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Talk to Each Other
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: March 5, 2009
Latest Update: March 5, 2009
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
patriciaacone@yahoo.com
- How This Memory Stulpture Came About
I still haven't mailed off the memory sculptures I created over December and January. My snail mail skills are pitiful. I think it might be because, having no family of which we knew, I had no one to mail things to. I'm planning to work on developing this skill, but patience, please. I'm a slow learner.
My unplanned and self-inflicted relapse into anemia made the whole scene worse, but at least art and community gained a little - I managed to finish some projects, including this week, a memory sculpture. Not like the memory sculptures I did over the Winter Break - ones where I stopped along the way to add anything and everything that seemed like fun and might add to family memories - but one that just happened as a memory that happened along the way in my everyday world. ( still like that idea - those are the memories I'd like to save - but it's hard on deadlines.)
Recognizing that I faced a couple of long drives on the way to Monterey for the Death Penalty Conference, I rushed over to Diane at Sit 'n Stitch and picked out some yarn to make a nice bulky hooded sweater. I wanted caramel - I'm into my variations on white mood; but Arnold wanted red. Arnold won; and it's a good thing, since I dropped one ball of yarn into someone's spilled coffee in the conference hotel. Yuck, but it seem's to have survived without a hint. I hope.
Of course, I got stuck. But we shopped and played enough that I didn't have any more time anyway. I got all the way to joining the sleeves by the time we got home and I could get to Sit 'n Stitch for a Friday night knit along. Diane and Sharon and I decided all was well with the exception that I needed more yarn. Until I tried the sweater on with its hood and discovered that the hood would have fit a giraffe! Oh, well. The "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." (Robert Burns, To a Mouse.)
Diane taught me to use double pointed needles where pins would clearly never have succeeded in marking my bulky yarn. (Of course, I'll have to find and free my double pointed needles to do that, but Diane had lots of them.) And so I gently UNknitted four inches or so of hood, and set about to finish the sweater.
It wasn't hard, but I was tired (the self-inflicted - forgot to get my iron pills renewed and ran out - anemia) and there was lots of counting and the stuffing on of 132 stitches of bulky onto a 40 inch Addi Turbo circular 17"needle, along with the memory that my attempt to do so just after Monterey resulted in a 24" that came apart in my startled hands!
Wanting a little peace in place of frustration, I turned to a free form crochet piece that I had expected to turn into a free form box for a gift, or for pot pourri, or whatever. Diane had been curious about how I had done that for a container to hold the rose and the cat toy I had made for the lady who rescued Clyfford from a nearby roof. I was going to take this piece in to show her, but I was tired of counting and figuring, and hoping that the hood would come closer to fitting me than the giraffe. I needed something to just work on for fun and centering.
I'd started the piece in in a mixed lime, turquoise, yellow Sugar and Cream cotton. So I crocheted a side to the container in matching turquoise. When adding a side that I intend to stand straight up, I join a yarn with 2 chains (ch), do a double crochet (dc) in each stitch around the perimeter, then slip stitch (sl st) the last dc to the 2nd ch at the join, ch 2 (if I want to make a solid set of dc at that point, or ch 3 (if I want to make a double crochet followed by a space at that point).
When I finished the container, I suddenly realized that it met my criteria for a memory sculpture. It would remind Diane and me of our adventures with freeform. And of the giraffe's hood, since I had done it as an escape from that hood over which we had giggled mightily. It would remind Caitlin of our discussions on how I do the freeform and of the security she prefers in patterns, even though she changes them. It would give Heather some insight to sharing the experiences Caitlin and Diane have had with the Friday night group at Sit 'n Stitch. Hopefully, that will inspire Heather to share with them some of the memories she shared with friends and colleagues.
If I'm lucky, Heather will find some small token of her experience she can add to the memory sculpture. And, if they can find some place in the house to put the sculpture out where friends can see it, it could spark lots of memory sharing with other groups. If I were one of those friends, I'll bet I'd learn to look to the sculpture to see what's been added, so I could keep up with their lives and good times. If one of them likes to save memories, the memory sculpture is a good source for making up little picture books of memories, which can be stashed away for sharing in the future. And I hope it will be a source of stories to share with their brother in Florida - maybe we could even make for him his own memory sculpture. A lttle bit of home to keep with him.
