Maitri — Page 82

Since taking a bad fall late October and spraining my ankle and foot, tearing ligaments and essentially being a hot mess, the recliner in my Cozy Room next to my Studio has become a temporary work station and I have gotten a lot done here, but I am getting ready to move back in to the Studio. This will remain a work area where I can rest and work in the evenings and do things I can do in my lap with Molly curled up with me, snuggled into my side.

Dear Ones,

I have done this blog post for 2 reasons. First of all, to help you better understand my work with Maisie, and her world — why I’m doing it, what it all means, and what it might mean for you. What I mean is that Maisie and I are both agoraphobic. We don’t leave our houses (Maisie not at all, I on very rare occasions, and I have gone weeks and months without leaving.) I will be 67 this year, have lived with a lifetime of mental health struggles, and have, given those circumstances, what many feel must be a very limited and some even imagine a very sad life. Yes, I struggle with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and PTSD among other things, and yes, I am a disabled senior citizen living on social security with limited financial means, but in NO other way do I find my life limiting. Look at these pictures. Does this look like a sad life, replete with a great many limitations, and nothing to do or to look forward to? I assure you it is not!

I absolutely love my life, and I can tell you with all honesty that despite the “limitations” that I do have I see endless possibilities here, and it fills me with joy. And so I have created Maisie, my alter ego, and Daisy, her little one-eyed chihuahua mix that is my Molly’s alter ego, and we are here to tell the world that no matter what your limitations are — real or perceived — the world is filled with potent possibilities abundant all around you. My work with Maisie’s World — the art, the book in process, other little books I hope to create, and my Patreon community are about just these things. How to create a life that you love, how to celebrate the life you have, and how to continue dreaming and expanding, never giving up hope, and always working toward more and more joy right from where you are. That is Maisie’s mission, and it is mine.

Also I am writing this blog post, for myself really, because this is the year that I want to bring together all of the bits and parts and pieces of who I am and weave them together into a whole. The writer, the artist, the teacher, the fiber artist, a community builder for women for over 40 years, creating safe and sacred space, a place where women may feel nurtured and inspired, where they may feel less alone and as if they have a “home,” where they can explore and create and expand their own dreams. All of these things are parts of who I am, and I need to do them all to feel whole and happy. It is not just about writing. It is not just about creating art, it is also making things with my hands, with fiber and fabric, making little books, just a whole host of things. These things are not separate entities, they are part of a whole. I have worked very hard, with the help of my dear friend Eleanor who comes to help me a couple or more times a month, to organize my studio so that I have working spaces that work, because I plan to get a lot of work done this year.

In *Dragonfly Cottage Studio*. My most cherished piece of furniture which thankfully survived my housefire where I lost nearly everything in 2014, is this 9′ long, antique pine Farmer’s Table. It was found in a barn, indeterminate age but very, very old, and heavier than an Indian Elephant I think! It took 4 men to get it into the studio and it’s massive legs are bigger than a person’s legs. I love it because it is SO big it can accommodate 2 work spaces and tons of stuff! This room — barring this little interlude where I have been working in the Cozy Room because I had to keep my foot elevated — is truly where I live and spend my days from morning until 10 or so when I shut down the studio for the night and move back into the Cozy Room.

I hope, through my work, with my writing, and painting, and creating Maisie’s World which is my way of telling a story that hopes to help others find their way, is to create a body of work that is woven fine like a tapestry. I have realized that one of the reasons I have felt stuck in many ways in the last year was that my life was feeling too limited. Painting, creating Maisie and her World, are very important to me, main elements in the work I am doing, but by trying to limit myself to just creating Maisie’s art I was feeling as if important parts of who I am were lost, and to that end I didn’t feel whole, and I have had a hard time moving forward in the last months. What I have realized is that I need to let it all in, and in doing so, in allowing my creativity to expand in every direction to all of the things I have always loved and done, the art itself will be expanded and enriched. Everything I do in my life Maisie does in hers. She paints and she knits and she lives with her animal companions and other delightful creatures. She gardens like I do and she cooks, and she does all of the things that I do here in my cozy little cottage, Dragonfly Cottage, and Maisie’s World can only be created if I am living fully doing all of the things that I love that make me happy in my own life. This is the year I am going to reclaim it all, and I mean all of it. I am not going to limit myself in any way. I don’t need to buy things, I can’t afford to, but even after the fire a fair amount of things were saved that I hadn’t realized, at first, that I still had.

