Listening

As a visual artist I see. Everything. Upon entering a new indoor space I want to see everything. I catch myself furtively peering but trying not to look as though I’m not looking. At. Everything. I feel it may not be polite.  In spaces I visit often, the same spaces, it’s easy to get lost in observation of additions and changes. I’m not terribly interested in looking at people. It’s the shape, space and color that stimulate me, causing brain chatter.  In 2014, I visited the home of a new friend in Coopersburg. She designed and built her home with her husband. She invited me to spend time looking…saying something like I imagine you want to look at things, please feel free to do that and we will talk later. What a gift. I didn’t ask her if it was obvious that my eyes wandered even though I tried so hard to focus on getting to know her. She has an easy kindness that I’ve come to appreciate. I enjoyed wandering about her home and I looked with an open heart.

With slowing time to make art, and limiting my focus on few colors and no intentional noise–no music–no voices–I hear. Everything.

Today. Rattling. Windows. West Wind. Sweeping through this end of the valley it rolls over the open cornfields. Lower Macungie is the windiest place I’ve ever lived. The house faces south and the bedrooms are like a bulwark to the west. I often wonder if this is what it’s like on the Yorkshire dales and moors.

Rory barks from his post on the balcony. I get up to see what he thinks needs attention. The squealing of the postal truck as it pulls around the bend out of view is all.

The wind is blowing and whipping,  sweeping the snow across the pavement in undulating patterns. Rory stands guarding, his long coat blowing with the gusts, he turns to come inside. As he brushes past I feel the chill still in his fur. The wind pulls at the door as I let it close.

Needle back in hand my thoughts are back to the movement of the stitches, how placing the needle through and over a single thread in the weave can change the angle of a stitch slightly. Does it matter if I correct the angle. When will I stitch in a way that doesn’t matter which direction the threads go. Should I create a piece like that? What would it look like….there go my thoughts…bring them back to focus on this piece. This needle. This brown thread. The seed stitch.

There are moments I think this might be a madness, to slow time and stitch by hand when I could make a quilt in day as promised by the popular book series. No. Not madness. But it is a desire to live more fully and be mindful of what I’m doing now. Not in the past thinking of loves lost and regrets or concerns for the future.

My fingers feel fatigue, I stretch them and change projects for a bit. I pick up a larger crewel needle and perle cotton to fill in a small square in deep gold.