[in addition to post below, for today]
ON a lighter note, I wanted to tell you about the new blogs I added this week, and also, I will be continuing the God, the Master Artist, series this month. I would like to more depth to the series as well as more detail, to the textures that I often notice in nature, botany, etc. I haven't put into this blog what I would like to, due to time limits, but hopefully one day I can sit down and do some serious writing. I am also using a very old laptop with half of the keys missing, while they work, it's a real pain typing on here, so I limit my writing to bare minimum and I don't edit like I should. I've become quite lazy where that is concerned.
But anyway, enough ranting about me, my writing woes and all, LOL, to the blogs, there are so many wonderful blogs I find during the week's research and I'd love to add them all, but I do have some criteria for what I add here. And the reason I choose certain blogs, in the topic they are filed under, esp where textiles is concerned is 1. they have a mixture of ideas that can be used for creative Recycling and Reconstructing for every day use, esp in the home. I especially like the Vintage sites because one does not have to be 'high or even middle class' income to incorporate many of the ideas, and I wanted to make sure there were means that All women could utilize, from the rural to the inner city. Not only that, but many of the ideas do not take a lot of time, with many women having or choosing to work they do not have all day to sit and do artwork, their schedules are full therefore they do not have the time to put into hours upon hours searching stores and flea markets for finds, etc., and many of the sites utilize things that we already have in our homes.
There are a few sites I've included that are more geared to the Homemaker, however, they have a huge list of blogs in Their sites, that I included for those of you who do like to browse through Vintage or Homemaking blogs. So I wanted to sort of create a mix-mash of blogs, to appeal to different tastes. Not only have I included homemaking blogs/vintage but you'll notice in the Seeing through the Eyes of Embroidery I added a few more and also in the Women making a Difference through Art, including a women's literature blog.
You will find that in many different means, particularly those deemed the 'more traditional' that women have in their own way, utilized traditional arts for expression, as well as working through those to contribute to changing the world, each in her own way. It is of my strong opinion that this is somewhat of a silent revolution of sorts, one that the radical lot doesn't pay much attention too simply because women's traditional 'arts' is considered by many to be nothing more than foolishness. Why its not corporate or its not that law degree, etc. Those attitudes are still somewhat strong in society and they are very misleading. Because the truth of the matter is, in many social and political changes it has been women who led, in ways that often go unnoticed. I don't know if all women realize just how powerful women working together can be, and it is one of my goals is to encourage women, that yes, that knitting club or that quilting club, can be a Powerful means of Change. Real change, not just for fundraising or for lining the pockets of larger corporations who exploit women's labor,
but real change for Women. Many do not understand or grasp that the work of women--is so powerful, that despots throughout history And still today, use policies to do all in their power to limit or completely silence or isolate women IN those traditional worlds because they Know, just how powerful, women coming together, in worlds where men don't hang out much in, e.g. quilting or embroidery, etc., and when women put their strengths together, Nothing, is Impossible.
Stalin knew this, as did Mao, as do the tyrants in many countries, that is why many guilds are forced to go Underground---in Palestine, there is a resistance movement of women using embroidery to preserve Palestinian culture, outside the controls of government AND males on all sides of the conflict.
While there can be, yes, differences among women and even women working against each other, due to what they are fighting for, where they sit, etc., the amazing thing about arts is that in arts or music, it is common to find that others, are really not that different from us, that we all want, on many levels, the same things, Peace, Prosperity, and Love. Not maybe in that order but you get my point...that is another reason, the power apparatus, those who thrive on hate and dogma and war and misogyny/patriarchy, do all in their power to Control women's spaces and to limit the room in which women work. Nationalists and Religious Dogmatists and Political Dogmatists especially do this because if they can isolate women, they can create borders around them to where the worlds become closed, but what is so dangerous there is that those borders then become prisons---for women. And evidence shows, that in those closed borders, violence against women increases, particularly in times of conflict and war.
For many women their Only outlet IS in the arts, by arts I mean what many term as crafts. I don't like the term crafts because to me, its a form of trivializing women's art as not as serious or as beneficial or as intelligent as the art world of men. I believe that is really where the term 'craft' derived from, it was a means of belittling or ridiculing women's art works. Why I don't use that term. Though I realize that some arts could be classified as just mere crafts---just for fun projects, to me, they are still art, a means of expression, that are just as valuable as the Picasso hanging up in a museum. They were all created and worked by hands, hands that belong to minds, minds that belong to
women.
Each unique in her own way...with each one, having something to offer, something we can learn from, something we can gain by, be enriched by, be better people because of.
