Tag: pandemic

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Imperfection…

“It’s a bad day, not a bad life…”

The Pandemic has been teaching us a lot of hard lessons, every single one of us. I’m no exception. This last year I’ve been doing things I don’t normally do, things I’m not always comfortable with. Driving, for one. For years I didn’t drive, though I kept my license up, mostly because when I was single it was the choice between owning a cheap vehicle that I’d have to keep paying to fix and park and gas up, or rent for a decent apartment and having some savings.  I chose the neighborhoods I did partly out of love or civic virtue, but also for decent mass transit or walkability to stores, work, friends. That instinct paid off in the beginning of the Pandemic, since mass transit became less safe , and happily I could walk to my job for a while. But once my sweetheart had his stroke, I was the only one that could drive, which scared me since I was so out of practice. It also scared me because when I was young I lost a family member to a bad car accident, and it imprinted on my young brain early on that Driving Was Serious Scary Stuff.  So every time I got into the car, my first feeling is always a deep sinking in my stomach and a quiet voice going, “Ohhhh shit oh shit oh shit…”

I’ve gotten better, with some practice. But I’m still really nervous, even with small victories like Parking Garages and Driving In Uptown and A Decent Parallel Parking Job. I keenly feel my imperfections. I had a minor meltdown when I got done with a driving run to Matt’s doctor’s appointment because I ran an unexpected stop sign because a streetlight was out.  Lucky me, nothing bad happened, but I felt so disappointed in myself.  It took me a while to realize that today was the anniversary of that family member’s death, so naturally driving was going to freak me out a little more than usual. It helps a bit knowing that. And that imperfection doesn’t have to be tied to things like mortality…

This fear of imperfection happens in other things I do. Paintings, embroideries, yarns, knitting. Sometimes projects just go wrong. Sometimes it’s an easy fix, sometimes it’s just time to throw in the towel for a while, stuff it in a bag and forget about it until you’ve got the strength to look at it again. But it used to be so much worse. Oddly enough, I have the Pandemic to thank for that switch in how I approach all of that now. When it really kicked in how much trouble we all were in and how long we would be locked down, I looked at a lot of my art supplies, stuff I was “saving for something good” and said to myself, “Well? You have to start using it up now, because there’s a good chance you may not get the opportunity to later if things go badly.”  And it didn’t matter as much if I messed something up. If I didn’t do something with what I had, it wouldn’t get done at all. When Matt got sick, I had a similar thought that kept coming back.”So what if you made a crappy dinner, or didn’t park perfectly at the doctor, or any of that? It’s better than nobody doing it at all, isn’t it?”

So even though I struggle with the concept of imperfection, that’s my mantra now. Even if it’s a hot mess, it’s way better than nothing at all. Things will improve. You will improve.  I will improve. And if we don’t, that’s going to have to be okay, because there’s not a lot of choices sometimes.  Perfection can be the enemy of the good. Don’t let it be your enemy too…

(Edit: In this post, I’m using the phrase, “Perfection is the enemy of the good” outside of it’s original context. While I appreciate it’s original message, personally it’s a message that isn’t doing me any favors lately, so I chose to flip it on it’s head. It seemed to confuse a few of my readers, so I figured I’d address it with an explanation. And also…imperfection. That’s me, all right…)

 

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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…

 

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The Gothmas Tree…

Welcome, my friends, to December!! Usually the time of year where we crowd together for warmth and cosyness, share gifts and food, and see who gets taken out first in the glorious game of Whammagheddon!  Sadly, this year is a little different. And it should be. The Covid numbers are so high in my state right now, the only sensible thing to do is to stay home, mask up and try like crazy not to get infected. And those of us who are trying to do exactly that are doing their best to make their homes a little more comforting and welcoming, to get us through this season. Here at Chez Cohen, we put up our tree a little earlier than usual, because we both love the twinkly lights and the fun of putting on or making ornaments. And, while I appreciate the wonder of a well-curated tree…my festive offerings are a little more,shall we say, whimsical. So, behold the Gothmas Tree!

