voluptuous stoicism

yarn bombs have bored me since day one. i mean, one ends up having to be polite about it — oh god, the number of times people will e mail me articles about yarn bombs or goddamned crocheted coral reefs telling me they “thought of me” when they saw them — but i’ve never seen much point in going beyond the first of either of those particular enterprises.

but here’s a bomb i can get behind — it’s local, it incorporates found objects, helps clean up litter, and uses actual folklore to transform not just an already tended public area (like a sweater on a statue), but goes into territory that’s in need of a second look — and a watchful eye. marie elcin says it well — she worked on this with her friend johanna marshall, whom i am sure i remember working at rosie’s at one point, but in the blur-of-having-the-kids years of ’08 and ’09.

when i saw on facebook that marie was working on this project, i found a tutorial on shisha stitching online right away, as i had always wondered how that worked… but wasn’t sure how or when i would apply it. amazingly, that evening, as i continued to research perchta for the krampuslauf, i discovered that perchta is sometimes adorned with small pieces of mirror and edelweiss… how is this possible? i never cease to be amazed at how things “come together” for me and how frequently and richly i am rewarded for either chasing down, or holding out for, the things that interest and inspire me most.

working towards krampuslauf has become an exercise in process over product for me. i am, of course, interested in the final “outcome”, but my expectations of how “right” it will be have changed so significantly and gotten so much more serious than i remember my intial impulses being. the ways i’ve been able to incorprorate both knitting and writing into the project, not as a way to buoy the project itself but as a way to understand the krampus folklore, its meaning in general, and its more specific meaning in a world where “enlightned” rich white people believe they have no need for folklore and that “scary” things serve no purpose but to scare, has been a phenomenal gift. as a handworker, as a writer, and as a parent, i have learned more from krampus this year than from just about anything else.

i think our event itself will not be a “performers” and “audience” scenario, nor will it be a resume-builder for anyone — it’s a little too down-home for that. but i love the “stone soup” approach in which the real pleasure comes from creating something WITH people — who know that their fun from the event will be in direct proportion to the fun they want to have with it. it’s amazing to see other people’s renditions and ideas come to life.

and every day seems to add something else to the list of things i am making. i keep trying to “get ahead” but between halloween costumes and krampus and actual christmas gifts it’s never gonna happen and i also now realize i don’t even WANT it to happen. i can’t just “get projects done on time” and then let the clock run out with days or weeks to spare — i really just want to keep going until it’s all over. why be done if you’ve even got a few more hours left to make it more interesting, to learn a new technique, to use a new material?

at a time when claudia’s interest particularly is leading us to read a lot of fairytales and folklore, and we are avoiding disneyfied versions (she’s really into the grimm’s), my own interest is really growing. folk textiles have always been important to me, but now the stories surrounding them is becoming more important to me as well. if i were eighteen again, i’d be about to embark upon a VERY useless degree program, i bet.

maybe we all need a college of one. scott and sheilah’s began with proust, which i am rereading now as well. life is wonderful when you don’t settle. there’s no other way i can say it.