Posts from ‘Animals’
Embroidering Travel
This post was written by Erin based on Katrin’s telling of the making of her embroidered travel belt.
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While on my first road trip across Canada, with the man I later married, I wanted to record our travels. The problem was I get car sickness.
Despite, the fact that I couldn’t write in my journal, I found embroidery to be something I could handle even with the rock and roll of the road. Embroidery became my traveling form of journaling.
I stitched the landscapes and the names of all the animals we saw along the way.
The coloured threads depict the story of our road trip together.
I would sit in the passenger seat of our non air-conditioned van and stitch away.
The finished belt wraps around my body twice.
The needle pulled the thread in and out of the fabric stitching the moments I wanted to capture. The van hit the road. My needle pulled the thread. The wind swept us away at the start of our journey. The stitches became pictures. The pictures began the story of our journey. I stitched the flower called Indian paint brush. Wild to Canada, this flower called out to be remembered. I stitched the orange and yellow of it’s petals. The lakes in Ontario were numerous swimming pleasures. There were so many lakes. I painted with the blue of my embroidery thread just one to remember them all. As we approached the prairies fields of Canola, also called Rape seed, danced yellow blooms that waved in the wind. Dots of yellow thread floated across the belt.
The car broke down and we had to spend three days waiting for a part in Edmonton. I stitched the part we needed called a U joint. We drove on to the Rockies. Nights under the crescent moon were beautiful.
We took the fairy to Salt Spring Island and went swimming with purple and blue dragon flies.
We watched boat racing on a Native reserve on Vancouver Island. We walked in the red wood forest under the full moon.
Then we left Canada. We hit Seattle and we went to the fish and flower market. Four hours from Seattle, we spent two days at mount Saint Helen the mountain that erupted years before.
LOVE…….LOVE LOVE WAS EVERYTHING. Our van was love parked in dry lands that had sage bushes all around. I stitched a heart floating over our van. I stitched my love. My heart.
We drove through the Craters of the Moon and finally got back to the rivers of Ontario. Eager to get home we drove and drove and drove…day and night. We took shifts.
The road took us home.
Ok, so we all love men in tight pants. Are we agreed? Add silver and gold tread, pink and orange capes, heart stitching and pretty buttons and my heart goes pitter patter.
Photo: La Presse Canadienne /Rafa Rivas Corrida espagnole
I love the hot pink tights! It is a moment of glory when hot pink tights are a symbol of masculinity and dominance.
The love and detail that goes into costume making is very different from all the assembly line of fashion production. These garments are made tight so that there is less material for the bulls horns to catch on. I love the embroidery. I love the embellishments. I love the tassels and pom poms. The layers! The capes! The little hats! I love that there can be a ritual for men to get this glamed up and that this much pomp can actually contribute to their sense of masculine power.
black and white toreador portraits by photographer: Christian Courreges
The Catalan people have recently voted to stop bull fighting. They are breaking with tradition and choosing to move forward into a cruelty-free world. They are courageous and I have great admiration for the willingness to evolve. Congratulations!
Down with needless torture of innocent animals. Down with the idea that we are not animals ourselves. Down fear of the other.
Cheers to men in tights. Cheers for playing dress up! Cheers to ornate fabulousness. Lets find a better reason for men to get this dressed up. End the blood….. Keep the fashion!
Torro! Torro!
Nature will never fail you. When you are sad, angry, happy, rageful…Nature is a place you can take every emotion you have and She will welcome you. Especially great is really exerting yourself in nature. Getting sweaty and dirty and hot. Chopping wood, lifting rocks, shovelling earth. These activities may not be good for your back, but ladies they are good for the soul!
Last week I saw a mama deer and a baby deer drinking water by the lake. The baby was jumpy, like a little puppy, hopping around in the mud.
I am a rock collector. Not shells and not pressed leaves. Rocks and sometimes they get quite large. When I am travelling my pockets inevitably fill with stones…and a few of them always make it home with me.
Arts and crafts are another place where I can be myself. Uninhibited craft therapy. Remember your tools in your emotional toolkit. You learned what makes you happy a long time ago. Playing in piles of leaves and painting with your fingers. Remember? Try it again. See how it feels.
I think I speak for all woman (and man) kind when I point out the extraordinary woman that Frida Khalo embodied. Her passion for art, love of animals, eye for beauty and color, as well as rebellious personality make her one of the most remembered and cherished artists of all time.
Why exactly? Because with every whim she followed her instincts and her heart. With every experience she grew stronger no matter how negative they may have been. Jotting entries down in her journal, creating oil paintings infused with wildlife and heartbreaking imagery – if there was one main theme behind her artwork it was authenticity and acceptance.
What I love the most about her (and draw the most inspiration from) is how she was never anyone other than herself. Through good and bad habits she had a “take all of me or nothing at all” approach to life. She was passionate. She never settled.
Katharina, one of the lovely creators of KL goodness (a specialist when it comes to sewing machine embroidery) reminds me so much of Frida. While she is very much her own person, there is a wild beauty within her that is so refreshing and strong, you can’t help but think of Frida’s spirit.
Frida’s portraits were another highlight of her perception of the world. She did not try to beautify herself on canvas (in fact I find her much more attractive in photographs), but instead looked reality right in the face (sans alteration) and made it astounding. As a woman, this takes some serious guts!!!
Frida is a big part of what the KL team accomplish every day. The boutique is full of trinkets and prints alike that mimic or fully resemble this icon.
Kat even has this stuffed doll on her bookshelf…
My personal fave?
The Classic Hardware Frida bracelet, available for $55 at the boutique (There are also Frida necklaces and earrings). When I wear mine not only do I get heaps of comments, but it reminds me to stay strong and stay true.
xox
I have always been attracted to the myth and meaning of animals. We are so far removed from them in our urban day to day, that when a fox runs across the road in front of me, it is a profound moment. For years now I have been documenting all the animals that I encounter. Surprisingly, this happens without having to drive to the country. In Native folklore the meaning of these chance encounters are called animal medicine.
The Deer is gentleness:
Stop pushing so hard to get others to change, and love them a they are.
Apply gentleness and become like the summer breeze; warm and caring.
The Rabbit is fear:
What you resist will persist. What you fear most will be called to you by worry.
(But today we see rabbits as sweet and cuddly and innocent and edible. )
The Giraffe is the ultimate fashion model animal.
The exoticism of this animal is essential in it’s public perception of today. Seeing a real live giraffe is as unattainable in real life as the perfect body.
Regularly I see a beautiful woman trying on a dress in my change-rooms who sees herself as defective. Her eyes fixate on one spot: her hips, her knees, her shoulders, her tummy, her whatever….and she cannot see the whole picture of who she is anymore. It’s too bad, because the whole picture is a beautiful woman.
The porcupine is innocence.
Don’t get caught in the world of fear, greed, suffering. Let go of seriousness and severity.
Remember fantasy, imagination and COLOR. This will lead you to JOY.
May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May I walk in beauty.
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