Blog Posts

Time to find focus

1/4/2025

Depicting a distracted mind might not be helping

Disrupting the grid, upending predictable patterns. Acrylic on canvas, sewing pins, 24” x 24” (Carlyn Yandle)

If the person I share the bed with is to be believed, this morning (as of this writing) I announced in my sleep: “I’m sorry we’re going to martial law again.”

I have only a dim notion of what martial law entails. I’m also not sure if this ‘sorry’ is in the Canadian sense, as in “Sorry bus full” on the rush-hour B-Line that really means “Suck it up, buttercup.” Or is it regret that martial law is again here? In any event, I’m impressed that my id (if you’re a Freud follower) even has a notion of the word ‘sorry.’

I assumed this bit of sleep babble was a call to end this seasonal distraction or maybe our collective distractive state in general. I admit I am worried about my own eroding focus exacerbated by the commercially- and politically-corrupted internet. And I’m not alone; half of US adults are getting their newsbits on TikTok, part of the bombardment of unrelated snippets of (mis)information from maybe humans but increasingly AI.

Thoughts of doom-scrolling, pop-up ad windows, investment-building booms, Amazon fulfilment centres and faceless Cloud storage mega-facilities. Acrylic on canvas, 34” x 27” (Carlyn Yandle)

Over the years I have developed a near-obsessive way of working to evoke a seductive, unsettling visual field, somewhere between pretty and pretty distracting. This laborious process immerses the body in the subject while opening up time and space for the mind to consider some questions like: Are American reporters putting themselves in danger by exposing white supremacy groups? Is it safe to be trans in a small US town? Will women run the risk of more hate and harassment as the top trending phrases, “Your body, my choice” and “Get back to the kitchen” spread online? Is Canada the next alt-right nation? I’m concerned that as long as we’re preoccupied by our next Amazon orders to be fulfilled, or wasting hours killing foes in Call of Duty or dreaming of a career as an influencer, we’re not seeing some harsh political realities coming soon to a White House near you.

I wish I could be content to paint pastoral scenes or voluptuous florals that people would actually want hanging on their walls but this is where I’m at. I lose myself in this work of painting acrylic skins, slicing them into razor-sharp edges and right angles, then positioning them, layer after layer with tweezers and brayers, building and negating grids until my eyes start to cross and my back seizes up. And as the old song goes, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

I’m starting to think that my martial-law proclamation is directed at my own obsessiveness and toward good orderly direction. We’re all going to need that kind of focus in 2025.

'The unknown' is a monster

12/14/2024

I'm betting its bite will be worse than its bark

Lately I’ve been asking anyone I come across: Is it just me or are we all sort of in a calm-before-the-storm, high-alert mode? So far, the score is 100-per-cent ‘Yes.’ Although in retrospect those affirmatives could mean, Yes you’ve asked me that already many times or Yes it is just you please let me pass.
My state of mind is somewhere between what former Village Voicejournalist/author Laurie Stone noted the night before this writing: “Everyone I know feels the edgy nothing” and satirist Samantha Bee’s last post: “Things are about to get fucking WILD.”

Anecdotal evidence through reading rational opinion reveals that countless numbers of engaged humans are not waiting to exhale but bracing for impact of the incoming turbulence in the Divided States of America — and beyond. The unknown is unnerving. It’s also intentional and we’ve seen it before:

Above: That other lying Donald, back in a 2002 press conference spreadingthe Big Lie that launched the catastrophic war in Iraq.

Living in the unknown has already taken its toll as seen during the global pandemic. Heightened fear and paranoia have morphed into the cultish desire for a strongman/daddy figure to fix it and us. And the geo-political trend shows no nation is immune.

To anyone prone to dismissing me by using the C-word (catastrophizing — what were you thinking?), consider this pre-emptive journalistic self-censoring under Trump 2.0: the two MSNBC “Morning Joe” hosts apologizing on air last week for possibly offending Fox News. (See “‘Morning Joe' Sorry David Frum Made Forbidden Joke About Fox News, Please Don't Hurt Them!”) To be clear, this is a left-leaning cable TV network obeying in advance by apologizing to “one of the most malevolent corporations in all of America, whose decades of lies, propaganda, and racist brainwashing are perhaps more responsible than any other single entity for America’s current slide into brain-damaged ethno-fascism,” in the words of the managing editor of Wonkette. Frum, a Canadian-American former Republican and speechwriter for George W. Bush then took issue with its apology in The Atlantic with the kicker: “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”

Suffice it to say this is an early-warning signal that the way things are now won’t be the way things are after Jan. 6. But how to proceed until the big hammers come down on respected, fearless journalists and all the other perceived enemies? Is it more helpful to read Robert Reich’s latest, “How Trump could bring on a second civil war” or bingeing How to Become a Tyrant on Netflix? (True, there is no mention of the American meddling in the making of some of those dictators but the playbook tracks.)

