I guess it is surrender — aka happy new year

"I live a little bit on the seat of my pants, I try to be alert and available. I try to be available for life to happen to me. We’re in this life, and if you’re not available, the sort of ordinary time goes past and you didn’t live it. But if you’re available, life gets huge. You’re really living it."
                                                                     — Bill Murray

I sort of fell down my cellar stairs. Almost. I thought I could step backward onto the landing but I was further up than I thought. I was suspended in the air, then I hit the doorframe and the landing sort of all at once. I'm fine. Really! But my first thought, after some impressive swearing, was that for the millisecond I was airborn all of my agendas, big and small, were gone. I can't remember the last time I got so discombobulated that it knocked my brainspace free - free of packing a healthy lunch, free of "Did I miss garbage night?" free of "What will I sew next?" free of the tiny pushing pushing pushings that I do to try to make every day a good day.  It was like when the electricity goes out and the sweet round silence of no-machines envelopes you. It's so rich. There is such relief. I guess it is surrender.

So my resolution is to have a mini-surrender to each day. Not in a cooing blissful vapid way. In a ... I don't know, respectful way? Yes respectful. In an available way. I've decided that each day has a shape it wants to take. I'll show up and do what that day wants, and that will be enough. That's my resolution. Heck, it might even get huge.

testing

fabulosa monstrum venatrix

 

 

fabulosa monstrum venatrix is a deconstructed ~ reconstructed coat made from wool, with inset panels of cashmere coating and velvet. It has a sculpted shape in front and back - with the back featuring intentional curves and juts ... plus a variety of dots of black velvet oversewn with sprays of black stitching (one on the lapel, one at the back of the neck, one toward the bottom of the back, and see one under the right sleeve). There are some unmatched buttons and button holes that have been cut adrift on one side, as well as one upside-down pocket down toward the hem.

About the tag, it's a bit tough to sort out in the photo, but I made the tag by stitching "secret lentil" in black thread on velvet. It's low contrast and looks super lush in person.

stoic cocoon vestcoat

I'm irrationally fond of stoicism and notions of self-containment, even when they're obviously flawed concepts and I can see that, and I can see why. It doesn't matter, I still like to feel strong, unflappable, untouchable even - stacked, bundled, separate, with distinct boundaries from the rest of humanity — and I'm drawn to clothes that express that, too — I like being a traveling island or a turtle or a cocoon ... maybe because the artifice-laden realm of style is the exact place to play with such flawed ideas that we are drawn back to, despite evidence, despite knowing better.

So, here is a self-contained stoic cocoon made of black wool. It's a coat-weight vest — made from a mix of thicker machine-fulled boiled wool plus some gorgeous wool coating that has a bit of a lovely sheen to it (the bottom petals are made from this - see the close-ups).  Sewn with black exposed serged thread, no closures, billowy pod shape with graceful waffley-honeycomb panels, and of course, all black.

Available here.

Survivor's Field Dress from The Aether Wars: manufacturing artifacts

Survivor's Field Dress from The Aether Wars

You made it. You survived the mythical Aether Wars. You are changed forever, and it shows, even if you have no words for it. Few others will understand you now but when you meet the eyes of someone else who was there, you will know each other without speaking. It marks you but it's not a hardening: instead you are annealed — changed, yes, but still flexible.

This piece is part of a path I'm working on that explores the creation of artificial artifacts. I think we are drawn to things with provenance, with history, drawn to things that show use and wear — even when we know the marks are artificial. No, it's not the wear born of authentic use, which can only manifest with the added element of time. But still, the pull toward it is there. The appeal is real.

The Survivor's field dress is made from roughly hand-dyed linen, in an olive green with a burnished look, as if it was made from an overblown tent that has seen a lot of rain and wind. It's trimmed with olive stitching that is over-stitched with khaki thread. The rough red panel that runs down the center is top-stitched with multiple rows of khaki also, and the edges are frayed. Two peplum-ish side panels have layers of khaki and red stitching and raw frayed details that show through to the bottom layer of natural linen.

Survivor's Field Dress from The Aether Wars, detail