Remnant #7: Stitchcraft-Witchcraft
"What do you like to do?”
She scuffed a toe amongst the rushes. “Needlework.”
“Very restful, isn’t it?”
“Well,” she said, “not the way I do it.”
~George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones~
Today, I am a guide over at the Inner Alchemy Circle: Air Coven HERE, offering my writing and a card I created for the archetype of the Witch. The card was from one of my embroidery art pieces I have been making out of old porn magazines from the 1970s. I've created both witches and saints for this project and it has fed my creativity in ways I never anticipated. The embroidery I used for the witch card is part of a larger piece, called "The Water Witch," and she has a saint counterpart, which sold at a local arts show.
The show is over and, now, the witch has been shared for the group and the saint has gone to her new home--but, I haven't stopped making them. I never expected any of these pieces to sell or to have them shared in any public way. I'm thankful to one key person (you know who you are) for encouraging me to move my private practice into a public forum. It meant the world to me that one did sell--and to a woman who is creative and talented and kindhearted. And that the other has been seen by local artists and creative women via the online course, all around the world? It blows my mind, in all honesty. I am a writer, not an artist. But, the line blurs and I find myself tangled up in a visual narrative I have no plans to stop working on.
I have since made progress on more of these women. The interesting part for me is that writing led me to needlecraft in the first place--and now, I am coming full-circle. Eight years ago, I asked my mother to teach me to knit because a character in a story I was writing was a textile artist and I wanted to get the sensation of working with yarn exactly so in my words. Then, it turned out that knitting became an outlet for me. I still knit--most recently a tarot bag for a new deck of mine. A few years after knitting, embroidery showed up. I have been intrigued ever since. Recently, my writing process has been difficult. But, with the magic of this stitchcraft, I have found a way to remain connected to the thread of story running through my life. Instead of words on a page, I've been creating the narratives of these women with thousands of stitches. They are as real to me as any of my written characters. I will welcome the story, however it comes to me...every pass of the needle, a new form of conjuring...every lustrous strand, another creative incantation.