A little while back I shared this little video on Instagram of a new project I was starting.
I was having A LOT of feelings about the state of the world, and one thing my brain just couldn’t seem to process is - the word “anti-fascist” is suddenly controversial. Like, I thought we were all against fascism but suddenly, in communities I used to be a part of, anti-fascist is controversial.
It’s similar to how I felt when I was learning more about anti-racism and was so surprised at how many people got mad about it. I thought - if you’re not racist then how could you be upset about anti-racism? Well, they are racist and just don’t identify as such and there are a lot of layers.
While I was sitting with my feelings and struggling to really process, I got the idea to use some red linen I had, and make the letters to spell anti fascist and then hand stitch around them, like a very slow meditative process giving me time to with with this word and process my feelings.
Which has been so good, for that.
AND
I think it may be turning into a real Art Project. Or it has the potential to anyway.
A bit of background: I have a degree in fashion design, really excelled at all types of surface design, and set out to be a textile artist out of university in my 20s. Never really made much money but I did make some beautiful textile pieces and that is still in my blood.
(That dream, of being a textile artist, is what led to the Creative Dream Incubator - like 12 years later. I tried my best in my 20s until I ended up so broke and tired of figuring out how to make ends meet every month that I got an office job right before I turned 30, around 2003. That job ended up giving me the space to explore my creativity and spirituality and healing in different ways, which led to me deciding to leave that job to start the Creative Dream Incubator in 2010.)
SO - When I started these letters, I did have skill and experience to figure this out - but I knew I’d be rusty and it wouldn’t look like I would hope it would look like.
And as I am working on it and I am getting the thread twisted and many stitches are lopsided I am reading myself that I am doing this for the process, it’s fine. This is not going to be SOMETHING...
Until it started to feel like SOMETHING.
Maybe (with a ton of practice and refining my technique and approach) fabric letters spelling out words and sentences is THE ART I have been looking for, with my dream of “being the artist I know I am”.
Feels like it could be, which feels amazing. Like the dream coming full circle.
And it might not be anything more than this particular project, but I feel like I am following intuition and inspiration and picking up the threads - literally and metaphorically and metaphysically.
And I really think I am going somewhere!
And I just wanted to share this moment of doing a thing just because I got an idea that doing the thing might help me feel better in the moment - and that opened up a new door.
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