Looking at the World from Back to Front

"Cloth is rich with metaphors for the body and healthcare. The very act of stitching can be experienced as wounding the cloth or mending it- a stab or a suture. These metaphors are part of what makes fibres so rich to work with - they can hold all that complexity and contradiction and make it whole." -Alison Fox, Art Therapist, Artist and Nurse with the Inuit in Northern Canada

Recently, I began to work on a series of small quilted fabric pieces. Pulling together odds and ends; old cloth napkins printed with zoo animals, pieces of rusted fabric (courtesy of Lisa Mitchell and Jennifer Libby Fay) and snippets of fabric whose original purpose was long forgotten, I created a palette ranging from creamy whites to deep siennas.

I was trying to find a way to describe the series; a response to my art therapy work with very young patients at our hospital, who come to us suffering from abuse or neglect. I didn't want to sound maudlin or theatrical, so Alison's quote was a poignant means of expressing my point.

In the visual work, I want to express the "forgotteness," or hidden side I imagine in many of the children we treat at the hospital. They arrive to receive our care and for complicated reasons, some reasonable, others not, their parents are not at the bedside. Looking anxious, a nurse carries a child into the playroom, where she hopes our staff and volunteers can offer relief--to cuddle, to play with, to divert.

I found myself musing on the romantic notions of childhood; ideas we have about innocence, playfulness and early life as a time distinct from the complicated world of adulthood. For the purpose of this fabric series, I decided that a more realistic image of childhood would inhabit the front side of my pieces.

I also wanted the hidden side of the pieces to be compelling in its own way. I remember an Aikido teacher once talking about the back sides of our body. She noted, we spend so much time concentrating on the appearance of our front that we forget how often people see of us from behind. I wanted my "backs" to tell stories about the part of childhood we don't romanticize, yet when met with awareness and love, is replete with its own kind of wonder.

I don't mean to say that abuse is beautiful. Rather, that when one has the courage to face it, even a person's woundedness becomes part of what we love about them. Those words: "stab wound or suture." Each step we take toward these kids becomes a suture.  Whenever we find an opportunity to hold them, love them, speak to them, sing to them, remember them; those actions become the sutures which begin to heal their wounds.

A Map to Morning

It's mid morning, and I'm in the copy room of our hospital, appreciating the sweetness of my short days while they last. Beginning in September, I'll be going full-time. The knowledge that my half days in the studio are coming to an end is poignant.

Normally, I'm there in the afternoon, and it occurs to me that I should call the playroom supervisor, Margaret* and ask if she'd like me to hold an art group. Most days, the music therapist does a group in the morning, and afternoons are mine, but she's on vacation for the month.

I push the button on my cell phone badge and call Margaret. She's busy, so I call a Child Life Specialist who thinks not, but better check with Margaret who calls back soon after. Margaret is moving quickly while we talk, getting ready for a visit from our university bug museum--yes bugs! Bugs are big here on Peds. "Yes," she says, "I didn't think so, but I was trying to trace a dragonfly for the kids to color in, but I'm needed in 43."  The room number, code for whatever patient is presently staying there.

I've got 5 minutes to consider what to do instead of my usual hour. (Normally  I arrive in my office, check email, study that day's census and charts. In the back of my mind, I'm wondering, "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO TODAY???" I've got to keep it fresh, both for myself and the patients.

Today, I grab a stack of old maps that I brought from home. We're going to create treasure maps--choose an imaginary destination, draw a path to get there and then crumple and age the paper with plenty of brown watercolor.

It's slow in the playroom and I have time to cut the maps to drawing paper size while I explain the project to an intern Sara* who's holding a lovely baby. Sara loves it. and actually draws out a map to get the feel of the project.  The baby reaches for the edge of the paper, an early map eater.

The kids arrive slowly  and I'm able to explain the project to them. One, confined to her wheelchair, draws swirls of circles on her map, her mind a tangle from infection. I don't think many of the kids have seen maps before, and they're a bit puzzled, so I reference Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean.

The room is filling and within its confines, there are two in wheel chairs, as well as one boy who's recently recovered from a stroke and needs his paper held down. The baby is unhappy, so I offer to take him and I put on a CD that I think is Caribbean Playground, but turns out to be Taylor Swift.  I gently rock the baby while I hold another girl's paper down for her.

And suddenly, like the swirls on the paper, the room and the group are at capacity. Several kids need individual attention; they get agitated by too much stimulation. It's just myself and the intern for both the group and the rest of the playroom.

A one year old is running around, the swirler begins to hurl crayons. The baby, who has incomplete intestines has a colostomy bag that feels like it's leaking on me. A young boy and his mother are happily working on a map together. She tells me that she used to live in San Francisco and the section of the map she's drawing on is exactly where she lived.

Oh my. Such sweetness and chaos all tied up in one moment. We've tried to calling the nurse for the baby, but she must be busy. Fortunately, several kids complete their project and "oh," another intern comes in. I unplug the baby's IV, try to maneuver the pole with its attachments and the baby out of the playroom.

As I go down the hall, I run into Margaret who helps me to the baby's room. I set the baby carefully down in the crib side wise so he doesn't feel like he's being trapped in the crib. He smiles and his legs kick free. I'm a little wet, but it was just the diaper.

"Welcome to mornings." she says.

*The names of the real people have been changed to preserve anonymity.

Returns, Reunions

I've been stirring an idea around in my head.

Recently, I was offered a real, bonafide, 100% full time art therapy job at the hospital where I work. I would be doing essentially the same job I'm doing now but because of the extra time, I would be able to extend my services to the PICU and NICU, which so far, I serve infrequently.

