dutiful (1 &2)
each 44" x 30"
graphite on paper
2010
.
Showing posts with label sylvia plath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sylvia plath. Show all posts
Oct 7, 2010
Jul 13, 2010
two days
or three... if you count the rest of today. that's what you've got if you want/need to submit work to the Plath Project poet Christine Hamm in putting together. check it out here.
this is an awesome project. one that really needs to happen. submit! submit! submit!
this is an awesome project. one that really needs to happen. submit! submit! submit!
Jul 1, 2010
my practice has multiple personality disorder
today is all headless dolls and glitter...
fixed stars
22" x 30"
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2010
the little dots all around their feet are orbs of gold and black glitter on a velvet ground of black gouache. their shoes are bright, sparkling silver.
shining things are hard to photograph.
i'm thinking of sylvia plath and wanting to read The Bell Jar. again. :)
the title comes from her poem "Words".
fixed stars
22" x 30"
mixed media on paper
angela simione, 2010
the little dots all around their feet are orbs of gold and black glitter on a velvet ground of black gouache. their shoes are bright, sparkling silver.
shining things are hard to photograph.
i'm thinking of sylvia plath and wanting to read The Bell Jar. again. :)
the title comes from her poem "Words".
Jun 25, 2010
thinking thinking thinking
last night, after an all-day painting session and a little bit of writing at the end, i started thinking about Sylvia Plath. actually, i had thought about her, off and on, all day. about The Bell Jar- what it is. i mean, in terms of genre. it's autobiographical. it's a novel. it is listed as "fiction".
and i started thinking about tags and terms and how every label has a drawback. and it seems like, in spite of their popularity (or because of it), the tag "memoir" or "autobiography" draws a lot of angst from the literary community. it is accused of being "easy" and "lazy". and i think that's really sad and very strange. it presumes that documenting real events, injecting the emotions and fears and anxieties of the time, is an easy task. it also assumes that a person's life has been picturesque, that the problems they faced were no big deal. it's very minimizing. and that's without saying anything about a writer's skill: the dedication required to wrap the reader up in your own history and let them live it as you lived it. the honesty that that requires. and bravery. the whole process is an act of overcoming humiliation. and doing so with beautiful words. or ugly words. whatever is necessary, craft is employed.
but nevertheless, the assumption that memoir and creative non-fiction are some how easier than other forms of writing. i say, skill is skill. and so i wonder... is that why The Bell Jar is in the fiction department? yes, names have been changed to "protect the innocent", but if that's really the only difference between your history and your story, is that a big enough change to call it fiction? i'm sure this is a question that gets wrestled with a lot.
and so i got out of bed and got my copy of The Bell Jar (it's always out on the shelf, not tucked in a row) so i could remind myself how the story begins.
first-person narrative. personal emotional response to an impending execution of criminals. and then the narrator gives us her name. that's the shift. that's what makes it fiction. the name has been changed. and i'm sure certain details have been left out... which assures that other details are (intentionally or not) magnified, brought to the fore-front, drawn more clearly. bias is embraced. and maybe that's the big difference too. The Bell Jar tells a story from one person's perspective and that perspective is embraced with totality. it is not compromised by the charge to explain the emotions or decisions of the other characters. it does not worry itself with ideas of "fair". it tells one story, not all stories, and it does not get sheepish about it.
and that brings up a question i've had for awhile. issues of fairness in art... especially writing.
it's common knowledge that writers end up angering their families. they are accused of not being "fair" to their families within the work. but our families are the first sphere in which we hear the dreadful truth, "Life isn't fair"... so why then is a work of art expected to be? religion, politics, finance, popularity, body issues, disorders of every shape and size and mode: all unfair. and so art should harness this unfairness as well. it is authentic to do so. and honest. or rather, ideas of attempting fairness should be left behind. is this what great writers know?
we know that when The Bell Jar was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. we know that this was done as an attempt to protect Sylvia Plath's mother, save her from mortification and judgement. but those are her own fears talking- the mother's. because i never felt judgemental toward the mother in the story. and granted it all took place in a different era where decorum was expected and dirty laundry was not aired and secrets, even the slightest and smallest, were kept. what a horror to end up having a writer in the family!
all this to say is i am unsure of what specifically divides fiction from creative non-fiction. because creative non-fiction is not the same thing as journalism- a mode of writing where the real names are used and the facts line up and the chronology of events is clear. and a journalist is usually recording someone else's fact and figures, not their own. they have a critical distance between them self and the life they describe. when telling one's own story, that critical distance is gone. it is obliterated. and maybe that's what makes The Bell Jar such a wonderful read- the diary quality of it.
there are so many famous, deeply loved diaries that have been published. and loved for the skill of the writing! the nuance that rises to the surface when censorship and intention fall away... when the audience is gone. some say Sylvia Plath's Journals are her best work. and they'd be just as interesting and compelling even if she wasn't also a "real" writer because the journals themselves are "real" writing. such craft and lyric and fierce desire to pin down a life in words. to make a map. to know something of the self. and diaries are totally biased. one perspective, one story, one idiosyncratic arrangement of fears and hopes and fuck-ups and achievements and struggles.
anyway. i've lost my own question. or answered it.
it's interesting though- these tags we use to describe a literary work. and when someone wants to call a spade and spade and get away with it, ANONYMOUS gets employed. or a pen-name. because we don't want to hurt our families. because we don't want to be "cruel" or "selfish". we want to be fair because the world isn't. and these are wonderful ethical concerns that i think are really important to wrestle with and so i'm glad i'm wrestling with them now, trying to clarify and expand my ideas about what are can be. and be made with. and i think there's a big difference between being honest and being a victim, and it comes down to intention. is there an intention of blame?
