Endings and beginnings new goals, new resolutions

Two days of work and the 2^nd piece in my time trilogy is done-Two Little Too Late. That’s the name of the piece not my attitude. It didn’t happen today too busy working on the blog and FFP books with Pat so it’s another days. It’s all of that end of the year stuff that always seems to be one more thing.   It will be great to start the new year with a new piece. 

 My goal is to finish it by Tuesday-now Wednesday- and start the third part of the trilogy and have it done by the end of the month so I can enter both in a juried show. 

The third part is smaller, but in many ways will be harder for me to design, because of the nature of the images.  Designing and weaving broken things is something I have never done before. The proper perspective of the unifying broken  nautilus/earthstar is going to be difficult study in  perspective. An acid eaten destroyed flower is going to be hard. I have a tendency to want to flatten and stylize images because I like flat or no true backgrounds-just the images.
     I think it might be a genetic memory thing-if there is such a thing. I am also trying to design a bracelet that incorporates a small tapestry with silver spiders. It’s really hard for me to balance the images of the tapestry design with the silver and not make one dominate the other.  I am beginning to think I need to incorporate the top of the hand space into the bracelet and have a finger ring chain hold the whole thing in place so that I am dealing with more than a bracelet. I can see I need to do some real sketching on paper to make this happen. I need to start working on my focusing statement and 20 things I know about the piece to clarify the image in my mind.

For the last two weeks I have been waiting, thinking, evaluating, making lists in my head and waiting for the new year. I love new years! I love list and setting goals. I have always been fascinated with new beginnings and leaving the old behind-sort of like a day of atonement for the soul and a new beginning all rolled in to one- an assessment of what  has worked and  what doesn’t work. I can be amazingly pragmatic when it comes to goals.

 Last year was pretty much a great year even though it started out ominously with my maybe  or maybe  not  health problems and  being extremely ill-or not depending on which Doctor I listened to. It turned out for the most part to be not. On the other hand the optimist/cynic that I am, perhaps-gr, it was a good thing. It made me realize how finite things can be and how many things I still want to accomplish and my  need to create and redefine my  direction.  

I pretty much managed to come very close to finishing all of my last year’s resolutions. Several have had to be refined/redefined and several are ongoing, and often difficult for me to do because of the involvement of others who haven’t always understood the need or why the need. 

 Writing my blog- I am not sure if it is actually helping my shyness or just that I enjoy the discipline of writing the blog-either way I win. So continute the every two week writing. Schedule blog writing on the 1^st and the 15^th of every month.

Finish the Between blog for resumes, work, workshops etc. and set it up to function as my web page. Stop waiting-Because my other web page is a dead issue.  I need one I can handle  for myself with my limited technical expertise.

Change the name of my studio from Morningstar to Between Tapestry et al  so it reflects me  and my reality and not my Grandmothers.

Another is/was  weaving at least half day– five days a week- Don’t much care which days, just that I do 5 days a week.  Learn to say this is my weaving time. I’ll call or write you back later in my FFP time=leave a message. FFP is in the morning.

Weave one hour a day that is solely devoted to samples and mock ups. I hate weaving samplers, but would find small samples an easier  to travel with and pack. The biggest resolve not to give away mockup’s as gifts as I have done in the past.

Finish moving the studio upstairs and ffp downstairs. Getting FFP out of my tapestry  space and down stairs. With the computer and FFP staring me in the face it’s difficult to discipline myself to ignore the computer and the e-mail it generates each day and the tapestry questions that I get from people who read my books. I love answering the questions don’t get me wrong, but once I start one thing leads to another and my weaving time is gone.  Finish designing my space and buying the furniture that I need to implement my goals. It will be easier for Pat too.  I find it amazing with her knee that she even attempts the steps to the second floor.

Write at least 1-2 hours a day on new projects that deal with tapestry.  Learning to remember that my focus  in writing is tapestry and all that it entails.

Schedule a given morning for silver and do it. Right now I am waiting on a shipment of silverwire. I started this resolution by buying 3 ounces of silver wire at the inflated price of 31.00/36.00 Dollars an ounce! I wish I had brought last summer at 21.00 an ounce! Finish the box for miracles! And move on!!! Stop waiting for new skills and changing the design every time I learn a new silver skill!! Finish it and move on! even flea market silver is becoming to expensive to buy on spec. 

