Well, better get to it then!
Primordial No. 6, 8 x 8 inches, acrylic on panel, ©2012 Deidre Adams
So back in April, I made a big deal about my new web site/blog design, then I fell off the face of the earth, or so anyone who reads my blog may have thought. I did get a little sidetracked there for awhile by things over which I have very little control. But although I’ve been quiet as far as blogging, I have not been idle. In the 153 days since my last post, I’ve done these things:
- Attended the SDA/SAQA joint conference in Philadelphia March 30–April 1, which was held concurrently with FiberPhiladelphia 2012, an “international biennial and regional festival for innovative fiber/textile art.” There were over 40 exhibitions of top-notch fiber art available to be seen, including the outstanding Inside/Outside the Box. I saw so much great artwork and took so many pictures, I became completely overwhelmed and never got around to posting any of them. I still might at some point, even though it’s super old news now, because the work is just so great.
- Also spent a couple of days in New York with my friend Susan, and saw some art exhibitions there. Plus got to weave my very first scarf in the beautiful weaving studio at the Newark Museum. Susan is a weaver who attends their ongoing weaving series, and on the day I accompanied her to the studio, they very kindly asked me if I’d be interested in making a scarf on a loom that was already warped and ready to go. Who could pass that up!?
- Attended the WARP (Weave a Real Peace) annual meeting & Colorado Weaver’s Day in Boulder. (Am I thinking of taking up weaving when I already have way too many things I like to do? No, not exactly, but I have been thinking about some non-traditional techniques that I might want to experiment with in my work.)
- Finished 21 paintings, to be posted in the coming days. (OK so granted, most of them were really small, but I still claim credit.)
- Reworked 3 older paintings that I had never been satisfied with, and started several new ones.
- Sold and delivered 2 paintings for the new Hospitality Learning Center on the campus of Metropolitan State University of Denver.
- Shipped Composition IX to Taiwan for exhibition at the Taiwan International Quilt Exhibition 2012 during August-October this year.
- Finished works for 2 different fund-raisers; more on those soon.
- Sent in 4 works for the SAQA Showcase exhibition at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, which opened Aug. 3 and runs through Feb. 24, 2013. (photo courtesy International Quilt Study Center & Museum.)
- Finished my piece for Seasonal Palette, a juried exhibition for which selected artists have each made a textile piece depicting a particular season. More on this later.
- Finished 2 textile pieces for possible entry into Quilt National, working on a third, but it’s refusing to cooperate. Deadline is in 6 days.
- Also (note—totally off topic) joined a CSA to get great fresh organic fruits & veggies every week, so I have been learning how to cook – something I’ve never enjoyed until lately, when I just decided no more meat. If the men want meat, they can bloody well cook it themselves. I bought a pressure cooker and dusted off the Cuisinart, and learned how to make hummus, vegetable stock & soups, pesto, pizza dough, and killer pie crust, all from scratch. The peaches have been outstanding this year, so I had to make a couple of pies.
There now, all caught up!
Oh, and just because there is more happening in the world outside of my own little domain, here are some other things that happened in those 153 days:
“June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.” (1)
Devastating drought in the U.S., India, and eastern Europe will mean sharp increases in food prices throughout the world. The dollar value of crops lost in the U.S. alone could reach $20 billion. (2)
About 3,800,000 more people around the world died of hunger or hunger-related causes. (3)
Meanwhile, a study has revealed that the global super-rich are hiding at least $21 trillion (that’s 21,000 billion) in tax havens, with fewer than 100,000 people accounting for almost half of it. (4)
Nearly half a million U.S. homes entered foreclosure. (5)
Companies continue to hoard excess cash, “vastly more cash than is needed to finance their operations,” (6) while the number of jobs added to the economy each month continues to be less than needed to even keep up with population growth. (7)
13,224 people in the United States have died from gun violence, another 27,816 were shot but survived. (8)
In “Support Our Troops!™” news, there are now over 870,000 veterans waiting to hear back from the VA on their disability claims, with delays of over a year in the worst cases. One VA office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had such an immense load of paperwork, it was threatening the structural integrity of the building. (9)
And so on and so forth.
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Why do I bother mentioning all of these terrible statistics? Because I’m so torn about all of this. On some days, I think I really want to try to make a difference in the world, and other days it just seems utterly hopeless. I’ve joined a couple of groups that were working on some activism, but each time it seems people are drawn away and the thing dies a quiet death. I’m not a leader – never have been, never will be. That’s just a fact. Is it enough to just continue to make art that makes me happy? Should I be doing something I don’t enjoy as much but has a more noble intent? Is there some way I can combine all of this? I don’t have an answer. I’m tossing around several ideas for new bodies of work to address my inner turmoil on this, and hope to have something to show you in the not-too-distant future.
great post Deidre! first i am so impressed by your list of accomplishments. wow.wow.wow! secondly i feel exactly the same (is this a surprise no?) as you; this feeling of helplessness for the world’s sorrows and the conflict of how can i help vs living life to my greatest potential. one of life’s great mysteries i fear.
Carol, thanks so much. Yes, I’m sure a lot of us are similarly conflicted. Some have found a way to use art to deal with their feelings. For others, it doesn’t come so naturally. We all do what we can, I guess, or feel guilty if we don’t.
Wow – you cooking? Cool! When is dinner?
