Breaking the rules; an artistic perogative

There’s some old wisdom that says you first need to learn the rules, then you know which ones you can break.
I wrote a few weeks ago about talking a Navajo weaving class from Laura Berlage at Pine Needles Yarn Shop in Cable. I wrote about the story of spider woman that teaches us not to be perfectionists. I finished my weaving sampler pattern, and it has plenty of mistakes.
That’s the beauty of a ‘sampler.’ It is a sample of many different techniques, so the weaver can learn the rules. I once knit a sampler afghan where each square was by a different designer. I learned a lot of stitches and techniques. Many of them I haven’t used since, but the experience gave me confidence that I could knit from any pattern.
The weaving sampler is a mirror image, meaning the second half is a repeat of the first half. I was working the second half this week and began to break the rules. Instead of doing one row at a time, I was doing one color at a time, then filling in with the next color. It was going along great until I realized I had also changed how I interwove the colors. In fact, I hadn’t interwoven them at all. It wasn’t that I had done something wrong. I merely used a different technique and got a different result.
Here’s where the rules come in. When is it OK to break the rules? My sample is obviously no longer a pure Navajo technique. If it were found in an archeological dig 100 years from now, those in the know would not mistake it for an authentic Navajo weaving. So, did I unweave that section and start over? No.
My theory is, when we know the rules then choose which ones to break, whether it is by accident, as in this case, or deliberately, we are delving into the world of creativity. Art is creativity.
In the words of Ben Thwaits, a teacher with Northwest Passage who was referring to photographs taken by his students in the ‘In a New Light’ exhibit at the Cable Natural History Museum, “Art is something that communicates something emotionally that can’t be communicated in any other way.”
For as long as humans have been creating art, there have been those who were content to mimic artists they admired, and those who took the lessons of the masters and broke the rules to create something individual that expressed their own unique sense of the subject. Were it not for those individuals who stepped across the lines, art would not have evolved into what it is. Art is a creative force. Through their individuality, artists express their world, explore their demons, and sometimes succeed in communicating that world through their art.
We don’t have to go to the big city to see art of incredible talent, art that ‘hits’ us. I am constantly awed by the local exhibits such as the photography in Cable and the current CBAC show in Washburn. Seeing the work of good local artists inspires me to create, to explore, and to break the rules.
My sampler is now done. I have learned the rules, and broke some of them. And the result is a beautiful creation that is unique to me.

Wisconsin is party central

As grandma, I spent a weekend partying like a princess.
It was my granddaughter Wren’s fourth birthday. Each of us only turns four once, and when your birthday is in January, it’s a good enough reason to celebrate with a poolside princess birthday party.
The party was held at the Plaza Hotel in Winona, Minn. The hotel has a spacious pool area which features a large children’s pool complete with alligator and whale water slides. There is a separate adult pool and a large hot tub. The walls of the pool room are painted with a jungle theme mural.
I asked Sarah why they chose this particular hotel and she said, “Because it was the only one that would allow a children’s party.”
Hmm.
Wren’s party was attended by 15 friends and family, young and old. We discovered we were one of three children’s pool parties that day. Though the adults worried it would be crowded, the children followed the adage of “the more the merrier.”
Children splashed in the water, slid down the mouth of the alligator and the back side of the whale. A one-year-old party-goer was fascinated with the shooting spouts of water from the floor of the children’s pool. Brave parents donned swimsuits and ventured into the big pool with their children. Most of the adults ended up in the hot tub afterward.
A giant green dragon, with purple scales along its back, sat on the floor, silently watching as children climbed and sat on his colorful form. A sign taped to the dragon’s neck read, “Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool! It is unsafe to put this dragon in the swimming pool. This area is monitored 24 hours a day. Do Not Put the Dragon in the Pool.”
Hmm.
Luckily, the dragon was so large and heavy, not even two adults could push it across the floor. It was safe for the afternoon.
We left the pool area when it was time to open presents and eat pizza and birthday cake. Wren’s other grandma, my sister Linda, used to be a professional cake decorator. Wren’s cake was a wonderland mermaid princess theme, complete with four mermaids, fish, sea urchins, dolphins, and a coral reef that must have taken weeks of careful artistic effort. I think there was cake underneath the frosting somewhere.
Children full of pizza and cake chased each other around the hotel lobby playing hide and seek, squabbled over various party favors and hid under tables.
Toward the end of the afternoon, when the children were corraled and taken home, Sarah and I were cleaning up and putting away when I saw four teen-age boys, probably part of a traveling sports team, walk innocently out of the pool area in swim trunks with towels hanging from their necks. The boys headed into the elevators and all was quiet in the pool area.
I wandered into the pool room to see if anything had been left behind and there was the dragon, quietly floating in the adult pool.
“Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool,” in capital letters, was too much for a group of teenage boys to ignore. I know the only ones in that area who were strong enough to manhandle that giant dragon were those boys.
The dragon didn’t seem to mind. I think he liked floating in the quiet pool after an afternoon of entertaining small children on his back.
Since Sarah, Wren and I were staying at the hotel for the night, I wandered down to the pool later for a warm soak in the hot tub. Three other adults were there, one swimming in the pool with the dragon. An hotel employee came through collecting towels and one woman volunteered to help get the dragon out of the pool.
“It’s too heavy. Don’t worry about it,” said the employee. “It happens all the time. I’ll have the maintenance guys take it out in the morning.”
Hmm.
It happens all the time. Obviously the sign was more of a command than a deterent.
The next morning, Wren was back in the pool and the dragon was back out on the sidelines, the perfect adornment for a poolside princess birthday party.
• • •
Speaking of parties, a dragon in a swimming pool is probably mild compared to the partying which followed the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl. I would like to let everyone know that the Packer’s win can be attributed to me.
It is another story of football superstition run amuck. It seems that every time I watch the Packers play, they lose. When the Packers began to lose mid-season, I stopped watching. Obviously, it worked, because they began to win again and ended up in the playoffs. I still didn’t watch. When the NFC championship game began, I stayed away for the first half. Checking in with my husband at half time, it looked like it would be safe for me to watch the second half, but when the going got rough, I got going, out of the room. I was able to watch the last two minutes without jinxing the game.
For the Super Bowl, I began to watch the first half, thinking the jinx had died. I was wrong. When the Steelers started gaining momentum in the second half, it was time for strict measures. I went to bed and tried to read. Downstairs was quiet until I heard my husband cheering and I knew, the Packers had won the Super Bowl. So, the entire state of Wisconsin has me to thank for my selfless deed of not watching the second half.
You’re welcome.