Author: Michelle

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A day in March…

It’s March. Again. Just like last year, except as different as it’s possible for anything to be…

Last March was a completely different world from the one I live in now. It was when all those whispered concerns about a new virus flowing through our communities became a fact; a fact you couldn’t ignore or get away from, no matter how hard some people tried.  We were all sizing up how disruptive this new situation was going to be, how dangerous Covid would be for us, and what we could do to protect ourselves. How bad could it be? It’ll just be a couple of weeks of weirdness, and then everything will be okay again, right? *Insert horrified laughter from the future right here.*

There were a lot of things I thought were possible, and I tried to plan for whatever came our way here at home. I stocked up on food, learned to stitch masks, washed everything I could think of washing. I stayed away from people as best I could. I figured if I was careful, I could keep plugging away at my job and stay as safe as I could until everything blew over and some kind of normality could come back.  But there were a few things that happened that weren’t on my 2020 Bingo card. Civil unrest and a bad family emergency changed my strategy drastically, and for about 6 months so far I’m…here, at home. It was just the safest thing I could do to help my small family unit get to better days.  I’m grateful I get the opportunity to do this, to be home and make whatever art I can and to help my husband regain his health. He’s recovering well, which makes me happy beyond belief, but there’s still a bit of a road to walk through still. As things get safer, then I can think about what comes next for us. It was and remains a strange feeling, not to haul myself up out of bed and hustle off to work, full of people and tasks and noise.

If it weren’t for the still-terrifying crisis we’re still in…this life is wonderful. I wake up early, have breakfast with Matt and start setting up in the corner of the dining room I’ve occupied most of the winter. It’s sunny there, with lots of plants, and it’s a soothing place to be when it’s cold and blustery outside. There’s embroideries to work on; commissions or just odd things out of my head, strange little cloth and thread experiments. There’s painting up in my “office”, and up in the guest room/studio I keep my acrylic painting projects. I take breaks when I need to, I make tea, I eat lunch, I go back to stabbing for spinning or knitting or saying, “Hey, those beads would look really cool if I added them to the mushroom embroidery!” People have been so great about their love for the embroideries, and for yarns, paintings, and and for whatever my strange little head comes up with. I want to keep doing this for a while more. I want to keep giving people something to make them smile. I want to keep imagining things and stitching them down on cloth so they can’t get away. I want to keep doing that strange alchemy from fluffy fleece to warm, knitted object. I want to hold up a watercolor and yell, “Ya wanna stick this on your fridge, don’tcha?” And I plan to keep exploring new ways to keep the goodness coming. I’ve always produced artwork and projects while I was working full time, but I am just honestly astounded at the difference being at home makes for my output. Not just having more time to work on things, but because I’m not as physically and mentally tired, my brain can tackle things that before would have made me groan and go, “Nope, not doing that, at all,” It’s more of a surprise than it should be, I think.

There’s an old saying, “Even the worst storm washes up some wood on the beach.” Before the Pandemic started, there were so many things I hadn’t tried artistically, or had neglected for years. Now I feel like I have so much more to share with you all, weird and funny visions and stories and how-to’s. I’ll tackle as many of them as I can this year, as we inch closer to a safer life for everybody. I don’t know what the future will look like, but for now it’ll be nice to keep making interesting things until then…

And thank you, kind friends, for being such supportive people. You’ve made a strange, lonely time much more bearable, and I hope I’ve done that for you too…

 

 

 

 

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The cathartic nature of delicate swears…

When new people come to my page and look over the shop and especially the gallery, they will see cute flowers, spooky cobwebs, knitted cosyness, and lots and lots of yarn. But they also see…the swearings. What I like to call, “The Delicate Swears”.  They’re often tiny, but not always; sometimes they fill a large frame with flowers and sweetness and a big fat “What the Fuck” in the center.  They can be a little jarring if you’re not expecting them. I’ve gotten a little criticism here and there about “Do you really have to make these vulgar things, Madam?” My answer, is, “Oh yes. I most certainly do. I will make twice as many of them now, and you can see yourself out. Asshole…”

It all started innocently enough. When the Pandemic started,  I had just begun playing around with embroidery. I was admiring so many beautiful things in frames that other people had done. Whimsical things, picture perfect things, shimmering translucent things…and saucy, saucy things. I knew in the abstract that embroidery had come a very long way indeed, but I was delighted by all of it. And then I tried my hand at a few myself. Small things. Tiny frames full of little flowers, with something extra expressive in the middle. Large, swooping lines of beautiful vines, with “This is Bullshit” or “Fuck This Shit” in the middle. Roses, lavender, clover, tansy, all with something scathing in there somewhere.  And my friends kept asking for more, and more…

Why is it so satisfying to have a good, sweary embroidery? Why is it so satisfying to make them? Because it is, it really is. Every time I make something with a lot of cussedness in it, I’m delighted with myself. And honestly, it’s cathartic as hell to stab something ear-searing into some linen. It’s been such a long, hard year, and people are so very, very, burned out, frustrated and just over all of it. And yet, it still goes, chugging along. The Pandemic, the unrest, the weather, trying to have a normal life in the face of the most un-normal year we’ve had in our lifetimes. It’s sometimes nice to have a small piece of something pretty that agrees with your frustration, that validates it. That little circle with “Goddammit All Anyway” is now your very bestest friend.

