The Naturalist Quilt

My husband didn't actually use the word "overkill," but his look said it all. Not surprisingly, I'm not even sure that I like how this "quilt" came out. I did the whole thing over a period of three days--this included finding images, ironing (*lots* of ironing), quilting, binding, and...hmm...adding stuff when I wasn't satisfied with how my "draft" was looking. (I went through some of my vintage clothes to find the 1940s stocking and handkerchief; I "distressed" [ha ha] the handkerchief with some tea and lipstick.)

On its own, it's certainly not overkill, but my whole reason for making the thing was so that I could show my students that I was willing to do the kind of work that I was asking them to do. I do hope that some of them got as lost in their work as I did in mine, but given just how "generous" my enthusiasms are, I have to keep in mind the likelihood that they didn't.

A lot of the text comes from academic Home Economics articles from the 1920s through the 1940s, and from the Delineator magazine (which Theodore Dreiser edited in the 1910s--I think he was long gone by the time this material was published.) The Delineator ran a section on how credit and installment buying were changing American consumption patterns, with articles that painted (relatively) easy access to credit as either the savior or the potential downfall of the U.S. public. Alongside the didactic materials on home management and budgeting, I used lots and lots of images from pulp novels and magazines, along with some government notices about food and cloth rationing, and blown-up, fragmented snapshots of American women (from the "vernacular photography" site Square America). The quilt is bound with a comic strip print--it's what I had around, but I liked it because it has the words "I'll get you next time!," which seems to fit the hell-in-a-handbasket spirit of American naturalism.

Are *you* ready for the Creed?

I'm working on an artquilt for the American Literary Naturalism course I'm teaching this semester. The students are required to produce a creative project (visual, literary, dramatic, musical, etc....), and I hinted to them that I hoped to do the same (you know, talking the talk/walking the walk....we have no hands-on arts courses where I do most of my teaching, so I try to create opportunities for students to work with their hands....).

In the process of gathering images for my quilt, I came across a very cool website for an exhibit called What Was Home Economics? From Domesticity to Modernity. The whole site is interesting, but I was strangely attracted to "The Home Bureau Creed" (in the "Educational Techniques" area of the exhibit. It's visually beautiful, and feels surprisingly contemporary (to me, anyway).

My favorite part of the creed is where it urges people "to lose self in generous enthusiasms." There are lots of ways to interpret this idea, but I think it's a nice way to think about the relationship building that happens when people share/teach other people handwork and useful arts. I confess that lately I've been getting tired of "project-ing" (though there are lots of sensible reasons why....); at the same time, this description of what I spend so much time doing and thinking about makes me feel pretty sunny, even on a gloomy gray Chicago day.

Scattershot

Christmas is getting closer, and I'm a bit nervous about being able to finish holiday presents. Part of the problem is that the gift I opted to mass-produce (nope, I can't name it yet) turned out to be more difficult than I guessed it would be. The other problem, I am chagrined to admit, is that I keep switching between gift-making and other, more interesting projects: two dresses for Astrid (they're finished--pictures soon), a bunch of long-sleeved winter shirts for Astrid (two are almost done, while the other four are cut out), and some mittens (I cut out four pairs' worth out of fleece scraps, and then screwed up the palms and thumbs for two pairs, so I had to toss them).

I haven't written a holiday letter yet, or taken a picture of the kids to send with our cards. Perhaps shingles has something to do with how behind and overwhelmed I feel....I really thought that if I did all my Christmas stuff at home, and stayed away from stores, that I'd feel in control. Can't say it's worked out that way, at least not yet.

Undercover Storyteller

A few nights ago, after Terry put Astrid to bed, I saw him puzzling over a bunch of letters Astrid had written in her notebook. Though I hadn't thought much about it at the time, Terry later pointed out that she'd really resisted his attempts to get her to put down the pencil--she said she was writing a story, and that she couldn't finish it in the morning. On its own, this wasn't unusual, as she's the kind of kid who will resist pretty much any suggestion, no matter how appealing, if she thinks she can assert her personhood by doing so. (There's a *lot* of personhood assertion going on at our house.)

I asked Terry what he was seeing in her writing, and he called me over. "Read it," he said. I stared at it for a while, not seeing much, and then asked *him* to read it. I felt kinda dumb when he sounded it out for me (remember, he and I are both writing teachers, and I regularly teach my Composition Theory students about "emergent literacy," or the beginnings of reading and writing in young children). He pronounced each letter as Astrid was likely to have been hearing it in her mind (for example, she used a "y" for the sound made by "w," because the English name for "y" starts with a "w" sound.)

Astrid is *just* learning how to read; she can sound out a lot of short words, and she's been looking at books since she was a baby. When she writes, she either does it without spaces (as in this example), or puts each word on its own line. For me, finally figuring out that she had written "Once upon a time" was cool, cool, cool. I don't have a great memory for these milestones--I'm embarrassed to say that I have no baby books or scrapbooks for either Elliot or Astrid--but I don't remember Elliot learning to write at the very same time as he was learning to read. (He did start decoding words a few months before Astrid.)

Anyway, talk about asserting personhood....

Enforced Idleness. I Hate Enforced Idleness.

Everything grinds to a halt.....and that's (gulp) OK. (No, I don't believe it, but I'm saying it.)

At Astrid's dance class last night, I realized that my neck and shoulder were burning and tingling. Shingles. Again. It's probably not a bad case, but why?? Why??

Enough whining. (Well, OK, I'm not actually done: around 2 a.m. last night, Astrid started throwing up, and 18 hours later, she's still at it. There's not much rest for the shingly, or for her husband, and there's certainly none for Astrid. Elliot's feeling good, though!)

Around 8 p.m. last night, when I was stomping around the kitchen, grouching at the varicella zoster virus, I remembered that I needed to make cookies for the parish Women's Club bake sale. I'm not a member of the Women's Club, but I was oddly excited when someone called last week and asked if I would bake three to four dozen cookies and deliver them to the school gym this Friday evening. I contentedly agreed--I felt like I was sort of, kind of finding my way into a community that's a quiet but noticeable presence in our neighborhood.

Fast forward to Thursday night.....yes, I made the cookies.....peppermint and chocolate spirals.....pretty tasty. Tonight, in a slightly loopy state (codeine), I walked the tray of cookies over to the school gym and handed them off to the harried-looking woman (my age, my build....what was I expecting?) at the door.

Doin' what I gotta do

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Art Mom on the Job

Tomorrow we have a meeting of our crafters' group at school--I'm faculty advisor, and the group is now "official," which means that we might get some funding. I decided not to wait for money, and went to the art supply store so that I could bring some printmaking supplies to use with whoever shows up. (And I'm not above wandering the halls and dragging unsuspecting students and colleagues into our room!) For the past couple of meetings, I've been teaching people to knit, which I'm happy to do, even though I find it a bit boring (I haven't enjoyed knitting since the kids were born--too many opportunities to get distracted and lose count of stitches). This time, though, I want to do something more adventurous. I'm bringing the supplies the kids and I have been using at home (brayers, ink, tiles for spreading the ink), plus the stuff I just bought (including some foam sheets--I haven't tried these before--I would have just recycled foam plates from the supermarket, but because I don't buy raw meat [it's icky], I never have any.

So I hope people will come and play with us for an hour over lunchtime.