Today would have been my mother’s 80th birthday. It was joyous to celebrate her by celebrating my nephew’s 5th birthday (his official birthday is on the 19th) in my brother’s household filled with kids and mayhem, food and laughter.
Our growing family certainly is my mother’s tapestry- her woven threads.
We are the weavers of our own lives, in which each experience can become an important thread used by our consciousness to connect with one another… Turning to the archetypal meaning of the thread, it symbolizes the agent that links all states of being to one another… [source]
My mother often claimed that she was not artistic, that instead she was an artistic director. She had an amazing eye for design and style. But… despite her denials- she was artistic and crafty and influenced my love for tradition and craft.
She started the piece below in the late 60’s. I would spend hours watching her work on it, helping her add stitches, laughing with her as she lost count, rubbing my hands over the texture, copying the images… the unfinished aspect is magical. One of my most important treasures, I converse with her now as I look at the instructions and smell the wool.
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. – Richard P. Feynman
Her basket also contains some smaller unfinished projects. I love this basket. LOVE. And so happy to still have it.
Karin Thorsen Sept 17, 1936- Nov 8, 2008
Snapchat by Anna Thorsen: