I began work on a new freeform crochet piece last week while I was visiting Virginia Avery in Port Chester, NY. We spent a day together on her screen porch, talking, reading, napping and in my case, crocheting. It's been a long time since I've done this sort of work. A long time since I crocheted obsessively, continuously.
After I left my job as president of the Greater East End Management District four summers ago, I began to slow the pace of creating never-ending crocheted neckwear. And once I got underway with Second Seating, that year long endeavor to transform a metal warehouse into a fantasy space with dining tables and chandeliers made from recycled materials, there was no time to crochet. Creation was taking a different form. And then there were the 15 months that I've spent as project manager for the civic art in the new Houston Permitting Center.
I am just finishing that job and already, I've begun rummaging through the shelves in the guest bedroom that are filled with old negatives and vestiges of earlier bits and pieces of work. I am in the midst of this stage of deciding exactly what to work on next. Will I write that second part of a memoir? Imperative. Will I make more books on line? Likely. Will I sort through all the items on those shelves? Probably. And will that lead to other ideas for books, for montages. Sure.
And if I really like the piece I began on Virginia's screen porch, I may also continue to crochet. I'll use the yarns in all those drawers and boxes and baskets. Crocheting feels good right now and so far, it's not compulsive. That is good news and also bad news. If not compulsive, I probably will not be producing at the same rate as several years ago. Unless, of course, the Tea Party and the upcoming presidential election sends me over the edge.
A political crisis is what did it the first time - I took up freeform crochet when George Bush won reelection. Crocheting helped channel the angst I felt for a long, long time. So keep a watch on my crocheting efforts as a way of monitoring political life in America.
