Two Ways of Looking at Seaside Goldenrod

There are some places whose remembered images are so powerful that, if I just visualize them, I have  direct access, as it by teleportation, to the color of that sky and the smell of that air.

The heartstring pull of those places lies in their long views over broad expanses--horizons with breadth, skies with height. The  mountains of Maine's Acadia National Park--with their sun-warmed pink granite and mingled smells of ocean and pine--and the tall dunes of Cape Cod exert that kind of pull for me.

I love the idea of recreating these scenes in fiber because the experience brings me there.  My latest effort:  Two Ways of Looking at Seaside Goldenrod, inspired by a view out over Cape Cod Bay in Eastham, Massachusetts.

When we visit the Cape, we stay at a cottage high on a dune overlooking the bay.  A path leads down from the cottage to the water.

Just before the path reaches the edge of the dune, on the left, there's a beat-up bench.  You can just see the back of it in the shot below.

I've put in a lot of quality time on this bench.

The sight of the water from this vantage has such a strong pull for me that if I visualize this scene, I can smell the tang of the bay, feel the warm sand under my feet, and send my eyes all the way across the bay to Wellfleet.

From time to time I've sketched the view in pastels.

Do I love sketching this view?  Does the Pope wear little red shoes?

In the summer of 2011, I tool a felting class through West Hartford Continuing Education.  In that class, I recreated this view of a clump of seaside goldenrod growing at the top of the dune.  My teacher, Elena Gibson, suggested that I reproduce only the right hand side of the image.

Here's the original photo

And here's the part I used for my felted image, below.

Now I've combined that felted piece with the image on which it's based, printed out on fabric.  I mounted the felted piece and the photo on a piece of handpainted quilt batting.  I then layered the three onto another piece of batting to give the image extra loft.  Finally I attached and superimposed all of them on a background of lapped piecing.  I lightly quilted along the stems of the goldenrod.

The background is kind of cool--too bad it's on the back!

I'm going to call this piece Two Ways of Looking at Seaside Goldenrod, because, well, it does show two different ways of looking at a clump of seaside goldenrod.  And I'm honoring Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

The act of reconstructing this scene in fiber has been a way of rejoicing in its beauty and savoring it over time and physical distance.

Thanksgiving Journal: Polishing the Soul?

Constructing table linens.  Rolling piecrust.  Polishing copper.  This Thanksgiving is presenting me with lots of chances to tackle jobs I do only seldomly.

Constructing table linens, for example.
There will be 13 people gathering at our Thanksgiving table this year, so many that we'll be fitting an extra table into our dining room. For that reason, I decided I needed more table linens, the better to cover both tables with similar coverings.

I found this tone-on-tone striped fabric in the bargain bin at RLF Fabrics on Bartholomew Avenue in Hartford.  It's just about the color of my dining room walls.  I made one very large tablecloth with a length of this, using the selvage instead of side hems, and hemming only the two short ends.  With another couple pieces of this, I planned to make a couple of toppers

To use on the two toppers--which are squares of fabric that sit kitty-corner across the table top--I chose this checked fabric from the late, great, and much-lamented Fabric Place of Cromwell, CT

This table topper is almost halfway done

The two fabrics look good together, don't they? 

Putting on a hem

Getting ironed

Two table toppers, ironed and ready for the table

As I was working on these, I thought 1)  My shoulders and upper back are killing me! and 2) Good thing I don't do this very often.

This Thanksgiving is turning into a time of doing things I hardly ever do.

Like rolling out piecrust.  It's a good thing I don't do this very often, because I'm not so great at it.  I suppose if I did it more, I would be better.

And how often do I use this stuff?  And why do I use it in this archaic form?  Once a year.  And because my mother did.

This is the contents of the mincemeat package.  The directions say you're supposed to crumble it gently.  But how can you do that?  This thing has the consistency of a brick.

I polish my copper as infrequently as possible.  But you know what?  When you polish copper, there's such a gratifying difference between the before and after.   Look at the tarnished item on the left.

Now look at it after polishing.  How about that?

Here's a before and after on the same piece.  The part on the left is polished.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could apply a product like that to your soul?

Worth polishing? 

Weight Bias at Work

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, yet we're biased against those who are.  The bias plays out in many aspects of American life, including health care, but some of its most pernicious effects are in the workplace.  Here's a story I wrote for the AARP Bulletin.