to my eye, there is no blame in The Bell Jar. there is the honest addition of self-blame within it - a true portrait of inner turmoil - but still not falling in to sentimentality or romanticising pain or seeking some sort of excuse. it is a crushingly beautiful example of the difference between accuracy and honesty. and i think that when a work focuses on achieving honesty, it falls outside all these useful tags (when wondering what shelf something is found on) and just swims in the big pool of Art.
and i started thinking about tags and terms and how every label has a drawback. and it seems like, in spite of their popularity (or because of it), the tag "memoir" or "autobiography" draws a lot of angst from the literary community. it is accused of being "easy" and "lazy". and i think that's really sad and very strange. it presumes that documenting real events, injecting the emotions and fears and anxieties of the time, is an easy task. it also assumes that a person's life has been picturesque, that the problems they faced were no big deal. it's very minimizing. and that's without saying anything about a writer's skill: the dedication required to wrap the reader up in your own history and let them live it as you lived it. the honesty that that requires. and bravery. the whole process is an act of overcoming humiliation. and doing so with beautiful words. or ugly words. whatever is necessary, craft is employed.
but nevertheless, the assumption that memoir and creative non-fiction are some how easier than other forms of writing. i say, skill is skill. and so i wonder... is that why The Bell Jar is in the fiction department? yes, names have been changed to "protect the innocent", but if that's really the only difference between your history and your story, is that a big enough change to call it fiction? i'm sure this is a question that gets wrestled with a lot.
and so i got out of bed and got my copy of The Bell Jar (it's always out on the shelf, not tucked in a row) so i could remind myself how the story begins.
first-person narrative. personal emotional response to an impending execution of criminals. and then the narrator gives us her name. that's the shift. that's what makes it fiction. the name has been changed. and i'm sure certain details have been left out... which assures that other details are (intentionally or not) magnified, brought to the fore-front, drawn more clearly. bias is embraced. and maybe that's the big difference too. The Bell Jar tells a story from one person's perspective and that perspective is embraced with totality. it is not compromised by the charge to explain the emotions or decisions of the other characters. it does not worry itself with ideas of "fair". it tells one story, not all stories, and it does not get sheepish about it.
and that brings up a question i've had for awhile. issues of fairness in art... especially writing.
it's common knowledge that writers end up angering their families. they are accused of not being "fair" to their families within the work. but our families are the first sphere in which we hear the dreadful truth, "Life isn't fair"... so why then is a work of art expected to be? religion, politics, finance, popularity, body issues, disorders of every shape and size and mode: all unfair. and so art should harness this unfairness as well. it is authentic to do so. and honest. or rather, ideas of attempting fairness should be left behind. is this what great writers know?
we know that when The Bell Jar was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. we know that this was done as an attempt to protect Sylvia Plath's mother, save her from mortification and judgement. but those are her own fears talking- the mother's. because i never felt judgemental toward the mother in the story. and granted it all took place in a different era where decorum was expected and dirty laundry was not aired and secrets, even the slightest and smallest, were kept. what a horror to end up having a writer in the family!
all this to say is i am unsure of what specifically divides fiction from creative non-fiction. because creative non-fiction is not the same thing as journalism- a mode of writing where the real names are used and the facts line up and the chronology of events is clear. and a journalist is usually recording someone else's fact and figures, not their own. they have a critical distance between them self and the life they describe. when telling one's own story, that critical distance is gone. it is obliterated. and maybe that's what makes The Bell Jar such a wonderful read- the diary quality of it.
there are so many famous, deeply loved diaries that have been published. and loved for the skill of the writing! the nuance that rises to the surface when censorship and intention fall away... when the audience is gone. some say Sylvia Plath's Journals are her best work. and they'd be just as interesting and compelling even if she wasn't also a "real" writer because the journals themselves are "real" writing. such craft and lyric and fierce desire to pin down a life in words. to make a map. to know something of the self. and diaries are totally biased. one perspective, one story, one idiosyncratic arrangement of fears and hopes and fuck-ups and achievements and struggles.
anyway. i've lost my own question. or answered it.
it's interesting though- these tags we use to describe a literary work. and when someone wants to call a spade and spade and get away with it, ANONYMOUS gets employed. or a pen-name. because we don't want to hurt our families. because we don't want to be "cruel" or "selfish". we want to be fair because the world isn't. and these are wonderful ethical concerns that i think are really important to wrestle with and so i'm glad i'm wrestling with them now, trying to clarify and expand my ideas about what are can be. and be made with. and i think there's a big difference between being honest and being a victim, and it comes down to intention. is there an intention of blame?
to my eye, there is no blame in The Bell Jar. there is the honest addition of self-blame within it - a true portrait of inner turmoil - but still not falling in to sentimentality or romanticising pain or seeking some sort of excuse. it is a crushingly beautiful example of the difference between accuracy and honesty. and i think that when a work focuses on achieving honesty, it falls outside all these useful tags (when wondering what shelf something is found on) and just swims in the big pool of Art.
Apr 5, 2010
search
yesterday it rained and rained. hard and constant. grey. dim. it felt like evening all day long. and i stayed in my pajamas, drawing and reading in bed, until it was time to get ready for dinner at our neighbor's house.
i read the introduction to Vitamin D- an artist bible if ever there was one... especially for those of us fond of working on paper. and the essay said everything i've been thinking about lately. ideas of mapping and charting personal environments... a "bedroom art" loaded with intimacy. what a perfect mirror. i eventually find myself drawing in bed at some point everyday. and today will be no different. there's just something about it, as an art and as an act, that fits so seamlessly with my interests right now. oil painting feels so final to me at present... a closed system... grand. and i don't want to do anything final or grand right now, i want to explore. if need be, get it wrong. i want to feel my way around, not worry about definitions... or anything definite. i want to crawl through the grass and pick up the fragments, stick them in my pocket, and feel around for more.
i'll move back to oil painting eventually. and probably sooner than later. but for now i need the intimacy of paper, the common attribute of it, a humble pencil in my hand.
it's the path toward "the right word" we've all been talking about so much lately... a truer language for me at this point in my life. the blacked in areas of my scratching, the white blankness that signifies loss or the unknown, the skipped over, the nexus of ALL COLOR.
and i know there is no "right word". but it is the search for it that counts. the hunting down of an honest mode. the defeat that must be overcome. persistence and honor and striving and finding. maybe these things are more important than "knowing".
