Metaphorical Ink Meets "Life in Pieces"

Metaphorical Ink: Results Through Writing
Life in Pieces: Abstract-Bold-Conceptual Fiber Arts Fabricated for Delight

My new business card is printed on both front and back; “both sides of the coin,” so to speak. And I’ve been using my blog, “metaphorical-ink.blogspot.com” as a home for two arenas of reflection and creativity: writing and stitching. The two practices are seamless in my world, though I do float from one to the other irregularly, sometimes focusing more attention on the machine with alphabetic components and other times on the thread-bearing machine. Here is how I think about them.

Not all writing is flush with metaphor, but I wanted to suggest something with the name "Metaphorical Ink." The strategy of metaphor in language forces into conjunction two concepts that diverge in aspects of their meaning. The strategy encourages consideration of ways in which the two might reflect and resemble one another as a means to deepen the meaning of one or both. This juxtaposition of unlike models or notions sharpens the perception of elements and brings a pleasurable surprise into play. The unexpected combination tickles the imagination and possibly lights up a few synapses as well. It can even go so far as to be downright inspiring.

The fiber arts that I practice as “Life in Pieces” are much like the process of metaphor in language. Shapes, patterns, colors, textures, and concepts are the elements or pieces being juxtaposed for novel effect and consideration. When I use the phrase, “Fabricated for Delight,” I do not gesture outward to an observer or client. The delight that results is, quite selfishly, my own.

In writing and in the fiber arts, I reach out for components that will take a place next to other components in a way that I find pleasurable. In neither form do I see an unrelievedly linear progression. In a poem, words may be placed adjacent to one another but they rarely, if ever, lead the mind in a straight line. While it is easiest at my sewing machine to stitch a straight seam, the shapes of fabric bits combined with their colors and trajectories rarely lead my eye in a direction that could be called straightforward. In both arts, it seems to me, the goal is to surprise and delight the mind with unique perspectives that encourage further expansions in sometimes unpredictable directions.

My Fiber Fables combine both writing and stitching. Each piece is more meaningful because of the conjunction. Each of my fiber art forms holds its meaning not merely in shapes and colors and functions, but also in the names and phrases associated with them.

CROPS

Have you seen my CROPS?

Heart Healthy
Gluten-free ~ Color-full
Fat-free ~ Joy-full
Nut-free ~ Versatile
High Fiber ~ No Calories
Harvest One or Harvest a Ribbon
Art for your Heart

Fabricated for delight. © jo.carubia 2014

Small format harvests of abstract geometric quilted shapes on a ribbon-and-ring display. Mini-abstract patchworks, harvested and displayed for delight. Apply to wall, desk, bedside table for comfort, inspiration, delight. Pack in your suitcase to home-ify any location near or far.

Now available as single pieces or ribbon-and-ring harvests at

THE GALLERY SHOP in Lemont

http://www.gallery-shop.com/

Broken Box Spilling Insides Out

This "Fabricated for Delight" piece is called "Broken Box Spilling Insides Out." There is a phrase by Emily Dickinson embedded in the fabric design: dazzle gradually.

Here is the story I wrote to go with the piece:


Purely out of habit, Rennie plucked a plastic cup of carrot juice from the symmetrical display of juices chilling in crushed ice outside the corner store.

He crossed 71st Street and then neatly crossed Broadway toward the small brick cube. In step with decades and dozens, he clicked through a turnstile and descended to travel through windy tubes toward travail.

AT the center of his desk downtown was a literal textual tower. Every day, a new tower. Every day, the same texture.

At noon, Rennie split.

Out the door, spilling coins and cough drops from several pockets, he budded into commotion.

Zigzaggy thoughts burst him astray: a park, a portrait, a pita, a pal. Gliding diagonally across streets and sidewalks, Rennie felt loose and looser, and finally, lost.

The long longing and fast tether snapped as he darted through a parade and let the dazzling rainbow fish
GO.


“In-Visible Short Stories” Series
Fabricated for Delight. © jo.carubia 2014

Meaning Among the Stars

A crazy thing has happened recently; I have been writing short, short stories to accompany the small abstract fabric pieces coming off my sewing table! I've always said that I don't write fiction, that it isn't in me. I did discover, however, when I wrote Becoming the Blues for the Barber family that I enjoy composing a scene with dialog and character. It felt at times like dramatizing (and revealing more nuances of) real life. Anyway, after constructing these fabric set-pieces and having whimsical titles pop into my head, it occurred to me that I could write a story as another version of the visible image. The fictional narrative and the abstract fabrication are BOTH stories!

They are also both shorter than expected in their worlds. I recently received the orange brick of Lydia Davis's collected short (short) stories. I've known of her work before, but in this collection, I appreciated the form more fully. I might not write fiction in the traditional sense, but this I can do.

Here is one pair from my new and emerging "In-Visible Short Stories" Series. It is called "Meaning Among the Stars."

Meaning Among the Stars

On the surface of the earth, a woman named Será waited in uneasy comfort for a nearly indiscernible, yet quite inevitable disruption that was not unwelcome.

She was a beloved queen with all the accoutrements of entitlement: a royal flush of family, finance, and quotidian purpose.

Still, she wandered.

By day, she wandered through stories seasoned with piquant spices from the Far and the Flung. By night, she wandered the fields and woods, calling out pioneers from beyond the galaxy. (Her calls were answered only by a small and curious fox.) She slept lightly under the stars, forever aware of the nocturnal flurry and stir.

A mist of euphoria, night’s most intimate breath, drifted across the tips of fingers, fronds, and eyelashes.

At first light, Será rose from the tall grass, damp with mettle and consequence, to don her thousand-league boots; to plod; to tred lightly; and, finally,
to fly.


“In-Visible Short Stories” Series
Fabricated for Delight. © jo.carubia 2014