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Rambling In The Archives -- 2006
I read an article recently about how beads can be used to help jog a storyteller's memory and improve his or her performance. Like the beads used in meditation and prayer, a string of story beads helps you relax the part of your brain that wants to jump ahead to, "what comes next?" and "how do I finish?" With beads that represent the story outline in your hand, you worry less about getting off-track. You're freer to let your mind range a bit, to interpret and embellish the tale, to interact with the audience.
In a way, I use surface design and mixed media techniques as the "story beads" that help me keep on track in my main work. "Cross-pollinating" ideas with work in a different media now and then helps me see with fresh eyes to clarify what I want to explore when I sit down again to stitch. It's amazing how much you see when you follow a different path, and how much you discover when you haven't mapped out every turn.
In the past few years I've played a lot with images of family members in my mixed media pieces. The two pieces above include girlhood pictures of my mother (on the left) and my late mother-in-law (on the right). The piece below is a picture of my father and my sister. Along with my husband, Bill, and a handful of other people, these family members are on my imaginary "high council." When I ask myself if what I'm creating will mean anything to anyone else, I need faces on "else." Like a storyteller, I need cues from an audience.
And the beauty of having at least part of the "council" include people who love me is that these are faces I can imagine who will let me stutter and stop and start over again and again until I figure out what I want to say. Besides, I like having them around, even when they're not around. I imagine that they're along for the ride and wondering just where it is we're going. When you're heading for parts unknown, it's nice to have company while you decide whether to turn back or sail on toward the edge of the world.
-- Donna Kallner, January 2006
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