Creativity = Rebellion

Rebellion means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The merriam-mebster.com online dictionary defines rebellion as

               1: opposition to one in authority or dominance

               2 a : open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government  

                  b : an instance of such defiance or resistance 

I find a  sense of truth in the art of peaceful rebellion. True rebellion does not seem fed from destruction but from the creation of something whether something tangible or a concept. We create and therefore we take a stand against or for something, even in the smallest forms. We rebel against a world that might otherwise take away our individuality or our sense of self. We create and something new emerges, even in the creation of a new version of something else We create because we chose to grow and because we chose not to destroy. We create because it fills us with pieces of ourselves and our abilities.

In honor of this mind set check out this article about entitled A Rebellion of Substance and Style: The Arts and Crafts Trail.

Cross Stitched Feminism Pillow

We can find power and celebration in many things. We can turn old fashioned skills and arts into an expression of something else. I find some sort of strange comfort from turning something that used to symbolize much of a woman's bonds into something that can symbolize what we are capable. A woman doesn't have to reject the arts of her grandmothers to embrace the ideals of equality and feminine power.

For this project, I used the female symbol, cross stitched in black and red to embrace the ideals of feminism and equality.

I started with a template made on graph pattern for the pattern. The lettering and phrases around the edges were mostly just to get a template for the letters not for the final placement.

Using black and red embroidery thread, I cross stitched my female design with phrases around the edges that emulated the theme. "Never let the hand you hold, hold you down." "History and Herstory." "If your not outraged your not paying attention." "A woman's life is a human life." "I am not your Barbie Doll." "The meek are ready." "Proud to be a feminist." "equality.""I resist." And so on. I then embellished the sides.

When the needlework was completed I cut a square of a red velvet-like material (seen in a few other projects) for the backing. Instead of sewing them right sides together, I opted to sew them wrong sides together.

Wrong sides together, I pinned the edges securely, especially taking into account the stretchy nature of the red backing fabric. Then, using a strong backs titch hand-sewed the two sides together with black embroidery thread, using the stitches along a clear straight line as part of the overall design, but making sure to leave a small gap to stuff.

Using the opening I left, I carefully stuffed the pillow to the desire fluffiness with some poly-fil I had on hand, being careful not to rip open the stitches around the opening.

Once full, I pinned the opening (once again being mindful of the stretchy nature of the red fabric for the backing), and sewing it securely shut with black embroidery thread and the back stitch. I pulled the loose thread from the fabrics to give a fringed edge to the small square pillow.

A pillow to make any feminist proud. (Take ye inspiration where ye may.)

Create. Inspire. Express. Love.

 

CREATE. Create a Rebellion in your own right. Just create something... an idea, a token, a gift, anything. With creation is life as we were meant to create.

INSPIRE. I think it's important to inspire someone -anyone- even of that someone is yourself. Sometimes you are the one that needs the most inspiration and maybe by inspiring yourself you hold the power to inspire someone else.

EXPRESS. Express yourself. Life, to me, is about finding ways to express yourself and everyone expresses themselves differently. I don't think people should worry about what people think it, it's only about expressing yourself and finding a way to get the stuff inside out. It helps our balance. It helps us understand ourselves. It helps us make peace with our emotions and our feelings.

LOVE. Everything is about love, or the lack of love, in one way or another. By expressing ourselves, inspiring others, and creating something we are a part of love, or the searching of love, or the loss of it we may feel. Love yourself and share that love with the world around you. The very act of love is a rebellion of sorts in a world with so much negativity & hostility. 

      Think about the kids who gave and received friendship bracelets and other trinkets - it was a way to express a type of love and friendship through sharing something special - basic acknowledgement for existence. It could be a friendship bracelet or something else, but just let it be a part of something.

Create Love.

Inspire Love.

Express Love.

Love can be a Positive Rebellion in this world.

Crafting a Rebellion

What am I trying to do? Yes, I am trying to Craft  Rebellion (can not resist those puns) of types to encourage others to express themselves. I have worked with kids in one way or another since I was one and it struck me some time ago, that many grown ups (or those perceived as grown ups) are hungry for the days when they could paint something "just because." At camp I always had other staff visiting to make their own treasures. As much as the kids, they needed someone to set the tools in front of them, help them, encourage them, and mostly just give them the opportunity to color in or out of whatever lines that were set before them. Isn't that part of the reason there are scrap booking supply shops in even small towns and card making classes popular? Isn't that why Martha Stewart has made an empire focusing on people who have a desire to do things with their own hands?

Whatever you do doesn't have to look like or be like anyone else's, the difference is where the real beauty and the real art lies. I want people all over to know that it can be your own and your way is awesome. We all need the simple satisfaction of making something with our hands sometimes, even if that means hot glueing seashells to a picture frame.  Too often we seem to lose touch with that as we get older and we forget. No more forgetting! It's time to pull out the stored away seashells, that chunk of clay, or those paints you're just itching to dig into. It's you chance to shine and to ignore the words of that art teacher somewhere you may have given you a lower grade on something just because your person didn't look like he/she thought it should. Just create for the sake of creation. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

"The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius." ~Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

Craft Rebel

What does it mean to be a Craft Rebel? It's an honest enough question with a list of possible answers.

To me it means a lot of things. It means that I have a right to be who I am and to celebrate my creativity and my heart anyway I must. The world is full of creative people who just don't realize it. They've been told in Middle School and High School art classes that they can't draw or paint or do all those other classical art things and that they are not artists. My attempts at drawing always end up stick people or abstract. My painting is the same way. I've dabbled in other things, but I don;t do things the way people with "training" do and I don't believe I should have to. It comes down to my own expression. Creativity is one of our greatest gifts and no one has a right to tell us it's not good enough or it's not right. I don't do it to hang in a museum or to go down as one of the greats... I do it for me. I do it because I enjoy it and it makes me happy. I do it because we each have a right to express ourselves our way.

Create. Inspire. Express. Be. Love. Be a part of your own craft rebellion.