Art as Sustenance

I saw something on TV just now I wanted to tell you about. It was on a PBS program called 'The Arts Within Religion'

There's a soup kitchen in Manhattan at the Church of Holy Apostles, an Episcopalian church.
Not only do they feed people who need it, they have arts programs, as they feel that creativity and the expression of it is just as basic a need as food.
It brought tears to my eyes.

When I was living in a bad home situation, without realizing it my focus became survival. I went for more than 2 years without doing anything I could call creative.
After I made some important decisions, I found my self longing to create again. I had oil paints and a brush leftover from a paint-by-number set my then step-son had finished.
I used that, and the cardboard from the back of a pad of paper and painted an elaborate abstract. It felt so good. So freeing. I cried as I painted and I cried as I finished it. One of the good things my then-husband did was to create a frame for it. He himself is an extremely artistic person (or he was when I knew him) but trapped by his demons which made him an unsafe person to live with.
I am so glad that the program in Manhattan exists. I hope many other places follow their lead.
It is when your life is worst, that you need the healing and expression of art the most.

here's the main site http://www.holyapostlesnyc.org/soup_kitchen/what_we_do.htm

They have a drumming circle, followed by an art session and they also have a writing workshop.

a quote:

"The arts and spirituality are very very closely entwined, that one of the ways we touch on the holy, one of the ways we touch on the mystery of our lives is through art."

Rev. Elizabeth Maxwell, Program Director Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen

(image is of the painting I did with the leftover paint. It doesn't have a name. Any ideas?)

Eclectic

I've mostly thought of myself as middle-of-the-road eclectic, but a conversation about music brought home to me that I am definitely at the far end of the scale. Not just in music, but in art, tv shows, cuisine and interests.
There are few artists or genres that I like everything in, but the music I like includes Avril Lavigne, Kid Rock, The Fabulous Heftones, Jonathan Coulter, Captain Farmer, Bach, Indigo Girls, Emerald Rose, Barenaked Ladies, Ricky Skaggs, Martina McBride, Willy Nelson, Queen, A lot of World music including African, Celtic, Lithuanian, Pacific Islander.. Lots of stuff from lots of cultures (too many to list and I don't remember all the names)
In art I like cave paintings, impressionists, cubism, realism, abstracts, landscapes and portraiture (sometimes still life, but less often unless it has a modern twist) I like seminal cultural art from all over the world (My interest in anthropology rears its head here). I love art quilts, collage, photography and architecture, Georgia O'Keefe, Salvador Dali, Monet, Manet, Ansel Adams and Miller. Again, many more than can be listed or that I can remember right now. I love watching shows on archaeology, history, knitting, science and technology. Ellen Degeneres, Stargate SG1 & Atlantis, all the Star Treks, Deal or No Deal, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Top Chef, Blood Ties, The Dresden Files, Most Haunted, Dead Famous, Project Runway and loads of documentaries and biographies. I don't watch many things that are depressing, its really difficult to pull myself back from my own depression if I do. I'm currently limiting shows I watch to optimize my writing time, so the above list has shortened quite a bit recently.
Cuisine, eating and cooking. I love every type of Asian food I've tried. Not every dish mind you, but every culture. I also loved it when we had the 'Transylvanian Family Restaurant' here in town. Really good Eastern European food. This is reminding me I haven't had breakfast yet.
I guess the only person I've found to match my wide range of interests is Oscar. We don't like all the same things, but we both love to learn, and love trying new forms of lots of stuff together and alone. We love introducing the other one to something we encounter.

I'm a damn lucky woman.

(image is of a signature quilt I put together from bits of cloth a very eclectic group of quilters wrote on and exchanged)

Life is good!

