Something I am working on is Wild Abandon. This is a problem for me in two completely different ways. First, I tend to have WAAAAY too much of it when I am performing. Saqra once said in a workshop that you shouldn’t give the audience all of yourself in a performance: they know and still want more. The ballet tradition I come from, being less intimate, requires you to give your all (without appearing to). This is a problem for me in raqs sharqi, because I can burn out, and the point, for the most part, is control. Add this to the excercise-induced asthma, and I can kill myself in a 3 minute routine if I’m not careful. And I’m often not careful. Don’t die onstage, but as soon as I get off I collapse wheezing. Not conducive to extended living.
On the other hand, my stitching designs tend to the elegant and reserved. Sometimes this is construed as not having as much depth as it could. At others it’s construed as elegant! 😛 Finding a balance in this is my challenge. Hence the Sumptuous Surfaces class. I’ve always admired Sharon B’s deep, extravagent layers of embroidery on her work. (I even drink my coffee at work out of one of her limited edition mugs…I love it so much!) Somehow, though, I haven’t been able to break through the very elegant satin stitch and smooth couched gold that I discovered in the Chinese textiles exhibit that the University of Oregon’s museum of art has on display and in their vaults. I fell in love with the Ch’ing dynasty’s Imperial embroideries, and everything I do seems to reflect this. I want to add more European Baroque to my repertoire.
So. Now you know my two goals for this year: one in dance, and one in stitching. Keep me honest, will you? The final design is finished for the class piece, and I’ll get it photographed and uploaded as soon as I can get to my camera (the heart-sister borrowed it to take pictures of pseudo-nephew’s volcano erupting…)
