How DID I get to here?
This is something I often ponder. It certainly hasn’t been the result of some carefully crafted and implemented grand plan formulated in childhood. Our journeys often are in no way, shape, or form traveled in straight lines. Mine is no exception. It has been a trip so full of tangents and side trips that I do know this; the most interesting way to get from point A to point B is NOT a straight line, but it is a function of repeatedly hearing:
“You can only go forward. There is no reverse.”
... a sentence heard innumerable times by a 5 year old child learning to sew on a treadle sewing machine which could only straight stitch forward.Being very literal about things at that age it became a mantra –
I can only go forward.
Sewing became knitting, then embroidery, crocheting, and, well you get the idea. My father being a Boy Scout Master I learned how to tie all the knots. In 60’s when everyone was making plant hangers I was right there with them. Years later a macrame wall hanging spurred a move forward – until a nasty jute cord made my fingertips so raw I almost didn’t have fingerprints. I thought to myself, “Never again!”
Note to self- NEVER say never…
As life kept unfolding I would return to skills already learned. Sewing led to tailoring led to pattern making. Discovering polymer clay pulled me forward again into jewelry. Through those connections I bumped headlong into macrame again – but this time with the much gentler silk and nylon. I would get to keep my fingertips AND fingerprints!
Making fiber bezels, creating designs with knots, colors, and beads totally captured my imagination. It never ceases to fascinate and challenge me with endless possibilities. Cabochons, gemstones, beads, colors, materials (if it will hold a knot it may just end up in my next piece), and the combinations of them all. Sometimes I have so many design ideas swirling and dancing in my head I just don’t know where to focus first. The knots returned and finally won.