I also added the Photo a Day Planet Earth blog [see the two birds], a wonderful blog with a new photo, around the globe added daily. These photos are breathtaking and informative. They are also inspirational, for poetry, painting, needlework, whatever your favorite art medium may be. I like these types of blogs just because I am reminded of God's amazing creation--in so many ways and I don't think we could list them all in any book. I learn something new every day, just do a google search on insects in Indonesia, for images, just that alone, is just mind blowing...there are bugs I never knew existed, Huge Bugs...now that is some embroidery there, LOL. [ideas already, see!]
Many of the blogs I choose also have 'how to's' or links To those 'how to's' so you aren't just left hanging there, thinking, Hey I could do that, but how? I have found for some projects you have to search through these listing types of sites and some of them can be a real pain in the butt to use, so I try to include those blogs that will list sites of reference for you. Or I will add the how to's occasionally here, especially where recycling/reconstruction is concerned--in the Ways you can Help--there are some idea blogs listed there. I added the Mixed Melange to give you an idea of how mixed mediums can be used, such as if you have lets say, wire, papers, jewels, etc., lying around and you aren't sure how to recycle them, that site will give you somewhat of an idea, and one art medium popular today is what they term 'alt art'. Much of it I think is a bit gothic, but the ideas could be incorporated into any style you wanted.
Now, for the more politically minded readers you may be thinking, how in the world can any of this info be helpful to change. Well, for starters, recycling in the arts, does a lot to limit consumption, especially needless consumption. It also limits the destruction of forests, such as recycling paper, which saves animal habitats, which also saves land for growing food...reconstructing fabrics, limits the demand for sweatshop labor and cotton slavery.
Because when you learn about these things and incorporate them into your life you become a part of the Solution, rather than part of the problem and you begin to Care about the issues. People see and they ask and you tell them and then you are educating, informing...
it's a domino effect. That is what made handmade so powerful, the Indie markets, and why do you think, the pirg groups who are supported by political interests who are in alliance with China, etc., nations that thrive on sweatshop labor and so forth, worked to pass laws that will clamp down on homemade and so forth? There is more to it, than just bad laws--there are reasons for those bad laws and its the bigger forces behind them. Sometimes those laws are passed using 'good pretexts' that are misleading--why they get the public support that they do--until, the public realizes that the good was just a cover for something far more sinister.
And its usually those sinister policies that hurt women and that work to create even tighter borders that constrict women and limit her autonomy or completely restrict her autonomy. The levels of which this restriction is felt has a lot to do with race and class, especially class. That is why laws will have far more dire consequences to some while others can somewhat rise above them BUT when more and more laws are past that are fascist in some way, eventually Everyone, is under the fist of tyranny...tyranny doesn't always have to come with an iron fist, the most dangerous tyranny, is the one that comes,
with the smiling face and open hand.
Just like with abusive relationships, it kind of works like that, men come with roses and poetry next thing you know he's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. OK not the best analogy but you get my point...
My point is, patriarchy works like this, in the personal as well as the political...and its always, the attack on women's room of her own, her own space, her own body, her own friends, her own world, that becomes more and more, restricted and confined and isolated until she finds herself with no recourse and sadly, in many authoritative and totalitarian nations women live just like this, like bugs in a microscope, who are watched day and night, policed by men and even by other women who will sell out sister for her own little tiny bit of room to move, to breathe, though she too, will be under the thumb of the oppressors.
In many countries women are not allowed to create or to even sing...they can be killed for it.
That is why I do what I do here...we have so much, freedom, even with the patriarchal forces we contend with in the West, compared to so many sisters in other regions, we have no idea really, some women yes, Do know what living under that suffocation is, I do, but even with that, there is Still, hope here. In many places, there isn't, their only hope is Death. In Afghanistan young women every day attempt suicide by lighting themselves on fire to escape horrible abuse and rape, forced marriages, etc., and many women in Iran do the same--
many women and Children who are sold and raped and forced into sex slavery, their only hope outside of being rescued is Death--for many HIV is the way OUT of the hell they endure day in and day out. That or a life of drug addiction, that eventually leads to Death.
Women worldwide are the most easily to be exploited for labor, sex slavery [obviously] and domestic slavery, women and children...that is why numerous corporate transnationals and misogynist politicians/or totalitarians do not care to see women empowered in autonomous economic ways. It sends a powerful message to women. Be they bully husbands or bully religious leaders or bully politicians or bully ideologists, they all have one thing in common,
to restrict 'space' and to have the ultimate control over autonomy. And its usually, women who are the ones being bullied...power equals might in this world and we know, power corrupts. Many will read this and think this is an overstatement, an ad hoc,
but Is it? Look at the level of violence against women in our world today, complete gendercides [a form of genocide] in some countries, e.g. Congo,
knowledge is power. But there has to be Room to utilize that knowledge and to Do something with it, or it just sits and rots and dies.
