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begin at the beginning

18/7/2020

 
The other day I heard someone say it was too late to be bothered changing or starting something new
‘I’m 40 years old’, she said
You could hear the resignation in her voice - her certainty.  

I remember Dad saying the same thing when he was around 40 years old … and that was over 40 years ago. 

Why do we want to give ourselves a ‘best before’ date ?
A ‘use-by’ date which has nothing what so ever to do with our life time nor our mortality. 

I too have been wondering about what’s next. 
Is there even a ‘next’ ?
Is this it ? 
Is it too late to start again - again. 
🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Easy to say ‘No, of course not’                
Harder to know where to begin
              

Pare Kawakawa : Navigating Grief

22/5/2020

 
It's 12 months since I finished Pare Kawakawa & as Puanga/Matariki draws near it seems appropriate to reflect & share.
I've never been able to write about this work here & yet I have shared it elsewhere.
It hung in our LTTL exhibition last year & it's in a book ! 
I dunno.
Sometimes these things are just too close. 

Pare Kawakawa is in the studio with me.
It keeps me company.
It sits adjacent to the high south facing window & through the window I can see the sky.
A sky just like any other day. 
Picture

this is what I wrote in May 2019 when I completed Pare Kawakawa & submitted it for consideration for publication.
‘Pare Kawawa: Navigating Grief’ is a kawakawa leaf monoprint which has been appliqued on to a fabric background & embellished with embroidery.
The materials used are cotton fabric, cotton thread & textile paints.
It is a new work which came about because I wanted to articulate the impact that the shootings & subsequent deaths of the 51 people in the mosques in Christchurch has had, & continues to have, on our nation &, of course, it has become a way for me to process my own grief.
New Zealand is a small nation & to lose 51 people in this way is incomprehensible.
When I realised I knew one of the 51 my already broken heart felt like it might explode.

I wanted this work to remember them, to represent the 51 people who have died.

I wanted the work to be quiet, to be gentle but not fragile.
I wanted it to be light; to suggest the time & the light that comes after the heavy darkness of death.
The moment when things shift, spirits lift, time expands, stretches to infinity & the mind can quieten so that the heart can remember.


​And, above all else, I wanted it to be beautiful.

I have found it impossible to write about & very difficult to talk about it. 
There seem to be too many words, too many stories & I find the words & the stories become chaotic when I try to write them down. 
My thoughts become cluttered & disorderly. 
The sheer volume of words becomes as unbearable as the grief.

When I sit & stitch I don’t question. My choices are clear & instinctive.
I simply make one stitch at a time.
I intuitively know what to do.  
I trust the process & my heart guides me. 
My mind is free to wander & when the tears come I pause to let them fall.
It will be nice when I am able to stop crying . . .  but it seems that it won’t be today.

Pare Kawakawa has been included in an anthology 'Grief Become You - a narrative of loss' edited by Maya Stein & published in December 2019

Mother's Day, A Quilt Project & Covid 19

10/5/2020

 
An interesting thing
​A day to celebrate mothers

I often wonder am I a mother worth celebrating ?
I have ended up with the most wonderful daughter but really did I actually have anything much to do with that ?
was she destined to always be a lovely person ?
I think she was. 
I have decided this mother's day to celebrate my daughter 
Lets face it, as a mother I can do whatever I want - its my day hahahahaha
My lovely friend sent me a link to this nell-anne-quilt-project 
The project has come about because Nell, an Australian artist who was going to come to do a residency at McCahon House is now unable to due to Covid19.  
Her plan was to run a series of workshops while she was here & instead this quilt project has become an online event. At the moment there is no particular end date so grab a needle, some thread & a scrap of fabric, choose a name & start stitching. 
I decided to embroider my daughter’s name as my contribution to the #nellannequilt 
Kate was named after my Nanna who was Katherine 
Nanna was called Kitty by her contemporaries so I Imagine Kitty was the common diminutive at that time.
​
Kate is Kathryn because I prefer that spelling & it’s just occurred to me that I don’t know the origin of the spelling I prefer nor even the origin of Nanna’s spelling of Katherine
It was, & will always be, about connections 

Kate never knew Kitty tho i suspect they would have enjoyed each other’s company.  
Kitty was a bit cold & hard around the edges - a product of the times she lived in perhaps 
Kate, on the other hand, is warm & gentle around the edges

I’m also pretty sure I didn’t really know my Nanna; that’s not how it works with your grandparents is it ? 
It’s about feelings
It’s about memories
It’s about love
oh & smells . . . it’s definitely about smells 

Then at some stage it occurs to you that it has become about the future

Kate is the future 
Kitty is the past
I am simply the one in the middle. 
The one who carries the past through the present & hands it on to the future

This was fun to do . . . once I'd chosen Kate's name.
I simply wrote her name in pencil & then wrote it again with my biggest fattest sharpie.
​I used a light box to trace the outline of the letters so that I got empty block letters which I then transferred on to a piece of fabric, chose the thread I liked & embroidered it over a couple of days.
And I'm so glad I did.
I thought about Nanna, I thought about Kate, I thought about Aunty Kate, my cousin's wife.
She's another Katherine & has always been known by everyone in the family as Aunty Kate even tho she's younger than all of us except the kids.
I thought a lot about Aunty Kate as she has always been such an important, supportive & positive role model for our kids as they grew up.
She has always been consistent for them & undoubtedly will always be remembered with love.

And I guess this is what this whole thing has become about.
Connection, belonging & love.
It always comes back to love.

Sal x
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    About
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    Hi, I'm Sally
    I'm a fibre artist who loves botanicals - especially NZ native plants
    you can find me on 
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