Two Hankies

Last month while taking a workshop at John C. Campbell, our instructor, Kerr Grabowski, had us do something very clever - an exercise in getting to know each other AND a test of our listening skills. As we sat in our morning semi-circle, we were told to partner up with the person next to us. Well okay, don't know why but sure we'll find out. We were then told to go off to a spot, away from others in the class and talk. We each had 5 minutes and HAD to talk about ourselves, only ourselves. Your partner could not say a word, not even an oooh or ahhh! The 5 minutes dragged on and on and then it was the other person's turn. Then like it never happened, we returned to our seats. Kerr continued with her demo, never mentioning the 10 minute "talky" session we took part in. About 45 mins later, Kerr hands each of us 2 white hankies treated with soda ash. "Okay, ladies, your assignment (yikes, we have an assignment) is to make a hankie depicting your partner - the person you talked to for 5 minutes. It can be representational, a picture of her, her likes and dislikes, anything you want. Make 2 of the same - one for her and one for yourself. On friday, when we see everyones work, our hankies will be revealed.
What fun let's see...what did I say that Karen (my partner) might use. Okay, I'm an animal person, love making messes in my studio, hmmmm. Well here's Karens hankie to me. She got my bangs(think 90%) of my life I've had bangs so that's cool and there's an animal in the corner - that's clever and a needle and thread that's definitely appropriate.
Well Karen told me she was a psycho-therapist and loved to do hand stitching. The little circles coming out of her head are her thoughts on people and things - kind of like analyzing something. Her mouth, hair etc are made from x-stitches to look like hand embroidery and the "Art is Life" well, we all kind of felt that way.

Just a fun exercise to get to know each other and we all went home with our own personal little treasure.

Until next time