jerseymurmurs

Thinking of all those being stung by the venomous spite of a certain presidente.

I knit a striped “Chamonix Cap” to try and quiet the “orchestra of madness” (to quote a dear one’s recent lament) swirling in my head. The cap is warm and jaunty; it was fun to knit the German short rows that shape the crown. Pattern Design by toqu.tigu for Purl Soho.

January 20, 2025 (re-mixing Quarantine Still Life 69)

In the 1960s, my father (a baseball player in his younger days) took me and my brothers “out to the ballpark” in North Philadelphia to see the Phillies play at Connie Mack Stadium (opened in 1909 as Shibe Park, it had one of the “grandest facades at any ballpark ever built”). Many years later it was an interesting exercise to sketch and document the exuberance and excitement of the 2022 Phillies (now in a South Philadelphia ballpark) during the recent postseason home-run-and-dance-fest. So many different baseball uniforms! Red pinstripes. Grey pinstripes. Solid cream (a tribute to their 125th anniversary). Solid grey. The retro powder blues. And the design details — underarm insets for ease of movement; side-seam trouser stripes; red belts (along with the player’s number in red on a front belt loop); colorful footwear. The blue star that “dots” the i’s in the script-lettered Phillies logo. The stylized “P” on the caps. All manner of protective gear to cover feet, legs, arms, faces. Hi-tech batting gloves. Special patches sewn on the sleeves for the World Series. Even a jaunty pom-pom-topped knit Phillies hat…

“Flight suits are modular tapestries, their surfaces are designed to be decorated, but work just as well left blank.“ 

“Throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s flight suits were found and worn by speed freaks, by artists, by gender non-conformists, by techno-dreamers, by punks, by travelers, by children who wanted to fly...”  [Quotes are from “Flight Suits Take Off” by Maxwell Neely-Cohen] ️

My modular, tapestry-like Flight Suit is on display at the National Liberty Museum at 321 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia until April 3rd 2022, part of the “Deconstructing Bowie” exhibit that celebrates “the timeless power of music and art to challenge cultural expectations and drive both personal and societal change”.

Thrilled that my “Boogie Flight Suit” is part of the “Deconstructing Bowie: Freedom in Eccentricity” exhibit at Philadelphia’s National Liberty Museum that celebrates David Bowie’s “timeless power to challenge cultural norms and inspire others to share their unique creative voice.” (Vexed that omicron means I can’t see it in person yet.)

David Bowie showed me that you can reinvent yourself. And, in fact, as we age, a key to surviving and thriving is to be able to reinvent ourselves – as many times as necessary. One way that I reinvent is by making my own clothes. There is something so satisfying and liberating about selecting a flat piece of fabric and cutting and sewing it to make it fit the body – it’s part art and part science. And when you’re finished constructing, what you have is something unique and different. A garment that even a year ago you might never have considered wearing. Who wants to play the same role all the time? (Bowie didn’t.)

Consider the Flight Suit (also known as a “boiler-suit”) a garment that Bowie explored. It is gender neutral. It is not a sexualized garment. It is functional and allows freedom of movement. It can be rendered in many different types of fabrics – denim, linen, silk. It is purposeful. It is customizable – a collar can be turned up; sleeves can be long or short; it can be belted or not. It can go punk, funk, or high-fashion. A perfect garment for re-invention.

I used the Blanca Flight Suit sewing pattern by Closet Core Patterns and a linen fabric from Stylemaker Fabrics of “dancing, changing waves” for my let-the-children-Boogie Flight Suit.

The Boogie Flight Suit -- behind and to the right of this crazy cool keyboard -- and lots of other interesting David Bowie-influenced artwork is on view in the "Deconstructing Bowie" exhibit at the National Liberty Museum at 321 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia from January 7, 2022 until April 3, 2022.

Drawing has been my superpower this past year; creating a visual diary of an ... unusual ... year while warding off fear and tension and anxiety. The healing power of art.

This sketch takes me right back to a cold Sunday evening last December, gathered outdoors in a pandemic "living room". Basking in the glow of a propane heater and a Philadelphia Eagles football game and once again hearing the familiar voices and laughter, the delightful familial boisterousness. Sitting in that enveloping darkness with my glass of wine, crying tears of sorrow and joy...