I’ll think on that while I continue to do like the kids and live in the moment, channeling creative energy, even — or especially — the negative.

“The Unknown”, embroidered linen on hoop, 2021. Felt-pen drawing (inset) and words by young nephew Kaleb.

Tips for tired women

11/25/2024

From rolling your eyes to sinking in sawdust

Like a dream it was: A half-a-million-strong pink procession on Washington, a sea of singing, shouting, laughing people, surging forward in the shared pursuit of basic human rights, in their hometowns and around the world. There was hope in the organizing, joy in the making. The resistance was too fabulous to be ignored.

Memorializing the moment: Embroidered cartoon by Bob Krieger and Carlyn Yandle, 2017

Things are different in Trump 2.0. Social justice advocacy groups are stunned, fractured, unorganized. Those who led the last charge are feeling defeated and tired.

Screengrab of story in The New York Times

I’m running from the worst that this state of affairs can bring on: apathy. I’m so busy busy busy painting my studio floor, constructing a queen-sized quilt here, reorganizing rooms there, making so many plans! No space in this head for intrusive thoughts of how this is all going to shake out under the trifecta power of narcissistic, vengeful billionaires and Project 2025.

It is tiring work, all this busyness, but on the upside I get things done and sleep like a log. I realize it’s not sustainable. Luckily for me there’s a handy Globe Mini Mag for that.

Searching for answers from one of my Great Aunt Ivy’s many Mini Mags and Dell Purse Books.

After my Great Aunt Ivy died at a few months’ shy of 105 (and in her right mind until the end), I found some of her Mini Mags and Dell Purse Books. You see, kids, back in the 1900s, before checking socials or scrolling TikTok was a way to pass the time, there were these ubiquitous inspiration booklets, pumped out of publishing houses in New York City and Boca Raton. Women bought them on impulse at the supermarket or drugstore checkout, to be pulled out of a purse at some kind of waiting moment. For Ivy that would be in a waiting room or while waiting for her bus or on the bus waiting for her bus stop. She and millions of others would have found inspiration and tips from any one of the hundreds of titles, from Instant Beauty Tricks to Household Hints to 1970 Financial Horoscope to Fabulous Low-Calorie Desserts.

Ivy was 88 when Why Women Are So Tired (Globe Mini Mag #287, published 1996) caught her eye. She was retired from her job as a longtime companion for a rich lady but was still taking the bus here and there and walking down to the Seniors Centre to volunteer hand massages which was maybe tiring and why she was compelled to take the quiz at the start of this booklet:

Quiz: How Tired Are You? Score 20 statements from 0 (never true) to 3 (usually true)
“1. My eyes are strained and tired.” Beside this statement there is a small, faint “3” written in pen.
“2. My legs are tired.” Another, wobblier “3.”
“3. My attention wanders easily.” This is left blank, which could be your answer right there. Ivy went no further on the quiz, maybe because the hairdresser was ready to see her now, or she had reached her bus stop.
Having abandoned the How Tired Are You quiz she would have missed out on the score that determines her level of tiredness and there’s no hint as to whether she skipped ahead to helpful tips like, Eat a banana (Page 16) or “Sleeping Tip: 1. Eye-Roll.” (Page 60). “Take a Nap” is listed as a “preferred method of stress management of high-powered luminaries of all professions, including (long list of men).” Some other sleeping tips include “Try sleeping with your head at the foot of the bed.”

I reflexively eye-roll and feel energized already.

She must have picked up a tip or two, because this four-foot-eight, what they used to call ‘spinster’ was indefatigable and freakishly strong. (I once humoured her on this hand-massage business she mentioned and stuck out mine for a demo, wincing at her Kung Fu grip.)

More tips: “Say to yourself: ‘My eyes are twinkling and sparkling.’” (Page 34) and: “Rub It Away” (Page 37): “All you really need for a rubdown is a massage book, special sponges and hot oils, a flat surface, and your own two hands.” Or “Take an Enzyme Bath… a steaming elixir of sawdust, rice bran and enzyme powder…. No one disagrees that the bather feels great after soaking neck-deep in a tub of the stuff.” (Many intrusive thoughts here of rubbing and sawdust and hot oils and special sponges and my Great Aunt’s penetrating hands. Do those drapes need ironing?)

