Stories From The Studio

I have been thinking about stories, lately.  When I work on a piece, even a small one, there is always a story to it.  Some are long, involved stories, some are smaller ones, only a few lines.  But it is difficult (for me)  to work on things without thinking of the backstory.  I think that comes from classes in writing in college.  There is always a backstory to the present— and those backstories are often more interesting than the present.  Maybe I should confess, here, that I am certifiably unable to write a short story, and those backstories are the culprits.  There are just so many things that happen to a person to get them to the "now" point that it is hard for me to disregard them.  So, my short stories turn into rough outlines for novels.

That being said, I am listening to stories all the time I am working on a fiber piece.  Well, yes, I listen, because the pieces begin to tell me about themselves, and they sometimes balk at something I wish to stitch, some color I would like to use— oh, the buttons I have had to remove!  When I am a good listener, the pieces get better.

Uh hu . . .  I  can hear the wrinkling of your brow through the ether.  You just moved slightly back from the screen and thought, "She's on the way around the bend, maybe has already arrived . . ."

The truth is, in the quiet of the studio, listening to the hum of the fan, all sorts of ideas come to me.  It would be so nice to lie back in a comfortable chair and listen to the stories in my head, but then I'd fall asleep— so I don't have a deep, comfortable chair or sofa in the studio, or I'd never get anything done!  Just chairs on wheels.

Of course, the chairs on wheels have their drawbacks.  Early in the summer I was climbing up my step-stool to get something on the very topmost top of a cabinet (which shall remain nameless) and I fell onto one of those chairs on wheels which scooted out from under me and . . .  to make the long story short, I ended up flat on my back under a covering of things that followed me to the floor.  The difficult part was to get up.  The artificial hip doesn't like a lot of pressure from pushing, nor can it be bent up to my chest, so getting up became an act of great creativity.

This has caused me to think many times about the wisdom of a studio with chairs on wheels.  And to even re-consider a comfortable chair for leaning back and thinking . . . hanging my legs over the arms the way my mother never let us as children . . .  falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon . . .

So, there may be a post in the future about the perfect studio chair.  I have been looking for this elusive chair since June.  I found two that were in sadly-repair-me-please shape, but I don't feel up to re-tying springs and caring for sagging down pillows.  It must be high, with a seat at least 22" from the floor (when you are 5' 11" tall, you don't really want to sit in a chair made for Hobbits), and no skirt, so the Dust Bunnies don't have a chance to nest and multiply beneath it.  I would not even mind bad upholstery, as I can sew my way out of that objection . . .

I started out to talk about the stories my little pieces tell me as I work on them.  But the backstory got in the way, again . . .