During this time of quarantine, particularly in New York City where most of us do not have a back yard we can wander or just sit in, to get a little fresh air, doing something that connects us, feels less like a luxury and more like a necessity. A connection to our planet, to one another, things once taken for granted are what call out during this time of forced isolation.
My mother sent me a video from an unknown source that uses works of art to underscore what we are currently going through and what many are feeling.
A man in Barcelona plays John Lennon’s Imagine from his balcony, courtesy of YouTube.
https://youtu.be/WfdlDMVf36k
In Florence Maurizio Marchini serenades his city
Art – the ways in which we express the wonder and beauty of life through our emotions, creativity and talents is how we connect to each other, to ourselves, and to this world.
I haven’t stepped foot out of our house since Saturday, but I have had hundreds of interactions with people from all over the world, which is both amazing and delightful. Community. During a period when we cannot actually be with our friends and extended family, connecting over common interests is all the more desirable.
Every few days I venture outside to get a little fresh air and take a walk with my husband. The empty streets continue to astound.
Fifth Avenue Sunday Afternoon
On this day we decided to walk over to Union Square park, typically a hotbed of activity: sun seekers, dog walkers, protesters, activists, proselytizers, NYU students and those like ourselves who just want to enjoy the nice weather. However this was not the case last Sunday…
Union Square Sunday AfternoonCherry Blossoms almost in full bloom
Usually on Easter Sunday we have friends and family over for a little Welcome To Spring celebration. As this wasn’t possible, I made a nice dinner for just us, before my husband and I went for our stroll.
My mother’s cheesecake recipe
As I arranged the raspberries on the cheesecake I made, I thought of what stitches would best replicate them. I’ve been working on shooting a video for each of Sue Spargo’s Toned Down Circle Sampler, a 90-day project she is doing on Instagram – #InstaStitchWithSue, because all her workshops have been cancelled for the next few months. Each day Sue unveils a new 1″ circle, and each afternoon she tells me which stitches she will be using for the following day’s circle so I can make a video; a kind of sneak peek into that day’s circle for all her followers.
It’s been such a wonderful project so far. Today will be the 16th circle. What follows are a few of my stitched circles, sometimes following Sue’s circles closely, other days taking the stitches she is using to make my own interpretation. These circles and making the YouTube videos have made what has been an incredibly stressful and painful time much less so. I am reminded of the resilience of humanity and how often beauty emerges from great upheaval.
Every evening at 7 PM this is how we New Yorkers show our appreciation for those who are putting themselves and their families at risk in an attempt to help the rest of us.
The juxtaposition of the dire and frightening, with the joy and hopefulness that inevitably arrives with spring and warmer weather, is on display everywhere here in New York City, the city that has been my home for almost 40 years.
The mobile morgue just a few blocks from us outside an emergency care facility.
At no time in my life have I been more aware of death. The collaborative song of appreciation, like an orchestra warming up each evening at dusk is yet one more reminder of both the fragility of life, but also the immense beauty of it. People standing on their balconies, roof tops and out their windows to express their gratitude for those who do not have the luxury to do so, is a kind of music that pierces one’s soul.
Downtown Manhattan
Most of us were so caught off guard by the pandemic that has swept through this city that I love, we were in a state of stunned inaction those first few days. Things moved so quickly it all seemed unreal. It felt like we were bit players in a sci-fi horror movie that none of us had auditioned for. How to make sense of any of this. How to continue without letting the fear consume you. And yet we do. And yet we do.
The vulnerability of these tulips caught my attention and I immediately wondered which stitches would best capture their delicate allure. My way of warding off the fear, worry and stress has been to throw myself into work. I am putting in twelve, fourteen hour days and am grateful for my latest obsession. I recognize this is not how others are coping, but it is how I am. I want to do little else. It is a kind of manic need to stay busy, combined with sleeplessness; were we not in the middle of a pandemic, I might even be concerned.
As it is, I am churning out at least one video a day and often more like two. I feel fortunate to have this to keep my mind occupied. I am grateful that my friend, Sue Spargo, agreed to send me the stitches she will be using for her 90-day embellished, wool, circle, project the day before she unveils the next circle so that I can shoot a video, a kind of sneak peek of the stitches she will be using. This project is giving me so much joy, a tiny circle of happiness to brighten each day.
