Workshops Past


About Me

There's no craft revival in this family, as it never left... thrift and creative enterprise have been a way of life for these working class, feisty women for generations. Borne from an inclination to make and create, Grandmother Violet & daughters Violet, Iris and June (with little Coral as a young onlooker, watching & learning) spent the '50s & '60s making everything from knitted-beaded bags which had a flow of local cockneys knocking on the door to buy to rejuvenated ballgowns, redesigned and rebuilt from the same fabric to be worn at many masonic gala dinners and family parties. The charismatic husbands played their part in making life safe, enjoyable and full of laughter, but it was the women who took the lead role in making sure that every piece of fabric, wool or thread went to use making everyone look beautifully turned out, despite a less than affluent background... the art of turning something into nothing and making beautiful things with inspiration rather than money.. An art which I plan to continue, the next generation of crafters, remembering the '50s and always learning from the skills we've been lucky enough to inherit from our sisters and mothers... ♥

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Identity - Sugar and Spice and all things nice...?

What are girls made of? Sugar and Spice and all things nice?

I recently did some reading (well I had to, but it was nice) about identity constellations. Hmm. Imagine if you could draw a constellation of all the things important to you and those things which make up your identity.. like a star constellation. Some bits might be further away - like they're part of you but not your 'core' and other features will be right in the middle as they are integral parts of who you are. Add to that a sprinkling of the people you're most influenced by, the people you depend upon and those who make you smile, and then throw in the things you just adore - be they trinkets, colours or experiences like kicking leaves in autumn or holding hands with your loved one.... and that's what makes us us. Oh yes. To quote the effervescent and infamous Jay from the Inbetweeners: Simples.

Or is it..? How many of us stop to think about who we are and what we are made up of? I emphasise who are, not who we want to be or wish we were. How many of us have the time to really reflect..? Do we value this as a past time or would we put it down to self-indulgent navel-gazing? I'd like to put that it's vital for our well being and our mental health... if we don't think often enough about who we are, we can find ourselves unrecognisable and this leads to us lashing out in times of stress or fatigue, denying or just failing to notice our true feelings - the nice ones (lust, love, admiration) and the not-so-nice ones (jealousy, spite, irritability, intolerance).

It seems, the more we think about ourselves (not to the point of obsession of course), the clearer the picture is of who we are. This makes us better people and makes us able to communicate better, we understand what we do and why we do it, therefore we understand each other better and have a more positive outlook on life... and we all live happily ever after.

 ♥ Happy Navel Gazing ♥
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