Words
Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echos!
Echos travelling
Off from the centre like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
-Sylvia Plath
(from Ariel)
i read the introduction to Vitamin D- an artist bible if ever there was one... especially for those of us fond of working on paper. and the essay said everything i've been thinking about lately. ideas of mapping and charting personal environments... a "bedroom art" loaded with intimacy. what a perfect mirror. i eventually find myself drawing in bed at some point everyday. and today will be no different. there's just something about it, as an art and as an act, that fits so seamlessly with my interests right now. oil painting feels so final to me at present... a closed system... grand. and i don't want to do anything final or grand right now, i want to explore. if need be, get it wrong. i want to feel my way around, not worry about definitions... or anything definite. i want to crawl through the grass and pick up the fragments, stick them in my pocket, and feel around for more.
i'll move back to oil painting eventually. and probably sooner than later. but for now i need the intimacy of paper, the common attribute of it, a humble pencil in my hand.
it's the path toward "the right word" we've all been talking about so much lately... a truer language for me at this point in my life. the blacked in areas of my scratching, the white blankness that signifies loss or the unknown, the skipped over, the nexus of ALL COLOR.
and i know there is no "right word". but it is the search for it that counts. the hunting down of an honest mode. the defeat that must be overcome. persistence and honor and striving and finding. maybe these things are more important than "knowing".
Words
Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echos!
Echos travelling
Off from the centre like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
-Sylvia Plath
(from Ariel)
Mar 2, 2010
YO! CHECK THIS OUT!!!
poet christine hamm is putting together an anthology of works (poems, writings, essays, and visual art) that is inspired by the work of sylvia plath! not her death, her WORK! this is a project that, though it seems extremely timely in terms of recent blogosphere activity, is actually long over due (in my opinion). it's so exciting to see how many people are currently fighting to usher plath's work, skill, and creative prowess in to a place of much deserved and well-earned respect and relevance. i couldn't be more pleased. totally amazing and i hope that everyone out there submits.
here are the submission guidelines
here are the submission guidelines
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 11, 2010
death day
today is the anniversary of sylvia plath's death. our fair radish king holds a bake-off every year in her honor on this day where those of us who have been touched by her work can trade recipes and poems and thoughts... a time and place of remembering and appreciating... a work of mourning and respect and joking around.
i thought of sylvia plath a lot this past week. in my sickness i've been cutting out tons of heart-shapes- a personal symbol of plath's. and i have strings of hearts hanging in my bedroom window. silvery and sparkling and dancing slow. they have been cut from "failed" paintings and drawings. i thought... even though the composition was wrong, there was still love in this work. let me at least save that part.
i want to keep that thought in mind today as i remember her... and as i remember her son, nicholas.
-
the first poem in Ariel is written to a child. for a child. it is thick with love, thick with amazement. she was not without love... let's at least save that part. draw a heart on something. cut one out. save it. hang it in your window. this is the new tradition.
MORNING SONG
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
october 27, 1932 - february 11, 1963
and here is my poem about her for you... since i can't bake. :)
(click the pictures to enlarge)
you know her
artist book
angela simione, 2009
transcript:
you know her
she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting.
i thought of sylvia plath a lot this past week. in my sickness i've been cutting out tons of heart-shapes- a personal symbol of plath's. and i have strings of hearts hanging in my bedroom window. silvery and sparkling and dancing slow. they have been cut from "failed" paintings and drawings. i thought... even though the composition was wrong, there was still love in this work. let me at least save that part.
i want to keep that thought in mind today as i remember her... and as i remember her son, nicholas.
-
the first poem in Ariel is written to a child. for a child. it is thick with love, thick with amazement. she was not without love... let's at least save that part. draw a heart on something. cut one out. save it. hang it in your window. this is the new tradition.
MORNING SONG
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
october 27, 1932 - february 11, 1963
and here is my poem about her for you... since i can't bake. :)
(click the pictures to enlarge)
you know her
artist book
angela simione, 2009
transcript:
you know her
she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting.
Jan 11, 2010
hmmmmmmmm.
i think a lot about sylvia plath...
her work and how it is routinely overshadowed and discredited by her suicide. nullified.
it's a normal thing to judge her sanity based on the fact she took her own life... and then, i suppose, it's not a very far leap to wanting to rule out her writing as an expression of insanity as well. but it's an angry instinct. a very childish instinct, actually.
have we done the same thing to nietzsche? no, he didn't kill himself, he died of syphilis... which means he hit the crazy stage of the disease long before it took his life. he lost his mind. and yet we still look to him as an authority. we view his thoughts with reverence and respect whether we agree with his thoughts or not. we continue to respect his work and give credit where credit is due in spite of the very logical assumption that his later writings were born inside an insane mind. and he was writing philosophy- the thing people use to govern their lives! codes of conduct based on deep introspection and thought. ideas encouraged to become action.
and poetry does all these things too but doesn't stop there. it doesn't have to deal with rationality and deduction and specifics.
if we can except insanity in philosophy... why not poetry?
