Wind and Water, Mother and Child

(my writing relates to the visual work as it is a poetic story about the work)

These indigo works were included in Makers Magazine in their Blues issue and there was an exhibit at Mill City Clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Golden Rule, Excelsior, Minnesota.

Who Has Seen The Wind? by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you;

But when the leaves hang trembling

The wind is passing thro’.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I;

But when the trees bow down their heads

The wind is passing by.

~this was one of the earliest memories of poetry reading from my mother~

These new works of indigo dyed canvas attended to or ‘mothered’ with a simple geometric stitching. As I poured and stitched I was musing on mothering and the poetry that combines us; wind and water, mother and child.

The blue top of sky meeting the horizon sewn to the great lake. Blue is all we see viewing Lake Superior in Minnesota. Standing at the shore it’s all green and woods if not snow blanket white behind you, but it’s the blue that creates a stage for the wind and the sun to make infinite galleries of indigo color studies.

Growing older beside with my children, time has given gifts in memory washed beyond, continually glimpsing future tides and settings, with present waves and skies of love.

Those sleepy dreaming hours were my best attempts to early mother. Maybe that’s why even then they so wanted to awaken me often from a tired privilege crying for attentiveness and watching over.

On these canvases dye was poured - draped in the backyard over recycling bins, the garden chicken wire, over the upturned canoe and spilling green watery indigo, map-like, river-ing, on top of the summer grass.

Wind sways the clotheslined canvases in the backyard and starts and stops my pouring.

I trance in its cause and effect and in abstract comprehension pour when something unseen billows them toward my pitcher. Another time I step away laughing as the canvas sheet snaps and sprays in the wind, this water that knows its freedom and power, memory of born in the clouds miles up and raining into the sea, memory of tide and wave and ending in basalt crash.

It happened out my control, pouring and pouring, pouring.., leaving some spaces blank and other parts deepest blue with multiple washes oxidizing darker, staining my hands with this daily work and again staining every time I touched what was created. My final controlled response is stitching. My decision making to complete the day, and after musing - to readjust - respond - correct - align - listen to - enjoy - interpret - guide - love, mother and better create with a simple in and out thread.

materials~ canvas, indigo dye, sashiko thread, wood \ Lisa Rydin Erickson

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