This is the computer side of my work table where I do all of my writing, reading, making notes, planning, meditating, and drawing. It is where I spend most of my time, do almost all of my work online, do Zoom calls, and more. I spend more time here than anywhere in my life.

While I lost all of my big fiber art equipment — I mourn the loss of the bigger looms, and I have cried over the loss of my batt making machine to create big artful batts for spinning, BUT, wonder of wonders, because most of my yarn and fiber were stored in big rubbermaid tubs in my concrete garage I still have a lot of yarn and fiber, hand spindles to handspin art yarns, my beloved collection of hand-carved and painted spool-knitters and crochet hooks made by Noreen Crone-Findlay, inotherwords some of the little things. Another thing that amazed me after the fire was how many of my books survived. I had had bookshelves in every room, thousands of books collected over a lifetime, and while some were lost, and some came back to me in boxes (only because I insisted! They were going to destroy these) that were blackened and charred, I have been able to piece a life back together with what remains, and what remained, and what I have been able to build, with my inner resources, has been no small thing.

Before my house fire in 2014 I had an Etsy shop. I sold handspun art yarns, beautiful batts for spinning, fiber art pieces, and more. It was work I loved doing so much, but in the fire I lost almost all of my fiber art equipment and my fiber art life came to a halt. Fiber and Textile arts have always been a great love of mine and I am starting to do them again, just for myself, for gifts for family or friends, not for sale for now, but who knows what the future may hold? This opposite side of my work table from the computer side is a perfect place to do just this, and in this picture in the top right corner you can see my parakeets Franny and Teddy who really liven things up here, and you can see into the Cozy Room which is where I am when not in the studio.

And so, dear friends, to this end I am sharing all of these pictures with you, because I want you to see that even for a nearly 67 year old woman who has survived housefires and hurricanes, is disabled and lives on a small income, with a life pieced together with this and that (and lots of brightly colored rooms in every color of the rainbow!) I have created a world that is a happy one, a full life filled with riches, if not monetary what I do have here, and inside me, means even more, and I want to show you, and share with you. Maisie’s World is really Maitri’s World, or rather hers grows out of mine, and her stories are what I call fantasy/fiction/memoir. I have worked hard well into my 7th decade to come to all of this. This is a glorious age and I am grateful for everything.

My newest work area that I am very excited about. I used to always paint in front of my computer and it was very cramped and I had paints and palettes all around me which had to be moved every time I finished painting so that I could do my other work. It was a real pain and not conducive to creating an atmosphere for painting as much as I wanted and needed to. In this corner of my studio there are built in benches with drawers for storage underneath and the benches go around both walls, big and comfy with double layers of cushions for deck chairs that I got really cheaply on clearance in the fall of 2014 when I was moving back into my rebuilt house. I have never really used it for anything but before Christmas I got one of those 6′ tables that fold in half, portable, but very sturdy. I also bought the purple plastic cover to protect it while painting on Etsy for $5 (they come in lots of colors!) It is now my painting table, ALL of my art supplies live here and I can come and go painting as the muse moves me to, or Maisie calls, and I don’t have to take anything down or move anything. The benches provide a nice place for me to sit and Molly has an area right next to me when I am there with her blankets and toys. I am in love with it and the light — since there are windows all the way around 2 sides — provide divine light during the day, with good lighting for working after dark. I am nearly in a bliss state to have a designated painting area. I will get a lot of work done this year!

In creating my Patreon community, now in it’s 5th month, I have been able to get the support that I need to continue my work, expand it, and to help other women. If you would like to share in Maisie’s and my world and be part of my community I would love to have you. Just click on any of the Patreon links on this site to find out more. In any event, believe in yourself, trust in who you are, celebrate what you have, never give up on your dreams, and believe me when I say that there is more possible for you than you may have ever imagined. Last year was a hard year for us all. This year let’s gather all the bits and parts and pieces of our lives and build new dreams with them all, or resurrect old dreams, or revise dreams that you once held and gave up on because you didn’t think they were possible any more. As I always ask my students, “If not, why not? If not now, when?” Indeed.

I am always working and planning and dreaming. This is going to be a good year…