My version of Sue Spargo’s Toned-Down Circle Sampler
The Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom here in New York City, and they’ve parked a mobile morgue six blocks from where I live on 7th Avenue. Both are off-white.
Life has utterly changed in such a short time, it has left most of us reeling. And yet, we find ways to adapt. It is our resilience that makes us both admirable and complacent. I’m choosing to focus on the admirable right now. Last night as I was taping my most recent YouTube video, I could hear people shouting, clapping, banging pots and cheering from their windows, balconies and rooftops for those who are on the front lines, putting their lives and the well being of their families at risk so the rest of us might feel a bit calmer knowing if we or someone we love were to get sick a stranger would be there to help us, even save our lives when our spouse and children would be forbidden from even visiting us.
And my heart broke.
Each of us is doing our best to cope in myriad ways. My coping has been to adopt a manic work schedule. I was up past midnight two nights ago editing videos for Sue Spargo’s #InstaStitchWithSue project where she is featuring one 1″ wool applique circle and embellishing it with her beautiful threads and creative stitching for the next 90 days on Instagram. For those who might like to join in, she is also posting the instructions on her FaceBook page- Sue Spargo Folk-Art Quilts.
https://youtu.be/5wthySiXWuM
The day before she unveils the next circle, she is telling me which stitches she will be using so that I can shoot video stitch tutorials on my YouTube channel for left handed stitchers, but often for right handers as well, as many stitches are not hand dominant. I’ve made an #InstaStitchWithSue PlayList on my channel so that people who are following her project can easily find those videos. It makes me so happy to have a tiny role in her beautiful project.
My “To Do” list has never been so long, there aren’t enough hours in a day to accomplish even half the things I’m trying to do. Making the whole sleeping thing seem that much more a luxury or so I tell myself when I’m up at 3AM out in the living room working. And I know that this is my own peculiar way of coping with something so huge I cannot completely wrap my mind around it. I am not sleeping well something I’ve noticed others share, as we sometimes will acknowledge each other on social media with a little smile and wave of camaraderie.
There is such beauty to be found in our fellow humans who are trying to help others, who are trying to make this world and our lives a tiny bit more bearable. Their acts of kindness, generosity, and humor make those cherry blossoms all the more breathtaking.
Since launching my YouTube Channel Ariane Zurcher ~ On the Other Hand on February 20th, I have gained close to 550 subscribers! Much of this is due to the enthusiasm shown to me by the members of the private FaceBook group, Friends Who Like Sue Spargo Folk Art Quilts (thank you everyone!) and my friend Anna Bates, who has been so generous and thoughtful in giving my tutorials a plug. I met Anna at one of Sue Spargo‘s not-to-be-missed workshops held by MISA (Madeline Island School of the Arts) in Tucson, Arizona. Anna has a blog and a popular YouTube Channel, Quilt Roadies, as well as a weekly blog on Alex Anderson and Ricky Tim’s The Quilt Show, which has a massive following of devoted sewers. So if you don’t know Anna, go check her out. She’s wonderful.
The Email I received last week from YouTube
Since that launch, (my first tutorial – needle turn applique for left handers) I have fallen into some semblance of a schedule. I’ve been posting new videos Monday, Wednesday & Friday. I try to post one tutorial a week devoted to an embroidery stitch from Sue Spargo’s Creative Stitching Book specifically for Left Handed Stitchers. The other two videos are either focusing on sewing techniques such as How to Make Hexies, How to Make Perfect Circles and How to Needle Turn Appliqué or tutorials on stitches that are not hand specific, in other words for both left and right handers. In addition I am blogging Tuesday & Thursday. (At least that’s what I did last week and am planning to do moving forward.) I still haven’t figured out how to squeeze in time to design new products, but am hoping to do that too, once I get better and quicker at shooting these videos and editing them.
Since life as we know it has ground to a halt, here in New York City, I realize that I’ve been managing my stress by working and am working pretty constantly these days. Between preparing, shooting and editing new YouTube videos, making masks, and coming up with new video ideas, I have taken on the task of revamping my various websites, including this blog, with the intention of eventually containing everything under one roof. As I have disparate sites: Ariane Zurcher Jewelry, My Etsy Shop, this blog and my YouTube Channel, it’s tricky to figure out how best to house them all under a single site. Added to this is the fact that I am not a computer geek and not only do not know the terminology, I also don’t know how to do any of that, but I’m learning. And what better way to spend this time of self quarantine than to do all of that or at least this is what I tell myself. I also am not sleeping much…
At some point this blog will get folded into a larger site; until then I plan to keep posting Tuesdays and Thursdays here.
