Trying to get a handle on the universe

I'm about to start working on a new rug. I drew this picture and watercolored it many months ago. Since then I've been staring at it every once in a while.

In some ways, the process of making a rug so resembles writing a book. There are long periods of thought, of ambling, rambling through ideas for what I might want to be creating. These long periods can look like wasting time, can resemble daydreaming, often take place during walks around the neighborhood and car drives.

I'm trying to test the strength of my idea--does it have durability? Does it have some odd kind of worth? Will I learn something if I attempt it?

So what does this rug represent? I have no idea. I like circles. I like that when you rug hook you don't have to go in a straight line. I like curving around. I like colors. I like this deep blue--the new Yves Klein exhibit at the Walker shows that I wasn't the only one to like this blue.

I spent a wonderful afternoon dyeing this blue from indigo with my friend Jan. We worked outside and dyed wool and then t-shirts and whatever we could get our hands one--blue. Dyeing with indigo is real magic. The dye bath is kind of the color of Mountain Dew--pea yellow/green. You put the fabric in and it too becomes yellowy. Then, after a few minutes, when you pull it out and the air hits it, it turns blue.

Peter calls this rug Earth and Sun. He thinks they're colliding. That's not how I see it. I see them as two balls of energy, happily co-existing in a swirling blue universe.

Deep in the Trees

I went down to Stockholm this weekend, the weather was outrageously beautiful, and I had to go to a board meeting at the Lake Pepin Art and Design Center. I stopped into my house and then went for a long walk in the woods. The hunters aren't out yet, so the woods are relatively safe. I still wore my red plaid hat and clapped my hands to tell all I was coming.

I walked along the field road at the top of Hap Palmberg's open land, tucked in right under the bluffs and under the treeline. About a block down this dirt track, I saw large creatures moving in amongst the trees. There were about ten horses, saddled up, and tied to trees, hidden in the woods.

Just one of those moment when you get a wonderful surprise, a gift. Dark horses staring at me out of the woods. They neighed, I clapped, we watched each other until we could see no longer.

They were still there when I walked back. Again the nods and nickers. About an hour later, I saw a group of people saddle up and ride, not down into the town, but up into the bluffs. All I can figure is that they had come down for lunch and lived somewhere up on the farmland above.

You never know what you're going to find when you go for a walk in the woods.

Time to Sleep

After my first day on the art tour, I arrived back at my house in Stockholm, WI, to find the phone machine beeping at me, telling me there was a message. It was from Peter. I had an offer on a book. A picture book. A story I had been gently working on for a few years, tweaking and honing. About a little girl who isn't sleepy. Her parents are understanding. They know some nights are like that. But they move her toward bed. She wonders if everything has to sleep. They discuss this.

I won't tell you the ending. No spoilers here.

So all day long I sold my mystery books and my scarves and showed people how to hook a rug. Then, that night, I sell a story from my heart.

This selling stuff is hard work. It's emotional. It's stressful and energizing. It's a part of our work.

Unlike my little girl I was very tired that night. After a dinner of chili and wine, I talked with my sister Dodie about the day. We both fell into bed tuckered, ready to sleep our fill so that we could be up and at 'em the next day, selling those small pieces of our lives—in picture or story form. As they say, priceless.

Fresh Art Tour Oct. 1-3, 2010

This weekend, starting on Friday, I will be happily working away in a barn.

Barbara McIlrath, a wonderful painter, has invited my sister Dodie, and friends Harriet LeVian, Holly Swift, all three painters, and my lucky self to sell our work in the main part of her barn on the Fresh Art Tour. This tour has been going on for many years and circles around Stockholm, Durand and Pepin, featuring numberous artists who make baskets and bowls, spoons and books.

I will demonstrating rug hooking and selling the natural-dyed scarves I make with my niece Juliet Morris, who will also be there, helping us all.

And then there's the barn. It is a work of art, with hand-hewn beams and enormous sliding doors. Just spending time in this space will feel like a gift.

