avoidance

It is fascinating all the things I fill my time with when I’m avoiding the one thing.

This image is a self portrait layered with a vision spell.

And this vision spell is my desire to sew. Maybe you can make out the dressform over my right eye or the sewing pattern at the bottom left. And smack dab in the middle, is my grandmother’s beautiful cursive with the words ‘sewing machine.’

And therein lies the rub. I do not like machines. Any creative practice involving by a lot of machines or equipment, I’m out. RIP metalsmithing journey.

And so my desire to sew, specifically to sew with my mother’s sewing machine, and to connect with the rich tradition of sewing that is my lineage is bumping right up against my aversion to machines.

And it’s silly really. I have sewn. On a machine. I took a whole semester of costuming and learned the basics of how to sew many moons ago.

I signed up for @cjust’s Make The Work class specifically to nudge myself into this practice that has been calling me for literal years. And yet, I am not indeed ‘making the work.’ Yet.

And because I am no longer in the business of beating myself up about such things, I am looking at myself + my antics with amusement. It’s comical actually the lengths I am going to avoid the thing I say I want to do.

I released the custom-made Marys. 13 handknotted malas.

I made, photographed, listed, + released 2 anniversary pieces and ran a huge sale.

I started a craft coven.

I’ve stayed committed to honoring this winter season with lots of sleep, reading, + general hibernating.

All of these, beautiful things. All of these, not the one thing I said I wanted to spend this winter dedicating myself to.

Resistance is a cunning thing.

To be fair, I am making the tiniest of baby steps.

I pulled out the sewing machine.

My friend Kat came over and taught me how to thread the machine + bobbin + whatnot.

Yesterday I pulled out my old sewing album - a book of samples + step-by-step instructions I made lo those 20ish years ago. Proof that I can indeed do this.

There is a pile of fabric waiting.

And there is a beautiful, beautiful vision.

And that’s not nothing.