A second quarantined Easter. No shared family brunch or dinner. No readings and cake and brandy together. Instead a quiet, contemplative day to feel the sunshine and listen to the birds sing and watch the wind rustle the prayer flags.

After the pandemic, in addition to returning to a world of shared celebrations, we are also "returning to a world of hatred, cruelty, division and a thirst for power that was never quarantined. ... As we leave the tombs of quarantine, a return to normal would be a disaster unless we recognize that we are going back to a world desperately in need of healing. ... The work that Jesus left his followers to do includes showing compassion and forgiveness and contending for a just society. It involves the ever-present offer for all to begin again." [Esau McCaully writing in the NYTimes]

Rice Pudding. I never used to like it, but now I can't stop eating it, especially when made with a fresh brown egg from E's chickens. My dad declared it the best he'd had since he was a kid. Meanwhile, spring has sprung seemingly overnight and this little one sits and draws and visits bookstores and sings of the "diamond in the sky" and that little one plays the harmonica and names his relatives and rides on the back of a bicycle and the kiddlywink twins rattle tambourines and roll themselves around, already speaking their own secret language. And E's chickens continue to squawk and strut and lay their eggs and life starts over again...

I pluck a book off the shelf and find this quote that seems to describe my quarantine sill life drawings: "Art is a way of preserving experiences, of which they are many transient and beautiful examples, and that we need help containing." [from the book "Art as Therapy"] 

A week with two horrific mass shootings leaves me feeling as wilted as the tulips. And elected officials who want to preserve and enhance gun rights but seek to remove and restrict voting rights? In what democracy does that make sense? 

I saw this on Twitter: Musicians in recording sessions say, "A microphone is the opposite of a gun; you point it at the thing you want to live forever."

This is a happy and relaxed moment I want to freeze for my mother and father: her posing for his photo in front of the “Maja” sculpture on a bright, wintry Sunday afternoon in 1973 on the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, overlooking the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. “Maja” is by the German Bauhaus artist #GerhardMarcks and was first exhibited in Philadelphia in 1949. I recognized her in a recent newspaper story and was reminded of this long-ago visit. The statue was removed from the terrace in the 1990s and recently restored to the new “Maja Park” at 22nd Street. Until a year ago when her illness and Covid hit, my 94 year old mother was still regularly going to the Art museum with her dear friends. 

In the “before-times” I made chili for family get-togethers, not only doubling the recipe, but often adding in extra cans of beans and diced tomatoes and making rice, stretching it to feed a crowd. With no occasions to make my chili during the “quarantine-times”, I had a craving for it. My go-to recipe from @wednesdaychef uses beer (and coffee and chocolate!). I made a not-doubled pot using a bottle of @yardsbrew Philadelphia Pale Ale and we enjoyed it so much I made it again the following week with an Irish Golden Ale by @sullivansbrewco_ that simmered for hours on a cold and rainy Sunday afternoon. I pickled thinly sliced onions and cabbage in the juice from a jar of @woswit bread-&-butter pickles and dropped them in the center of my bowl of chili — the perfect accompaniment. 

There is a Celtic spiritual practice called “walking the rounds” — a way of meditating or praying by walking in a sun-wise circle around a sacred object. Knitting in the round seems to me like a manifestation of this practice — the fingers making stitches rather than the feet taking steps. I started this top-down, knitted in the round, yoked “Koivua” sweater two years ago using leftover yarn from other projects. I knitted in fits and starts. Around and around and around, sun-wise, star-wise, moon-wise. The repeating pattern grid as my guide. Walking fingers to calm the mind. This sweater at the end — my sacred wearable object — a warm bonus...