Knowing that this offer would not likely occur again in my life time, I jumped.

I'd heard it was a possibility, but knowing that the coffers of the University of California aren't exactly flush, it just seemed like a wonderful dream. I also knew that if indeed it happened, it would herald a radical change to my art making practices.

At present, I've been able to spend several morning hours working in my studio, before I hit the road to work. I'm used  to considering, imagining, formulating and then sewing, making collage...creating. With the new job hours starting in September, my morning art routine will be reduced to an hour. I'll have weekends to work out too.

So back to this idea. Many years ago, when my children were young, I worked on several series which were an outgrowth of my meditation practice. I loved the idea that I'd gotten from Japanese American artist, Mayumi Oda, of beginning each day with a mandala.

One of the series was just that, a daily mandala. Another consisted of 5x7 inch wooden panels which depicted the phase of the moon as it intersected my menstrual cycle. Yet another became a series of alchemical flasks, each one holding the ingredients of life that were moving and transforming inside of me.

While I've been skeptical of the concept of self care in the therapeutic profession, as I look forward to a longer work day, I'm seeing it in a new light.

I want to return to the idea of practicing art as a form of meditation, using my hour as a time to make small repairs, adjustments to the soul, so to speak, that will keep me on my way. As the days grow subtly shorter, even here in the midst of summer, I'm looking forward to my own not-so-subtle changes, eager to see what the fall colors will bring.

Catching Up

Sometimes it takes getting away from your predictable world to get a new perspective. This week, on Prince Edward Island, a tiny green gem of an island located in the Canadian Maritimes, I've had that opportunity .

PEI is the remnant of an ancient collision between the North American and African continents. Hard to believe, and even more difficult, that the gorgeous red sandstone cliffs ringing the island were once part of the Appalachian Mountains.

I wonder if and how such strange connections and dislocations might be happening around us all the time.

If you've read this blog for long, you know that I strive to balance my own realms of art and art therapy. It often seems that one tends to overwhelm the other.

With lots of time to sleep, beach walk and read, I've recovered stores of energy that I haven't felt for a long time. Particular truths rise to the top:

I can't help but to look at everything around me as though it were composed for a painting.

Wherever I go, my eyes are continually drawn to the children's activities.

A confirmation, in this faraway land, that I am where I need to be in all senses of the word: in the present moment as well as my life back home in Davis, Ca.

***

Recently in that studio across the continent, I've been doing some work with artist, Lisa Call as a tutor. I focused on these same ideas of balance and combination--studio and hospital, watercolor and fabric, monoprinting and quilting.

I set out to experiment using an older collage piece (see Still Quadrant above) as an inspiration and example.  I wanted to return to using straighter lines, with subtler, not so apparent angles. I also wanted to introduce drawing onto the fabrics.

I decided to use some cloth that I'd cut out and pieced but hadn't worked in earlier compositions. Using these leftovers, I began to play. I drew patterns on a cutting board/printing plate with block printing ink and then, after placing scrap pieces on the plate, ran them through a monoprint press.

I liked the dark black stripes and circles that resulted and set about creating a composition with the squares and strips of fabric.

I remembered how difficult it was for me to consider tossing these leftover strips of cloth. In fact, I'm often drawn to remnants and remains. I can get obsessive, but that's part of the process too.

On my return, I'm looking forward to exploring more of this recombining of ink and fabric and adding some paper in there for good measure. After this trip to the PEI, who knows where exploring "off lines," or even off continent will take me?

Blogsence*

My apologies to any of you who may receive this twice. I was editing on 2 computers and accidentally pressed "Publish" before I was done. Here's to "blogsence"!

I went over to my friend's house Saturday for some studio time--playtime really. As we talked and caught up, she said that she hadn't received any of my posts for a while and thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the delivery system.

"Um, well, no, not exactly. Its just that I haven't been writing them." As I was leaving later that afternoon, my friend pointed out her calendar to me. I thought she might want to show me an amazing picture. What she pointed to was a series of red dots, extending from the end of April and into the beginning of May.

Pictures that she's sold? I wondered. No, it turned out that these were days that she planned to keep free with no obligations. That explains my blogsence* perfectly. I was taking time to catch up with myself around the edges of work and family.

I also threw myself into an exciting online quilting class with Lisa Call: "Cutting and Piecing Without a Ruler,"

I loved it from start to finish. Lisa's critiques were supportive, and gave me great ideas about how I could build upon what I had learned in class.

Although we pieced a number of projects in class, I didn't quilt them, that is, I didn't add batting and backing and stitch the whole sandwich together. In fact, I've rarely stitched a quilt sandwich and am reluctant to do so.

Gathering courage in hand, I put together a kind of sampler piece that I could practice on. I read various instructions, gazed through books with images of completed quilts and began.

After quilting the first few sections, I was convinced that I would never do anything like this again. Eventually, I got a rhythm going and it was fun, and the action of pushing the fabric through the machine, turning it at regular intervals and watching the pattern emerge was soothing.

By the time I finished, I was ready to begin again (this reminds me of when I gave birth to my first child and was so thrilled by meeting him, I was ready to do it all over again...no, I know it's a stretch to compare childbirth to quilting, but it was pretty cool.)

I decided to take detail shots of the piece above and divide it into roughly 4 sections, exploring the possibilities inherent in each one. So that's what I'm doing. My iron is ready: full steam ahead!

*Blogsence: Absence from blogs and blog writing