The spider’s web is web of protection around art-making, around play, and around intentional community. It is an offering for spaciousness from social media. This work is meant to bring hope back into creation. This work allows me to take time with my daily practice, with myself, and with my communities that feels easeful in my body. I hope that these offerings will bring you more ease and consideration in your own body.
Thank you for joining me here. Y’all are welcome to share this offering with your communities. I just ask that you credit my work @meredithannewhite. Thank you so much.
Good morning sun beams. I show up today with pockets of spaciousness fluttering into my awareness. It feels like the more I move into slow craft with my hands and with my work, the more I acknowledge that this system runs on the contingency that I am disembodied. The apps that we use want us to be stuck to their scroll. The phones that we carry want us to be on alert for their sounds of urgency. The news wants us to live in heightened states of fear all of the time. So how do we truly unplug ourselves from the subscriptions that we readily allow ourselves to subscribe to each and every day?
How do I allow myself the time away from quick results, from instant gratification, and from constant notifications?
🌞Putting my phone on focus so that it notifies those in my life that I am taking that time away from the phone! This goes for letting those in my life know that I put my phone away in the evening and on sleep mode unless otherwise mentioned. Too, it allows me time in the morning without urgency.
🌞Deleting instagram from my phone until I have something I feel called to share. This is not easy by any means, but it is currently changing my life.
🌞Muting stories! Muting stories has become a way that I am able to hold myself more accountable to check in with those in my life instead of assuming I know what’s going on in their lives. I’m better able to show up for myself and those around me in real time because of this. A quote I love and often come back to that feels resonant for this conversation:
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Prentis Hemphill
🌞Getting a hot cup of coffee/tea and going on a morning walk in a part of my city I feel called to explore in that very moment. It allows me to turn my face and body towards the sun if it decides to grace me with its presence on a cold, winter day.
If I allow myself the spaciousness to do one, some, or all of these things, then I have a greater chance of being able to sit with myself. I may be able to devote myself back into the crafts at which I want to be investigating, exploring, and playing with.
Ancestral quilt commission laying with a large oak tree :)
How do I allow myself to get to the place of embodied craft that is slow?
After taking Marlee’s quilt class, it took me several months to finish my first quilt. I cussed at the thing. I poked my fingers and drew blood on several occasions. I cut parts of it up and stitched them back together in different ways. And then, I finished it. I completed the binding on the quilt by hand (which I don’t know that I’ll ever do again) and hung her on the wall. I was scared to use the quilt in fear that it would fall apart after such careful work. I had become so accustomed to making work that was rarely ever supposed to be touched.
Then the idea of the quilt getting softer and worn-in absolutely excited me. The thought of the quilt being passed down through different hands being mended along the way brought me joy. It shifted my perspective of one from fine art, to one of functional art. It pivoted the way I see craft as a form of function, one that can be used on a day-to-day to remind us of the care it took to make the objects. It has allowed me to begin to pull apart the tendrils of my work from perfectionism.
Sweatshirt Commission with plaid raindrops sprouting forest growth.
What does it mean to make things for my body that allow me to feel embodied instead of disembodied?
My friend Lizzy gave me this book called “The Beauty of Everyday Things” by Soetsu Yanagi. Shoji Hamada, Kanjiro Kawai, and Soetsu Yanagi coined the Japanese word mingei meaning “folk craft” or “craft for the people.”
A few excerpts of the book that have stopped me in my tracks:
It is meant to stand in contrast to aristocratic fine arts, and refers to objects used by ordinary people in their daily lives…These objects include household effects such as clothing, furniture, eating utensils, and stationery. (3)
In order to be called mingei an object must be wholesomely and honestly made for practical use. This calls for careful selection of material, the employment of methods that are in keeping with the work to be done, and attention to detail. (5)
Essentially, it is easy to use and ready at hand, always reliable once we have have become familiar with it, provides a sense of ease and comfort, and the more we use it, the more intimately it becomes a part of our lives. (8)
We no longer look upon objects as we used to, which is undoubtedly due to their poor quality. In the past, everyday objects were treated with care, with something verging on respect.“ (9)
Where did we lose sight of creating every day objects with care and consideration?
The Rockefeller Quilt, from The Mountain Artisans Quilting Book
My partner gifted me “The Mountain Artisans Quilting Book” by Alfred Allen Lewis. It goes into depth about the relationship of craft and the time following the Great Depression. Eleanor Roosevelt alloted funds for programming specific to West Virginia for people to learn crafts such as quilting, carpentry, glass-blowing, etc. This funding allowed people to learn these trades in a time when the economy was in a deep-state of recovery. It feels absolutely relevant for the current climate. Reading this passage gave me a wider lens as to why I might be delving further into my own craft. Maybe it’s why so many of us are scrapping technological advancements and algorithms for things we can make, stitch, build, and mend with our very hands. We are visioning better worlds. I argue that we are absolutely community building by these seemingly small acts.
As I continue to explore craft that allows me to come face-to-face with imperfection, I am allowing myself to become more human. It allows me to show up in my home with more grace. It allows me to feel more whole in my body knowing that I am surrounded by everyday objects that are beautifully and imperfectly made by human-hands. Moving slow for the sake of my body and my work is an act of resistance.
I leave you with this photo of my sister and her mother-in-law in hand-made “home is where the heart is” sweatshirts. Her family came in from France for holiday and was a sweet meeting after a few years apart. A reminder that we carry home with us wherever we go.
Thank you for showing up here with me today! I feel incredibly angry at the circumstances around me all of the damn time, and the more I come back to body the more grace I am able to find and share.
Thank you for joining me here. Y’all are welcome to share this offering with your communities. I just ask that you credit my work @meredithannewhite. You can find me here, on my IG @meredithannewhite,and my website. Thank you so much.
thank you <3