Embroidery IS What I am Talking About Here

Influence. . being open. . .acceptance: these are things I think about. Picasso is a great mentor if you are searching for someone to make sense of the struggle of being true to yourself. From him I receive encouragement to go with the flow.
If you live on a mountaintop, isolated from all you have ever known, all of the support systems you cultivated over the years, the question is. . .where is there nourishment for your soul? The art spirit that lives inside one, somewhere,  needs sustenance. Yes, the reasons for choosing to live this way are valid and worthy. You know this intellectually. The layers added on top of the previous existence are worth everything, to me. The people I know now are lovely. The children I work with teach me more than I teach them. The natural beauty surrounding here is breathtaking and full of wonder. Nourishment is here and now.
I am thinking about what is real. What is illusion. I worry that I will not need a physical body if I live to be 400 years old.
I attended a local art show a while back. It is not what I am normally viewing at major galleries and museums around the world. It is local What happened to local?
I saw something in this that set me on a new path. I find this interesting. The influence of seeing one piece in the show sparked something inside that carries me forward, today.
Years ago, I was in a show of narrative pieces by three women, a painter, a photographer, and myself as the sculptural person. We all tell stories. I worked in porcelain and fiber rescued at flea markets, I will call that my cocoon period because the figures I created were cocoons with objects wrapped inside that no one will ever see. The faces were of porcelain clay sculpted by hand. I always had the feeling that I was meeting someone new when the face appeared. The wrappings were of antique or vintage lace and linen. I would embellish with beaded work and embroidery. I smile inside when I think that these pieces are all over the place and wonder if they like their homes?

Embroidery is what I am really talking about here. That show that I saw recently sent me looking for techniques to add to my bag of tricks, using a machine as a paintbrush. Thread painting is what I call this method of madness.  It is something to use my machines this way. My computer and the painting and graphics programs I use and the camera and other techie tools allow me the opportunity to play and make decisions about the images I feel would be worth the time and effort involved in doing a thread painting.
I am writing this off of the top of my head (interesting phrase if you stop to think about it) :) therefore
improvisation is crude, at least in this. The good part is that I am sharing my random thoughts with all of the art spirits out here in our virtual community. That is a good thing for me to do, a bit like yodeling across the alps, what you send out. . . your hear back,  but it is only your own voice.
In this is where the problem lives. or not.

So anyway, embroidery, thread painting, beading, seems to be my thing right now, along with knitting but that is a practical thing, you know, clothing to wear.

I hope all of you are well and working.