The real work is in the details. What's true for art might almost always be true for life. In a big field rug if I choose three greens and hook it, I might have a nice rug. But if I choose three greens, then twenty other shades and bit of this and that and use it to create details in the field, it is going to be rich and interesting and unlike any other field. In fact, it will be unrepeatable. I won't even be able to make it again myself.
So it is with life, if I add more interesting people, books, ideas and activities, my own life will become even more uniquely mine. If I take time for the little things I will be all the richer for it. On Monday, I watched a red winged black bird like it was the first time I had ever seen one. Begin again. Start over every day. See it like I never saw it before. Stop to stare back at the deer below the garden with it's big doe eyes. Taking the time will take me all kinds of places. When I look back into that doe's eyes, the one that lives somewhere beyond the pond, I connect with the source of my life. Silence and breathing does that. It is a prayer in itself. Sometimes listening is more important than petitioning.
Yesterday, my friend Donnie Miller came unexpectedly and sat with me in my office for an hour and had a cup of coffee. I needed that love yesterday. I drank my coffee and asked and listened. We have spent our adult lives together in this town. We know ourselves and we know each other. It is good just to be together. In the afternoon a group from The Bridge Adult Workshop came with two of their counsellors and we all sat around and got to know each other for a whole hour and they ate cookies. At the first of our time together, I was thinking I should be doing my work. When I look back on that day, those visits were the most important things I did for myself. They were the things that made my life richer. Without a doubt.
There is always time for the to do list it seems. I always find my way back to it. The spaces in between the tasks are where we can do living as well. I have always been purposeful. Since my children have grown I manage my time fastidiously, always making sure I have stretches of time to hook, to read, to write, to be in the studio. Once I was done raising my family, my art took a new and pronounced place in my life. I rarely say yes to events. After years of soccer and hockey tournaments away, and three or four days a week off to sporting events, I don't have a lot of desire to be away for the weekend. This space opened up to me about eight years ago and I am still savouring it. I was happy to be there for my children and I am happy to be here now for my art.
Life does not last forever. If I don't show up for art now, then when?
Art and rug hooking of course is more than just a detail of my life. It in itself is filled with details. I have a creative business and that in itself is an art project. I have to change things, nurture things, grow things and find the best ways to make it beautiful. That is not always easy. In fact, sometimes change is just plain hard. I need to come up with new ideas for it in the same way I do for my rugs. It involves a lot of people that I care for. It is a big part of my life and it is filled with details that have to be looked after. It has hundreds, if not a thousand or more moving parts that need to be attended to. I am the attendant.
The details are important. Sometimes it is the single strand that landed on the frame unaware that it makes the rug transcend any other that I have made. Sometimes it is the person who comes across your path and tells you a story that changes the way you see things. I want to be open to the day as well as the details because together they make a life.