Studio Sorting 106

← Fiber Sculpture Sebastopol Center for the Arts Knee deep in plastic! Upcycling Plastic with Auli Sookari →

I keep my hard patterns up a tall ladder in a loft in the studio. I accumulate the currently used ones on my makeshift closet on the ground floor. Over time the current ones get hard to access and I need to upload some to make order.

Well, as 68 is fast approaching, getting up and down the ladder is becoming more treacherous. Enter Heather. Heather is my talented ceramist friend Suki’s daughter and she is under utilized in life. She is clever and also talented in so many ways.

Bingo-help me Heather! And she did.

We bucket lined down all those patterns in

the loft and put them on a spare rack.

Now- these are patterns that date back from the ‘80s some of them. Then, there was my production period in the ‘90s, when I had 3 sizes of everything. Many have the motif drawn on them, from my paint-by-graphic period, with corresponding templates accompanying. This was a very tender and sentimental journey, to think about what I really still need.

So- little by little the upper rack filled back up with some of the favorite old styles. And new dividing labels to separate the categories. I felt efficient in my choices. Yes, styles might change and go back to shoulder pads and baggier silhouettes. But I won’t! I like a good fit. I have evolved some of my styles down from big to just right and I won’t go back. That is for the younger generation to explore, as it is part of the cycle of life!

The easiest way to recycle them was to make big rolls and tie them up. Heather had had a vision of all the patterns hanging form the ceiling, but though it would have been haunting and graceful, I really just wanted them out!! We documented the rolls. I only retrieved one pattern from the bin. I’m pretty proud of myself, and grateful for Heather.