studio - behind the scenes
what writers’ block looks like
Is this new work the cause or the effect of being at a loss for words in a world where words harm so many? No matter. The result is a thing of beauty. The Northumberland Stitchery Guild hosted a workshop on Chiaramonte Whitework taught by Barbara Kershaw, who was not only wonderfully patient but who thoughtfully provided me left-handed instructions! The unbleached linen is the practice piece. Next – the real thing, white on white, demanding clean hands and a clear mind.
Salvador Dali would be pleased
I dissected a computer keyboard and discovered its beating heart is a flimsy sheet of plastic. My made-in-Canada Smith Corona typewriter, as old as I am, still working, stands solidly by.
grave goods
When a record album was in fact an album full of records, when records were shellac, when my mother was a teenager, when she was “Jody” – she made this old-fashioned playlist. What does it say about my mother’s preferences and choices and how her circumstances informed them? My latest long-playing writing project is to try and answer such questions.
Let’s call it something other than “not writing”
Lay aside the guilt. Sometimes words are not up to the work of expressing what is. Sometimes what is comes from that pre-language place. That pre-language place is where we came from and where we will go when we die. Let’s not think of it as a failing.
how not to write:part 2
Each day in Alice Vander Vennen’s Multi-Media Textile Assemblage class we received a gift…a stone, a leaf, permission to play… with which we started a piece, developed it, and took it to completion and presentation. What joy!
How not to write…
…it’s so easy!
- read the news, or even just the headlines
- overthink the point of social media
- choose a difficult topic to write about
- read a lot of books; call it research
- make copious notes; puzzle how to untangle them
- admire a vintage dress at the Costume House in need of repair; repair it