Every once in a while my writing does not keep up with the bears I make. This year I have already knitted 75 bears and I would like to just list the recent ones, the ones I knitted after my Mediterranean Cruise and have not mentioned yet in this blog. Some don't even have names yet. But all of them have a soul, which is most important. I wrote about this in a piece for my memoir group and would like to share it here. I have to add that it is a conversation with my imaginary shrink whom I invoke when I have questions, but no partner to discuss them with.
Body and Soul of a Mother Bear
"Of course I know how to make a pompom. I knit button holes and i-cords, short rows, Kitchener stitch, and picot bind-off. I crochet shells and trellises and popcorn. I sew mattress stitch and back stitch. I stuff and sculpt and measure and snip, knot, weave, unravel, and redo. I've made over 400 bears for the Mother Bear Project; each with two arms, two legs, a head, and a body. That's at least 1,440,000 stitches. Add to this scarves, beanies, skirts, backpacks, flowers, and headbands and you end up with two million stitches."
Dr. Steinfeld seems amused by my outburst. He stabs his note pad with the tip of his pen and I watch tiny black dots amass like dark stars on a pale blue sky.
"Yes, I realize you've familiarized yourself with all the steps it takes to become an outstanding craftsperson. Have you invented a new stitch."
That's like asking a painter if she has invented a new color. Not fair. I pout. Maybe Steinfeld has gone senile. When he retired a few years ago I really missed him. And I was always happy when he emerged from his hermitage to give advice in difficult situations. But I hadn't requested his presence to solve this question for me. Let me explain. The other day I filled out a questionnaire that asked my status. "Are you an artist," it wanted to know. And I checked "yes."
Afterwards I hesitated for a moment, not quite sure that I had made my mark in the right box. But I soon dismissed my insecurity and continued filling out the document.
Then, suddenly, here he is. My imaginary shrink has come out of retirement to give me a test about my artistic abilities. I thrive on the leaps and bounds of my own imagination. But I feel awkward exposing my crazy, excited self to the rest of the world, especially when I see a brow lift, or a mouth begins to form a question, stops halfway, and resorts to a smile. I have a hard time explaining the spinning and swirling of ideas, the search for images, for innovative expressions. If I could convince him, wouldn't that, once and for all, allow me to call myself an artist? I no longer participate in just a conversation, but try to satisfy the expectations of an interview that will determine my classification within a coveted group of peers. I focus on the dotted writing pad while I emphasize each word.
"Every one of my bears is a three-dimensional journal entry! A multi-faceted odyssey into my beliefs, my memories, my aspirations, my hopes."
The pen stops in mid air. "Explain!"
I sit down and look into his blue eyes. I note a slight smile and recognize the old familiar face of the man who has always been my friend, no matter what silly words came from my mouth.
"Some entries are plain for everybody to see. Like the bear I made in Bob Marley's honor. It tells you that I love Bob Marley. That I love his music, his words, his looks. All of him. The bear wears the colors of the Jamaican flag. In my photograph he rests on a Marley t-shirt. While I knitted him I thought of my trip to Jamaica and told him that I had sat on Bob Marley's bed.
Other entries are coded. Take a group of pink bears for instance. I am a compulsive person and I must feed my habits. When my pizza binges became a no no as per my doctor I had to find other ways to feed my wild appetite for ordinary things. I happened to have a lot of pink yarn in my stash and so I started to pig out on pink. How many bears would I be able to knit in two shades of pink and some white yarn? I knitted day and night. Fifteen pink bears, then the frenzy was over. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"
"Did you ever knit your love-hate relationship with your mother?"
"I built an altar to my mother. I splashed love "en plein air" by recreating my mother's garden. With daffodil and sweet pea. But then I also addressed the pain she caused me with a group of bears I named "Purple Rain and Lavender Pillows."
I tap on a list on my iPad. He knows how much I rely on lists. If it isn't on a list it might not even exist.
Yarn in various shades of purple.
Prince song title.
Purple rain lyrics
Rainer Maria Rilke poem.
The drawing of a window.
Beads of rain.
The meaning of the color purple.
"You see how a synthesized color-texture-word-image experience is beginning to form?
While I made the list I hummed 'Purple rain, purple rain, I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain.' I noticed the difference between deep purple and lavender. As if something had softened the stronger color. A line from Rilke's poem about Mary's death popped into my mind. I read the poem again. Rilke says that Mary was like a lavender pillow buried for a while, so the earth would pick up her scent in its folds, like a fine piece of cloth. Death and sickness would be eased by her fragrance. All these fragments eventually translated into a bunch of purple bears which I photographed through a piece of glass that I splashed with purple water color."