Page 45: Get a cordless phone. “Imagine being able to feed the dog, fold the laundry, iron — and talk on the phone at the same time.” (Alternative tip title: Prepare now for your 21st-Century state of permanent distraction.)
Also, “Memo pads: Lots of them — everywhere. In your purse, in your car and even in your bathroom. Use a spiral-bound type for your purse, and sticky notepads for leaving ‘can’t miss’ messages to yourself and others.”

This is very much not helping. Maybe I need to eat a banana.

“Take chances. The risks can be small — like… getting embroiled in a political debate.” Oh, those lazy-hazy Clinton-era days of this book’s publishing, when First Lady Hillary made that historical “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights” speech in Beijing and her husband signed into law Biden’s bill for a 10-year assault weapons ban. Judging by my trip to the US over this election, any audible political discussion is not at all considered a small risk.

Final tip for this space — and I’m paraphrasing here — if the problem is a lack of stimulation your mind is on the slippery slope toward full hibernation. Go get a new haircut.

Major score: A Dell Purse Book #4080, published 1969

Luckily Great Aunt Ivy had a purse book for “The Busy Beauty.”

When going back is good

11/23/2024

Past failures are invaluable teaching tools

This is my picking-up-the-pieces post, which is literally what I’m doing these days (and late nights).

With the outlook looking very dark indeed I turned to my colourful stash of fabrics that I keep at eye level in a wine crate on the wall. The ‘BACK’ and ‘NEXT’ sign plates — evoking the buttons on the bottom of every online form — are courtesy of an artist friend, so I texted him for his opinion on how to proceed in these times of need:

Turns out things are going back politically, now that the majority of Americans have voted in villains to run the show. I’m going back too, but only to revisit those failures for the lessons they hold for moving forward.

Exhibit A: Here I spent a good portion of one day heating a tapestry needle with a Bic lighter and poking it through a piece of stiff synthetic paper. Over and over. I loved the subtractive mark-making (also known as ‘burning holes’) and the increase in density that culminated in a large negative space. I was working as an artist-research assistant with astrophysicists and other big brains at the time so I think I was trying to get a grip on the concept of black holes or negative energy (not so much). Learning outcome: Breathing in melting synthetic paper fumes creates a whopper of a headache. Not an indoor sport.

Exhibit A

My father was a lifelong painter of mostly landscapes but I knew he was losing his mind when he looked at the last work-in-progress on his easel and declared, “Well I don’t know what’s going on here!” This is how I feel when I look at Exhibit B: A four-panel collage painting of lacy construction-crane patterns topped with bits of Tyvek building wrap and strips of acrylic skins. Learning outcome: I need to add a letter to my will requesting that all weird artwork be destroyed upon my demise.

Exhibit B

Moving on to Exhibit C: some jeans with all fabric removed and re-configured as a net or scaffolding. Maybe a more clever artist could write a profound statement about this that could land it in an Important Art Exhibit, perhaps something about togetherness or workers united, or maybe the hollowing out of union labour. It said nothing to me but the materials and technique were eventually incorporated into two distinct large-scale artworks. Learning outcome: Even dead-end projects contain something to build on.

Exhibit C

Exhibit D is a collection of coffee-bean sacks attached to a wall with sewing pins. I was exploring the sculptural possibilities of burlap, the shadow effects and warm tones, the varying weaves and the fonts of the silk-screened labels. But tacking bunched-up bags wasn’t enough.

Exhibit D

I doubled down, stitching one bag after another to a rusty concrete-forming tie, then pulling out most of the weft from the weave, macramé-ing them, then coating them with ready-use concrete mix. Meh. I knotted up the deconstructed sacks following designs of specific architecture, including a cathedral. I lashed the steel ties together and suspended the lot of them in an overly ambitious arrangement that called for a dozen more of these time-sucking labours from hell. I was stuck in that encrusted, fibrous rabbit hole for most of 2021. Learning outcome: Going bigger isn’t the answer when it’s not working and it’s okay to drop the project despite the large investment in time. Also, turns out my lungs don’t react well to the burlap-fibre dust bunnies floating around the studio.