That is why, we must, do all we can, to preserve, to nurture, and to care for women's spaces and that includes in the space of her art. We must work to uplift and encourage and to work so that All women, can be free,
to express herself, without hindrance, without restriction, and without suffocation.
The New Blogs Listed are:
http://vintageindie.typepad.com/
I added this blog because it included vintage with eco living, with many resources from artists to places that sell eco to indie as well as a host of inspirational ideas.
http://subversivestitch.blogspot.com/
I added this blog because its a wealth of information for quilters/and long time artists but also many good resources and links here of women in arts working for causes. A lot of great wealth of info on this blog, and I love the term subversive, LOL.
http://deenasstory.blogspot.com/
I found this blog browsing one day and she is an amazing strong woman, who is fighting cancer. The day I found her blog I was in one of my dark moments [I suffer from PTSD and OCD] and just well, if you know depression and so forth then you'll understand what I mean...but when reading her blog I left it with a better hope, gratefulness and well, just had to add her here, she needs our prayers so...
http://thepleasuresofhomemaking.blogspot.com/
It's not what you think....
OK, well that Valentine Tree made with cheerio boxes did it for me, She Had to be added here! I will have to do a similar project now, LOL, and I was just wondering what one could do with 'boxes' like cereal and crackers, who'd have thought? Since I started decoupaging glass jars and saving coffee cans for projects I've become quite obsessed with the whole do not throw away I could do something with that now, and last week, I made two record bowls--awesome. Anyway so I looked through her site and She does some Beautiful things for her home using her slightly used things and making them into something new. Not only is this good for recycling but its good budget sense.
and on the Blogs that Inspire me, I added some new ones and this one, I want to mention,
http://cozylittlehouse.blogspot.com/
I added this one because of the Gardening and I am going to be, here this spring, adding some posts about Wildlife Gardening--because this is something we do on a very Low budget...it CAN be expensive, and we've found ways to work around the expense--but many are having to cut budgets and there are means in gardening where you can grow food and herbs and also save water AND help wildlife.
I also browse through her blog because I get ideas for my embroidery/decoupage, etc., and well, its just fun. She also has tons of good links,
and there are some other blogs under that same topic that have tons of good links to other blogs too.
Then, I added to the Resource info section [near the bottom] for embroidery/and textiles, the
http://handembroiderynetwork.blogspot.com/
No words needed to explain there---it is global.
I do want to say the Textile blog, http://thetextileblog.blogspot.com/
is an Informative/Educative History of Textiles, that includes styles, history, labor, you name it, why I added it.
I have many more blogs bookmarked but I didn't add them all, some I just browse through for inspiration for my artwork/or reconstruction, many of them I didn't add or bookmark because they were more geared towards 'purchasing' rather than creating...and that's not the purpose of this blog but they are some nice ones out there, where vintage is concerned and all but you can get Tons of them and then after a while they all sort of look the same. And I haven't added the sewing blogs though I do bookmark them, because most of them are just sewing for private or for boutiques...many of them were more to the higher dollar and well,
for me, for this blog, I really want to just stay focused on means that any woman could utilize without having to fork out lots of dollars. So if I didn't include your blog that in no way means I don't like it or your artwork...I probably have it bookmarked for my own use. There are just so many beautiful textile blogs out there and art blogs and one can get lost in time just browsing them all! IF, however, you do a certain type of artwork and its not listed here, and want some references, tell me in the comments, I might very well have something book marked because I have marked tons of them. From sewing to paper art to photography to painting to poetry, knitting to crochet, you name it, I probably have it somewhere.
One thing I do want to do and that is to begin adding some street art [what I call it, what my homies call it, I don't use all my talk language here, LOL but that is what we call friends here, homies] , because I find that often there is a lot of under representation of women artists who live in the inner cities, and you know their works are just amazing. I lived in the inner city once, before they regentrified and kicked all the working class out and I still remember the art community there--where I somewhat got my inspiration to recycle in my artwork in the first place. Flickr is a good site that shows a lot of their works, and I will one day soon, be doing a post on that.
And btw, do check out the Follower's blogs, in the Who Follows Section. I don't say this often but I do know you are here and I do browse your blogs so--want to mention you, and for one of you I may go ahead and add some of the sewing blogs--there are a couple that you might like. Yea, I may go ahead and add a section there, maybe a small one--I thought I added a recycle sewing, I'll have to check. I just wanted to limit a bit, to not overwhelm the page, there is just so much but, well, I'll work with it. LOL
ok, well
That's all for now, have a good rest of the week.
In solidarity,
Jane
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