Lisa, I know, right? Pretty hard to believe. But tonight is veggie lasagna & garden salad with goat cheese & toasted pine nuts.
Good to get the update and to hear of all the good work you’re doing. Including the political work. And even posting about all of above is a political act.
Deidre, maybe a reframing is in order. Believe me, as a seasoned angry bombthrower/ranter/doomer myself, this advice wil sound like a copout, but it’s how I make it through the day now, wrestling with similar issues. It’s utterly complicated, but the authorities I trust tell me that the Earth as a whole is going through a dimensional shift to a much higher level of vibration. There is a light coming up from underneath which is chasing out all of our dysfunction, personal and systemic. Everywhere we turn, people’s family lives are in intense upheaval. Everywhere we turn, we’re seeing people suffering under systems that have completely lost their legitimacy, yet seem to persist through the combined, joined forces of apathy, inertia and ignorance. Here’s my good news: we don’t have to cause these systems to collapse, they will collapse on their own in their own time. My opinion: spend as much time as you can doing what brings you the most joy, that is what the world needs. When we set up huge oppositional contests between the forces of good and evil, we suffer. Believe me, I have been around this block multiple times and am deeply aware of the depravity of the system the controllers have forced us to accept. Nonetheless, still the best answer I’ve found is to focus your energy as much as you can on the world (the artistic vision?) you wish to create, rather than empowering an adversarial system by fighting against it. I type this because it is advice I neeed to act on myself. If you have the enormous blessings of food, shelter, health, and a little money for supplies, create art. If you can keep an eye occasionally on the progress of a few issues, that’s great, but on balance, we will never successfully fight the forces of darkness. They thrive on the fight itself. When you can, nonviolently refuse to particpate in corrupt systems. Then, mostly work to raise your own level of vibration higher and higher (through doing what you love, being with those you love and through spiritual practice), it’s pretty much all you can effectively control, and you may find that you can’t even control that, but no way to know unless you try. My 2 cents, though you may find them worth less than that!
Eric, what a wonderful and thoughtful response. I’m sure you’re on a higher level than I am because I don’t sense the vibration and light, although it creates a very nice vision that would be more than wonderful if it somehow could come to pass.
But I totally get what you’re saying. I am extremely grateful for what I have, even while at the same time feeling guilty about it knowing there are so many out there suffering. I could give away everything I have, but it would not solve the problem in any way, shape, or form.
You may have a great deal more faith in humanity than I do. I fear things are going to get a whole lot worse before (or if) they get better, due in large part to the “combined, joined forces of apathy, inertia and ignorance” you speak of. If there might be anything I could do to mitigate those forces in even the tiniest of ways, it has to be worth trying, even if I didn’t succeed.
But in the meantime until I can act on that somehow, I do think this is great advice to live by. Thank you.
Strangely enough, for the first time in my life, what I’m expressing is really the opposite of faith in humanity. I am on the road to giving up the idea that everyone is going to get together and finallly sit down and rationally address the problems we face. This is probably because I finally really faced the truth presented by John Taylor Gatto about the real function of the public schools. I will not digress, but suffice it to say that I now understand why all these movements are promising briefly and then fade away, it’s not an accident. Strangely, when I grasped this, I suddenly had a lot of guides turn up in my life who pointed me to a worldview that is much more theistic than I have ever before accepted in a lifetime of atheism/agnosticism/Buddhism/Unitarian/Universalism. I have accepted what I’m calling “functional theism”, and I find that when I have faith in powers that are much greater than ours as individuals on confused, crowded Earth, I become happier and more effective. So, yes, like I said before, it sounds like a copout, and it is a course I would have myself derided as magical thinking not long ago, but I have given up on faith in humanity, including my individual faith that if I only do X,Y,Z then I will finally make it better, and have instead shifted to deepening my relationship with God. And it seems to be working for me, but this such a personal thing, I hope you do not receive this as an attempt to convert, I can’t know what’s right for you. There is no pre-ordained way to do this, and no guarantee it is right for you. I dunno.
Eric, thank you for sharing a small slice of your personal journey. It sounds quite intriguing, and I’ve love to discuss it with you in person some time. I don’t think it sounds like an attempt to convert. We’re all looking for answers, which we must each find for ourselves, but part of doing that is contact with others and sharing of ideas and experiences. So again, I thank you for your thoughtful responses and the very interesting conversation.
I believe that the act of creation itself has a positive effect. And your work is so beautiful, Deirdre. Just keep making, and believing, and thinking, and doing what you know is right. And we must not give in to depression — fall into the darkness. That’s the most all of us can do.
Clairan, thank you for the kind words and for the encouragement. This is good advice for everyone.
Hi Deidre! Thanks for sharing your work and your thoughts with the world! You are an amazing artist and I just love following your journey. You are inspirational and fabulous. Thanks for “taking on the world” for the rest of us who are too lazy to do that! 🙂
Jen
Jen, thank you! This is very high praise, and not at all deserved. I haven’t done anything at all as far as taking on the world. But as for you, “lazy” is the last possible word that would come to mind. Not only are you managing our own successful business, but you’re also very busy as an involved parent raising your beautiful children to be healthy and happy and good citizens of the world. Maybe one or both of them will grow up to make a significant contribution to the advancement of humanity! But no pressure… 🙂
Keep bringing your beautiful art into the world for others to enjoy.