Also…we’re home more. So very, very, very much more. We’ve been looking at the walls of wherever we’re living for a very long time indeed. Here in The House of Maus, we’re both high risk for bad Covid outcomes, so we’ve been living a lockdown kind of life since last March. There’s been bouts of decorating mayhem here and there, to have something new to see every day. I remember when I was a museum guard, that feeling when somebody brought in a new piece of art to display. It was like your birthday; something new to see and appreciate! Something you haven’t already been staring at for months and months! And loads of people have wanted something new to see, something pretty and crassly cheerful. I know I have.

And I think the best part is, people want something made for them by somebody they like. Something that the megasites online can’t give them, something that isn’t a prefab piece of plastic that gets the heave-ho once it stops being fun anymore. It’s more comforting to know that maybe somebody was thinking of you, personally, when they were stabbing in that “Try Not To Murder Anyone Today”embroidery.  That embroidery knows you.  How you’re feeling. What you need to hear to get through the day. How much swearing you secretly do during a Zoom meeting. That embroidery gets you.

It’s really hard for me to keep the swears in the shop, they tend to fly out the door pretty quickly. But I feel like I need to keep up the stabbing. We all still have a long, hard road ahead of us, and only a pocketful of really good swears will get us out of our personal funks for a while. I promise, I will do my part…

 

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Winter Delights…

Hello, my dears! I know, it’s been a little while since I posted anything here. Mostly I was enjoying a quiet break here at Chez Cohen with my sweet fellow, my sweet cats, and my growing pile of things to make. I’ve been kept very busy with little projects (and big projects) of all kinds, and I’m absurdly gratified by all the kind friendship and out-and-enthusiam when I present something new. Because of all of these people, I’ve been able to not just bring in a little money but also to keep my spirits up. December was rough for everybody this year. It was cold and dark, lonely and seemingly never-ending. We were away from our friends and family and loved ones, and trying like hell not to get sick. More and more of us have lost friends or family or colleagues to Covid, and we’re all still attempting to navigate this world now so full of obstacles.  So the things that have been getting us all through are sometimes small, quiet moments of fun…

What counts as those moments for me? Well, there are the usual bits. I have new paints to try out and appreciate and make a mess with. The cupboard is well stocked with tea from Society du The’ and Mrs Kelly’s Tea. I’ve been trying to read to Matt before bed, since it helps us both wind down and sleep. (The book at the moment? “Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters”. ) Besides scouring Netflix for distractions, I’ve also been avidly hunting down Youtube channels and stumbling onto wonderful, rare gems worth sharing. Pinsent Tailoring, Dominic Noble, Rachel Maksy, Cathy Hay and the Banner siblings (Bernadette and Dani banner) have really made my days brighter, and taught me so much. Cinema Therapy is a great Youtube series, walking us through all kinds of relationship woes using movies. When I need a lift, I go play something from Gunship’s youtube channel, and their videos are an 80’s nostalgia joy. On Spotify I search for all the 80’s Goth channels when I need to get out of my head and into a mopier time where I wore a *lot* more eyeliner than I do now…

Recently I’ve been trying out online crafting days with friends, which has gone enormously well. There’s a whole lot of lockdown still going on out there, and a lot of crafting supplies to use up. It’s just really nice to have that company, catching up with everyone and seeing what they’re working on in real time.

And now that it’s January? I feel like we have things we can hope for. There’s more vaccines out there. Spring is coming. (Not soon, not exactly. But stil! Spring!) I’ve been wallowing in seed catalogs, trying to imagine what the back yard could look like this year. I just had a birthday, and turned 50. Fifty!! It blows my mind that I’ve made it this far, especially after this last year. And today I watched the swearing in of Joe Biden and Kamela Harris, which made me so very, very happy. Better days are coming for us all. We just have to keep going on, finding our joys and cradling the things we love to us…

A drawing I did recently was of Arachne, one of the patron spirits of spinners, weavers and anyone who loves the fiber arts. She became a spider, after contesting with Athena at weaving, but has learned to appreciate small beautiful webs in quiet corners, away from chaos and unfairness and grief. Not a bad lesson for the rest of us, as least for a little while…