The #koivuasweater was designed by @boylandknitworks

So many thoughts have been coursing through my pandemic-addled brain and I’ve missed recording them in my quarantine “Captain’s Log” (the artist Roni Horn said “I like the word ‘log’ as opposed to ‘diary; or ‘journal,’ I’m not telling you what I’m doing every day. But when you add all of these bits together, you get my sensibility”). So much has happened this past month — impeachment trials, weather events, Covid anniversaries, approved vaccines, caretaking challenges. ▪️

When my cousin visits from Texas she delights me by bringing whole branches from her Bay Leaf tree — leaves still attached; I pluck and store them in a plastic bag. Our grandfather was a Ship’s Captain. At one time he worked for the Southern Steamship Co. and did a regular run from Philadelphia down to Galveston, TX and back. Last week my cousin and much of her state were without power for days when a rare snowstorm and deep freeze surged down into the center of the country — into a Texas whose power infrastructure was not winterized while their Senator famously escaped to Cancun leaving his dog Snowflake behind. Like so much lately, truth is stranger than fiction. I made a pot of chili and splurged — putting three bay leaves in. I say to my mother, Where you going mum? “Crazy,” she answers, “Truly.”

My Vice President wears pearls, so I wear pearls. Imagine that I can actually say that sentence — been waiting my whole life! ▪️ I’ve worn this pearl choker necklace (a gift from a dear friend years ago) every day since Inauguration Day because VP Harris wears pearls. It feels good to put on a lovely piece of jewelry even though I’m not going anywhere. A little sparkle and shine. And, when I need to — and I generally do — I can finger the pearls like worry beads or a rosary to help ease anxiety. This week we passed this mark: 100 million known cases of Covid-19 worldwide.

VP Auntie gold dust 

Tears of joy today that @kamalaharris is our Vice President — 100 years after women in this country finally wrestled their right to vote from the men who tried to keep it from them.

“...We seek harm to none and harmony for all...” [a line from the Biden inauguration poem “The Hill We Climb” by the remarkable Amanda Gorman]

[sketch from a photo posted by @meena Harris]

"Armored Freedom, sword raised and cape flying, ... tramples Tyranny and Kingly Power; she is assisted by a fierce eagle carrying arrows and a thunderbolt." [sketch from a detail of the 'The Apotheosis of Washington' — a fresco painted in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi at the top of the Capitol's Rotunda; 180 feet above the Rotunda floor] 

Our Ms. Armored Freedom was gazing down as the mob incited by our Kingly President stormed the Capitol... 

My Presidential Inauguration-adjacent story: On January 20th, 1985 — the day of Ronald Reagan's 2nd inauguration — I was living just outside Washington DC in Maryland. The daytime temperatures were forecast at 7 degrees F with wind chills at -25. I was driving a little Dodge Omni with metal door handles that pulled up to open the car's doors. Something was already wrong with the front, passenger side front handle — it could only be opened from the inside. The morning of the inauguration I unlocked the driver's side with my key (no keyless entry then!) and the frozen-cold, metal door handle broke right off in my hand! What to do?! No way to open the locked back doors so I couldn't get in through them. How was I going to get to work?! Wait! An escape hatch! The car was a hatchback and the key opened that back trunk door. I unlocked and lifted it, ducked my head, climbed in, hauled myself over into the back seat as gracefully as possible, and was able to stretch to open the driver's side door from the inside so I didn't have to throw myself over into the front seat. Then I opened the side door, got out, calmly smoothed my skirt, got in the front seat, said a prayer of thanks for the hatchback, and was on my way. I always thought of it as "Reagan's revenge" as I didn't like the man's policies and never voted for him. Because of the extreme cold that day in 1985, the inauguration was moved inside — into the Capitol Rotunda — where high above Armored Freedom and her fierce eagle were busy smiting and trampling the Kingly...

Lady Gaga sang the National Anthem at the Inauguration and posed in the rotunda with Armored Freedom above:

We lost a dear friend last week: "...She liked to invite troublesome people into her heart because she had the natural gift of unconditional love and sympathy. She dedicated her life to understanding everyone because no one was unworthy of love to Marmee" (a quote from one of her grandchildren). And today I found this quote that my mother has written in one of her sketchbooks: "Patti Smith believes that when people close to you die, you absorb what you most admire in them. It's like they leave a little gift."

I baked a Lemon Olive Oil cake. Simple and plain to soothe the soul; it smelled so good when I took it out of the oven.

Remembering “the near and the dear ones, the old and the young” on this quiet and isolated pandemic Christmas holiday ▪️ My cousin sent this note that captures the feeling of the “full-family” celebrations we had for many years at our grandparents’ house.