Detail of concretized burlap macramé experiments

I finally received a sign to restart a couple of weeks ago when another artist gave me a collection of silky striped fabric swatches. They reminded me of some finicky, slippery satin quilt blocks I started a decade ago. I pulled out the fraying, wonky squares that had defeated me but decided to work with them. This will be a queen-sized memory quilt of my perfectly imperfect past. Learning outcome: Failures may need time for new energy, ideas and skill to arrive. This is that time.

Work in progress: Piecing together an abandoned project with new energy.

On radical self-care

11/20/2024

Making ourselves whole through making

First there is shock. I saw it in a coffee shop in a small US city the morning Trump was elected — again. The place was full but hushed. “Are you okay?”, one customer after another whispered to the three female baristas. Nods. Shrugs. Back to work.

Another shock hit the next day, when a friend confirmed our worst fears: the cancer had spread, nothing more for it. Silence, then tears all around.

First the shock, then the rage. Why? Why now? Why them? Why us? We cast around for blame. Eventually we arrive at the only thing for it: regrouping, starting from the self and working out from there.

My no-nonsense inner grandlady tells me to Get a hold of yourself, advice I take in the most loving way. I hold myself up by burrowing in for a nap, taking a walk wherever the trees are, sinking into a hot bath. There is a kind of exquisiteness during this inward time of radical self-care. This engagement with the physical world is a humane activity that breaks the paralysis, the start of ‘getting it together’ or gathering oneself.

Gathering is also a trauma response to life-shattering events (look at hoarding). The urge to collect the shards and scraps is an attempt to make ourselves whole. I find solace in pulling together material scraps of handwork by other makers and other traditions, not to recreate the past but to consider new possibilities, new forms. Puzzling over textures and techniques is quiet, contemplative work. There is no pre-planning, no goal-setting to be achieved; I’m simply forging connections, intent on finding a fresh beauty in the rejected and damaged remains, one stitch at a time in a sort of personal/political practice.

After we collect ourselves we collect up with others because we humans are pack animals. We share our grief because we know that that emotion is a monster not to be ignored. Even the kitties or pups instinctively know when the moment calls for cozying up to their people.

Some of us share our art because we have to. We brew up a mug of Bengal Spice tea, clear a space on the table heaped with scraps of fabric, unravelling lace and stained embroidered linens, plug in the laptop and open an empty screen. And we reach out.

Donated hand-stitched linens and lace offer a further layer of meaning to an expanded painting practice (detail). (Carlyn Yandle)

An iron will is needed now

11/4/2024

Working out those wrinkles is so satisfyingIf you’re uselessly wringing your hands right about now, pump some iron.
Hear me out: Ironing is useful, which, in the few days left before the US election, is the opposite position of those of us watching who can’t vote or compel Americans to vote. With democracy itself teetering on the brink it’s best to stop flitting about, pants on fire, and instead grab onto something stable and practical. Just maybe don’t do it in front of the latest broadcast of any of the mega-rich misogynists’ rallying cries; the TV screen is no match to an overhand launch of an iron.
If you’re rolling your eyes at this suggestion you may still be triggered by the iron as symbol of just more unpaid women’s housework, promoted through those post-war images of an ecstatic housewife standing before the only board she has access to. If you view her hubby’s freshly starched white shirt as his day pass out of one of those little boxes made of ticky-tacky, you are still afflicted.
I get it; letting go of the iron-as-shackles connection doesn’t come easy when you are born into that milieu. My cousin recently shared a photo of the two of us, as young as six, standing knock-kneed in skirts and knee-socks at a kid-sized ironing board, playing ironing yet there was little evidence of ironing activity in my own childhood home. This shit was insidious.
Inflation was hitting hard those days, and the petrochemical industry found an opportunity: pushing polyester as the time-saver for women who by choice or necessity entered the workforce. When my grandmother found herself single in her 40s she traded her home-sewn floral cotton dresses for Sears Fortrel mix ’n’ match coordinates, got her teacher’s certificate and moved to a remote town for work. My McDonald’s uniform was an itchy kelly-green combo of stretch pants and striped zip-up collared top.
Skip forward a few decades and we’re barely treading water in the synthetic polymersea of fast-fashion clothing that fuels microplastic pollution.