 Being consistent with training Chene and practicing with Chene. Making sure that I stay on tract. It’s easy to forget those 12-17 minutes a day of repetitive commands until we both have it right.  Sometimes that is the hardest goal. Realize that sometimes it’s teaching others that there is a correct way to give commands and over talking it doesn’t work. He’s a dog not a toy that his cuteness engenders in people-a  very smart energetic dog!   Both Chene and I enjoy walking lazily down by the river both doing our own thing. At other times he’d rather cuddle then work so would I.. Relying on his cute looks to get him what he wants and me wanting just a couple of more minutes of work and then the training time is gone.  By summer he should be ready for agility and I can take him anywhere and he instantly obeys the proper hand signals and commands. So his and my trainer says.

AND the big resolution-one which requires an attitude adjustment on my part and nt realizing I am it. Knowing that my Father needs not only help but my advocacy for him in dealing with others, doctors, caregivers  and family members. My attitude has had to change from will you please to– you have to do this now and why should we do this! Doctors seem to hate that they can’t fix everything and keep coming up with Hail Mary! plays and last resorts without considering what they may cost and cost the patient. Children always seem to  think they know better than their parents even if the parent is 86 or maybe because they are 86. I am grateful that Marge taught me all of this before she died by example.  Things hoped for and/ or  promised may not  always be worth it in the end or possible. They are what they are Hail Mary’s and away for the care giver to assuage their guilt in not being able to do anything.  Dignity and respect are important commodities that we often strip away from the elderly as they age. I watch Doctors and nurses talking over my father and ignoring him as if he is nothing and can’t possibly have an opinion that is worth listening too. Determined that if his views differ from theirs that  they have to be right and do it their way, therefore, I should step in and make him do it their way.  (that’s a terrible run on, but so appropriate)  Aging is an interesting conundrum for everyone involved-especially if it involves a conflict of philosophy(s) and not inflicting one’s own philosophy and point of view onto the views of someone else. The “I know better then you” and  what you have ever wanted is hard to step around and or balance sometimes when dealing with the aged. It’s a fine line between protecting and a benevolent (?) dictatorship. So, I’ll try and do it better.

And, of course, I have a few  very personal goals that will never be anywhere, but in my journal.

What I learned from the last years resolutions. Some times it seems like the whole world is conspiring  against me from keeping  my goal(s). When that happens I try and journal and figure out why and what and how important the thing keeping me from weaving and goals are. Journals are a good thing! Sometimes it’s knowing  what to let go of in a finite life span.  Redoing my studio which is/was one of my goals has made me realize a lot of things and helped me rid myself of a lot of stuff that I will never do and will never again be part of my life-painting, basket weaving,  and floor loom weaving. So let it go.  I don’t need to and I don’t have to do that stuff to be a  good tapestry weaver.  It’s made realize that the most important things in my studio  are tapestry weaving, working with silver to incorporate it into my tapestries and boxes,  teaching, writing and, punch embroidery, print making and maybe a few more perfleches of silk paper.  It felt so good to give the stuff away and remove it from the studio.  Getting rid of old attitudes at the same time, such as I don’t have to be the one who always shares and makes concessions to reach the end goals. I don’t need to paint my Marquette. Even after all these years I still heard the  faint whisper of my art instructors from the 70’s and early 80’s. I don’t have to be able to do every textile technique other then tapestry perfectly.  I am learning to define what my personal goals are-again. If one lives long enough everything goes around and comes around again especially a changing life.  I am no longer willing to should have, could have, would have in defining the directions I want to go.

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My next step is to write the steps that it will take to accomplish these goals and schedule the steps.  I do the same goal setting that I teach in my classes in real life and it still works. 

The last is from Joesph Campbell  “find your bliss and joy, hang on to it and just go for it”. I would love to have a chance to have more time to visit with Joesph in the same setting looking over the hills in San Francisco as the sun went down in the early 80’s. Several evenings we talked for hours. The geeky between and the man that understood and was fascinated by betweens. Yes, I know he’s been dead for several dozen or more years!

Life is good!

cheers and all. 

kathe