Monday muse . . .

              

 "Certain flaws are necessary for the whole.  

It would seem strange if old friends 
lacked certain quirks."

Goethe

I read a blog post by one of my smartest friends the other day that cut me to the quick.  It was a condemnation of cheery, chipper blogs that are heavy on alliterative themes
(i.e. Terrific Tidbits) but light on real life. 

A perfect indictment of all things "Small Works," right? 

Among other things, she said, "The alliterative blog post reflects perfection.  Because if we can't have the perfect life for real, we may as well have it in public." 

Touche.

You see, it's not that I don't agree with her thesis, because I do.
But here a quote from our cranky, beloved Dr. House springs to mind:

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, 

then embrace my own.  The usual."

And I'm well aware that I have a little problem with . . . ahem . . . perfectionism.

Actually, I don't so much mind whether the things I do are perfect or not, only that they APPEAR to be so.  (If you'd ever seen the back of one of my pieces, you'd know what I mean.  Real embroiderers don't leave the mess on the backs of their pieces that I do.)  Which may be even worse.

At least if you're striving for perfection, you're striving for an ideal that may elevate your work in meaningful ways.  If you're only striving to seem perfect, well . . . that's much less noble.

But I can say with complete honesty that what you get at Small Works -- in my blog, in my work -- is my true VOICE.  It's not the one I hear in my head, but it is the one that comes out when I open my hands and let the ideas escape.

So I don't know how to change it to make it more real.  My pieces are just like I am:  pleasing on the front, full of tangles on the back (that I cover with a tidy backing). Just like my really straight kitchen with the clean counters but the dirty floor.  It's all authentic.

The best improvement I can think of would be to 
embrace my imperfections a little more readily.  

So let's start here:  

 I'm adding a black line drawing of my bird to a piece from an old embroidered tablecloth of unknown origin.  

Don't worry -- it was already ruined, covered with rust spots and unravellings.

This was the new idea I was telling you about.  And so far I've learned one thing:  I'm not good at embroidery.  Sure, I'm good at what I do --  the vocabulary of stitches that I've made up to get the look I want, that lay so nicely on thick and forgiving wool.

This, however, is something completely different.  So far I'm spending more time unpicking and consulting my instruction book than I am stitching. I don't know how to do any actual embroidery stitches.  And I can't keep them even to save my life. In fact, I don't think I'm any better than I was when I was 8 years old, struggling to stitch a pansy motif on a dresser scarf under Aunt Lillie's careful tutelage.  I may actually be worse.

We could put it in a nice 

alliterative category of some kind

to make me more comfortable with it:

"Monday Maybes"

"Iffy Ideas"

"Follies and Foibles" 

Or just call it what it is.  Fun, challenging, silly. 

Something to write a blog post about.

"Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in." 

Leonard Cohen

 And thank goodness for the light.

Happy Monday! 

(Too chipper?  Sorry.  It just popped out.)