I'm writing, a bit at a time but the bits are all fitting together. I've started finding the pieces more easily and I hope to have a small ms finished soon!
All the people I've been editing for TOTALLY understood my boundaries and we are all still pals, which is great :-}
Spring has FINALLY arrived (Canada it won't be long for you folks now!) and I'm spending time outside which feels glorious after the 6 months of mostly crappy weather.
I found a terrific site which plays nature sounds I can mix myself, so if the neighborhood becomes obnoxiously noisy I can plug the headphones into the laptop and keep on writing.
NATURE SOUNDS

Sounds last summer included the normal noisy kids on the sidewalk, some kids over the fence with a very popular trampoline, and a very LOUD very GRUNGY garage band. Actually, by the end of last summer the band was pretty good and I enjoyed listening when I wasn't writing. But I'm very happy to have the headphones.

I've tried writing to music with and without words but it seems too distracting during rough draft stage anyway. The Ocean with a few birds seems just right :-}
(warning, if you try the site, the babbling brook seems to make me want to pee all the time)

(image is of a quilt I made a while back. Since stopping ebay, I have high hopes that I might have a craft center set up by the end of the summer, and be able to make quilts again (and art collage, and beading and all sorts of stuff)

Fire Shawl Finished

Here's a photo of my Maxed out version of the Colorjoy Kristi Comfort Wrap.
I used 5 skeins of Malbrigo with some carry-alongs in turquoise, red, yellow, white and a touch of peach.
It was snowing when Oscar took the photo but I was snug and warm :-}

Lynn is Teaching in Texas!

If any of you are in theDallas Fort Worth area, Lynn is a featured Teacher this weekend at the Fiber Fest!

FIBER FEST

A good time will be had by all, I just know it!
Melody Macduffy and Lily Chin will also be there.

Journey from Knitting in Japan to Scotch Pie (via Africa)

Some of you know I lived in Japan for a few years in the 1980s. Although I learned the rudiments of knitting as a kid from my Grandmas, I didn't really learn to do all the knitting, purling, increases or decreases until I decided to knit a sweater from a Japanese pattern. I re-taught myself by looking at the pictures and it gave me a style different from what most knitters use here. I didn't just knit continental, I knit with an extra twist and a different wrap.
I learned to knit in a more "Americanized" way from my Sis-in-love, Lynn (of COLORJOY.COM)
While bopping around the interweb this morning I came across a very cool bit of information. The history of knitting in Japan. There are some wonderful old photos, and a lot of information I've never encountered before.
Here are links to parts one and two:
PART ONE
PART TWO

Part of the magic of the internet is the chains of info that can lead you on a pretty fantastic journey from your armchair. From the article on Japanese knitting, I found a link to something called naalbinding.
I'd seen this before when I studied Norse Archaeology, but I'd not remembered the term, and this is a terrific explanation of it as it relates to finds from many cultures.
The core site of this article seems to be an online village for a group of living history re-enactors in Great Britain who concentrate on how life was at the turn of the first century (AD). I find it sweetly ironic that the internet is providing a base of operations for them. I love the internet, can you tell?
Their site led me to Teacher's TV to watch a video of a history celebration in Islip.
This site is cool! It seems to be a sort of online television station for instructors to share info with each other, and with their classrooms. I found their video section chock full of interesting stuff. A video of a lecture on the type of minds needed for a globalized world, another about a girl who is providing shoes, medicine and toys to Malawi (a country in southeastern Africa) and thousands of others on many topics. Some of them are not accessible outside the U.K. but many are. Fascinating stuff.

I had to look up 'Malawi" in Wikipedia. The entry told me that the country of Malawi was born a month after I was, November 1962. If you are unfamiliar with the realities of poverty in small countries, I recommend your brace yourself before reading further in the article. Here a few hints. Malawi's exports value only $596 US dollars per person, per year. That's about what our household earns per week. And according to a 2005 Food and Agriculture Organization report 25% of the population would not have enough food to survive that year. Being who I am, I am appreciative to have learned this sad stuff about Malawi, but I am unable to spend more time at this moment learning more.

So I move on to a more optimistic sector of information, the music of Malawi. I find out something fascinatingly unexpected. "Malawians have long been travellers, and as a result their music has spread across the African continent" And that in the late 1960s Malawi had its own form of jazz which "has little in common with its American namesake" based on traditional acoustic music. These days there is a folkfusionist group from Malawi called Pamtondo, (site heading is 'Where a little of Malawi meets the world in Scotland')

Pamtondo refers to women at the mortar pounding flour, and a wonderful painting or mural of this is HERE. After reading about the famine in Malawi, the name of the group has even more resonance. And then I read this ARTICLE about the meaning of the music and its connection to women by John Lwanda. GREAT article. Please read it if you are at all interested in African jazz.

