Saturday 6 May 2017

The Answer

Papaver 'Patty's Plum' still one of my favourite flowers
15 flower heads this year

Detail of a rust piece
Whilst struggling to hand stitch wearing a wrist splint for Carpel Tunnel I have answered a question that has been troubling me for a while. Whether the work I produce should be practical and useful. I answered myself today, it just doesn't matter, if you can you should do what you love while you can.

13 comments:

  1. Having been there with numerous splints over the years, I agree, FWIW. One thing led to another, and I'm now in a cast recovering after thumb joint/trigger finger/carpal tunnel surgery. I lay in my sewing room looking at the many things I've made simply because I loved them in spite of it being increasingly painful. I had pain for 20 years, but was so fulfilled by creating that I just worked through it. Hindsight is often 20/20, and if I could do it over again, I would have had things fixed when I was younger. I won't know until after months of PT if I'll be able to ever spin, knitweave and hand stitch again.This recovery in my 70s is grueling. I love your flower also!

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    1. I saw your colourful cast and do hope you will be able to find something that you can enjoy doing in the next few months, obviously ideally what you were doing before. My hairdresser had an operation on both hands and is now back hairdressing so fingers crossed for you.
      My pain has steadily got worse over the last couple of years so hopefully I have dealt with it in time.

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    2. My hairdresser also, two operations for carpal tunnel. It's a quick and simple procedure, not so bad a recovery, and she is back working her magic with no discomfort. I wish you well dealing with that. It's thumb joint surgery that is more difficult and not as sure a cure. I hope that isn't an issue for you. It only gets worse over time as bone ends up grinding on bone. By then, no amount of injections and splinting helps.

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  2. Just googled, I love that ruffled purple flower! It's a kind of poppy, I'm going to look for it!

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    1. Isn't it lovely, I have had it in my last three gardens.

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  3. Debbie I so agree with your answer. Useful, practical ? depends on your point of view. I love foraging, collecting materials to dye cloth with, creating landscape collages. Do they serve a purpose? To the outside world, probably not but to me, they are not only useful but practical. Here's what I mean: I have to say that useful comes into play for me because my simple, dyed, cloth collages provide me with a record, tell my story of the places and landscapes that I have come to know over the years. Practical, yes again because each cloth serves to help me consider my inner landscape, my thoughts as I go through this life of mine, this meditative process of foraging, connecting and considering the gifts of the land, the gifts of the heart, the gifts of creating, however that manifests. In that sense, to quote my dearly beloved Harold, my British son-in-law's Father, "it's all good"!.

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    1. I love the idea of considering your inner landscape through your work, foraging and collecting especially in nature makes me so much more aware of the beauty of the world around you. I have been collecting and observing since I was a child.

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  4. no matter how many times we revisit that question, none of the
    thinking ends up mattering because it just is as you say...we
    keep making for ALL the reasons, it just rises up out of us....

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    1. you are so right, we can't really do anything except go with the flow.

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  5. Indeed : do what you love to do, as long as you can !

    (ahhhhhh ! those "plum" papavers .... my white one surely
    will not have that many .... :-( ...)

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    1. lets hope it does, my pale pink one isn't nearly so prolific but it is younger.

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  6. such a beautiful poppy, didn't realize they are perennials!

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  7. Yes, I have annual poppies as well which self seed everywhere but the perennials are very reliable and are always in the right place. You can take root cuttings off them, which is where this one came from, the original is in my previous garden.

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