Ironing has no role in this wrinkle-free, race-to-the-bottom system. It’s part of the repairing-is-caring continuum toward a circular economy of natural-fibre clothing and toward our own well-being. It relaxes both rumpled, creased woven cottons and linens and our fine selves. You can’t doom-scroll when you’re gliding across a soft surface, settling wrinkles with puffs of steam. Ahhhhhh.
Quilters know all about the rewards of ironing following hours of wrestling bits of fabric into new arrangements with a temperamental sewing machine. Even the wonkiest quilt blocks in that stack “will all press out.” Ohhhmmm.
The time spent ironing favourite linens and natural-fibre clothing is an investment in those pieces, a time for personal reflection on their making and their makers. Grandma Flo may have embraced her wash-and-wear polyester pieces but she never abandoned ironing her quality dressy things or her fine cutwork table linens hand-stitched by her sisters. When it was my turn to have her over for tea she would tsk-tsk at my creased tablecloth. That it was thrifted was no excuse; all linens deserved pressing.
A decade after her death I created a part-figurative alterpiece anchored by a Teflon iron plate. The assemblage of found objects reflects her strength in the face of tumultuous change and the little pleasures of her everyday like teatimes, decoration and costume jewelry.

Two views of “Teflon Flo”: Found lamp base, iron plate, jelly mould, tea strainer, chandelier crystals (Carlyn Yandle)

At this writing, it is Dia de los Muertos and Teflon Flo is front and centre and shining its light. A few feet away from this ofrenda is a deep scorch mark in the circa-1898 wood floor that, judging by its diminutive footprint, dates back decades. I take it as a warning from a past homemaker — I’ve conflated her with my grandmother — to unplug the iron or it will all burn down. Which I am not thinking will happen if Trump is elected. Not thinking about that at all.

A warning from decades past: Don’t let it all burn down (Carlyn Yandle)

Dancing on the edge

11/3/2024

This craftiest time of year is laced with pain

When you’ve recently lost a loved one, certain annual occasions are rough: Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries. For me, it’s Halloween. That’s when my brother was a full-steam-ahead creative force and crafty collaborator.
Right about now I’m missing his super-charged energy. I need the distraction from the dead-heat US election campaign. Whenever I’m in near fetal position watching the news of the latest misogynist spew, I wish he would walk through the front door and shatter that chatter with his usual greeting, Hey. What’s goin’ on?

My brother has been my biggest backer, my major motivator. His material explorations, unlike my mincing attempts, were bold. He took keen notice of my flirtations with trendy crafty products over the years and turned them up to 11, sponge-painting, glue-gunning, Mod-Podging and needle-felting the ridiculous and the outsized. One Halloween, in the days (weeks?) before, he and his two sons papier-maché’d two gigantic skulls that he illuminated and suspended at their front door to create all the charm of Colonel Kurtz’ camp in Apocalypse Now. He did it for the kids — all the kids.

He designed craft beer labels and websites, hand-built playhouses and kitchen cabinetry from scratch and baked up a scale-model gingerbread house of his own house. He decorated birthday cakes with panache and had a penchant for dinner plating. His Instagram account is (still) full of irreverent, self-deprecating and appreciative posts of various craftiness.

Nothing I made was too weird for his liking. Sometimes our unsolicited viewpoints clashed, which I liked because there was good takeaway there. He wasn’t shy about serving up some meaty feedback about my work-in-progress but scoffed at the notion that he was an artist himself. He often ran his well-rendered hand-drawn or Illustrator sketches by me. I would tell him that they were overly complex. He would give me the screw-you look and eventually edit his design.

My brother never saw himself as an artist.

Two years ago, as summer turned to Fall he was couch-bound and riding waves of excruciating pain. I would text him stoopid videos of us synchro-dancing at a house party or bloopers from our teenage nephews’ film projects.

A couple of days before that Halloween my brother was on a fentanyl drip in the palliative care ward when the younger teenage son showed up for his dad’s creative input, in an almost-finished Semi-Pro costume. He spent the evening bedside, drawing the logo with felt pens on the singlet fashioned from an old T-shirt. Meanwhile our niece, 12, had asked for my assistance in transforming her into a strip of bacon. I received the required hand-rendering of her idea and figured it out. She cut and sewed up red and brown strips of felt to a body-height casing of white felt. It was as hasty as her drawing. I took a photo and sent it to my brother.

The day before Halloween he critiqued it. “Needs some ‘distressed’ coloring around the edges,” he texted from his hospital bed. “Maybe some of that bacon scent spray that I always see in dollar stores… what about a sash or banner that says ‘Maple Leaf’ on it?” But basic bacon was all I could muster and when I forwarded him our sister’s Halloween-night reveal photo of three girls in character of butcher, pig and bacon he texted back: “You nailed it!” Liar. But I lived for his praise.