Yippee ki-yi-yay…

Every year is a little bit different, but it’s always weird. There’s usually at least one skeleton hiding in the branches. There’s always at least one Cthuhlu ornament(and sometimes several), a couple of angry (but festive!) Daleks, and a wide variety of ornaments made by us or by loving friends. This year, I added green blinky eyeball lights to the purple and white light scheme we’re using this year, and as the month chugs along I’m planning on making more ornaments. (maybe with still photos from other films I consider “Christmas” movies, like “Prometheus” or “The Thing’) It definitely makes our living room a little more fun, and if you peek in the windows at our tree, you’ll find our tree peeking right back at you…

Making Gothmas, Making Gothmas, Lalalaaaa!

What are the other holiday plans? Good question. Mostly being very quiet, making as many interesting things as possible, and staying healthy. This moment in time feels a lot like the interlude in any zombie movie where people are holed up trying to distract themselves any way they can while the shuffling undead hordes roam around outside, howling and hungering. All I want for the holidays is for as many of us to be safe and well as possible. Anything else Santa brings me this year is frosting on the cake…

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My pastime is making midnight mushrooms…

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting this autumn and winter to look like, way back in March when things started getting crazy in earnest. I know there was a big difference between what I was hoping for and what was actually going to happen. Sure enough, another lockdown seems to be barrelling it’s way towards us, and even if it isn’t formally announced, I think the smartest thing to do is to hunker down again.  Anything I can do to help keep people safe seems like a no-brainer to me, and I’m still frustrated and frightened by all those people out there who can’t even do the most basic stuff to keep other people healthy.  Not least because we’re such a vulnerable household right now. This is the time period I was the most nervous about when I was still working with the public, and right now I’m grateful beyond words that I can stay home over the winter. I realized it’s a lucky, priviledged position to be in, and while I feel some real guilt, I fight it with relief that my chances of giving somebody I care for Covid are so much less this way.

So I’ve been preparing with Matthew for a long, quiet winter.  It’s mostly the usual winter prep, with caulking and plastic over the older windows in the house, and leaves and burlap over the more sensitive plants outside. The pantry just got restocked; I have canned peaches for ages. The fresh stuff gets delivered to the house, and wiped down carefully. And apart from doctor’s appointments and whatnot, neither of us go out. Thanksgiving and Gothmas are being spent here at home, pestering our loved ones on the phone as much as possible.  I’ll miss my sweet people, but what else can we do?

For extra cosiness and a spot of cheerful light for the darkest part of the winter, I’ve been putting plants in the dining room, with a full-spectrum light for the really dark days, it’s turned into a pretty cosy place to eat or write or play with various crafting supplies.

Yeeeees, I put an Audrey in the dining room window.  It’s going to stay there all winter long!

I’ve also been busting out extra crafting supplies for projects over the winter. I stressed out my knee, so instead of using the spinning wheels for a bit, I thought I’d have some fun sculpting a few things, like toadstools…

*Not recommended for ingesting. Because you’ll break your teeth.*

So I feel like here, we’re ready to hide from the world again for a while. At least this time we don’t have the shock of the first lockdown, wondering what was going to happen. We know what’s going on a little better, and with the new vaccines coming up there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if we can get there. But first we have to get there, which means staying the hell out of the way. Please, everybody, please be careful,  I want to see you all again soon. You all deserve good health and safety, and I can’t wait to see you all online until we can have better days…

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Aggressively Cosy…

My dear friends, I gotta say, I’m grateful beyond words that I have so many requests for embroidered fun! Quite a few people have gone into the shop lately and messaged me with things like, ‘Hey, where are all those delicate swears you keep making? I don’t see any!” That’s because they seem to fly out the door as soon as I can make them! (If you *are* craving something you’ve seen me doing and don’t see it in the shop anymore, drop me a line! I’m happy to make something, just for you!)

