*trigger warning for politics* 2

If you will be offended by reading my liberal political views, you can skip this post.

The man with Mount Rushmore tattoos that I posted yesterday had a long wait to get finished. I sewed him up last summer but just couldn’t get excited enough to finish him because of what I viewed as his over-the-top patriotic tattoos. We were in the midst of the election season (which I’d been sick of for many months by that time) and once the election was over, I was feeling even worse about him. I’m glad I didn’t just heave him into the trash. My view of things started to change around the time of the Womens’ March in January.

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I started thinking of the Pledge of Allegiance. As children, we recited it every school morning and I don’t think I have thought about it for years. But those words, Liberty and Justice for all– they kept buzzing around in my head. And then apparently, I’ve reevaluated my definition of patriotism. Oddly, I’ve never in my life felt so patriotic. When so many of the things that I believe represent the good of this country are under threat, everything looks different. And every day-

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The level of crazy that is happening every day continues to be a creativity killer. I am still finding the crisis mode to be distracting and exhausting. But, I push on because those times when I succeed in getting lost in my work are like a brain refresh.

So many things- the tide of hate that this president unleashed starting so long ago during his campaign, the work to destroy protections for our environment, the abandoning of science-based policy decision making, turning public education into a profit center for a very few, (actually working to make just about every part of the government into a profit-maker for a few,) alienating so many of our allies, the whole Russia connection, and health care, and all the lies. And the tax returns. And Twitter. omg

My goal is to do a political post approximately once a month. It is my contribution to #resist and #persist.

checking in

I have been working. I’m doing that part of the job where I am getting all the parts sorted out (matching dyed “tattooed” body piece to plain flesh color pieces and then cutting parts out), stuffing groups of already sewed animals (kitties and foxes) and giving them faces,

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and moving forward with dressing some of the them. I had a fox girl that I had promised to make so those are moving forward first.

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Soon I will have some finished pieces to show. But, the thing is, that really isn’t why I’ve been so quiet.

*** trigger warning for liberal politics- stop here if you can’t stand anymore***

I have just been so overwhelmed and distracted by what is happening here in the US. I have had a hard time focusing on my work. I get sucked into checking the news multiple times a day. My social media feeds (twitter, facebook) are filled with all the terrible news. I find myself thinking, I will just go peek and see what horrifying thing this new administration has done since the last time I looked. I know this is bad for me. I have to limit my exposure but I vacillate between feeling like I need to be informed and wanting to put my head under the covers and block everything out. I am a person who has struggled with depression my entire life but focusing on my work is what has kept me stable and functional for years now. I have to find my way back to my focus, and I know I will, but it is mental exercise and that is hard work.

This blog has never been a place for politics. Someone once told me that my blog was their little oasis from the real world. I am not planning on changing the focus of the blog. I will give a trigger warning if I feel like I need to vent again. But, I can’t remain completely silent. Someone in my life recently said to me, it doesn’t matter who won the election, they were both the same. Honestly, it ruined my day to think that anyone believes that and I consider it to be deliberate ignorance. We are at the beginning of a very scary time. I will be participating in some art projects as one of the ways I will express my resistance and that will be showing up here.

This is what I worked on all of Inauguration Day. It is for a community art project for the window at Gather Here.

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And this is what I posted on Saturday in solidarity with all the Women marching.

1-26-resist - 1 (1)Now that I’ve finally written this post, I am hoping I can get things back to normal around here, posting and all. I was feeling completely blocked so phew.