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art

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Blossom

Daily Color: “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” –Thomas Campbell

My mother on her honeymoon, 1949

Remembering my mother today, on her birthday.

She was born 11 July 1921 in Chicago. Her father was a rare book dealer; he spent months at a time in Europe, buying books, and he always brought back her entire wardrobe for the coming year.

Blossom as a child, mid-1920s

My mother studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later worked as a commercial illustrator and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, but she gave it up to be a wife and mother in 1949. But still she she made art when she could--Valentines, Christmas stockings, little paper cutouts. She had a loom for a time when I was very young.

My mother wove scarves and table runners

After she died, I found an embroidery that she made many years ago but never finished, a monogram of our surname initial "T".

Since she died three years ago, she has inspired some of my own work. I stitched portraits of both of my parents, based on their wedding photos.

And I am embroidering one of her dresses, vintage 1960s, from a little boutique called Ogee that she loved. I've completed the yoke, and I may continue on and embroider the entire dress.

Going through my mother's office/studio after she died, my sister and I found drawers and shelves filled with art supplies, paper, markers and pastels, thread and fabric, and her old sketchbooks from art school. In part to honor the artist in her, I decided that I would honor the artist in me and concentrate my efforts from here on out in creative pursuits: for the past three years, then, art has been my focus and priority, not just the thing I do when everything else is done.

I think she would approve.

In her late 80s, not long before she died.

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Changing the World, One Temari at a Time

Daily Color: “I strongly feel that every poem, every work of art, everything that is well done, well said, generously given, adds to our chances of survival by making the world and our lives more habitable.” –Philip Booth

Blue temari

A quick stroll through the Internet—Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and so on—reveals that the world is full of amazing artists, incredibly talented creative people of all kinds, making art and music and poetry and dance and theater and books and movies and so much more. The world sings through their fingers and words and images. Almost every day I am moved to awe, if not to tears, by a work of art that has been shared online.

Linen Stitch Jacket

And a slow stroll through a museum or gallery, or through a gorgeous, lavishly illustrated book or magazine, or listening to music, confirms that art is everywhere. It is constantly reaffirmed for me that one of the reasons we are here at all is to create, to combine colors or words or musical notes to express and inspire profound emotion—joy, anger, sadness, love. It makes no difference whether the art is small or large, simple or complex, utilitarian or of no practical use. We see or hear or read something, and we are moved.

Family Ties, detail

With so many artists of every stripe out there making their art every day, in my lower moments I face an uncomfortable question: does the world really need yet another artist? In other words, who needs ME?

Photo of my temari by Carl Kravats Photography

Or more specifically, who needs my art? Well, I do. I need to make things, I need to work with color and texture every day, I need to create and share beauty. But the world does not lack for beautiful things, and I daresay the world would take little notice if I stopped making stuff.

Linen stitch scarf

Furthermore, making objects that are superfluous, that have no practical purpose, that are made only to be beautiful, presents me with another dilemma. In my own life, I want to clear out clutter, reduce my dependence on things, take up less space on this planet, use fewer precious resources. How can I justify making more things that I hope other people will want, that will only clutter up their lives?

Where Sea Meets Sky

It all comes back to beauty, and to good energy. I believe that people need things that are beautiful, that are impractical, that serve no other purpose than to soothe their souls and hearts. I believe that the emotions and love and good energy that I stitch into a sweater or temari or embroidery send little sparks out into a world that is too often too dark. And perhaps my tiny sparks will join with the sparks that other artists are sending out, all the time, and help to create just a bit of light that, in Philip Booth’s words, might “make… the world and our lives more habitable.”

Temari eggs

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