why do we not accord sylvia plath with the same respect? why is it that this nullification of her work persists in spite of the fact that a very large quantity of contemporary poets, writers, and visual artists site her work as a major influence? why is enjoying her work still viewed as juvenile, ridiculously teenage, stupidly goth, blah blah blah all because she killed herself. what does that have to do with THE WORK?
the fact that so many people respond so forcefully, so emotionally to her poetry and novel and journals is a testament to her skill AS A WRITER. the impact of her work, the deep level of intimacy, the courage it took to expose such fragility, to speak about levels of love, anger, confusion, rage, and resentment took guts. let's not forget the era in which this work was written. let's not forget what society was like for women at that time. it is minimizing and brutal to do so. give credit where credit is due. reducing her work to an act of hysteria is a slap in the face to the female gender. have we already forgotten how many women were strapped down to hospital beds because they were angry about being beaten or raped? the history of women (well... the history that's been recorded anyhow) isn't a fun one. it isn't nice and i get pissed all over again each time i notice that the degree to which the female gender is marginalized and discredited is still pretty effing deep. and that not even a dead woman who made powerful, exceptional, poignant work is offered due course.
diane arbus gets discredited too. so does anne sexton. maybe not to such a deep degree as sylvia plath, but nevertheless, yes.
shall we now begin the game of discrediting kurt cobain's contribution to music? he killed himself too. why is it that we are able to view his death with so much more compassion? why is it that we all agree what a huge tragedy his death is. none of us rob him of his work, his talent, his skill by reducing it to the ravings of a crazy person. but, as a culture, we allow this to be done to sylvia plath. there is a very discompassionate double standard in effect and it makes me sick. fathers are just as important as mothers. it is no more horrific for a mother to take her own life than it is for a father to leave behind small children. the tragedy of these events is a perfect equal. the value judgements we have made based on gender are disgusting, idiotic, and hateful... to put it mildly. would kurt cobain's child say she suffers less because the gender of the parent who killed them self was male? no, i don't think she would.
whether or not the artist who makes advancements within their field is a bad parent should not enter in to a discussion of said contributions. what does it have to do with THE WORK? what does it have to do with the innumerable lives they saved through the art they made? my life has been made better because of her work. in fact, for however trite and dramatic it sounds, i'll go ahead and make the statement that her work has saved my life in the same manner that music or painting has. art saves lives.
the tragedy is that the art these people made didn't save their own lives.
sylvia plath suffered from an unchecked and undiagnosed illness. same thing with nietzsche. undiagnosed. and illness is illness and shouldn't have a value judgement placed on it either.
i'm getting fed up with the persistant perception that sylvia plath was a mad-woman whom we can't take seriously.
kinda deep thoughts so early in the morning! ha! it's just been on my mind a lot. what are your thoughts?
her work and how it is routinely overshadowed and discredited by her suicide. nullified.
it's a normal thing to judge her sanity based on the fact she took her own life... and then, i suppose, it's not a very far leap to wanting to rule out her writing as an expression of insanity as well. but it's an angry instinct. a very childish instinct, actually.
have we done the same thing to nietzsche? no, he didn't kill himself, he died of syphilis... which means he hit the crazy stage of the disease long before it took his life. he lost his mind. and yet we still look to him as an authority. we view his thoughts with reverence and respect whether we agree with his thoughts or not. we continue to respect his work and give credit where credit is due in spite of the very logical assumption that his later writings were born inside an insane mind. and he was writing philosophy- the thing people use to govern their lives! codes of conduct based on deep introspection and thought. ideas encouraged to become action.
and poetry does all these things too but doesn't stop there. it doesn't have to deal with rationality and deduction and specifics.
if we can except insanity in philosophy... why not poetry?
why do we not accord sylvia plath with the same respect? why is it that this nullification of her work persists in spite of the fact that a very large quantity of contemporary poets, writers, and visual artists site her work as a major influence? why is enjoying her work still viewed as juvenile, ridiculously teenage, stupidly goth, blah blah blah all because she killed herself. what does that have to do with THE WORK?
the fact that so many people respond so forcefully, so emotionally to her poetry and novel and journals is a testament to her skill AS A WRITER. the impact of her work, the deep level of intimacy, the courage it took to expose such fragility, to speak about levels of love, anger, confusion, rage, and resentment took guts. let's not forget the era in which this work was written. let's not forget what society was like for women at that time. it is minimizing and brutal to do so. give credit where credit is due. reducing her work to an act of hysteria is a slap in the face to the female gender. have we already forgotten how many women were strapped down to hospital beds because they were angry about being beaten or raped? the history of women (well... the history that's been recorded anyhow) isn't a fun one. it isn't nice and i get pissed all over again each time i notice that the degree to which the female gender is marginalized and discredited is still pretty effing deep. and that not even a dead woman who made powerful, exceptional, poignant work is offered due course.
diane arbus gets discredited too. so does anne sexton. maybe not to such a deep degree as sylvia plath, but nevertheless, yes.
shall we now begin the game of discrediting kurt cobain's contribution to music? he killed himself too. why is it that we are able to view his death with so much more compassion? why is it that we all agree what a huge tragedy his death is. none of us rob him of his work, his talent, his skill by reducing it to the ravings of a crazy person. but, as a culture, we allow this to be done to sylvia plath. there is a very discompassionate double standard in effect and it makes me sick. fathers are just as important as mothers. it is no more horrific for a mother to take her own life than it is for a father to leave behind small children. the tragedy of these events is a perfect equal. the value judgements we have made based on gender are disgusting, idiotic, and hateful... to put it mildly. would kurt cobain's child say she suffers less because the gender of the parent who killed them self was male? no, i don't think she would.
whether or not the artist who makes advancements within their field is a bad parent should not enter in to a discussion of said contributions. what does it have to do with THE WORK? what does it have to do with the innumerable lives they saved through the art they made? my life has been made better because of her work. in fact, for however trite and dramatic it sounds, i'll go ahead and make the statement that her work has saved my life in the same manner that music or painting has. art saves lives.
the tragedy is that the art these people made didn't save their own lives.
sylvia plath suffered from an unchecked and undiagnosed illness. same thing with nietzsche. undiagnosed. and illness is illness and shouldn't have a value judgement placed on it either.
i'm getting fed up with the persistant perception that sylvia plath was a mad-woman whom we can't take seriously.
kinda deep thoughts so early in the morning! ha! it's just been on my mind a lot. what are your thoughts?
