How About a Hand for the Little Lady?

I've been a little delinquent in the blogging department--but I have a good excuse. No the dog did not eat my computer...

I had been struggling with wrist pain and stiffness since I broke my scaphoid back in September, 2005. After months of pain and drugs, I finally opted for surgery to repair what we thought was a swollen tendon. At the end of April, I had a deQuervain's release surgery performed. Simple surgery, under a local. In theory. The tourniquet released, filling the surgical field with blood and the surgeon nicked the tendon. I was put under and had a tendon repair done, resulting in 3 weeks in a full cast.

Fine. The cast came off and all seemed fine for about two days, then I bumped my hand on the back of a chair. Agonizing pain, and the sensation of something crawling under my skin. My thumb went limp and wouldn't move. The day before the May long weekend. As we were leaving to go visit my parents out of town.

The next Tuesday, I saw the surgeon, who informed me that the tendon had detatched completely and that the only way to regain use of my thumb was to have another surgery. Swell. Two days later, I had a two and a half hour tendon repair. The surgeon found scarring in the tendon from way back at the break, as well as damage from his surgical boo-boo. There were even tendon shreds in my wrist joint. I woke up with this on my hand.

Note the lovely bruising. This is basically the same cast that I had had for the previous three and a half weeks, but with more padding on the thumb. Immobilized for another 4 weeks. Yup. I got the last splint off on the Tuesday morning before Olds College Fibre Week. I drove to Olds on Friday, took a spinning workshop with Carol Rhoades on Saturday and Sunday, demoed the Ashford Knitter's Loom on Tuesday and have not stopped spinning, weaving, or knitting since.

I am still going to physio and will be for some time. My thumb is still stiff and I have lost a fair bit of muscle mass in the entire hand and lower arm, but I'm coming back. Fortunately for me, knitting is one of the recommended exercises for recovery from wrist and hand injuries. I do have this lovely scar to remind me of the whole thing.

Not too pretty, but I can use my hand again. Nothing makes you as conscious of what is precious to you more than losing it.

Speaking of which, the same day that I was told that I needed a second surgery, my father was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic lung cancer. But that's a whole other post.

Long time, no blog. I have been so busy for the last couple of months that even 15 minutes at the computer seems like a luxury right now. Since the last entry I have: taken down the community artists' show in the gallery; put up a photo and text essay exhibit; built costumes and uphostered furniture for Beauty and the Beast; worked to plan and oversee a student show in the gallery; planned and executed a week-long trip to Disneyland for 9 people from 3 different cities; taken down the photo essay and replaced it with 8 pieces of "some assembly required" sculptural work; designed and built a set for a childrens' theatre production; spun two sample sock yarns and knitted said socks; spun and plied 2 oz. of cashmere into 680 yds of yarn; handpainted said yarn and designed the lace pattern; knit another pair of socks; celebrated Ground Hog Day, Valentines Day, Family Day, Steve's birthday, St. Patricks Day and good report cards. And tried valiantly to keep up with laundry, meals, keeping the house relatively tidy and doing dishes by hand because the 20-year-old dishwasher finally gave up the ghost. Who has time to type?

Well, today is the first day of relative calm and it is my hope to keep it that way. There will be busier times ahead--I still have my art gallery job until the end of May--but the times in between will be a little less intense. I have learned this cool new word--no. Let's see how long I can keep that up! Two, three days, tops, I figure. :>)

And now for today's rant:

We live in a boomtown. Thar's oil sands in them thar hills! We have work camps that house 10,000 transient workers, and now camps are going to be built inside our city limits to house more people who drive up on Sunday and leave town on Thursday and contribute nothing to our community. A 30-year-old three-bedroom bungalow sells for half a million dollars. Our emergency ward is packed with people from out of town with headcolds. Our streets are busy and rutted because of the volume of traffic, not to mention the heavy equipment constantly moving through town. We have barroom brawls and drug busts and assaults on an hourly basis. And now the violence has hit home.

