Can't Do It Any More

I'm learning. Very, very slowly, and with many trials and errors and way, way too much giving away of Things That Didn't Make My Soul Sing--but I'm learning.

I've had this linen shirt/jacket thing for a while. I'm not sure how long or where it came from--I have two that are similar, and I think they must have come from Goodwill last year, although I'm not sure. Perhaps someone gave them to me, or maybe I got them from BJ's. Whatever. I dyed them--I don't know, but I think this one might have been a pale yellow. Since they're both orange, it means that they were some color that couldn't go any other way--they were either an off-white with yellowish undertones, or they were yellow or pale orange--something with not much choice in the dyeing part.

Hell, I can't remember any of the details, OK? I just know it's been in the closet waiting for me to figure out what I wanted to do with it. It's got a nice drapey weight to it, and I like it. But I didn't like the long sleeves, so the other day I cut those off and hemmed them. And then it needed pockets. I went out in the storage building, to the bin marked "Linen," and I pulled out some possibilities and looked at color combinations and decided I wanted this blue--I love the way orange and denim-y blue look together. It was a long tank dress, and the slightly curved hem made for a nice pocket shape. And I carefully cut them out and pressed them and turned the edges under and pinned them in place and tried on the jacket.

And was aghast at how horrid it looked. My god, it was positively Matronly! What happened? What happened between the time I picked up this cool jacket and thought, "It needs pockets" and the time I tried it on?

I know what happened, but I don't know if I can explain it. This is the first time I've realized it, and it's still fresh and weird to me. I see clothes I love, and I have clothes I love. But somehow, sometimes, when I set out to alter something, some part of my brain takes over, something that seems to be a remnant from watching my mother sew, or from a lifetime of seeing Straight Fashion, the stuff you see in catalogs and online and in the mall: the stuff of Dillard's and Nordstrom and all those places you might think would have cool clothes but really just don't. What they have are mainstream fashion, and some part of my brain is channeling that. It's what it seems to think I'm supposed to do.

I looked at this jacket and it hit me. I knew immediately what the problem was: those nuclear pockets, precisely placed, were something that could be done by machine, in a factory. No soul, no imagination, no nothing.

Sitting here thinking about this, I realize I first learned this lesson (although not very well, apparently) years ago when I learned to bind books The Right Way. I made a book and entered it into a gallery show here, one where anyone could enter anything for a $5 fee. Just for fun, just because I was proud of this book I'd made. And an artist--a classically trained painter--I know took it and looked at it and said, "It's nice, but it's not art." I was irritated, of course, because, really, did I ask him? No, I did not. But the truth was that he was right: it was a perfectly-made, traditionally-bound book, but it was not art. It had no soul, and it could have been made by a machine anywhere in the world.

This is the problem with many of the garments I've altered. I get an idea--"add pockets to it"--and don't go any further--"add totally cool and funky pockets to it"--but somehow switch into the mode of Doing It The Right Way. I get stuck in the turning-under-the-edges part, the lining-everything-up part and never get beyond that to where I really want to go. I get so stuck, in fact, that I don't even realize where I want to go.

And then I end up with a jacket with two symmetrical pockets, carefully sewn in place, that I don't like for reasons I can't understand.

Now I think I understand what's happening: somewhere between my idea of a totally cool garment and the realization of this unformed idea, I take a detour into the process of Doing It Right and--the big part!--I never come back. The detour takes me somewhere else, and I lose my way. I end up in another neighborhood entirely, and while it's perfectly nice, with its white picket fences and manicured lawns, it's not somewhere I want to visit, much less live. I want to wave at it, maybe, as I zip past.

It really feels like I learned something this morning. Of course, it's probably something I'm going to have to learn over and over and over as I struggle with all that baggage in my head, but, hey: at least for today, I know to go in there, take out those pins, grab the scissors, and start again.