Oct 27, 2009
admiring... and happy...
i've been thinking about sylvia plath a lot lately... not just her work but the small things about her that really warm my heart and make me smile... like the fact that she liked to paint little hearts on everything. it was her symbol, her favorite shape. and apparently they were everywhere inside her home. knowing a little fact like that makes me like her even more. makes her work spin around inside my heart with more ferocity, more angered eloquence than it already did.
last week i remembered her birthday was coming up and then promptly forgot all about it. one of my personal resolutions is to write stuff like that down so i can celebrate the lives of people i admire who are no longer with us. and this morning over at Our Liege the Radish King, i was happy to be reminded- today's the day! and wouldn't you know that for the passed 4 days or so i've been drawing hearts on things. ha! my subconscious kicking in and trying to jog my memory i suppose. i'm even making a curtain for my kitchen rendered entirely in filet crochet that has a huge white heart right in the center of it. and i mean HUGE.
it's windy and cold but that chilly pair has made the brightness of this day even more beautiful. i have the heater on and am getting ready to make another pot of coffee. the house is clean, the dog is sleeping, and it is silent save for the wind over the roof. the day fits her. sylvia. her work. her heart. her hearts. i will make my curtain and hang it up- an ode.
and so today, i'll read my favorite poem of hers and work to commit it to memory- all while making heart shapes, letting the light and wind in, attempting repairs of the broken.
Sheep in Fog
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the color of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells-
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
-Sylvia Plath, 1963
last week i remembered her birthday was coming up and then promptly forgot all about it. one of my personal resolutions is to write stuff like that down so i can celebrate the lives of people i admire who are no longer with us. and this morning over at Our Liege the Radish King, i was happy to be reminded- today's the day! and wouldn't you know that for the passed 4 days or so i've been drawing hearts on things. ha! my subconscious kicking in and trying to jog my memory i suppose. i'm even making a curtain for my kitchen rendered entirely in filet crochet that has a huge white heart right in the center of it. and i mean HUGE.
it's windy and cold but that chilly pair has made the brightness of this day even more beautiful. i have the heater on and am getting ready to make another pot of coffee. the house is clean, the dog is sleeping, and it is silent save for the wind over the roof. the day fits her. sylvia. her work. her heart. her hearts. i will make my curtain and hang it up- an ode.
and so today, i'll read my favorite poem of hers and work to commit it to memory- all while making heart shapes, letting the light and wind in, attempting repairs of the broken.
Sheep in Fog
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the color of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells-
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
-Sylvia Plath, 1963
Oct 7, 2009
a conundrum, a take-back, and good art...
coffee in hand and a near notebook.
a sleeping rottweiler on the big red chair.
and flipping through Ariel this morning
with my two elsie's governing the whole house from the top of the big bookcase:
i notice the love she had for horse hooves and poppies and the color green... what do you do with such things? how to honor them? a dead hero...
and anne sexton was jealous over it which makes me cringe and pisses me off. why talk shit like that over a friend's suicide? why make it about YOU? when there are two babies without a mother and a man crying in his sleep...
maybe they weren't friends after all.
she wrote a horrible, spiteful essay about sylvia's life and work in a collection of literary criticism called 'The Art of Sylvia Plath" published in 1971, 8 years after sylvia's death. in it, she talks about herself and casts herself as sylvia... speaks of the suicide as if it were her own, like property, and infested with jealousy. tacky and rude and it makes me want to read anne's work less and less.
it is a loss.
i have loved her work but anne sexton seems like a mean person to me today. i don't know what to do with that. is it possible to go on admiring a person's artistic capabilities once they've offended your core morality?
must you like the artist in order to go on appreciating the art?
in the end,
anne killed herself too...
maybe her anger and sadness was aroused by sylvia's success in the matter. maybe it wasn't jealousy so much as a horrible wish? anne left behind children too. grown children but children nonetheless. there is an entire family that morns her and misses her... and i, on my high horse, wondering if she was a "good person" or not. maybe i am the one offending my morality here. i am not offering the compassion i claim to believe in. my heart twists and i realize i'm being a big dumb baby over the clash that may or may not have existed between two, now, dead women. is it even my business... is it any of ours?
but this is the power of words right here. they go on. infinitely. as long as the pages are being turned, the age of the page doesn't really matter. and it hasn't really been all that long since these tragedies occurred. not really. sylvia plath killed herself in 1963. anne sexton did it in 1974. 11 years between each other. and only a little more than 40 years ago.
maybe my anger is the same anger anyone would have? the anger that swishes out of confusion and tremendous sadness... a need to find a place to rest the blame. more than 40 years and my finger is eager to point. more than 40 years and the wrestling continues. the argument goes on. and all this happened before i was even born.
this is the power of good art.
and so i need a do-over-
i take it all back. about anne. i will keep turning those pages and remind myself to find a path of compassion. i think it is one of the points of finding poetry in the world anyway: establishing a vehicle of compassion. and hope.
everyone fails.
and everyone shines.
everyone
everyone
everyone
and hopefully, me too.
p.s. does anyone else have big thoughts like this first thing in the morning? ha!