"Hmmm!"
The thought of rain had pushed itself to the forefront during a previous drought. Sometimes when I swim in our outdoor pool, ideas fly past me, like fluffy, winged color patches in the path of a summer wind. They say 'hurry, hurry, catch me before I'm blown back into your subconscious.' They stretch, ball up, tear into frilly remnants. They flicker in hot pinks and reds or undulate in deep sea blues. Close to the edge of the pool they seem saturated with the sun-laced greens of ancient forests. That day purple rain thoughts dissolved into a lavender dance only to return later, once I was home, close to knitting needles and shades if purple yarn.
"Did you know that my mother coded the lives of her children into a wall hanging? And that she embroidered a tablecloth with her favorite literary quotes? I still have a pouch she inscribed with a mathematical puzzle. I name bears after people I admire. Family members. Painters. Writers.
It is the most straight forward way of letting the world know who is important to me. For Marc Chagall I knitted five bears, Chloe, whom he illustrated, his wives Bella and Valentina, his lover Virginia, and his daughter Ida. They wear dresses that simulate stained glass. For Vincent van Gogh I made four bears in a group I named Heaven Above Arles. I painted a yellow Pollock panel and matched a bear to it. Called it 'The Boy who Escaped a Painting.' I recreated the von Trapp family from "The Sound of Music." It took weeks of planning, viewing, editing, collecting yarn snippets, doodling Dirndels, tracing Lederhosen, before I knitted the first bear. All the while I sang 'How do you solve a problem like Maria?'
I make up titles for my bear journal. The Melonberries! Bears in fruity colors. The Ice Bear cometh! All bears are white. Flower Power! Naming my daughter's twelve favorite nuns. Fun to Be on the B List! Bears wearing accessories that start with B like beret, belt, bandana, bag, boots, beanie, bikini, and bloomers. One bears the description 'Blond Bistro Babe in Black Boots with Boogie Bag.
Around Christmas, one year, I created a puzzle with thirteen bears. I called it 'They wage wars and I make teddy bears.' Standing in a row, next to each other, their names spell out 'Peace on Earth!" And for each bear I created a persona in a poem. "
"What are you working on right now?"
"Right now? After I finished bear 400, Rosa the Dancing Queen, I began to knit a white beanie with holes for the ears of a bear. I made pink pompoms. This morning I knitted a tiny blue skirt. I'm making baby bears. Did you see the picture of the little refugee boy who drowned in the Mediterranean? His dead body washed ashore. I can't get over that just yet. I am going to knit baby bears and give them Arab names until I am able to wake up in the morning without thinking about little Aylan Kurdi."
The doctor doodles a black spiral. I take a deep breath.
"Of course I am a good craftsperson. As I've told you, I've knitted two million stitches into bears. No, I have not invented a new color, but I have combined colors and patterns and decorations to make each bear unique. I have also talked to my bears, have taught them how to hug, how to comfort a child in need, how to tell stories, how to imagine a kinder world. All my bears know that Nelson Mandela is my number one hero. They have instructions on how to celebrate his birthday and they learned about humility and treating everybody as equal."
"Can you give me a piece of that yarn?" He points to my teddy bear DNA bottle that holds snipped-off ends in every color.
Aylan was wearing a red sweater when he died. I am afraid of making a red-sweatered bear. But I pull out a piece of red yarn. Dr. Steinfeld ties it around my left ring finger.
"What's that for?"
"Just a reminder."
While I stare at the little red bow on my finger he gets up, pats my shoulder, walks away. From a distance I can hear him say something, something I can't quite make out. The spiral, left behind on the kitchen table, crumpled into a pale blue little ball, when unfolded and straightened by my hand, has captured all the black dots in its ever-widening path
When I later google my memory I am pretty sure I can hear him say, "You are an artist!"
Bear 394 Amalfi
Bear 395 Olivia
Bear 396 Phillis
Bear 397 Queenie
Bear 398 Tealie
Bear 399 Alex and Bear 400 Rosa
(This is a special pair to me. They are the only bears that have black fur, so far. Rosa is the Dancing Queen and her partner Alex, well, we don't know if Alex is a boy or girl, but Alex is very important to Rosa, and that is all that matters. Alex and Rosa met under a tree and later they began to dance together.)
I will present the rest of my new bears in a separate group. You never know when the iPad says "too much" or WiFi suddenly resents my file and dumps it.