Stay safe everyone and, if you’re like me, keep stitching!
My version above of a meme by @stitchesnquilts that I saw on Instagram the other day and it made me laugh so I wanted to share my tweaked version of it. Because boy do I crave laughter right now. The meme below, another that has been making the rounds, made me smile. And who doesn’t suddenly feel invisible bugs are crawling all over your face? Or is it just me?
Another meme making the rounds that made me smile
It is impossible to write about anything at the moment and not mention the current pandemic. I live in Manhattan. An island that is home to more than 1.6 million people. That’s a lot of frightened people crammed into a relatively small space all trying to stock up on supplies in case they need to stay inside for a month (or by the amount of peanut butter, broth and toilet paper being bought) perhaps people are thinking longer term, it’s hard to know.
As I write this, I am aware of how little traffic I can hear, and it’s the middle of the day on a weekday. A time that is typically filled with the cacophony of city life: sirens, irritable drivers making their discontent known, honking horns, shouting voices, music blaring from passing cars, alarms going off signaling a truck backing up or a car whose space has been invaded. People are out and about, but the mood is noticeably different. People are standing a little farther apart, not like the push and shove that New Yorkers are known for. It has the feel of a 4th of July weekend (without the TGIF anticipation and relief) when huge numbers of Manhattanites leave for their country or beach houses and the city empties out, except the vibe is a whole lot eerier.
The mayor announced Sunday that all schools are now closed. New York City’s museums have locked their doors. Broadway is dark. Times Square, usually a haven for tourists, is eerily quiet. Store fronts are dark, their iron grates locked down. Think Will Smith’s apocalyptic thriller, I am Legend, minus the tumbleweed. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it is weird out there. And I keep wondering – how does one find the balance? Knowing that this is serious and life has changed, things will not be going back to what they once were any time soon, and yet steeling oneself from the contagion of panic and even hysteria.
Manhattan – the city I love
Someone compared these last few days to 9/11, but it doesn’t feel at all like that to me. In the aftermath of 9/11 there was a mourning mixed with horror and the awful knowing of just how hideous humans can be toward one another. Yes, there was the same kind of bleary eyed realization that all our lives had irreparably changed, but this feels different. Perhaps it’s how things are changing so quickly hour by hour with no end in sight. Perhaps it’s that there is no “containment,” no focal point, it’s everywhere and everyone feels at risk.
When times are tough, I have always found joy in creating. These past few years, that has meant in stitching and playing around with fabric, wool, silk, velvet, linen, ribbons, and threads. There is a zen-like state that I feel when hand stitching that is both meditative and incredibly calming. Time moves at a different speed, worries recede. There’s a whole community out there of fellow stitchers who know what I’m talking about. I’m so grateful for that. Community at the moment feels that much more precious.
From @stitchesnquilts on Instagram
A few weeks before life as we know it changed, I launched a YouTube Channel: Ariane Zurcher ~ On the Other Hand, where I demonstrate embroidery stitches, tips for sewing things like needle turn applique, how to make a perfect circle, emboss velvet and lots of other things I’ve learned along the way. The idea is to go through Sue Spargo‘s Creative Stitching book with the goal of doing a video for each stitch. Many of the stitches I’m demonstrating are not hand specific, in other words, whether you’re right handed or left, the stitch will be stitched the same way, but many of them are hand specific and for those stitches, I am demonstrating them for left handers specifically, though I’m also teaching myself to stitch all of them right handed too. I’ve received a wonderfully, enthusiastic response so far from both left AND right handers, and am working around the clock to keep up with the many requests I’ve been given.
https://youtu.be/4in3Y7me3gc
My recent tutorial
I love the comments people are leaving. It is life affirming to have a community, and now, more than ever. Thank you to all who have subscribed and commented and liked and watched. It feels good knowing that there are so many of us out there, stitching away during such surreal times. I think of all the people who know what it means to be passionate about textiles and thread, who are calmly stitching while a tumultuous world swirls around us. And there’s balance in that.
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