ART & INTUITION

Standing on The Edge

Living with uncertainty

The inspiration and vision for this piece came one evening while my mother and I and my children were out for an evening walk on the dead-end gravel road where we lived. As we walked up the hill near the end of the road, through the tree branches I saw the full moon.

I came home and did a sketch of a man and a woman looking at the moon. Standing together, naked. The next day, I started cretaing it in fabric.

Clothes represent concealment or protection. Naked means showing all. Showing who we really are.

We are born naked, but spend our lives covering ourselves up.

This piece has an eerie, uneasy feel to it. Hence, the name Uncertainty became its title.

Uncertain was also how I felt about my relationship with my husband. Uncertain if our marriage was going to last.

While working on sewing this piece, I also experienced a lot of other uncertainty. One day I liked the picture. The next I didn’t.

Some days, I wasn’t even unsure about finishing it.

My feelings toward the picture kept changing just as my feelings about my husband, Mike kept changing.

We were standing on the edge. Not only in our relationship, but also with the future of our planet, Earth.

Everything was just so uncertain.

I’d been signing my work by my first name. Stitching BARBARA in capital letters. I didn’t intend to make it seem like I was shouting my name by the use of all caps, it was just easier to stitch capital letters instead of lowercase ones.

The fibre artist, Valarie Hearder, who was helping me prepare for my first art show, introduced me to her friend and tapestry weaver Deborah Hickman.

Both Valerie and Deborah expressed their uncertainty about only using my first name.

Adding my last name would take away my anonymity. I’d be declaring who I was. It meant taking another step to declare myself, making me even more vulnerable to acceptance or rejection.

The month of May had lots happening besides my art. Our youngest daughter, Natalie, age three, had been playing with her older brother and sister across the road from our home at their grandparents.

At some point, Natalie swung on the line from the oil tank as if swinging on a monkey bar. The metal line broke away from the tank and showered her in fuel oil.

My two older children rushed home to get me. I washed the oil off and took her to the hospital. She was kept overnight for observation, to make sure she had not inhaled or swallowed any of the fuel oil.

During this month, I also started making smaller pictures for the show.

Smaller sizes would offer more sale options.

Earlier in the month, my husband and I had purchased a Chevrolet Chevette. I loved driving the compact car compared to the larger one we’d previously had. Though there wasn’t much room for our three kids in the backseat together.

While taking our kids to their cousin’s birthday party in this used car, it started making a horrible sound, much like marbles rattling in a tin can.

Mike said, “It sounds like it’s coming from the engine.”

Soon the car lost power. Mike and I got out and pushed it off to the side of the road.

I walked to a nearby home and knocked on the door and asked to use the phone. My sister came to our rescue. It took two trips before she was able to transport us all to her house for her son's birthday celebration.

Days later, the man we had weeks earlier bought the car from refused to refund our money, but he did put another motor in the car for us.

And the bad situations turned out okay. We got through. Because after all, life is about living with uncertainty.