Absolutely Zen

How long can a project stay unfinished until you just give it a decent burial? I have quilt tops I have never quilted, paintings I have left in limbo, ambitiously started art journals that never got past page 3, a children's book with the first chapter written, and numerous bits of stitched fabric and glued, or stamped paper left like orphans in drawers. Yes, I even have a sweater I started in the Eighties, that only needs a collar to complete it but it's so out of date now I will have to wait for the next baggy, dropped shoulder, puffy sleeved era to come along to wear it.
That's why I've started working small. There's at least a hope I'll get it done. My last grand project was a queen sized quilt that lives in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It was my Noah's Ark. Now that I know, emotionally, that my life on this earth is limited I want to do something that gets done in a day. An artwork a day, that's a reachable goal. OK, there's still that eight foot long wall hanging for an art quilt show coming up in June 2012 but I'll drag my feet on that till summer. Meanwhile, I decided to cut some watercolour paper into little squares 5"x5" and told myself that each day I would take a letter of the alphabet, and construct a 26 word poem from A to Z, accompanied by a simple ink drawing. It will take you 26 days to read this poem, much longer than it took for me to create it. It's not Shakespeare. It's not even Pablo Neruda. I love Pablo Neruda, in case you're looking for some poems to read. And I cheated on the letter X.