Stray Self Building.
Stray Selves are a self portrait series.
Gosh, a long long time ago... maybe at the beginning of all this... my focus had turned to how and why. How one thing becomes another. Why?
How?... the witnessing.
The story.
Then Why?...the interpretation.
The story.
Confused?
Me too.
What if confusion is Our Voice?
Thinking is a kind of building and lately I am a bit obsessed with considering what we build has a lot to do with what there is to work with. How it can be useful and why we keep at it.
1971 Building
Finding the thread that runs through it helps me.
Old eyes. New eyes.
I'm still dizzy. Maybe I need more eyes.
Great Soul-o photo. Sorry you’re still dizzy, yuck. Nettle tea 8 hour infusion, quercitin and vitamin C are other go-to’s for me in allergy season. Feel better and thanks for all the thoughts to muse on. 🧡
Maybe the spinning will help me lift off…
🙃
Love your words, so resonant of where I am. and Soul-o is a treasure guarding treasures.
I have come to feel that is where we all are!
Your art flows from within you and I could recognize it anywhere! What amazes me is you can add to older pieces and they become More! But still You! So special!
As is Soul-O
My older pieces leave no room to imagine more.. kind of dead end.. done..
I hope to make some that leave room for more!
Not knowing where I am going leaves a lot of paths open, oh ha!
the original latin root of the word “confuse” was “mingle together”. which, of course, brings to mind a basket of thread (or fabric) . so, “finding the thread that runs thru’ it” makes sense to me…
And mingled together we are one big thread nest…
It is the nature of Mind to flood one’s senses. Just allow and be. You will find you no longer need to find your way. Your way is where you are now! But you know this… 🥰
Here we are! I’m swimming in it, you?
Sometimes there’s no “because.” There just “is.”
Maybe not because, but cause
Can confusion become connection as a bowl of tangled thread becomes a stray self?
Such a handsome cat holding down your cloth.
Yes, I trust in exactly that.
Remember when we were little and we asked many questions and were told “Because”….
“Why?”….
I think today I’ll just rest in “because”….
It’s just….being.
I need that moment of rest, sometimes.
I love Soul-O’s expression!
I do remember. My mom was a nurse school teacher and she had great stories…
Two thoughts:
When looking at Soul-o, I had real sense of what a wonderful life it must be for this cat among so many cloths – so many scents and places to rest.
It is amazing to me that since the beginning, your colors have stayed …I don’t know…yours. This ‘Building’, color wise, could be from any era of your work. How cool.
Yeah, he has so many great places to rest.
Color is some kind of sense. Maybe it springs from a core feeling.
Lately so easy to get in information overload, struggling and confused with what to allow. Need a button to flip off, or more thread to stitch a boundary, just be with no guilt or misunderstanding.
Yeah, overload indeed.
My mind is in limbo after finishing… what’s next? and why do I have this need to hand stitch cloth? I wish I knew the ansawers!
Soul-o looks all knowing 😁
Your stray self with the indigo gown and the waves beneath is so calming to me. 💙💙💙
Love the picture of Soul-o. Thinking about words that begin with “con,” including con as a word itself….confusion, conviction (convict), consumption, connect, confluence, consider, conundrum, conflagration. And of course if I check the dictionary there are tons more. 🙂
Are we being conned?😂
And also con-sistency is on my mind.
conspiracy… and consistency is huge in my world. 🙂
wow….Soul-o’s eyes perched atop all of those stitched eyes. It makes him seem all knowing.
I like “maybe to understand that it is confusion is what we got.” I’ve been actually trying to understand situations and realizing the futility in that. But to understand that it’s confusion, that I can do.
If we put all the confusion together, maybe we can build something useful…
I always loved your stray selves and where they go.
I always say that I prefer my (stitched) eyes to be closed when I’m stitching them. Then bravery hits, and I stitch pretty eyes I like to think are only observing, never judging.
it is funny how knowing is so confused with judging isn’t it? Observing, sharing what you think you see, we need that.
Easy to find confusion
But there is the Beauty in it!
Maybe I’m not trying to understand right now. Just moving along like a River, rolling over stones and pebbles…
It’s human nature.
Confusion has become my voice lately — I do understand this.
Maybe to understand that it is confusion is what we got!
I’ve been contemplating about that word confusion since I first read this post. I think it’s a stray thread attached to my shirt that’s going to follow me throughout the day.
that creates a great image in my mind.