daily delight - february 22

i just listened to a marvelous podcast episode. it was the latest episode of ezra klein's podcast and he interviewed writer george saunders and it was a deep, erudite conversation, but not at all inaccessible. george has a new book, where he explores ideas through 6 russian writers - it's called a swim in a pond in the rain and i intend to order it as birthday present to myself. it's a wide-ranging conversation and it was exactly what i needed at the end of a long and hectic day, as a big project at work ramps up towards actual activation. i got into a pessimistic place at the end of the day had a hard time seeing my way out of it. so, i put on the podcast, took a long, hot shower (my speaker is waterproof), used my new function of beauty shampoo (it smells of lavender and is heavenly), and listened to george explain how he understands the world through russian literature. that's something i used to do myself and i was pleasantly reminded of that. and it was just what i needed to put aside my concerns, which i had managed to whip into a place of importance that they didn't warrant. and i used my brain on bigger thoughts for a little while. and it felt absolutely delightful. i suspect we could all use a bit more of that. go and listen to the episode, it's a great start. definitely a moment of deep delight in an otherwise rather stressful monday. oh, and how about that morning sunshine we had this morning? (see photo above) that was pretty delightful too.

remembering to be different

i had a lot of thinking time over the past week. it's kind of ironic that it takes being sick to give you the time for proper thinking. why don't we give the attention to thinking time that we need to on a regular, daily basis? and it struck me that we humans, we're never satisfied. i complained all week about being sick. instead of appreciating that i got the chance to rest my body and my mind during a week (the winter holiday) when not much work could be done anyway, i whined about it on facebook. instead of appreciating that i could lay in bed and read harry potter 'til my eyes crossed, i whined about it on facebook. (i'm starting to think facebook might be the problem. if it wasn't such a forum for whining, would i have done so?) there was actually no better time to get sick if i had to be sick.

early in the illness, i talked to a friend who had come to my drink & draw evening. she thanked me, said she had enjoyed herself and that it was a very different experience. and i couldn't help but bristle at that characterization. which only proves that we humans are never satisfied. i had done all that i could to make it an experience that departed from the norm - from the food, to the tonic to the gin to the drawing to the conversation. and yet, when it was recognized as being different, it gave me a moment of insecurity. i suppose i felt a pang of it being a bad kind of different (tho' i'm quite sure that's not what she meant). and i just couldn't help but feel a little bit insulted, just for a moment. and then i relaxed and remembered that being different was what it was all about. it's good to be different.

* * *

who's the barbarian?

* * *

why we love the pretty.

soviet revolutionary textiles

mechanization of the red army

electrification

women harvesting

collectivization

celebrating the navy

young pioneers

tractors

airplanes

the ussr

gears

i already wrote about this once, but i'm not done being infatuated with the political textiles that were produced in the early years of the soviet union. it may have all gone wrong, but at least they believed in something. i despair a little bit that we believe in anything at all anymore. we certainly can't believe in our politicians and institutions. so we might as well believe in fabric.

a plan of monumental propaganda

the decade after the russian revolution in 1917 was a time when fabric served a political purpose. it was also the silver age in russian culture and so artists responded with enthusiasm to the call to create a political, functional art. the constructivists embraced the ideology that "clothing must present the soviet man and woman as part of an international community, that it must connect them with industrial civilization and that it must symbolize emancipation and mobility" (john e. bowit, revolutionary textile design).

this manifested in designs that were devoid of traditional, local, ethnic images, that used geometrical, mechanical motifs and featured kinetic forms.

they proved not to be as popular as traditional designs with the public, especially when they moved towards agitprop (agitational propaganda). the people just didn't take to flowers with gears or scientific-looking molecular blobs or winged wheels, however subtle they were.

but there's something appealing about the notion of textiles as political statements. and i don't see much of the political in the textiles of today - pretty patterns and whimsical motifs, yes, but politics, not so much. it strikes me that the use of organic cotton is the most political statement we get today in fabric form.

i think we could use a bit more subtle propaganda (and possibly fewer owls and vespas) in our fabrics. especially with services like spoonflower, where fabric design has become quite democratic and accessible for all. we should be making a statement, standing up for something in the very threads we clothe ourselves with.

bring on the fiber agitprop.

a woman's work is never done

happy international women's day!  i first learned about this day in 1994, when i was studying in russia. it was a big deal there. women got flowers, they dressed up, there was a celebratory parade. it was a festive day. fast forward to today - i've seen tweets and facebook updates and our newspaper's front page has a lovely photo of a royal copenhagen musselmalet plate and says "young feminists' battleground for the good life." and i kind of wonder how far we've come.

when i look around my particular corner of the blogosphere - which admittedly is a pretty big corner, covering several continents and multiple timezones - i see women wanting to do traditionally women's work - sewing, cooking, knitting, crocheting. i see them leaving high-powered jobs to stay home with their children. i don't really see anyone on the barricades, trying to bust into a boardroom. what has happened to us?

in my view, we're in need of a new paradigm. a new way of working. a new way of assessing value - of time, of work, of career. i don't think i'm the only one who no longer wants my identity to be tied to what i do for a living. maybe we as women need to take up the struggle in a new way. i'm not saying that i know exactly what i mean by that - it's more a feeling that we need to look at things from a new angle. in some sense, the women's struggle has taken the world on the male terms which are already set - demanding equal wages, equal rights, equal chances. and in many countries, we have achieved those those things.

but maybe we need a more feminine way of organizing things - less hierarchy, more intuition, more compassion, value expressed in a different way than it is today. because it seems that male way of organizing the world is showing itself to be flawed (to say the least).

so perhaps that's what we need to ponder on international women's day.

thinking differently

 why be normal?

 and use a leash?

 a whole new way...

of walking the dog.

now that's innovative thinking.

promoting brain growth

sometimes all you need is another way of looking at the world.