Honestly, I need all of those flying F’s I can make. And apparently others do too.

It’s a comfort to me, besides all the swearing and stabbing. I am the luckiest duck that I can stay home right now and do this, After saying that, though, I will admit that there it’s still a bit spooky for me. My proper “working life” was so regimented, and I’m still adapting to this new life, even months later. I have a fair amount of anxiety anyway, so sailing in these uncharted waters is such a departure from the life of a uniformed Guardian of Culture. I still have dreams about going back to work at the museum. I miss the art, and my coworkers. But the payoffs are better than I expected. I’m up to my eyebrows in commissions, Redbubble sends me a check every now and then, and my sweet fellow’s health improves every day. I have a lot to be grateful for.

And all of you sweet people are part of this strange new life. I’m grateful beyond words for you. Because of you I get to experiment, and play with new art forms. And every day I learn a little bit more, and can bring that knowledge with me into some new idea that probably never would have happened otherwise.

Acorns? Acorns! Alas, this pretty thing already has a home. But I’m definitely making more!

Anyway, thank you. Thank you so much for your love, your anticipation of whatever strange idea I come up with, and your company. It’s always better to travel an unfamiliar road with friends…

 

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Love, and Fear in the time of Plague

Hello, lovely readers! I hope you’re all staying well and healthy out there, wearing masks diligently and being very careful.  These days I always feel more and more like I’m quoting a Jane Austen novel when I talk to people, since I’m always asking after their health. So, what have I been doing recently, since COV is the party guest that just won’t leave? I’ve still been at home on family medical leave with my husband, who’s still recovering from his stroke. Recently he’s had Botox injections in his arm and leg, and it seems to really help his spasticity there a lot. But there’s still a long way to go. We stick very close to home, apart from rehab appointments and doctor’s visits, but we’re both painfully aware that it wouldn’t take much to get unlucky and get infected. I’m hoping like crazy our luck holds until a vaccine is available in the far-flung future. I just want to get us both to 2021 in one piece.

Meanwhile, in between doing helpful things for Matt, I’ve been making more masks for loved ones. Cooking a lot. Cleaning a lot, but never enough, really. I’m investing more time and energy for things to put in the webshop. I’ve been absorbing Youtube tutorials and lectures to keep my mind busy.  But I’m avoiding things like restarants and bars like, well, the plague. Can you blame me? Every time I see the numbers go up from a bunch of partiers at a bar or another spreading event, I end up muttering, “Oh nooooo, so much no; every single no!” to myself. It’s much better to sit on the back patio with a spindle and some wool, and just have a quiet time spinning and keeping Matt company.  After all that time apart in the hospital, I appreciate his presence even more than I did before he got sick and before all this happened.

And there’s the occasional Zoom chat with people. One of the most recent was a friend of a friend offering a lecture about how to deal with “fear as an entrepreneur”. I decided to give it a shot, since I have a (painfully small and wee) business and could always use good advice, but it was a terrible trainwreck. It started out reasonable, if somewhat canned, elitist and a bit disorganized, until one of the guest speakers started ranting about how “masks don’t really work; they’re just there to comfort people, and also criminals are using them to hide their faces during their criminal acts!”  I couldn’t facepalm hard enough as I quickly hit “leave session” as speedily as I could.  Funny enough, it didn’t really help me with my fears of keeping income coming during a pandemic, and gave me an extra fear of that anti-mask lady who’s out there probably picking fights at Kowalski’s and spraying rage-spit all over the produce.So, not as helpful as I had hoped, alas. Plus, the whole tone of the meeting was oddly dismissive of fear, the way people can be if they feel like nothing really bad is ever going to affect them personally.

Honestly, I feel like fear has it’s lessons to teach. Fear makes you pay attention to your surroundings. Fear makes you think hard about your actions. Fear makes you vigilant about consequences. Fear makes you appreciate what you have, while you have it.  I feel as long as you can embrace fear as a friend with something important to tell you, it’s not something that needs banishing or something that makes you weak or cowardly. I really wish the Zoom meeting had covered some of that. (To be fair,  maybe it did, after I noped out during the ranting. But somehow I doubt it.)

