Rough times Junior year

After I got back from winter vacation two years ago, my parents were frustrated they weren't around to support me. It frustrated me, too. My mom, though, in her sensitivity, sent a care package full of protein bars and new socks and tights. She even included a little chai she found at a thrift store. I wore that chai every day for the past couple years, pretty much. I think it was her way of giving me a reminder that life goes on, a gift that told me every day that my parents and G-d will always support and love me. It's easy to forget that after a bad critique, or when you've lost your friends, but I really did appreciate it. I noticed this morning that it wasn't anywhere to be found, not in my sheets or in my sweater pocket from when I took it off for RAD. There's a conspicuous absence to me, but I know that I would not have lost it if I still needed that reminder every day, and maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Sorry, mom :(.

Oof.

After seeing the "Architecture of the Quilts of Gee's Bend" exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art recently, I was inspired by these beautiful work-clothes quilts. The women of Gee's Bend, isolated in a small town in Arkansas and several hours' from the nearest town, used the materials available to them as inspiration for the quilts that kept them and theirs warm. I'm using old jeans to make a rag-rug, onto which I will print cotton in bloom. The rag trade was integral (and is) to the lives of immigrants in America, a way where anyone, through hard work, could make a living and rise into the working class. Industry created workers, workers make money, producers become America's best consumers. But with the rise of outsourcing, the move of the source of our manufactured goods, well, anywhere but here, the rich history of mills and sewing machines, advent of jeans and sewing machines, immigrants camoflaging into American society, and thriftyness of the American households in lean times....these things are things lost to us. In building my school's sukkah today (yes it's late, don't ask), the topic came up and it occured to me that so few of us ever do without...without food, without music, without information, without something to do or somewhere to be. It's in that spirit that I'm making a rag rug from denim, sturdy and practical, hard-working and reflecting of the working class. That being said, the denim braid is much harder on the hands than anything else I've braided with, and I'm wondering how big a rug I can really make with the amount of tension I'm putting on my fingers. We'll see!

I'm back!

Ahh, remember the good ol' days when people took "breaks" from el-jay land because of the high drama quotient? Luckily, there's not been much drama, other than I didn't apologize as much as I wanted to for yom kippur, and I got all kinds of sick and thus my apartment is a mess, etc., and I'm somewhat behind in classes AND super busy this week AND my studio-mate may be replaced by up to three fibers juniors (my studio! mine!), I wasn't able to fast fully, every week whizzes by and I can hardly even see what's going on it's such a blur. Luckily, workload's not killer this semester. I know my getting sick/being a wuss will generally catch up with me, that I will have to pay the piper for not jumping headfirst into some long-term projects, however, unlike last year where I was trying to do every single job on the planet and having loads of relationship-related anxiety, this year is calmer, easier. Lindsay is not quite Zen-master Lindsay, but with a little bit of tea ceremony and a summer in the mountains, she's pretty different than the Lindsay of sophomore year. At least in experience--YMMV. Where last year falling asleep for 4 hours mid-day may have meant missing the time to get the duty phone or not being able to print because of RCA programming and duty responsibilities, now it just means I fell asleep for a couple hours. It's okay, really. And somehow, I know whatever comes come graduation in May, I'll be game. So very game.