p.p.s. i forgot to mention it yesterday- check out the two AMAZING artists i blurbed about over at ANTLER. good stuff. heart-felt work and so full of longing. scroll down to yesterday's post and you'll find them.
a sleeping rottweiler on the big red chair.
and flipping through Ariel this morning
with my two elsie's governing the whole house from the top of the big bookcase:
i notice the love she had for horse hooves and poppies and the color green... what do you do with such things? how to honor them? a dead hero...
and anne sexton was jealous over it which makes me cringe and pisses me off. why talk shit like that over a friend's suicide? why make it about YOU? when there are two babies without a mother and a man crying in his sleep...
maybe they weren't friends after all.
she wrote a horrible, spiteful essay about sylvia's life and work in a collection of literary criticism called 'The Art of Sylvia Plath" published in 1971, 8 years after sylvia's death. in it, she talks about herself and casts herself as sylvia... speaks of the suicide as if it were her own, like property, and infested with jealousy. tacky and rude and it makes me want to read anne's work less and less.
it is a loss.
i have loved her work but anne sexton seems like a mean person to me today. i don't know what to do with that. is it possible to go on admiring a person's artistic capabilities once they've offended your core morality?
must you like the artist in order to go on appreciating the art?
in the end,
anne killed herself too...
maybe her anger and sadness was aroused by sylvia's success in the matter. maybe it wasn't jealousy so much as a horrible wish? anne left behind children too. grown children but children nonetheless. there is an entire family that morns her and misses her... and i, on my high horse, wondering if she was a "good person" or not. maybe i am the one offending my morality here. i am not offering the compassion i claim to believe in. my heart twists and i realize i'm being a big dumb baby over the clash that may or may not have existed between two, now, dead women. is it even my business... is it any of ours?
but this is the power of words right here. they go on. infinitely. as long as the pages are being turned, the age of the page doesn't really matter. and it hasn't really been all that long since these tragedies occurred. not really. sylvia plath killed herself in 1963. anne sexton did it in 1974. 11 years between each other. and only a little more than 40 years ago.
maybe my anger is the same anger anyone would have? the anger that swishes out of confusion and tremendous sadness... a need to find a place to rest the blame. more than 40 years and my finger is eager to point. more than 40 years and the wrestling continues. the argument goes on. and all this happened before i was even born.
this is the power of good art.
and so i need a do-over-
i take it all back. about anne. i will keep turning those pages and remind myself to find a path of compassion. i think it is one of the points of finding poetry in the world anyway: establishing a vehicle of compassion. and hope.
everyone fails.
and everyone shines.
everyone
everyone
everyone
and hopefully, me too.
p.s. does anyone else have big thoughts like this first thing in the morning? ha!
p.p.s. i forgot to mention it yesterday- check out the two AMAZING artists i blurbed about over at ANTLER. good stuff. heart-felt work and so full of longing. scroll down to yesterday's post and you'll find them.
Sep 24, 2009
the wage...
hmmmmmm... it could be too soon to jump into her diaries. yesterday, i spent a pretty hefty chunk of the day with them, off and on between projects, and by 4 in the afternoon i was beginning to feel more than slightly disillusioned and sad about life. no good. but the writing is just so beautiful and i can run around in it because i know these things she's describing... and reading her work makes my writing better- more intricate, more subtle, more meaningful. i don't want to back away from her art just because it might make me sad. my work does the same thing to people sometimes and i've always counted that as a good quality... that the work can be responded to emotionally, intensely... not that i am comparing my paintings to a Plath poem, just that the experience of sadness isn't something i should use to run away from good work- work that sparks and flies around the room and makes you look at your own life from a new and different angle... work that makes your own work grow and turn.
i will have to take the diaries in doses though, i think. they're pretty intense. the last time (the first time) i read them, i was in my last year in college and had other things to read so it took me about 4 months to read them all. i read it on the train to school and back home everyday. i read it on the weekends after my projects were satisfied. sometimes i even left the house to do "errands" so that i could sit somewhere and read them without any interruption or outside expectation. it's when i started writing again. seriously writing. my love of poetry woke back up because of this collection and i've been hot for it ever since. it's a slightly painful form of inspiration, i will admit. it takes a lot out of me. i've always thought that poetry is harder than painting. a landslide harder. a piece of writing seems to ask more from the person with the pen than a painting does. paintings seem to have an outside opinion that, at some point (for me anyway), i can relinquish control to and the work becomes itself. it stops being my work. it's its own work.
in the end, the work takes care of me... not the other way around.
i will have to take the diaries in doses though, i think. they're pretty intense. the last time (the first time) i read them, i was in my last year in college and had other things to read so it took me about 4 months to read them all. i read it on the train to school and back home everyday. i read it on the weekends after my projects were satisfied. sometimes i even left the house to do "errands" so that i could sit somewhere and read them without any interruption or outside expectation. it's when i started writing again. seriously writing. my love of poetry woke back up because of this collection and i've been hot for it ever since. it's a slightly painful form of inspiration, i will admit. it takes a lot out of me. i've always thought that poetry is harder than painting. a landslide harder. a piece of writing seems to ask more from the person with the pen than a painting does. paintings seem to have an outside opinion that, at some point (for me anyway), i can relinquish control to and the work becomes itself. it stops being my work. it's its own work.
in the end, the work takes care of me... not the other way around.