Negative-Positive, Positive-Negative ▪️

December 12th is the Feast Day for Our Lady of Guadalupe; I read about a woman who said that each year her mother would send embroidered handmade wool ponchos from Mexico for her grandchildren to wear in the traditional Feast Day procession. I still remember the fringed poncho my mother made for me when I was in grade school — the fabric was a hefty wide-wale corduroy in deep yellow-gold. I felt like the bee’s knees wearing that poncho. This one is from a clothing swap and is a wonderful lightweight but warm wool in one of my favorite patterns — houndstooth; I added the front kangaroo pocket using a colorful paisley 1960s fabric scrap from my mother’s stash. ▪️

Relieved to report that my Covid-19 spit test came back negative. I had an antibody test in October that came back positive — meaning it was likely that I already had Covid-19. The only time I’ve been sick this year was an odd, but mild case of the flu that started February 19th. ▪️

“By mid-February, the U.S. was testing about a hundred samples per day. Researchers concluded in late February that ‘the virus had probably been spreading for weeks’ person-to-person.”

The COVID rages and a near one tested positive, so I did the COVID-19 spit test today. Drive to the County site. Sign in the Vault app and give them you name and address and email and phone number. Scan the barcode on the tube packages. Spit, spit, spit into the plastic tube up to the wavy line. No bubble below the line! Spit, spit, spit. Spit some more. Finally, screw on the top with the blue liquid. Wait for results.

Many quarantine hours spent watching Netflix and Prime and HBO and Law & Order in this corner. Some good, much of it forgettable. Hopefully a distraction. This week we fed our brains, streaming talks from the Philadelphia Athenaeum.

A mask seems to be hanging everywhere. This is the new normal.

The most used tool in my Procreate toolbox is the Inking Studio Pen.

Visiting the grandparents in the age of the coronavirus.

The girls in the window remind me of a memory from many years ago. I went to school with a girl who grew up in Jersey City. At that time, in her neighborhood, women would sit in their open windows with the screen up and a pillow across the sill. They'd rest their arms on the pillow and lean their head out the window to observe and interact with what was going on in the street. I've never forgotten that image of the ladies in the windows...

As of this afternoon, more than 14,096,400 people in the U.S. are infected with COVID-19 and at least 274,700 have died; protect yourself and others -- act as if everyone you come in contact with could be infected.

It's been a crazy upside-down year in so many ways and everything was cooked so we had a Thanksgiving feast two days early. Why not?

"To love our neighbor like ourselves is a radical act." [President Elect Joe Biden in his Thanksgiving address to the country]

"My mother taught me to lead with the power of kindness and compassion to make the world a better place," Linda Thomas-Greenfield wrote following her nomination as Ambassador to the United Nations. "In my thirty-five years in the Foreign Service across the world, I put a Cajun spin on it. I call it Gumbo diplomacy. Wherever I was posted, I'd invite people of all walks and then make homemade gumbo. That's how you break down barriers, connect, and see each other as humans."

In the ninth month of quarantining, the coronavirus is surging exponentially. The resident of our White House has been holding us hostage by refusing to accept the results of the election and his party fails to act to try and right the ship. Vaccine results are reported to be promising. We are urged not to gather for Thanksgiving dinner. One bright spot these past months has been our New Jersey farm markets where you can safely shop outdoors for fruits, vegetables, eggs, bread and baked goods, and other culinary specialties. Most shut down after Thanksgiving so I'm feeling bereft. To help me through a winter that already feels way too dark, I have a 20 pound box of New Jersey white sweet potatoes -- grown just a few miles from here -- that can be stored for up to 12 months...

Election Week in America: In Philadelphia they started dancing in the street outside the Convention Center while ballots were still being counted inside (broadcast via webcam for all the world to see). Drums, line dances, Gritty, rainbow flags, masks. When Pennsylvania was declared for Biden/Harris on Saturday just before noon -- putting them over the top for the Electoral College -- the dance party kept going on the summer-like November day.

Election Day 2020: I want a competent government that demonstrates that Black lives matter, that cares about the health and well-being of us all, that counts every vote equally, and that pays attention to science and art and the health of planet Earth.

All Souls Day 2020 / for this year and all the years ...

"Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home."

-- Ursula K. Le Guin [from Please Bring Strange Things]