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Bulletin

'You're Too Fat'

Weight bias is on the rise in American workplaces

by: Diane Cadrain | from: AARP Bulletin | November 16, 2011

Tom Ferraro, a New Jerseyan who carries 270 pounds on his 5-foot-10-inch frame, got a job cleaning crypts for Carrier Mausoleum in the town of Mahwah. But soon he was back on the street — and he believes it's because of his weight.
See also: Older workers lose jobs for taking medical leave.

Discrimination based on weight is becoming more prevalent on the job front. — Photo by Mike Abbott/Alamy

In Ferraro's telling, company owner Serge Carrier walked into the room where Ferraro was working and, with two coworkers listening, declared him "too fat." Ferraro is now suing Carrier, claiming discrimination based on weight. The company "unequivocally denies" the allegations.
We are a nation of Tom Ferraros. Two-thirds of Americans age 20 and older have enough extra pounds to face health risks, according to the National Institutes of Health. But at the same time, we're overwhelmingly biased against overweight people, convinced they are lazy, weak-willed and unintelligent.

Related

• Was the fired airline agent considered too old? Read
  
• Fired because 'he got too old.' Read
  
• Blacklisted! Unemployed face bias. Read

"In the workplace, it results in inequitable hiring practices, prejudice from employers, lower wages, discriminatory action and wrongful termination," says Rebecca Puhl, director of research at Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
There has been a 66 percent increase in weight bias in the last decade, especially against women, Puhl reported in a study published in the Journal of Obesity. The numbers are now comparable to race bias.
And as we age, the problem becomes worse. "The further you are from the societal ideal of beauty, the discrimination you face is exponentially harder," says Sondra Solovay, an attorney and author of Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination.
Here are four areas in which weight bias currently shows up in American life.
Politics
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey was the subject of widespread debate in newspapers and on cable TV earlier this year about whether his weight might affect his fitness to serve as president of the United States. Commentators raised the issue of Christie's health in office and the example he would set for the rest of the nation.
Christie called those commentators "among the most ignorant I've ever heard in my life." They "further stigmatize people in a way that is really irrelevant to people's ability to do a particular job," he said.
Christie ultimately decided not to run.
Next: Placed in less desirable jobs, less pay because of weight. >>

Hiring and firing
Jennifer Portnick of San Francisco had been an avid Jazzercise student for more than four years when her instructor asked her to become a teacher. To do that, the 5-foot-8 Portnick, who weighed 250 pounds, would have to become a Jazzercise franchisee.
Portnick says that when she applied, Jazzercise turned her down because she didn't meet its fit appearance requirements, telling her that she wasn't "leaner than the public."
Portnick filed a complaint under the San Francisco Human Rights Ordinance. In a settlement, she dropped her complaint, and Jazzercise dropped its fit-appearance requirement.
Jazzercise, citing recent studies and articles asserting the possibility of being overweight and fit, issued a statement: "Jazzercise has determined that the value of 'fit appearance' as a fitness criterion is uncertain, and therefore has eliminated this as one of the means of evaluating potential franchise applicants."
Working conditions
Overweight people who make it past hiring sometimes are placed in less desirable jobs or face outright harassment.
Bill Fabrey of the Council on Size & Weight Discrimination recalls that his late first wife, Joyce, weighed about 300 pounds and successfully managed her family business in New York City. But when the family moved to Rochester, she could only find undesirable positions.
"One was a bookbindery where cockroaches would fall from the ceiling onto her desk. Another was for the U.S. Postal Service, working a night shift of mail sorting," he says.
"She endured a lifetime of stigmatization on account of her size."
Compensation
Weight bias drives down pay. Obese people's lower wages are so well documented that the phenomenon now has a name: the obesity penalty. For women, it's 6.2 percent, a 2004 study at Middle Tennessee State University found. For men, it's 2.3 percent.
However common it may be, weight bias is rarely directly targeted by current laws. Rather, attorneys invoke other antidiscrimination laws and argue that weight bias, though not specified, is covered by them. The most important is the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"Most cases that deal with obesity — and there aren't a lot of them — are brought under the 'regarded as' provision of the ADA," says Chris Kuczynski, an assistant legal counsel at the EEOC.
"An employee or applicant claims that an employer took an adverse action against them because the employer regarded the person's weight as an impairment," or disability.
An amendment to the law in 2008 made it easier to bring obesity actions, he says. It's no longer necessary for aggrieved employees to establish the employer's frame of mind. "Now," says Kuczynski, "they need only show what the employer did, not what the employer thought."
The EEOC is pursuing a lawsuit on behalf of the estate of Lisa Harrison, who was morbidly obese — meaning her weight was at least twice the ideal.
Next: Some advice if you're overweight and face bias on the job. >>