The weather is supposed to be perfect, the leaves are starting to turn and might well be in full flush, and as an extrovert, I probably won't get tired of talking until well into Saturday. We're saving the wine until Sunday afternoon.

Come join us if you can!

Re-viewing the Loft

Friday night I gave a presentation with Pete Hautman (my guy), Deborah Keenan (poet/friend), and Mary Rockcastle (dean/novelist/buddy) at Hamline University for the publication of Views from the Loft. This is wonderful compilation of essays that was written over the last thirty-plus years for the newsletter of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, called, you might have guessed: A View from the Loft.

Besides reading other essays by some of my favorite writers, including Yehuda Amichai, Larry Sutin, Kate DiCamillo, and Jim Moore, I re-read my old essay: "Writing about the Mysteries of Life." I wrote this essay a good seventeen years ago and it was better than I thought it might be. It's a story that I've told many times and will probably continue to tell until I bite the big one—how I've come to write mysteries.

And so I thought I'd quote a bit of it in this blog:

" It flabbergasts me that some people disdain mysteries. But then, I'm also amazed when some writers think they've accomplished something by writing a complicated, erudite sentence that no one understands. Good writing is about telling stories, and confusion is not the same as mystery. Mystery is when everything is painfully clear: the sky is immensely blue, the land is covered with hills and valleys, and the person you most love in the world is dead at your feet. How could this have happened? Mysteries are not meant to be solved but explored—just as when someone dies, we are meant to feel it, not get over it."

The line I keep in my back pocket and pull out whenever there's a need for it is: Confusion is not the same as mystery.

Blessings to the Loft for creating a community of writers that is still thriving today.

School Starts

I taught my first class of the fall semester last night. When I left school at nine o'clock, it was dark outside. I walked across the Hamline campus feeling the new energy as students ran past me on their way to somewhere.

The longer I teach, the more I realize how important and fun it should be, the more I think about teaching. I've taught for many years and never gave it much thought. That doesn't mean that I didn't put a great deal of effort into my teaching. It's just that I never thought much about what it means to be a teacher. How I'm meant to gently poke my students. Make them go further than they think they can.

This morning, I taught a swimming class of 3- to 6-year olds. For the first time a tiny dark-haired three-year-old boy jumped into the deep end of the pool all by himself. He bobbed up in the water puffed up with pride for what he had done.

Last night we started out the class writing a scene in which our main characters realize they want something--desperately.

Curl your toes over the edge of the pool and jump. The water is deep and full of wonder.

Corn Dog at the Minnesota State Fair

The end of summer in Minnesota is marked by the state fair, which goes until Labor Day. The next day is the first day of school. I worked at the fair--first as a bus girl in a smorgasbord, then as a cashier, then as a manager of a waffle shop. I learned how to cram the most food on a tray--cover the whole plate with mashed potatoes, a good foundation for the sloppy food.

I still go to the fair every year—early in the morning and by myself. I am waiting at the door of the Fine Art pavillion when it opens. Anyone who lives in Minnesota can enter a piece in one of 8 categories, which include painting, ceramics, glass, etc. and also fiber arts. My rug featuring animals from Lake Pepin made it in this year. While it's not that small (over four feet long), it's definitely crooked.

I figured out early on that I don't like straight lines. One of the wonderful things about hooking is that it's not weaving and it's made for curves. Even my geometric rug, which took second place in its category in the Creative Activities, is not straight. The Navajos are said to have purposefully put mistakes in their rugs as only god can make something perfect, but I go a few steps further. I want my humanness to show through, to be what the rug is about. I love how the hand naturally draws things with a sway.

For me crookedness isn't a mistake, it's a gift. It is a way into a piece, an admission of the rolling of the world. Why take the gentleness of a curve out of your work--be it rugs, or drawings, or stories? Emily Dickinson wrote her rhymes "slant." She left the door wide open.

As I was leaving the fair, I ate my yearly corn dog. Just an excuse to enjoy mustard and ketchup.