Sep 23, 2009
for your reading pleasure...
two very cool things i forgot to mention yesterday:
the new issue of FOU is up and it contains such a beautiful and jarring poem by my beloved radish king. here.
and the new issue of ANTLER is out too! check it out. especially if you've got a penchant for "pretty porn". you'll definitely get your fix. :) and the ANTLER blog is shaping up to be quite a gem as well.
and as for my own reading, i finished the little murder mystery i'd been toting around last night and the very second i finished it i thought, "go get the journals". Sylvia Plath's Journals. i don't know why it's such a good follow up but it is and i read pretty far in to it last night in bed. this is my second go around with them. they are beautiful and sad and, even though it scares most people when i say this, it feels like reading my own diaries... only much more well written. ha! but i understand her work in a way that i've understood few others. she is one of my biggest influences. her work simultaneously made my world bigger and more intimate the moment i found her. her work is as clear to me as talking to myself in the mirror. exactly so. it makes me both sad and angry that so many people only see her death when they hear her name. so many people jump directly to the whole "she baked her head" crap and they've never even exposed themselves to her work. and what a huge loss. huge. her work was, and IS STILL, brilliant. beyond special and beautiful. beyond, beyond, beyond. poets today are still trying to catch up with her. she's just that damn good.
the new issue of FOU is up and it contains such a beautiful and jarring poem by my beloved radish king. here.
and the new issue of ANTLER is out too! check it out. especially if you've got a penchant for "pretty porn". you'll definitely get your fix. :) and the ANTLER blog is shaping up to be quite a gem as well.
and as for my own reading, i finished the little murder mystery i'd been toting around last night and the very second i finished it i thought, "go get the journals". Sylvia Plath's Journals. i don't know why it's such a good follow up but it is and i read pretty far in to it last night in bed. this is my second go around with them. they are beautiful and sad and, even though it scares most people when i say this, it feels like reading my own diaries... only much more well written. ha! but i understand her work in a way that i've understood few others. she is one of my biggest influences. her work simultaneously made my world bigger and more intimate the moment i found her. her work is as clear to me as talking to myself in the mirror. exactly so. it makes me both sad and angry that so many people only see her death when they hear her name. so many people jump directly to the whole "she baked her head" crap and they've never even exposed themselves to her work. and what a huge loss. huge. her work was, and IS STILL, brilliant. beyond special and beautiful. beyond, beyond, beyond. poets today are still trying to catch up with her. she's just that damn good.
Sep 17, 2009
you know her...
(click the photos to enlarge)
one of the little lovely humble things i've been wrapped up in. quiet work that, in spite of its simplicity and smallness (or maybe due to it), feels so very important and honest. a little tool with which i am learning the world. poetry and thoughtfulness. this work soothes me. it makes me better than i am.
you know her
10.5" x 5.5"
mixed media artist book
angela simione, 2009
transcription:
she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. cutting and cutting and cutting.
one of the little lovely humble things i've been wrapped up in. quiet work that, in spite of its simplicity and smallness (or maybe due to it), feels so very important and honest. a little tool with which i am learning the world. poetry and thoughtfulness. this work soothes me. it makes me better than i am.
you know her
10.5" x 5.5"
mixed media artist book
angela simione, 2009
transcription:
she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. cutting and cutting and cutting.
May 5, 2009
,+30x40,+oil+on+canvas,+angela+simione++2009.JPG)
Apr 23, 2009
in fog...
i put on my grey dress and we walked through the vineyard fog. the poppies still sleeping, but strange, wakeful birds clicked in the tall trees. i brought the fog home with me, cloaked these daughters in it, and remembered my long lost sunday dresses...
my sister and i posed together
in simple frocks our mother made-
up all night at her sewing machine,
without our father
and brother,
without without without...
but we make progress here...
sunday 3 (sheep in fog)- in progress shot
30" x 40"
oil on canvas
number three in this strange series. these two sisters appearing on there own... unexpected. in my work, two girls have always signals me and my sister, and this painting in particular makes me miss her company more than i usually do- that strange tie that keeps us, makes us. we are very different girls but not separate in the least, standing close to keep the secrets from spilling out, to keep from feeling afraid, and the only time in my life i was not afraid of the dark was when we were young and small and shared a room, sleeping safe in bunk beds...
and now these weird years when a person begins to look back, picking through memories and wondering if those times were real or dreamed, and the last line of a plath poems flashes in the brush and the canvas finds its name before it finds its finish...
SHEEP IN FOG
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells-
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
-Sylvia Plath
from Ariel
my sister and i posed together
in simple frocks our mother made-
up all night at her sewing machine,
without our father
and brother,
without without without...
but we make progress here...
sunday 3 (sheep in fog)- in progress shot
30" x 40"
oil on canvas
number three in this strange series. these two sisters appearing on there own... unexpected. in my work, two girls have always signals me and my sister, and this painting in particular makes me miss her company more than i usually do- that strange tie that keeps us, makes us. we are very different girls but not separate in the least, standing close to keep the secrets from spilling out, to keep from feeling afraid, and the only time in my life i was not afraid of the dark was when we were young and small and shared a room, sleeping safe in bunk beds...
and now these weird years when a person begins to look back, picking through memories and wondering if those times were real or dreamed, and the last line of a plath poems flashes in the brush and the canvas finds its name before it finds its finish...
SHEEP IN FOG
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells-
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
-Sylvia Plath
from Ariel
Apr 4, 2009
while cat stevens sang from the car stereo...
on our drive home from dropping off all my unnecessary lovelies at the goodwill, we saw an abortion protest outside a clinic. i've never actually seen one before. it took me a minute to realize what was happening but, once i did, it made me want to throw up on myself. i was honestly shocked. i mean, why not just wave around a banner that says "i'm full of hate". these are the people that the bumper sticker "jesus loves you but everyone else thinks you're an asshole" was made for. they don't seem to be aware of the fact that they aren't helping their cause, they're hurting it with this massive public display of ridicule and damning judgement. i was absolutely stunned that this kind of crap is still happening. stunned. it's so mean-spirited, unhelpful, and malicious.
when we finally got in the door of our home i opened, again, my much-loved and well-used Ariel, looking for something that would comfort me or offer some small kernel of hard-won insight. nothing much to do with abortion, or any big issue in particular, but the uneven ideals held by a mother and a daughter.