Related

• Was the fired airline agent considered too old? Read
  
• Fired because 'he got too old.' Read
  
• Blacklisted! Unemployed face bias. Read

The agency claims that Resources for Human Development (RHD) of New Orleans fired Harrison in September 2007 because of her obesity, violating the ADA. Harrison was employed as a prevention/intervention specialist, working with young children of mothers undergoing treatment for addiction.
Because of her obesity, the suit claims, RHD perceived Harrison as being substantially limited in a number of major life activities, including walking. But Harrison was able to perform all of the essential functions of her position, according to the lawsuit.
RHD denies the claims. "Because many of the individuals we serve have disabilities," the company said in a statement, "RHD is particularly attuned to protecting the rights of people with disabilities, and we actively fight discrimination against such individuals wherever we encounter it in our work across the country."
The lawsuit is pending in federal court.
The EEOC has also argued that weight discrimination might violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and sex discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
For example, women flight attendants may be held to stricter weight standards than men. Or all employees may be held to a weight standard that some employees (such as those over age 40 or 50) may find more difficult to meet.
Only one state — Michigan — explicitly bars discrimination based on weight. A handful of cities do: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Calif., Binghamton, N.Y., Urbana, Ill., and Madison, Wis.
But Puhl of Yale's Rudd Center says public opinion favors legal change. In a survey of 1,001 adults taken by her and her colleagues, 65 percent of men and 81 percent of women would support laws to bar weight bias in the workplace.
What should you do?
Meanwhile, if you're overweight and face bias on the job, what should you do?
The Rudd Center offers this advice:

• First check to see whether your employer has a bullying or harassment policy and complaint procedure.

• If the perpetrator is a coworker, speak to a manager; if a manager, go to human resources.

• Keep track of what happens.

• Join a support group for the chance to vent in a supportive environment.

Diane Cadrain is a Connecticut-based attorney and freelance journalist who writes frequently on employment issues.

Related

• Was the fired airline agent considered too old? Read
  
• Fired because 'he got too old.' Read
  
• Blacklisted! Unemployed face bias. Read

Fabulous Fiber: Hanging our Show

It's kind of a lot of work to hang a show--a lot of trips up and down a ladder, a lot of time spent with arms overhead.  That's what I did today with other members of Women Against the Grain, a group of fiber artists who are currently presenting a show called Fabulous Fiber at the Farmington Valley Art Center.

Here's Bobbie Morehouse hanging a quilt

Lots to do!  Here are Phyllis Small, Judy Ross, Bobbie Morehouse, and Betty Warner

It may be a little chaotic now, but it's gonna be beautiful!

Kissing my Asters Goodbye

Two weeks ago, a freak Halloween snowstorm flattened my stately clump of Aster Tataricus Jin Dai.

Here they are, laid prostrate by the snow, now melted.

They were on the ground, but I couldn't bear to throw them out because they were still blooming.

So here they are.  This, I'm afraid, is the year's last bouquet.  But look!  Are those roses in there?

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Afghan: The Sequel

Last week I was complaining mightily that the task of sewing together the 48 squares of Lucia's afghan--not to mention sewing in the 5 million stray yarn ends on the wrong side--made the labor of Sisyphus look like cleaning out a garage. I've been working on this afghan off and on for almost two years.  I started it during a bout of pneumonia in the winter of 2010.  At the time, the idea of knitting up 48 different afghan squares seemed pretty do-able, and I enjoyed launching into it.

After all these months, the long haul toward completion seemed endless.  The task of sewing the squares together was mind-bogglingly boring and time-consuming, and sewing in all the loose ends on the underside was hellish.

Finally, last weekend, when the family had gathered to celebrate Julia's birthday and that of our good friend and unofficially adopted daughter Emma, I was able to present Lucia with the finished afghan.  And look how happy she is with it!  And see how nicely it all came together!

As if the act of knitting itself weren't its own reward--the yarn, silky or woolly, slipping through the fingers, the needles in ballet with each other--the thrill of completing a project like this just expands my happiness at having learned to knit.  So does the act of having seen this one through its Sisyphean minutiae .

Awwww!

That's my Little Lulu! 

P.S.  So, why are afghans called afghans, anyway?