What goes into the memory sculpture? Well, once I realized what I had started, I added a small flower crocheted from one of the yarns I used in the family sculpture I'd created for the family in San Francisco. I didn't know what Diane and Caitlin and Heather might want it for, so I just gave it a couple of leaves and a pin they could add to, if that worked for them. I don't know if they wear pins. I don't, if I'm not wearing a suit. I wear necklaces. So maybe they'd like to turn the flower into a necklace.
I've been hoping that people would include little things like that in the memory sculptures, some of which they could offer to friends. We have lost the gentility of offering small tokens of our shared experiences and memories, given over more these days to costly store-bought "Things." Gentility, or the quality of being "well mannered" is something I wish we'd borrow from the "nobility" of the rich classes, represented by the likes of Madoff and Stanford, the financial wizards who recently stole billions from their investors. Maybe the memory sculptures could prompt a brief conversation on how we'll take the gentility and leave the scurrilous thievery.
Back to Diane's and Caitlin's and Heather's memory sculpture: I made a cat toy for their cats to share - a memory of how Diane and I always share stories of our cats. That could grow into a memory sculpture of cat lovers at Sit 'n Stitch.
I made Diane a necklace, since I know she sometimes runs out to buy lunch. I made it in the shape of a tiny Victorian necklace in which little girls could carry the quarter their mothers gave them for spending when they went out. Today you can't buy much with a quarter, so I made it large enough to carry a couple of bills and a key. I stick a tiny linen handkerchief with lace in mine. Freeform and vintage knitting and crochet, all together. Simple little gifts made from bits of left-over yarn.
I'm tired again. (Yeah, the self-inflicted anemia.) But if anyone's interested I'll put up directions, fairly precisely, of the stitches I used in all these. Arnold's home - lunch now. Maybe that will restore my energy. I have photos of all this stuff. I'll upload those later.
love and peace, jeanne
* * * * * - Discussion Questions
- How can I tell how the pattern of spaces will turn out when I start the side wall of the container?
Well, you could be obsessive, like I suspect Caitlin will be, and count the stitches on the perimeter. I am too lazy to do that. But you could. And then you could print out a graph (there's software for that), and then you could make your pattern with the number of stitches in mind - actually graph it out. Actually, you could finish your perimeter with the number of stitches you want for your wall pattern.
But this was supposed to be fun, remember? So, if you're not an engineering or architectural type, you might be lots happier just making up a pattern as you go of double crochets with spaces between that fits however many stitches are in your perimeter. That's what I did. I don't enjoy measuring. I'd rather eyeball even the number of inches or centimeters. That's risky, but I was a physicist and measured so often in the lab that I have a pretty good sense of small units, kind of like a cook who adds a "pinch" of salt.
Use the method that works for you - then it won't interfere with the calming and meditative quality of repetitive work that will help you get back in touch with your spiritual creative side. jeanne
- Do you ever graph a plan of stitches for your freeform?
No. I might, if I do something really complex. Like the antsy flag in my USA financial crisis sweater. But usually not. I did a rough drawing of the antsy flag, but I didn't graph it. Planning every stitch out on a graph interferes with feedback from the work itself, whispering insistently to try something you hadn't thought of. My art works are my friends. We solve many problems together. So I'd rather listen to what the work tells me as it goes along. That's risky, again. But it frees me from the constraint of looking at my work only from a rational perspective. I can relax and do what "feels" right. Of course, if you try that route, you also get to rip out a lot. When it doesn't work, I just UNknit it, or UNcrochet it, and try another path.
Sometimes I think freeform is a good way to force myself to recognize that my way isn't the only way. Scientists and mathemeticians sometimes forget that human creativity is a part of everything we do. Formulas and patterns only arise as approximations for understanding the reality in which we live, and that reality is different as experienced by differnt individuals in different contexts. I like remembering that. It's what I would call the humility of knowledge.
If you want a specific result - a realistic flag - then you'll be more comfortable with a pattern. That's OK. Some of us just aren't so comfortable with the constraints. Difference is good. jeanne
- Are these examples of freeform?
Technically, yes. But there are many kinds of freeform. These are crocheted all in one piece, simply because I was tired and didn't want to make tinier pieces I'd have to stitch together. For the same reasons I used very few stitch types. I didn't have the energy to try new tricks and stitches. There's no knitting in any of these. Don't forget to take your iron pills and your memory sculptures will shine with creativity. jeanne
- References:
- Robert Burns, To a Mouse.
- Bartelby's To a Mouse
"But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!Consulted by jeanne, March 5, 2009.
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