I scream. You scream. We all scream. Because we’re all still pretty freaked out about everything happening around us, every single day. But it’s okay to be afraid. That just means we’re paying attention. And if we are, that gives us all a better chance to get through to the next day, and the next, and the one after that. And that’s useful, in it’s odd way.  Also, take a break. Get out some yarn and play with it. Draw something stupid. Take a nap. Make a cup of tea you like. Let your fear make you pay attention to the things you love…

And when we all get to the other side of all this craziness, I am hugging you all so very hard…

 

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Vintage skills, modern needs…

Skulls and flowers, Pandemic edition…

Hello, my dears, and I hope you and yours are staying safe and feeling well.  These days our strategies for this are all over the map, from being able to shelter in place to having to navigate a potential dangerous landscape daily in order to keep body and soul together. I hope whatever you have to do to stay safe is working out okay, and I hope we all can keep it up until better days come…

For myself, I’m kind of a mixed bag. I still report to my workplace, but far less frequently, and I’m kept abreast of things more and more by online communications. When I’m physically at The Jade Mines I channel my inner Howard Hughes with disinfecting, washing, masking and gloving. Everything I touch gets wiped down, or I wash myself, or both. I never talk to another coworker without a mask on, and most of them have masks too. A few days a week we have fun online lectures about art in the galleries, newsletters from our director and our personal department, and a handful of coworkers keep reaching out to me to see how I’m doing, and vice versa. Eventually we’ll reopen, and I’m still trying to picture what that’s going to look like for us. I try not to let the uncertainty and fear get the upper hand, but I won’t lie, there are bad days. I worry about my friends, my family members, strangers I admire, and everybody still out there holding things together as best they can. And I’m going to keep worrying as long as this goes on, because that’s how I’m wired…

So what do I do when I’m not at the Jade mines? I’m trying hard to keep busy. There’s a lot of new yarns to put up in the shop now, and I’m so grateful for the kind folks who have stopped by for a look. I’ve been making embroideries too, and am surprised both by their happy receptions and by how fun they are to make. (So far all the ones I’ve finished are spoken for, but there’s a few ideas for embroideries to offer in the shop soon.) I’ve been painting a bit, and sketching a bit, here and there. And like just about everybody else, I’ve been baking. One thing I’ve expanded this spring is my garden–I have a large garden trough to keep tasty plants away from ravenous wild beasties, and I’ve been growing little scraps of veggies and fruiting plants in the kitchen…

Tiny green onions in a skull shotglass make me so happy!

I’ve also been hand sewing things, with helpful Youtube tutorials from loads of helpful people, and hypnotizing my friends with short videos of my spinning on a support spindle…

You are getting sleeeeeepy…because spinning is preeeeetttyyyy…

All these activities, besides being soothing and interesting, are actively helpful right now. All those handsewing tutorials helped me make masks for myself and for my family and friends. (Also I can now whip up a decent skirt and repair my clothes when I need to.. Thanks, Bernadette Banner!) The baking has it’s own rewards. (Lemon pound cake? Yes, please!) The spinning wheels help with my exercise routine as well as help me plow through my fiber stash, The embroideries lift my mood and help fine tune my fingers. The gardening comforts me and feeds me a little. (Right now it’s a very, very little. It’s still chilly here in Minnesota. But I’m looking forward to salad and eggplants, hot peppers and lots and lots of onions in the garden.) and I’m also glad to see other people doing the same thing I am; trying out older skills and fine-tuning them to help get through an increasingly worrisome modern world.

I hope we all get through okay to the other side of everything. And I’m taking everything I’ve been learning with me to the world on the other side of the pandemic, whatever that will look like. I hope you will too. Stay safe and be well…