Stoking the Creative Fire: Fabric, Wool, Nature

Creative Fire Blocks

As I discussed in my last post, I don’t think that there is any special condition we can label writer’s block; however, this year I have come to believe in ‘life block.’ Not only have I had my own dark year of the soul (as opposed to a dark night, which would be wonderfully short lived), but I’ve talked to many creative people who have stopped doing anything joyful.

“Why,” I ask my poet friend, “aren’t you writing any poetry?”

“Who cares about poetry right now?” She answers. She means that there is no room for creativity in our political reality, in our upside down world.

I can’t argue that when we don’t want to get up in the morning and face the latest tweet, we are somehow going to want to creatively celebrate our craft. More likely we are thinking, ‘I could make myself some breakfast. Or I could jump in the river.’

Fortunately for me, my environment is arid. 

Creative Fire is the Good in the World: Fuel It

Ironically, it’s in times such as ours that the work of creative people can be most appreciated as it countermands the sense that there is nothing good left in the world. I’ve always felt that it’s important to be creating something, any little thing, if just to provide kindling for the passion until we have the energy to maintain a roaring fire.

So how do people fuel their creativity when it seems pointless to create?

Being a perpetually and hopelessly guilt-ridden person, I’ve often tried a work

around when writing was just too much. I do write. But I also try all sorts of things that are less creative than writing and more utilitarian—thus, appeasing the scold in my head who says, ‘Don’t waste time on things no one will ever

use!’ I am probably the perfect person to use as the ‘DON’T TRY THIS’ example. Still, I thought it would be fun to show a few of the things I’ve done to get through extended bad patches.

A Lifetime of Creative Fire

At a very young age—twelve, I think—I started to needlepoint because I felt adrift. I had the sense that I came from nowhere, a person with no household heirlooms and no family stories. I was trying to create these and somehow make a connection between the past and my future. I wrote about the intensity of this feeling in a personal essay about the death of my grandmother that was published in the Longridge Review, an online journal in which adults reflect (one hopes with wisdom gained) on childhood experiences.

So as a tween, and then as a teen, I took needlepoint classes with older women. I made many items for my parents, most of which have not survived to be heirlooms: a pillow meant to be decorative but that over the years wore out, a purse that was never used, Christmas tree ornaments, god knows what all. A lot of these items were stitched in blues and shades of avocado green because those were my parents’ favorite colors for decades. Those colors haven’t stood the test of time. I also made samplers for my sisters when they got married (the colors were more palatable).

New Life

A few years ago, my sisters and I were packing up my parents’ longtime home as they were downsizing. Hidden in a closet unused, I found a bell pull that I’d forgotten I’d made. I also found a rug I’d hooked—a tiger because at the time my dad worked at Tiger International, a shipping company. I’d thought he would hang the rug in his office—hooked rugs on the wall were quite the rage at that time—but it, too, stayed in the closet.

Since the things I had hoped to use as family heirlooms had come to nothing, I decided to take photos of them and then toss them. However, these two are still around. My oldest son wanted the bell pull and hung it in his apartment. I worked at a high school whose mascot is a tiger, so I brought the rug to work, and one of the teachers took it to hang in her classroom, happily giving it life for the first time.

As a teen, I made one needlepoint sampler that was just for me and matched the colors of my room—red, orange, and yellow. All the women in my class advised against those colors as they wouldn’t stand the test of time. They were right. I framed the sampler, but it didn’t last long on the wall.

About the only needlepoint pieces I have made that receive a regular public airing are five Christmas stockings—for my husband, myself, and each of my three sons.

Fabric, Wool, and Woolgathering

While much of this work came to nothing, stitching is an activity that is meditative or lends itself to woolgathering because it can be done without much concentration on the work itself. It allows the mind to be open to ideas and to the invention of story; it keeps the self centered and yet allows open space. To those who have never tried it, it may seem like a strange practice for opening the imagination, but it works.

Similarly, sewing and quilting can have the same effect on the imagination. I don’t know how many things I’ve sewn in my life—again, I began as a tween—but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a thousand. As a teen, I sewed all my own clothes. Since then I’ve made all sorts of crazy things when I needed to get through periods of anxiety and allow myself some creative space. When my sons were small, I would take them with me to the fabric store. There would be tables piled with remnants of all colors and patterns. They would jump into these and wrap themselves in various designs. I could be with them and in my own world at the same time.

Almost all of what I’ve sewn has been worn or used, but of course, I didn’t record the items. I do have some photos of my sons in shirts that I made for their first day of school and in matching Christmas pajamas that included booties and nightcaps, but I think they wouldn’t appreciate a public airing of those. I also have some photos (from social media) of my more recent creations.

Recently, I decided to use fabric from bulletin board displays because I thought it was a shame not to repurpose it. One set of bulletin boards became dinosaurs. Another, little girls’ dresses. (Right at the time of the solar eclipse, which is echoed in the design.)

Stoking the Creative Fire through Nature

Other than reading good books—which always spurs creativity—I think the last thing that helps me to find my way to writing is walking in natural places.

Last week, I was walking in the local botanical garden with my youngest son.

There was a display that played off the Game of Thrones popularity called ‘Grove of Thorns.’ In it were all sorts of thorny plants native to California. One display showed the loggerhead shrike, commonly called the “butcherbird.” It captures insects and spiders and then impales them on thorns so it can leisurely eat them. Tell me you can see that and not want to include it in a story.

My son commented that the desert areas with their Joshua trees reaching into the open alone appeared to be frozen characters and had, not the appearance of a prophet in the wilderness, but of the Medusa-killed character of the creepy statue people in the Dark Souls video game. Who knows—maybe that’s where the creator got the idea.

Open space for your thoughts and they will arrive.