It Depends

 

Yesterday I got some pressing done and in the end, I'm quite pleased with the new direction I have been heading.

I have to also say I am having So Much Fun writing the essays.  I had one planned for today, then came across a comment that set me thinking about how that observation reflected on what I was doing with the essays and instead of doing the intended topic, was able to dig into the comment and reflect.  Once again observing that all the things are connected, one way or another.

Choosing to write a collection of essays has given me the freedom to tell the stories I want to tell.  The kinds of stories I share when I'm teaching in person, but never felt I could include in a 'text' about the craft.  For books and articles I felt I had to stay strictly within the 'lines' of what I could prove, or references I could point to, rather than flat out speculate.

But these essays will sweep up more of 'me' in them. My reactions to things as I think things through.  

So far the essays are averaging about 3 pages, or around 1800 words.

As I get into the actual 'craft' of textiles and begin explaining how the tools work, why I use the processes I have chosen to incorporate, I expect that the essays will become longer.  Because explaining the subtleties that make 'when you change one thing everything can change' or the short answer 'it depends' will require a lot more words in order for readers to make sense of what I am trying to say.  There may also need to be photos or diagrams.

In many ways the essays are an extension of what I do here, but in longer form.  A blog post generally needs to be short enough a person can read it without sitting down to study it.  So I try to keep my topics here to a 'kernel' rather than the whole basket.  To offer a seed and let the reader decide if they want to plant it, nurture it, grow it.  Because not everyone will be interested.

But there are some people who have been enjoying the Zoom lectures, and so the essays are a combination of this blog and what I tried to do with the lectures, with the advantage of being in written form and able to be referred to in the future.

The fact that I stumbled onto this format is a sense of delight and no small amount of wonder.  It was not something I ever set out to do, in spite of numerous people referring to me as a story-teller.  I just hadn't seen a way to be a story-teller when it came to the written record.

When the student is ready, they will begin to put the pieces that have been there, in plain sight, waiting for them to pull together and utilize them to create something new, something different.

What a journey it has been.  I look forward to the next essay, to see what influences come my way that may re-direct my intention but still be within the parameters of the story of thread and cloth.

Because it depends.