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Spending a week at John C. Campbell is healing for my spirit. From the time I walk into that weathered door in Keith House to check in, I feel the calm begin to take hold of my stressed out body. This time I was in a room with only one roommate, and she and I hit it off immediately. It was on the second floor of Keith House at the back of the building, shaded by the tall trees around it.
Here’s the path I walked several times a day from Keith House and the dining hall and my classroom in the Fiber Arts building.Image may be NSFW.
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I spent a couple of evenings after class in my room, catching up on my rest and recharging my introvert battery after the previous high stress week. I started reading “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” short stories by Sherman Alexie that was his first published book. I looked up images of alligators on my Kindle to reference for my first animal.
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On Tuesday evening after dinner, I walked through the meadow on an overgrown path down to Brasstown Creek. A storm was brewing and it was close to sunset. I had heard that there was a swimming hole down there but I didn’t stay long enough to find it. As I plucked the stones that called out to me on the pebble beach, it occurred to me that maybe hanging out alone on a creek in bear territory at dusk wasn’t a good choice. So I filled my pockets and walked back to the studio to my alligator. I saw a rabbit and a red-winged blackbird.
I think it was Thursday after dinner when I walked back to my room from the studio through the school’s gardens. The natural dye class hung out its fabrics and garments dyed from the dye garden. I saw another rabbit, which made me consider switching my last animal I had started that evening, a squirrel, to a rabbit. I ended up sticking with the squirrel, but there’s probably a rabbit on the way.
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Image may be NSFW.
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You can see our class work on display in my previous post, but there were many other activities and classes during this peaceful week. My roommate was in a class that wove chair and stool seats out of alternative materials, such as leather belts and neck ties. The wood carving class was focused on caricatures – I loved the one of Lurch. The patch beside this forged iron hanger reads “The strongest steel is forged in the fire of a dumpster.”Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Bryant read a poem to our class every day; often from one of my favorite poets, William Stafford. I photographed one that she had left on the table, which has special meaning to me after the last three years of particularly bad news and grief. I am following my thread.
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Near the beginning of the class when we were talking about the artwork that we did and enjoyed, I repeated something that I’ve often said in the past – that I am a dilettante, a dabbler, skipping from medium to medium but always returning to tapestry. By the end of the week I saw that this is only partially true: I am not a “dilettante.” I am living the creative life as best I can under my changing circumstances, and I am actually living the life that I visualized long ago. A comfortable place to live, an income that provides me with security if not wealth, time to travel and pursue art. How lucky I am!
I may not be focused, but why take the time to become an expert in one thing that life offers when there is so much to tap into? I’ve made good choices. I saw in my heart the negative energy that “dilettante” self-denigrating attitude brought to my life, and now I’m ready to embrace that creative search for the wonder and the blessing that it is.
