On Thursday, my grandmother's final gift to me arrived in the mail. A saw frame with two dozen blades, 12 drill bits, 32 felt polishing wheels and bobs, six screw mandrels, an anvil, a precut bench pin, a bar of tripoli, a bar of rouge, a tube of beeswax, a carbide burnisher, a ball peen hammer, a chasing hammer, three square feet of sheet copper, six square inches of .925 sheet silver, and 150 feet of .925 silver wire. I went to a local gallery on Saturday and bought agates and opals and assorted jasper beads. My extraordinary husband spent his entire weekend tearing apart and rearranging our laundry room so that I can have a section of it for a workbench. Friends, I am an artist again.
Well, I never actually stopped being an artist. I have no energy but creative energy. Whether I pray a prayer or grill a cheese sandwich, a fertile patch in my soul is always laboring to bring forth something exquisite and noble. I hope this doesn't sound pretentious: when I breathe, I want to exhale beauty. Where I cannot see loveliness and grace, I simply cannot be. I close my eyes and fantasize beauty—subtle colors and jagged textures and clean forest air and weeping and lovemaking and agony and a little girl's laughter—just to get by.
Some friends of mine went on a trip recently. Before they left, I decided to make them a going-away gift: a set of mix cds for the road. I knew it would be fun, but . . . man. The entire process, from compiling and arranging and rearranging and rerearranging the playlists to building and decorating a simple paper case made me happy. Shockingly, ridiculously happy. And happy is not a feeling in which I regularly indulge. Happiness for me is the shooting star that happens by as you lie in a meadow on a warm night with your lover. It's rare, people. I do delight in many great joys in my life, but to be happy, plainly and purely, is quite a treat. And freeing something from the gravid ground of my inner world, especially when I have the courage to share it, even something as mundane as a sandwich or a set of mix cds, makes me so, so happy.
And so here I go, plunging back into a world from which I limped, bloodied and broken, six years ago. I gave up something I love because it hurt less than having something else that I loved ripped screaming from my heart. And it's time to be done with that sad, sorry mess.
I need prayers, friends. I'm scared. I'm digging garbage out of myself and I'm going to try to make treasures from it. It's what I do. But I might fail. So I don't promise anything.
Here's hoping.
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2 comments:
I wish I had your way with words but... I don't. So...
I get what you're saying.
What are you going to make?
Any chance of documenting the process with pictures?
(Before falling asleep at night I spend time dreaming about shaping and pounding 12 gauge copper wire into pretty curved shapes and clasps). I really want to experiment with patina on copper.
I'll show you when I'm finished. I'm not one to document my creative process. It's kind of a private, head-space sort of thing. Stopping to take pictures ruins the mood. (But if Kevin decides to take pictures, I'll let you know.)
I make wearable art and small sculpture mostly. Patinas are definitely on the to-do list, but one step at a time. One of my professors in college used to patina her copper with original 409. Use a varnish though, or it won't stay.
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