The Rival
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected.
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.
The moon, too, abases her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive in the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.
No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.
-Sylvia Plath
i guess sometimes we are all strangers... and don't understand how to do anything other than hurt and sabotage each other. still, i hope there is hope. hope is absolutely necessary. and there is hope, even if only a little, in this poem.
when we finally got in the door of our home i opened, again, my much-loved and well-used Ariel, looking for something that would comfort me or offer some small kernel of hard-won insight. nothing much to do with abortion, or any big issue in particular, but the uneven ideals held by a mother and a daughter.
The Rival
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected.
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.
The moon, too, abases her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive in the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.
No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.
-Sylvia Plath
i guess sometimes we are all strangers... and don't understand how to do anything other than hurt and sabotage each other. still, i hope there is hope. hope is absolutely necessary. and there is hope, even if only a little, in this poem.
Mar 27, 2009
loss...
back on the painting train this morning. i've got another big canvas following close behind and can hopefully get it wrapped up within the next 2 weeks or so. i'm so happy to have so many things to work on right now. between painting, drawing, writing, and crocheting, i should never find myself with nothing to do and feeling bored that's for sure.
after working for a while on the next big canvas first thing, i finished this little painting that's been floating around the studio for a couple months:
untitled
12" x 12"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009
i can't quite figure out what the hell i like about this particular painting but i do. i really do. it's a bit nostalgic, a bit creepy, and hey, it's even got some color in it! :) whatever. ha! but the more i look at it, the more i like it. i may end up hating it by next week but for now i'm enjoying it. i've got it tucked in my bookcase. these twins are busy watching over my poetry collection... definitely something guard-doggish about this piece... in a "The Shining" sort of way.
maybe because of my own high level of happiness lately, the news about nicholas hughes' death the other day really threw me off balance. i had actually just been thinking about him a few days prior- about his reclusive lifestyle and how hard that must be... the fact that he lives a life of semi-anonymity... not quite a regular guy, not quite a celebrity, but infamous because of all the death and trauma that exists in his family... and the horror of having that trauma play out in public. i was thinking that i didn't know what he looks like... if he favored his mother or father in appearance... what color his hair is and if he and his sister resemble one another... how i know who he is but that i don't know a single thing about him...
and then two or three days go by and i read that he committed suicide. gone. and his sister is now the only living member of the plath/hughes family. she is alone. and she hates us. and i think she's right to hate us even though it hurts. and again- one more person there's not much any of us can do for... except leave her alone. i'm glad she's an artist and writer. i'm glad she has a husband to wrap herself up in right now. i'm glad she has places to go, corners to hide in, words to get lost in...
after working for a while on the next big canvas first thing, i finished this little painting that's been floating around the studio for a couple months:
untitled
12" x 12"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2009
i can't quite figure out what the hell i like about this particular painting but i do. i really do. it's a bit nostalgic, a bit creepy, and hey, it's even got some color in it! :) whatever. ha! but the more i look at it, the more i like it. i may end up hating it by next week but for now i'm enjoying it. i've got it tucked in my bookcase. these twins are busy watching over my poetry collection... definitely something guard-doggish about this piece... in a "The Shining" sort of way.
maybe because of my own high level of happiness lately, the news about nicholas hughes' death the other day really threw me off balance. i had actually just been thinking about him a few days prior- about his reclusive lifestyle and how hard that must be... the fact that he lives a life of semi-anonymity... not quite a regular guy, not quite a celebrity, but infamous because of all the death and trauma that exists in his family... and the horror of having that trauma play out in public. i was thinking that i didn't know what he looks like... if he favored his mother or father in appearance... what color his hair is and if he and his sister resemble one another... how i know who he is but that i don't know a single thing about him...
and then two or three days go by and i read that he committed suicide. gone. and his sister is now the only living member of the plath/hughes family. she is alone. and she hates us. and i think she's right to hate us even though it hurts. and again- one more person there's not much any of us can do for... except leave her alone. i'm glad she's an artist and writer. i'm glad she has a husband to wrap herself up in right now. i'm glad she has places to go, corners to hide in, words to get lost in...
Mar 25, 2009
Mar 20, 2009
the banner project moves forward...
detail
i started this project during my senior year in college when i slipped one of the disks in my back (twice) and was laid up, flat on my back, for a solid month: no walking, no painting, nothing. but, in my prescribed vicodan stupor, i was more than able to lay back on the couch and twist yarn.
everybody at school loved these and, though i think of them as banners to be hung on the wall (big ol' L.E.D. signs), a great many people ohhed and ahhed at the prospect of wearing them. i'm still not sure how i feel about that... i mean, these guys take an awfully long time to make.
anyway, a few weeks back when i was getting completely depressed by the onslaught of dreary, grey, rainy, winter days, i picked the project back up. i had been reading sylvia plath's Ariel, again (HA!), and was totally taken in by the last line of her poem Sheep in Fog:
"Starless and fatherless, a dark water."
yes, yes, yes... that's me too.
i had originally planned to embroider the entire sentence on the banner but i got stuck on that word 'fatherless'. such an odd word, rarely heard, and entirely, intensely sad. autobiographical in more ways than one...
.JPG)
fatherless
6" x 74"
crochet
angela simione, 2009
it's realized in the bastard stitch, my favorite stitch, also known as the afghan stitch- a cross between crocheting and knitting- and another fine level of conceptualism. :) the reverse is completely backed so that the beauty of the stitch itself can be fully appreciated and adored. my sweetie thinks i should sell these but i honestly have no clue what i'd even charge for something like this. it takes a super diligent week and a half to make just one.
p.s. that's my big, green backyard. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)