ENTWINEMENTS

Exploring the links left in the thoughtful comments, thanks Fiona and Peg, led me to a few tidbits I'd like to share:

The action of stitching, the repetitive, monotonous process was a relief, and again I experienced the overlap in thinking and making. The making seemed to clarify my thinking, to resolve ideas and enable me to express for a questioning audience.

From Tips for Mindful Living:

"

Practice the 'philosophy of slow,'" suggests Helgesen. For example, when cooking, choose a recipe that takes longer to prepare, like a stew.

The payoff: Doing something slowly diminishes your stress level, builds patience, helps us appreciate things that don't offer "immediate gratification," and often produces better, more satisfying results.

And then some of my notes about the Tea Ceremony. There are parts of the ceremony that don't appeal to me and parts that do:

Charateristics of Tea Ceremony

beauty of imperfection
simplicity
limitation of things
doing things for others

harmony
respect
purity
tranquility

Zen concept of living fully in the present—very special----one time, one meeting
heightened sensory awarness

quiet inerlude for spiritual refreshment and harmony with the universe

clarification of the senses

complex combination of sensual and spiritual elements

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Glennis brought up body scanning. I saw this first about 10 years ago in a university in NC. It requires a booth and a person with few clothes-underware or leotard. Otherwise the scanner can't tell which is body and which is clothes. As with much of technology, the buy in price is very high. At that time the scanner, software I think would have cost a mere $50 000. And the body scanning software did not interface with with the pattern drafting software. Only for a geek to fiddle with. Then Levi tried it a few years later. You could be scanned in a few stores like San Francisco and Boston and pick out the style of the body, legs pocket... and then have your jeans delivered in 2 weeks. It was touted as the coming of mass customization. Then it disappeared. Now Levi is working with one of the discounters, Wal-Mart I believe. These big companies never share why or what goes wrong but from a few comments I suspect that the problem is visualization. The people ordering had no idea what all the parts were going to look like together, and were less than thrilled with the results. Better to have a pair in hand and try them on to accept or reject. Or the delay was not satisfying.... Anyhow works better for Scion than Levi. Read an old article about custom Levis.

We working artists don't realize how special the ablility to visualize a a future product is. The other part of visualizing a custom product was explained to me by a friend, Gail Kort, I met at Village Artisans who did lovely pen and ink drawings of buildings around town. She said you are often trying to make a drawing that the client has in their mind; they can't make it and are asking you to make it. Difficult if not impossible. I think this is a common problem with custom work.