Three days before he left this world on Christmas Day I texted him a video of our crotch-rock front-porch lip-sync from Halloween the year before.

He replied with a heart emoji.

Leader of the pack

Fleeting thoughts of granny squares

10/25/2024

The Wet Coast is no place for this fuzzy fantasy

The trees are sun-kissed radiant red and gold as I hunker down to write this, in that little sliver of crisp and dry days between the months of dumb-dumb flipflops and the damn rain boots. Not that I’m complaining about life-giving precipitation in these drying times but by the time this is published we on the Wet Coast will most likely be entering the seven months of sog. So just for today, I’m loving this:

I don’t actually own an outdoorsy sweater. I have various rain-repelling jackets and coats and pants and some base layers spun from plastic pop bottles: ‘outdoorky’ gear, mostly in sensible black. Yet it occurs to me that since I have competent needleworking skills I could design something completely unique and unsensible: a vibrant visual statement! A colourful conversation-starter!

I’ve knit several sweaters in my time while commuting by bus and SkyTrain across four municipalities during four years as a reporter at a suburban newspaper. They were mostly derivative of the ‘Doctor Huxtable’ sweaters, more not-bad than bad-ass, for my man at the time. They were not keepers.

I have just one of my own: Logo Sweater, made in the months before the 2010 Winter Olympics here, to test the extents of corporate copyright and appropriation of the traditional Cowichan sweater design.

‘Logo Sweater’, 2010, made with the assistance of my mother, a truly competent life-long knitter, and modelled by my brother.

What I’ve decided after those years of increasingly complex sweater-making is that knitting, as a creative action, suuuuuucks.

In my hands, the knitting needles are tools trying to perfectly emulate what a machine can — and does — do: create perfect loops upon perfect loops on rows upon rows, stuck in a matrix, so mindless you can do it blindfolded or watch movies at the same time, which I guess is the appeal. It’s a laborious endurance; you can binge every Grey’s Anatomy episode and you still might not get that baby blanket done.

I’m with the hookers. Could knitting needles have created the hyperbolic-crocheted Spore from a 24-foot-by-28-foot deteriorating plastic tarp I dragged out of the forest? Or this other version in found fibre-optic cable? I’d like to see knitting needles try working up these tight mathematical models of hyperbolic growth.

Two crocheted objects in the “Fuzzy Logic” series. (Carlyn Yandle)

Just one agile hook is all it takes to create fast, improvisational and three-dimensional objects. It can be a meandering journey through rows of neat little stitches that erupt into large saggy loops before settling down the side in thick ribbing then circling back to the beginning. How about a curly lettuce frill here? How about stitching up a rose?

How about a few Roses Against Violence? Since that fun little project was introduced by an Austrian artist in 2018, crocheters have been tagging street infrastructure all over the world with purple roses with a message to stop gender-based violence.

Collage of Instagram posts from around the world (@rosesagainstviolence; #rosesagainstviolence). Austrian artist Claudia Grünzweig’s started the crochet-tagging in 2018 to call for the end of gender-based violence.

How about hooking up an alternative to the bland Barbie universe?

Work by Xenobia Bailey: “Her Royal Flyness”, part of an overlooked “Funktional Design” movement, “Poke In The Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture”, Seattle Art Museum, August 2024

Or a human-sized frock of funk fantasy?

(Garment, 1990s. Single-stitch crochet: acrylic and cotton four-ply yarn, “Xenobia Bailey: A Childhood Dreamscape In the Aesthetic of Funk Almost Deferred”, part of the “Poke In The Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture” exhibit, Seattle Art Museum, August 2024)

I am inspired by this outrageous aesthetic overlooked in the West Coast crafty counter-culture of the late last century. It has me mining my own memories of a fuzzy milieu of crocheted granny squares and afghans.
I googled “duster” and “granny squares” and there it is:

So much inspo: u/Birdfin on the r/crochet sub-Reddit; dreamcrochets.com

Not a word of a lie: As I type this last sentence, a loud crack of thunder rattles the place. I unplug the laptop.

Wait — is this grandmacore? Comes a time when the specialness of the old-lady look is lost when it’s worn by an old(er) lady. Any attempt at personal flair might read more ‘picked out of my seniors’ centre lost-and-found.’

