at us and said, "tell your own story." My mission was defined. In 1990 I organized poetry readings. I was seeking women with the courage to walk to the mic. I asked if they wanted to read their poems. I wasn't interested in credentials. There was no editorial intervention. I didn't ask any other questions.

Today, I create art to wear for women who don't need to answer questions.

Botanical Print Silk Devore Crop Top

Memory of Color

Growing up, there were always flowers, as evidenced in photos or memories.

My mother, Grace, grew red roses in front of the two bedroom, added onto to make four, ranch, on Eveningside Drive in Topeka. Purple irises bloomed on the side and pale blue bachelor buttons gathered across the back along the fence.

In Tachikawa, Japan she learned Ikibana, the art of flower arrangement.  They graced the buffet and changed weekly.

A hedge of red roses framed the front yard of the old frame house in Roaring Springs, Texas where the man who invented the cotton gin once lived. As the years passed and the hedge thickened, cars passed slowly by just to see Grace's roses.

Suddenly, my cabin is filled with orchids. It just happened. All I do is place three ice cubes in each pot, weekly. It must be the light. Our cabin is filled with light.

Everything about me, all my memories show up in my shibori art to wear.  Today in velvet I see orchids and roses and green leaves.

Vision Quest

The iridescent leaves shimmer in morning light 

moisture clinging to each dried leaf 

drizzling rain a soft serenade. 

the making of space for winter has begun 

the forest opens up 

more tall willowy tree trunks appear 

we walk deeper the dogs and I 

they ever grateful for this privilege they demand 

wagging their tails waiting as I arise 

the brandy of browns and deep burgundy 

await my vision quest for meaning of each new day 

affirming the love I have for life 

balanced between growing awareness as each day passes 

that every life has a beginning and end

a transition so subtleyet instant 

as in one day as I walk the trees are green the next Golden

how did that happen so suddenly, I ask

I must pay better attention, I warn

my footsteps are no longer spring soft on the path of grass and dirt

they crinkle, crunch a deep serenade 

the brandy of browns and deep burgundy 

await my vision quest for meaning of each new day 

You Will Love This

It may sound trite when I say I make my art for you. I don't know you personally. I do know about you. I know about your desire for passion and wisdom. To express your long earned authority. And for intimacy, those close connections you find in family and friends where you can just be you and express yourself freely with no concern for being judged or criticized or need to defend your beliefs 

In these ways we are the same. We have lived long. We have courted danger. We have loved life.

What makes us unique is our failures have not brought us down. We stand tall and walk forward knowing we have something to pass on. We have a legacy

So it is not trite when I guide my vibrant shibori silk under the needle, watch it ripple and gather graciously, marvel at its beauty, ponder how ravishing it is and know that you are going to love wearing the art I create. 

I am not praising me. I am praising the inner workings of my soul that has brought all the pieces of creating together to make this masterpiece. Yes, in that moment, when exquisite colors have found their way into my silk. I am thrilled and can't wait to share it with you.

A form of my inner life is embodied in the fabrics I take into my hands and shapes each piece. and I say, “you will love this.”

It is not trite 

You will love this!

You Have To Have Vision

“You have to have vision,” I heard my mentor, Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, say from across the room.  He wasn’t talking to me.  He was talking to one of his students.  I was fortunate to be working on the FeltLOOM in his classroom and could listen.  

You have to have vision.  

How true, I now realize.  And vision is different than a plan.  A plan comes second.  A plan comes after the vision has been defined and chosen. We can have many visions and focus is where determination comes in. 

What vision do I want to focus on?

In the past there was the vision for the move back to Kentucky.  The transition was smooth and provided us with the amazing cabin we now live in.  Today, there is the vision from my art, each piece of shibori dyed silk using carefully chosen colors creates many versions of wearable art.  

Today, in order to keep from getting bored and to keep from repeating myself, I begin a new vision quest asking myself, “what do I want?” This becomes the quintessential question, the question most necessary to keep in the forefront of my mind everyday.

Today, I say to myself, I want each piece of art I make to become part of an intentional ensemble from the beginning of the vision.  

Since I discovered the power of gathering around me only what I like, life is easier.  While I realize it can become cluttered, I leave room for those moments when “opportunity knocks.”  These are the moments when my questions are being answered, ever so subtly. 

What do I want to explore? 

Energy.

Everything contains energy. My vision. My art. My cabin in the woods.  It’s why I surround myself with art.  Wearable art.  Art on the wall.  Art on the floor.  Art in the garden.  Art I serve my delicious food in. The art in my home, the handmade items I look at, use, wear, are closer to the maker, and the energy is more intense.  It is stronger, hence more transferable to me.

You have to have vision.

Even my Garden Girls remind me of this fact when they talk about writing.   In my creative writing I invented the Garden Girls to accompany me on my quest to take risks and live the layered life of an artist.  

“How do you find the words?” Rose asked.

“Look at your hands,” Clove said.

“I think you mean that’s really all I have to do.” Rose said.

“Of course I mean it,” Clove said. “Look at your hands, Rose it’s all in your body, in the way you walk, the way you smile, the way you think. Look at your hands and take a deep breath and you’ll find the words.”

The thought was exciting, physically. Rose felt her body move. Mentally she felt her mind churn. “Let’s write together again,” she said, “the next time we can claim a moment to own.”

