Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

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  • Teacher appears

    What a challenging few days it’s been, watching the news, hearing the yelling match across the divide of people who see different things in the videos of the shooting of an American citizen by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

    In the middle of all that, I stumbled on a New York Times interview with author George Saunders. I feel bad as a writer that I’d never heard of Saunders. He’s an award-winning author with essays, short stories, nonfiction and fiction books published over the last 30 years. He teaches writing at Syracuse University.

    Here I am now, playing catch-up and grateful for it. Saunders is known for, has written about, the value of kindness. Not exactly what I would have expected from what I perceived to be an uptown posh East-Coast guy. (His background suggests some depth in the blue-collar world.)

    My mistake. Here are a couple of lines from a convocation speech he gave in 2013 that eventually became a New York Times article: Here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. … It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.

    My go-to goal in this realm: Don’t be a jerk today. But a positive version may be the higher order. On the other hand: Start where you are.

    Second reason I’m excited about Saunders is this book he wrote about writing: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.

    https://www.amazon.com/Swim-Pond-Rain-Russians-Writing/dp/1984856022

    I’m so excited to read this book and learn what it has to teach about story.

  • New year, new materials


    Embroidery detail from a Chinese robe

    First, some history: My obsession with embroidery goes back to 2018 or so, when I first saw the Chinese court textiles exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The museum, in Eugene OR, has an extensive display of Chinese art that’s worth a visit or six.

    The garments, intricately “painted” with fine silk threads, captivated me. Many robes dated back more than 100 years yet were vibrant with color. The individual threads seemed much finer than the embroidery thread I was familiar with.

    A year or two later, I discovered that “thread painting” is a popular art form (craft form? maybe a bit of both) and I began to learn. I used the easily available DMC cotton embroidery floss, bought patterns from really skilled embroiderers — Trish Burr, among others — and have been enjoying going deeper into a new skill. Eventually, I started creating my own projects. But always with cotton floss.

    Then I stumbled onto artist Helen Steven’s work. A British embroiderer, she works with Piper silks. It was clear to me she was using thread similar to the Chinese textiles silks that had so entranced me at the museum.

    I purchased one of her instruction booklets, ordered some Piper silks and tried my first project.

    My first effort with Piper silk thread
    Piper silk spools

    This was a whole new experience in managing materials. Piper silks are almost hairlike filaments, so thin they will fall through a typical needle. But they’re lustrous and beautiful and once I accepted the dexterity challenges of working with something so fine, I kind of fell in love.

    My first project on the left is a good beginner’s effort. Will I do more? Ah, well. A package just arrived in the mail from the UK Piper silk company. A stunning range of colors for me to play with. Each thread spool is about a half inch in diameter and 2 inches long and holds 87 yards of silk filament.

    Not sure what’s next but I’m pretty sure it’ll be my own design.

    If you want to be over-awed by Helen Steven’s work, either her website or her Facebook page might get you there.

  • The old Colossus

    yard sign in Eugene’s Friendly neighborhood

    The United Sates is a mythic place. It’s never quite existed as billed. It elevates freedom, yet its earliest economy was based on slave labor. It fought against genocide in Europe, yet tried mightily to destroy the continent’s first peoples.

    It welcomed immigrants, yet across many decades and for different reasons persecuted the Chinese and the Japanese who came here.

    Still, the best thinkers had these ideals of government chosen by the people and restrained by the rule of law. They envisioned a country where people of differing beliefs and backgrounds could exist side by side with respect.

    When France gave the United States the Statue of Liberty, a poet wrote a fine sonnet extolling the virtue of a welcoming place. Titled The New Colossus, it’s something to consider as current government leaders exercise power rather than restraint.

    No country lives up to its highest ideals. None of us as individuals do. But we have ideals that we publicly honor as a way of agreeing that we want to be our best selves. It’s tragic to watch those ideals being so undermined.

    Here’s the text of The New Colossus, written by poet Emma Lazarus, 143 years ago. Apparently we no longer aspire to be Mother of Exiles. Seems we’re reverting to the old Colossus, aspiring to domination rather than peaceful co-existence.. I wonder if the people will exercise their control of government in the coming year and in 2028, and whether this government, so bent on power, will actually allow it. And whether the generals, at the end of the day, will go along.