Friday, October 3, 2014

family


My parents are the "Fletcher" in my name (as well as my boys') and the foundation on which my sense of family has been built. They are encouraging and supportive and so when I started taking ceramics classes a year (or two?) ago, my dad surprised me by making a custom clay tool. It stamps my initials into the soft clay on the bottom of my work. He is a woodworker but can really make anything he puts his mind to - he's pretty amazing. The stamp works beautifully. He modeled it after my own configuration of hand writing/carving of my initials, but these letter forms are pleasingly clean and simple - beautifully influenced by the materials used.



Dad's stamp also works well on other materials and so I can stamp lightly onto fabric and then stitch over it.



I am working through a stack of pieces - many started quite awhile ago. Some of them have become overwhelmed with my original intention of what I hoped for them to be or mean. When that happens I eventually put them aside and now there's a stack of them - looking all lonely. In the midst of normal family chaos of day to day life it is the meditative stitch that I so often need. So they won't all turn out to be what I originally intended because I am going to lighten their load of intention just a bit. In the end I think cloth just begs to be lived with and useful - part of a family.















If only just a sense of all that can be stitched into what I make then it will be enough. All the comforts, the calm and sometimes chaotic - past and present of home. It's all in there.

6 comments:

  1. Your beautiful stamp is such a familial, loving gift from your father. What a treasure!
    I know what you mean about projects that lose their force and end up on the now what? pile. Your leaf pillow is confirmation that all it takes is a shift in attitude.

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    1. There are going to be lots more cushions in our house because it might be my favorite things to make. : )

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  2. lighten the load of intention . yes. how it might need to go.

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    1. It would do me good to just lighten up in general. Having a cat seems to help.

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  3. what a beautiful cushion and the signature stamp is perfect

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    1. Cushions always end up well-loved. Can never have too many. : )

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