So grandmacore is to be avoided. Also cottagecore, a baffling combo of simplicity and clutter. And definitely not the froufrou fairycore as there is no occasion when I will be attaching little wings to gauzy day dresses. Apparently (according to a handy online quiz) I relate mostly to the earthy goblincore. I do appreciate swamps and lichen and tree-trunk hidey-holes. But mushrooms have the feel of phlegm on my tongue so I will not be adorning my clothes or livingspace with any manner of those.

I was still visualizing a calf-length duster of earth-toned granny squares when the rain started firing against the windows like birdshot. So much for sweater weather.

The horror... the horror...

10/22/2024

There's still time to re-think toxic and tasteless Halloween decor

I am harnessing both my irrational and quite-reasonable fears of two looming nail-biter elections — one provincial within days and that bigger scary one with the global impact — and funnelling them into Halloween. And why not? It’s the most craftiest time of the year with all the sparkle and none of the ho-ho-horrible Christmas-y treacle, that one night a year when you can lure tots to your home with candy without being branded a sicko.

True, Halloween’s not until the end of the month but who knows what kind of collective anxiety will be gripping us by then, what with the Divided States of America election just days after?
Instead, I am focusing in, drawing on my craftivist background to encourage some acts of resistance — at least when it comes to Halloween decor.

This is the time to resist that 12-foot-tall glowing Grim Reaper in Home Depot’s seasonal section. Just walk on by. Or allowing that pointy finger to drop on the ‘Place my order’ button for other petroleum-derived, environmentally-hazardous novelty crap for home delivery, made under who-knows-what kind of labour conditions. Because how can you be sure it wasn’t made in another one of those prison-factories, like that Oregon woman discovered when she opened her fake-tombstones kit to find a hand-written plea for help from a forced-labourer in China?

Also on the resist list: fake spiderwebs. The sight of dead, dangling hummingbirds, bats and moths caught up in fake spiderwebs is the kind of horror you don’t want in your display. I know; the description from the Amazon seller is enticing: “The white spider web looks like a real spider web, making your indoors and outdoors look even more creepy.” (More creepy than usual?) But is it worth all the dead fauna?

Facebook post image via snopes.com

And yes, the Amazon ad’s “office” option (as shown below) could inspire a fun prank on that useless middle manager at your workplace but is it worth all the effort? These are important considerations.

Amazon seller images

Craft tip: You want fake spider webs? Just rip the hell out of some dollar-store cotton cheesecloth. You can fold it all up after and use it next year.

My bias for homemade over purchased is clear but some minimum standards in skill and creativity are required. Just searching upcycle and halloween will take the googler to some sad and creepy places. For example, daubing black dots on Keurig-type capsules is not a spooky craft. I smelled a rat so I scanned the text: “Don’t feel guilty about enjoying those extra cups of coffee in the morning!” reads this Michigan-based retailer’s blog post. A-ha! Obviously this is all part of the Kuerig Industrial Complex. No, zero-effort-craft searcher; you really SHOULD feel guilty for getting sucked into that single-serving plastic Keurig coffee pod routine. (Fun fact: Keurig Canada paid a $3 million penalty in 2022 for misleading coffee pod recycling claims.)

Also, the instructions on the blog require painting the pods with white acrylic paint or spray paint and black acrylic painted dots when clearly you could just take a Sharpie to mini yogurt containers that everyone uses once and throws away. One-star rating from this Halloween crafter!

And while I appreciate the effort of re-using what’s on hand, such as cannabis stalks served up on Reddit at r/GrowingMarijuana, I fail to make out what these things are. My best guess is some homegrown-fuelled visions from a past life in rural Slovenia.

This brings me to another minimum standard: taste. I find no spooky fun in fashioning homemade body bags and slumping them against a front door, so close to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown when morgues were overflowing, and in the midst of a toxic-drug epidemic. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer here, but even Halloween crafters need to read the room. (Although I appreciated the dedication to the step-by-step images and instructions. Solid one star!)

Maybe that’s me just growing soft with age, but it’s more likely to do with the reality of my neighbourhood. That first Halloween here five years ago we decked out the front door with dangling skeletons, fog machine, black lights, giant (homemade) spider creeping up the wall. On the big night the speaker blasted a Spotify Spooky Scary Skeletons playlist and when we got sick of that, Tom Waits at a too-high volume. Most of the encounters with the 45 million kids in from god-knows-where were completely transactional: knock, shout trick or treat in unison, present open bag, inspect measly sucker offering, sneer and race to the next door. But there were other kids, often without costumes, whose knocks were barely audible and who stood silent and frozen, staring up at me, mouths slack. Clearly my understanding of their faraway life experiences was as foggy as our front porch.