In writing, Rose was seeking passion, the passion that gets you excited and keeps you awake at night. Rose was always passionate; there was no getting around it. She wasn’t ever going to give it up. To be able to create passion, that’s what freedom is, that’s what life is; just keep on writing because what else is there? Sometimes preachy thoughts showed up, talking to Rose, but she listened only when she had to. Mostly there were other sounds to consider— the voices and the quiet. When the voice was soft and the message was sweet love was all around it. Mostly when Rose heard the voice it meant listen.

When ideas were overwhelming, she’d take long hot baths, one right after another. The writing challenged her not to divert her eyes, keeping them on her vision which is to keep on moving, not stopping, except to meditate, watch her breath, while looking at her hands to find the words waiting, and believing they will come, because they’re right there in the table, the light, and window.

First I’ll make a list, a quick one, Rose decided. “Do I write it all down? Do I make notes?” She asked Clove.

“You can,” Clove said, “or you can just look at your hands. It’s in your body, Rose it’s all in there.” 

“Do you realize that you are saying there are no right answers. You are saying that whatever I say is okay, to just be me and say it. Take the risk.”

What does it take to become a Garden Girl? A desire made manifest, to discuss intimacy, passion, wisdom, and authority. And take risks.  

Today, I take a deep breathe.  What I want is in my body.  I begin a new exploration of layering fabric, color and textures creating statement wearable art ensembles. 

You Can Wear Any Color

Blue green, crepe tuniic with devore shawl

Walking in the woods yesterday, I saw the same brown I am dyeing for a mother of the bride statement kimono and tank dress.  It was in the leaves left over from last fall; deep, rich, rusty, copper, with a touch of dark forest green.

Even though the leaves came from last fall, now aged into late spring, they held their vibrancy.  Who would think that the colors of spring would include the age of fall? Clearly, every color can be found any season.

How did I get on my color path, my artful path, my path of self expression?  

I let go.

One day when I was on my lunch hour from my first office job, I was drawn into a store that sold a more expensive line of clothing than I was inclined to buy.  I was 20.  I was a Sears or JC Penney girl. It was a risky step.  I decided that I would try on pants and blouses that were bright and brilliant. The pants were orange and fuchsia.  They were each paired with a floral blouse. They were not the bright and brilliant colors of summer.  They were subtly toned, as the leaves are when they slowly change. Not my usual choice.  I gazed in the mirror and said to myself,  “I hate this. This is not me.”  I have strong opinions.  I bought it, anyway.  I was tired of buying the same styles and colors over and over.  I wanted to feel what it was like to wear something different.  A relatively safe risk.  

My dad loved it.  I never thought of him as a stylish person, in his USAF uniform or week end overalls. In hindsight, as I peer into his old black and white photographs, I discover he had a very strong since of composition. His was not the only compliment I received.  This began my journey, not only of exploring colors, also in taking risks with self expression.

You can wear any color, dare I be so bold to say.  It’s not about what looks good on you, it’s about what makes you feel wonderful.  You are part of nature.  All colors are part of nature.  Find yourself in the rainbow, it is very large, full and forgiving, as you are. It’s not that you can’t wear part of the rainbow at anytime, its that some parts have blended and rearranged so the derivative is no longer recognizable.  

In order to determine your place in the rainbow, remember your favorite season.  Find it by listening to your body.  To which season are you most drawn? Listen to your friends and their compliments. Write it all down.  Are you spring where the colors are soft, or summer, where the colors are bright, bold, and brilliant? Are you sometimes a little of both?  Getting to know your self through color is an exciting journey you are now ready to embark upon.  

Are you most present in the toned leaves of fall and their bright counterpart, jewels against the sky?  Are you in your element in the deep rich and luscious shades of winter, the spruce, and burgundy?  All these seasons come and go as you do. You know what you like.  What feels good.  

Let’s begin with your favorite season, where memories have lived the fullest. Coffee, chocolate, semi sweet, bitter or milky?  It’s the season you are drawn to that will determine your palette. How to choose your palette?  Ask, what do I like?  Then break it down.  

Let me start with brown.  Deep dark, aged, fall leave brown.  Browns emerge from all color.  The brown I am seeking now emerges from yellow and purple, her compliment.  Purple and yellow are buried in my new found brown.  They create copper and rust.  As the exploration continues, many colors will appear.  And they will be your colors, ready to mix and match and enjoy.  They will tell a story.  They will tell your story.

You can wear any color. It’s easy.  Nature has already begun to cleanse your canvas when she added grey to your hair.  If you choose color to you hair, are you more drawn to yellow or blue? If you have highlights, are they gold or ash.

Shall we collaborate?  Just tell me what you feel.  This is how you will tell me who you are.  What do you like?  How tall are you?  How full are your hips?  What are the colors of your skin, your eyes, your hair, (is it dyed or natural)? The answer to these questions are the beginning of designing your personal, art to wear, composition.

A shibori disruption begins

Disruption: a disturbance, or problem that interrupts an event, an activity or a process.  Today I begin to disrupt everything.  I explore new formulas for shibori.  I consider new designs for art to wear.  I rearrange the order I live my life.  Could that be considered innovation?

First things First

As springs has arrived, new colors appear daily.  The quest for formulas has begun for my shibori silk dyeing and designing of slow fashion wearable art.  Yesterday's fashion taught me the value of art to wear.  As the models walked the runway, they truly did manifest an energy not seen in fast fashion.