Brendan was walking back to his dorm after running to the convenience store across the street for a cold drink on Saturday night and was accosted by a teenager with brass knuckles. He was hit in the eye area, but, thank God, his eye was spared. His whole upper face is cut and bruised, but he seems otherwise to be physically okay.

But now, three days later, my 6'4" son is afraid to leave his dorm room. He has pain and horrible swelling around his eyes and sinuses. He spent 6 1/2 hours in emerg yesterday before a doctor could see him. Campus security and the local constabulary are overburdened and will probably never catch the kid who did this to him. And I feel so helpless.

Brendan is an adult, living on his own, though in the same community as us. He's perfectly capable of looking after himself. This was a random, and relatively minor, when you consider what could have happened, incident. Friends, teachers, neighbors, have all come out of the woodwork to help and support. We are blessed, even in this episode of senseless violence. But the rage it there, too. The sense that if we lived in a more stable community, this would not have happened. Of course, that is not true--kids are angry and disenfrachised and becoming alarmingly violent everywhere--but up here, it just seems to be magnified by the isolation, the transient population, and the stupidity of the get-rich-quick mentality.

In talking to Brendan, we have both come to the conclusion that these things happen. Do we let them defeat us? No. We stop and consider what is important to us. And we live our lives.

For me, that means family and fibre. The two things that tend to get back-burnered first when a paying gig calls. What's that about? So it is time to make a new resolution to keep the two Fs at the top of my priority list. I have lots of other stuff to do, but today, I spin.

Waaaay Too Philosophical

I need to get more proficient with a camera....I have three projects in final stages or finished and I'm too lazy or busy to photograph them and post them here! Okay, too busy. I have a Gallery turn-around starting on Monday that will take me six days, and I have four days to do it in. I just signed a contract with Keyano Theatre to make draperies for their upcoming production of Beauty and the Beast, which they need done by last week. And I'm supposed to be going to a spinning retreat on Vancouver Island in February and can't get a flight out of godforsaken Fort McMurray unless I am willing to be out of town for 8 days. And the usual kids, household, husband distractions. I am not the first to express this, but I think it's time to be cloned.

Okay, so the projects: a wool, llama and silk scarf came off the rigid heddle loom this week. It was sort of a stash clean-up thing that worked out fairly well. Still needs to be washed and blocked, but it's there. I also used up most of the very woollen yarn that I spun from a blend 3 left-over batches of dyed Romney locks in a pair of mittens. These need to be lightly felted, then some embroidery to pretty them up. I have spun two sample yarns for my Master Spinners in-depth study (more on that in another post) and a I have two-thirds of a watchcap for Steve on the needles. That's just this week--and I complain that I have no time for fibre in my life!


A really interesting concept came my way last night as I was socializing with some of the Theatre folk. The Artistic Director is a stage combat expert, and he was comparing fight moves to weaving and spinning. We got going with the concept and came up the the idea of the Weaving Warrior--from his perspective, using textile techniques to illustrate the careful layering and interplay of actors in combat; from my perspective, using combat techniques to illustrate the importance of body mechanics and movement in textile creation. Very high-concept, not likely to happen, but I was intrigued by the easy inter-relation between such seemingly diverse arts.

It seems that there is a lot of debate over what constitutes art and what is craft, and whether either is important in modern times. But when you are with people who actually work in the field, that debate becomes moot. Sitting with an actor, a director, a designer and the technical staff of a small theatre company, I was just a fellow artist. My boss at the Art Gallery is an art historian for the most part, yet she accepts that I consider what I do to be both art and craft--or as she calls it "fine craft", which is her compromise between "real art" that hangs on walls and beautiful objects made using ancient techniques once necessary for survival but now redundant. One of the artists currently exhibiting in the gallery spent some time discussing the narrowness of the labels placed on the work that we do. Her current work as a painter is based upon the structure and design elements of Middle Eastern and Indian rugs. There are no labels or boundaries or boxes; we all embrace the urge to create.

Elbert Hubbard, an American publisher from around the turn of the 20th Century gives me the best definition ever of art:

"Art is not a thing, it is a way."