Then I decided since I was 'there' I'd learn more about that area of Scotland (Bothwell). I had learned (in the Wiki article) that the first European in Malawi had been Dr. David Livingstone. And here on the Pamtondo site I learn that John Lwanda lives across the river from Dr. David Livingstone's birthplace. Small small world indeed.

On the Pamtondo website they mention "the famous Tunnocks Bakery"in Uddingston so of course, being hungry for breakfast, I had to find out what they are famous for. Ah! they are famous for Tunnocks Tea Cakes and Caramel Wafers. Hmm. Maybe our local Hillers carries them. I'll check next time I'm there. But wait! Someone has said (on a site about Strathclyde's best bakeries) that Tunnocks makes "the best Scotch Pies ever".
What is a Scotch Pie?

You know, I found a recipe for Scotch pie on a site called rampantscotland.com (love the name)
It seems to be a sort of mutton or lamb pie (source of the endearment 'Lambie Pie'?)
here is a link to the SCOTCH PIE recipe
And now to explore Rampant Scotland dot com
Hmm. This may take a while. their header says
13,000+ Scottish-related Links, regularly updated. 3,700 Web page features on Scotland and the Scots.

I'd better get some breakfast first.

Amelie

I just saw a wonderful film, called Amelie. It stars Audrey Tautou (also in the DaVinci Code).
I don't usually watch subtitled films these days, as I often am computing or knitting at the same time as I watch tv, but this one caught me. In simple terms its a classic story of lonely people finding love, but it takes off from there with just enough charming oddity to totally captivate. You not only pull for the main two main people, but every character (with the exception of the mean green grocer) . I couldn't look away, and not because of the subtitles. There were many subtle jewels of moments sprinkled throughout, all woven seamlessly into the storyline. Its a movie I think I'll watch many times, always finding something new.

Here's a review from efilmcritic.com:

The entire theatre fell utterly, utterly silent during this flick's climax -- as well it should have. The audience was completely, perfectly immersed, and this is indicative of the film's general character. It has a magnetic pull that strikes a chord with one's inner child -- that is, the clever, thoughtful, mischievous, imaginative inner child. If you haven't yet seen it, read no further -- due to its spontaneous nature, foreknowledge will be distracting and possibly taint the film's whimsical music-box charm, and this piece is one that should be devoured and savored to the fullest. Alright, that's laying it on a bit thick, ne? But... but... watch the damned movie and you'll see what I mean. I haven't spent $7.50 quite so well in a very long time.

Links

After my computer crash last month, I've been rediscovering my links.

GIMP ON THE GO has some wonderful travel reviews and hints for those of us on wheels

and another link in the same vein GLOBAL ACCESS

In knitting, one of the installations of "Radical lace and Subversive Knitting" at the Museum of Arts and Design is Sabrina Gschwandtner's
WARTIME KNITTING CIRCLE (The link has 4 free patterns)

On the Power of Knitters front and how you can help, visit:

KNITTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (no need to know how to knit for this one)

AFGHANS FOR AFGHANS
(I like this one because it is happy to accept the items I make from natural fibers. Many organizations understandably want only washable acrylics and the like)

Or choose something close to your heart at
CRAFTING FOR A CAUSE

A type of knitting appealing to my quirky side is the
KNITTA, PLEASE group out of Houston, Tx Which consists of
"A tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings. With a mix of clandestine moves and gangsta rap — Knitta was born! "

For fellow writers:
WRITERS WRITE has some good info.
I particularly like the author interviews

And for an all purpose links list (very well organized I might add)
visit Writer's Digest's 101 BEST WEBSITES FOR WRITERS

For a one-stop resource I mostly visit BARTLBY.COM
a searchable site containing quotes, dictionaries and thesauri

Happy Trails!