When we know better we do better so the following Hallowed Eve I ditched any obvious triggers except the giant homemade spider; I set that up every year to torment an arachnophobic friend. I omitted the wails and Waits. I learned to never ask kids why they don’t have a costume or demand they say the customary words to get a candy. I’m just glad their dads and uncles, moms and aunts are all here, braving this bit of strange so their kids can be kids. Now I greet them with a smile, wave at the adults looking on and hope they all remember that although the treats may suck (they’re literally suckers — hundreds of suckers) this household is a safe place, all year round.

But there’s nothing wrong with macabre crafts; last year my studio became a horror show of upcycled useless things, at the hands of two evil-minded 13-year-olds:

A material love-hate relationship

10/12/2024

Masks keep our germs to ourselves but I don't have to like them

People! Am I going to have to bring out my Social Distancing Hat again? Everyone I know is either in the grips of one plague or another or sharing stories about a friend with Long Covid or flu or RSV. And that friend is possibly me (cough cough).

Social Distancing Hat, March 2020

I’m just kidding about the hat; we Westcoast Canadians have umbrellas for that, at least for a solid seven months out of the year (and we wonder why we’re considered a reserved lot). I trashed the hat shortly after parading around in it for a little levity during Lockdown 2020. In retrospect, ridding myself of the wide-brimmed artwork was overly aspirational. I was obviously oblivious to the power of airborne illnesses to return like that damn leak in my studio every time it rains.

The joke’s on me these days. Embracing more social-distancing practices could have saved me from the cold/flu thing that hit Labour Day weekend and settled into my bottom right lung as pneumonia by month’s end. I did take general precautions: stayed home or sequestered in my leaky studio when I was feeling poorly; bowed out from gatherings and even coffee-shop meetings; took four of the reliable at-home COVID-19 tests over the course of this cough, even doing the whole thorough gaggy throat-scrape method. When they came out negative, I went back out into the world. I was sick of the social isolation.

I was so ready to re-gather with friends that I willed myself to not notice that all the women pushing the dim-sum carts were in masks, even as I barrelled past them to go outside for a coughing fit. I did take advantage of courtesy hand-sanitizer pump bottles at the entrance of shops and public buildings but I did not, would not see the masked-up cashiers, receptionists, servers, tellers and baristas as a sign that I should be following suit.

For the record, I was an early mask-adopter even before the spring of 2020. I saw more foreign-exchange students at art school masking up as early as January, and by the end of February, many weren’t coming into class at all. Seeing people in masks was normal to me since my 20s when I lived in Japan, where several commuters in any given train car were masked up, even little kids. When I moved back to Vancouver I lived near Chinatown where masks on faces are commonplace. So by the time the mask mandatehit I was already on it.

Pandemic-era Instagram posts (clockwise from top left): Early mask prototype; Photoshop’d Captain Vancouver statue; the best use of the MFA Class of 2020 graduation regalia; tiny crocheted masks for store-bought bunnies, Easter 2020 gifts.

In those first few eerie weeks of lockdown, when many people were wondering if it was safe to venture out of doors at all, I was part of a growing army of makers sewing up three-layer cotton masks, refining my design as I went and sharing the method online and materials in a system of drop-offs and pick-ups. I’ve made dozens on dozens of masks when the scant supply was reserved for frontline workers. I only quit when stockpiles showed up in Dollarama.

Instagram posts of some of many masks made for the masses in 2020

I don’t like thinking about those dark times, nor the long-term effects of that era of social isolation on ourselves, our kids, our community, our economy, our society. (Even as I write, my father, in long-term care, is being isolated for COVID-19 and he doesn’t understand why.) And I don’t want to consider the import of this:

Or this:

My knee-jerk reaction is to just move on from the whole masking-up rigmarole even as we’re all getting ready to hunker down indoors for the winter. Is that my privilege talking? Or is it growing up at a time and place when runny-nosed kids were just a fact of life? What’s it going to take for folks like me to adapt to masks as the norm in elevators, on buses, in Costco, at the dentist waiting room or the coffee shop lineup, even when feeling well?

Masking up is practical and courteous but I loathe the loss of any more social connectivity, including our unique ability to absorb facial micro-expressions that convey deeper communication — that one advantage humans have over AI and our future robot overlords (for now).

<<Previous

Forward>>