I Am What I Am: a cautionary tale

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on a favorite blog this morning and saw MY ARM. It's on Worn Through: Apparel from an academic perspective. The sewing machine tattoo on my forearm is the first picture you'll see.

The post shows sewing tattoos but mostly it's about the blog author teaching a course on "personal and professional appearance" and it reads as a mildly cautionary tale. I don't flinch at that, but it is funny if you know me and know how much I ruminate over such decisions.

I got my tattoos when I was forty. When I ran one of my runner-up ideas past a very non-tattooed friend ("Matt, do you think I'll regret it if I get a ***** tattoo?") He immediately said "Helen, we're already the age when you would regret it." That cleared things right up.

I also got them after being self-employed for a few years. They are a reminder that I am who I am - and I have not ever felt so purely myself (in all the fantastic and tragic ways) since I left the world of working for others. It's basically been one long Zen retreat - and not the kind where someone serves you miso soup in a raku bowl and you suddenly see everything clearly. I'm talking about the part where you stare at the white wall and every demon you've ever built comes to visit and taunt you, and while they are chanting all your fears (Failure! Loser Failure! Loser!) you try to function, and create beautiful things, and keep your books - oh, and make enough money to eat.

My personality is enmeshed with my business. Like my tattoos, my business is me. But I was always taught that being professional included hiding your self. So I'm interested in redefining what it means for me to be professional based on this lack of traditional boundaries. For me professionalism is a direct extension of what it means to be moral. I make my business decisions in a humane way and I seek to strike a balance of fairness with everyone, myself included. But I'm also an artist, and a passionate fool with very specific quirks. In my perfect world I'm asking professionalism to becomes specific, flexible, and human - inclusive and not reductive. And I'm trusting that there isn't too much about me that needs to be hidden!

By design I am part of a very direct process: the things I've made with my hands - things that are part of my soul and are built based on every experience I've ever had - are traded directly for other people's hard-earned money. But they are also traded with admiration on both sides, and I know the people I sell to and they send me pictures of themselves wearing what I've made and they tell me stories about what my work means to them. They show me things they made with their hands, they share their lives with me. Over and over, we're building a world together where we are connected. I don't sell to stores, I don't hire other people to sew for me - I want to be part of this direct connection, even when it's hard. And it often is.

Yes, I may have to work for someone else some day, and yes, maybe I've doomed myself to working in long-sleeved shirts. But I can't believe that people who work in the straight world don't make choices that affect them permanently. I know they do. And while they aren't engraved in their flesh those choices are often written on their faces. I've seen it and it's not for me. I'm going to keep taking my chances on the choppy high seas of self employment and art-making for as long as I can. And if it fails I'll probably end up working for some youngster covered with octopus and knitting tattoos. It's all good.

p.s. here's the other one, equally as nice, though it lives in the shadow of the colorful one which gets paraded around books and the internet ...

"Be obscure clearly." E. B. White

Managing my brain's energy is a full time job - but I do try to fit a bit of sewing into my days too - you know, so I can pay my bills. Every once in a while I pull these disparate goals together and do some work that keeps all neurons tidy and focused ... at least for a time.

Such is the case, currently, with knee-length skirts. I'm in love with making them. Each one has its own rhythm and shape that wants to emerge - the design unfolds nicely before me as I cut - a problem emerges and I solve it, an idea wants to come through and I sew this way and that, stitching those panels back together and yes - there is the idea, expressed with economy, like a tidy E.B. White paragraph. I wish it was always this way, this murky art ~ craft ~ brain ~ life work that I do.

In honor of riding the current energy stream I'm doing some custom skirts for people. Well, they're sort of custom-ish. I get to pick the colors, so I don't know who will be adventurous enough to let me play/work for them. My plan is to make these for a short time, until the curiosity is gone and the mojo fades and I feel like skirts are stupid and I should never make one again! Which could be any day now. So if you want one, take the leap.

tag team alchemy

Resourcefulness is its own reward. Mr. Lentil just worked his magical playfort technology on our giant studio windows. see below. On the left, a paper blind, circa 1994, Portland Or. – originally purchased to be a wall in our shared studio apartment (now that's love). Okay, so that part was easy – unless you've ever seen our attic.

On the right, he made curtains from a canvas drop cloth. Not only is it a dropcloth, but it was free – we found it in the give-away pile in our warehouse. Then he removed the one window panel that opens. It used to hang sort of open from the bottom with two little chains, like a castle bridge over a moat, effectively stopping any air from getting to us. But he flipped it over so it hinges at the top, then installed a pully system so we can open and close it. There's nothing more fun than battening the rope to the big wooden shelf with knots I learned as a Camp Fire Girl.

The chains that used to suspend the window now tie back the curtains. And of course, my favorite detail: he harvested the cord that holds the window open by gutting and fileting a broken extension cord.

Voila! We have more fresh air, muted sunshine, quirkily mismatched windows and the lasting satisfaction of having made something out of almost nothing.

getting away with it.

I heard two women talking about me in the store the other day. Trust me, I couldn't avoid it - and one announced that - "well, she can get away with that because she's tall."

Okay, first of all, don't speak loudly about someone as if they aren't there when they're standing right there and can see you. That's number one.

But also, why that phrase? Why do we use "get away with it" only for outfits and murder? Of course I get it, some clothes look better than others. But if something looks good on you, what exactly are you getting away with?

Because I make women's clothes - and honestly, I think, because I'm fat, women tell me a lot about their bodies. And almost always, they tell me what is wrong. Women call certain body parts "their problem."  I hear a lot about hiding things: hiding upper arms, hiding thighs, hiding necks, hiding knees - and I learned early on that there is no arguing with these ideas because no logic applies.

Usually I feel like honored, a trusted confidante, and I feel strong enough to act as some sort of keeper of sacred body faults, but sometimes it just saddens me and tires me out. Maybe if we didn't feel like looking good was "getting away with something" it would be a start toward moving through the world in a new way - a way that is more about showing who we are more than what we hope to keep hidden.

ikearrhea

Any day that includes coining a new word is a good day for me.  (Can you coin a word or just a phrase?) Well anyway, in this case Mr. Lentil gets credit for naming my new design: The Haoredux Shrug. Look, it's not even in Google yet.  The name is ... sort of Japano-French? The shrug is a ruffly cropped jacket, with boxy haori-like sleeves that are elbow length, and of course, also ruffly.

If Ikea can make up words why can't Secret Lentil?