I think I'll have that tattooed on my butt. There's room.

In Praise of Natural Fibres

It's cold where I live. We are quite used to having two or three weeks of -45 Celsius around this time of year, though this year, we have been spoiled by a warm winter. Until today. I woke up to -30 Celcius and ice fog. A bit of a shock after -5 or 10, but not entirely unexpected for Fort McMurray.

So, in order to walk the two blocks to physio this morning, I layered up in: thermaply long johns, cotton socks, handknit wool socks, jeans, a cotton tee shirt, a handknit alpaca sweater, a wool coat, a handspun and handknit angora and merino blend hooded scarf, wool-lined leather gloves and handspun and handknit cashmere half-gloves. I did not feel cold at all, though my eyelashed and bangs frosted up something fierce.

And as I was walking, I realized that only my longjohns were not made of natural fibres. I'm not really sure what "thermaply" is--I've had these longjohns for about 10 years now, so the packaging is long gone, but that what the tag in the back says they are made of.

I am a fibre snob--make no mistake. I love my merino, my cashmere, my camelid fibres. But this morning, I am especially grateful that I have access to, and the skill to use, these marvelous gifts from our furry friends. I am proud that I was able to create a warm cocoon to protect myself from the elements. My snobbery has been vindicated.

About a year ago, I was advised by a salesperson in a fairly high-end ladies' fashion store that the wool pants that I was purchasing were on sale because "no one wants wool anymore--it's so hard to look after". Rubbish. I throw my wool in the washing machine (cold wash, gentle cycle!). I have pieces that I knitted 20 years ago that still look new and keep me warmer than all those scratchy, pilly acrylic things that have come and gone over those 20 years. I love my warm woollies! I want wool. And alpaca. And cashmere (especially cashmere!). And lowly, humble cotton to protect my tender skin from the itchier woolly bits.

Do yourself a favor and wear wool. And cotton. And cashmere (especially cashmere!).

Creeping Into Cyberspace

Well, this is it. I am creeping onto the information highway.

I'm not really opposed to technology, but I have always sort of suspected that the internet is a place for people with too much time on their hands. And that blogs were the territory of the angst-ridden or those prone to bizarre rants. Recent experience has shown me otherwise--I have also discovered the blogs of thoughtful and insightful individuals, filled with useful fibre information, ideas and inspiration. We shall see if I fall into the angst and rant category, or the thoughtful....only time will tell.

A little framework for this thing: I am a fibre artist who works primarily as a handspinner and custom knitting designer. I also dabble in weaving, felting, beading and soft sculptural techniques. These activities have defined my life for the past 20 years, and in recent years have become an actual career. I also work as the Art Gallery Coordinator for the Visual Arts department of the local college.

Then in September of 2005, I fractured my wrist and dislocated my knee in a bizarre acting accident. I was immobilized for about 2 weeks, and had my left arm and hand in a cast for 2 months. I also developed a wee post-traumatic stress problem--my office is about 20 feet from where I was injured and I could not go to work without having panic attacks-- and was referred for counselling by the nurse at the college.

So, off I go to counselling. I have had to do some pretty drastic things to get over the fear that I will be injured if I walk out my door, but I can put in a day's work without bursting into tears or suffering chest pain. I'm still not so happy in crowds, but then I never did like line-ups and large clusters of humanity. So therapy is working. However, my therapist pointed out that I seem rather apologetic about what I do with my time and suggested that I start to speak openly about my work to people outside of my small community of spinners and fibre fanatics. This is step one.

It was very traumatic to lose the use of one hand when so much of my life had revolved around working with my hands for so long. I have a new perspective on what fibre and textile work means to me, and I have promised myself that fibre will not be shoved to the back burner when "more important" things come along. Yes, I do have a steady paying gig at the art gallery, but it is only 20 hours a week. That leaves 148 hours every week. Take out time for sleep and food, and that still leaves a lot of time that could be spent on fibre. And now that I know how crazy I get when I can't work with my hands, I have to cherish every second that I can spend doing it.

I've taken enough time away from fibre already--back to the real whorl.