75th Anniversary

 

Photo of the front page article from the daily
newspaper "Die Welt" from May 23, 2024

Last Thursday, May 23^rd, marked the 75th anniversary of Germany’s ‘Grundgesetz’, which translates as ‘Basic Law’ (you can find the English translation here) and is Germany’s constitution. Its name derives from the fact that it was passed by a legislative convention that included members from only three of the then occupied sections of Germany, the American Sector, the British Sector, and the French Sector. Representatives from the Russian Sector were not included as the Cold War was already in its beginning stages, a unified Germany was not in the interest of the Russian occupiers. The convention declared a continued interest in aiming for a unified Germany, therefore this linguistic specification.

The document included paragraphs that left open the option for the other parts of Germany to join the union, two different possibly ways to achieve reunification were outlined, and the Federal Republic of Germany with a clear West-orientation was on its way.

The Russian Sector passed a separate constitution a few months later, leading to a de facto separation of the two German states that would last forty years, until just a few months respectively weeks after the celebrations of the 40^th anniversaries of the two different documents, when dissatisfaction, demonstrations in the Eastern part of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire led to the opening of borders in November 1989 and political reunification in October 1990.

The Grundgesetz aimed to improve on deficiencies of the constitution of the Weimar Republic, learn from other democratic countries and their experiences and was worded explicitly to make it impossible to have developments such as the destabilisation of democracy as had happened during the Weimar years that then led to the dictatorship of Hitler and his Nazi regime.

We were taught to be proud about the Grundgesetz, and although I have always had an emotional difficulty with calling myself (and being) German because of the historic load that comes with it, I have indeed always been patriotic about the intentions expressed in that document. I must not be the only one with this condition as there exists a special term for this feeling, "Verfassungspatriotismus", i.e. patriotism for the constitution. As a political constitution I think it is really pretty darn good. Even if there are flaws in its execution in some areas, and I do not agree with some of the changes that were made in later years. (A two-thirds majority is needed in both chambers of parliament to enable a change in the wording, and there are a few articles that are not open to attempts at alteration.)

I made a quilt that runs the text of the first (unalterable) article, “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” (‘Human dignity is untouchable’). 

 

Part of the text messages series: Article 1

It was part of the SAQA Europe-Middle East exhibition “Made in Europe” a few years ago, and on display at FoQ, and it sold recently. So it got out there, and it’s maybe having some impact now.

These words were also one of the driving motivations behind my long and intensive involvement with refugees, which is still ongoing on a smaller level, even though I don’t talk about it much anymore. (I might, once the current bout of uncertainty is over, but only, if it turns into success.)

Likewise, my love and appreciation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is grounded on these words, as they were drawn in part from that document. UDHR has been influential in several of my quilts, the words appear as the quilting and title of “Everyone has the Right” and “#UDHR” from a few years ago.

My strong feelings about justice, equality and human rights has made it rather difficult to live with a peaceful mind in the last years as more and more wars are erupting in so many different areas of the world, social justice seems to be eroding in developed countries and the countries that developed countries have been exploiting, climate and plastic crisis is increasing and so on and so on. I don’t know how to deal with all of this. And I don’t know whether making a quilt about that will help. So perhaps there won’t be any more ‘political’ quilts of mine? Who knows. I have no clue whether it makes sense to make quilts expressing a political opinion, what do you think?

Taking a risk, and it was worth it - so far.

When I decided to enter two quilts into Wide Horizons which had its call open in March I was arguing to myself that it was giving the quilts a doubled chance of being accepted. One, “Seeing Red”, was also registered for the competion in Brno (Cz), and the jurying was scheduled to be done before the exhibition opened in Brno. Nor is there a statement that prohibits quilts from being entered in Wide Horizons which have been shown before. The second quilt I entered was the intended entry for EPMs contest “Ocean”.

My busy life being what it has been in the past few months, however, led to the fact that the Ocean-candidate could still use a bit more adding on when the deadline for Wide Horizons rolled in. I took my own photo – which I usually don’t do, I always take my quilts to be professionally photographed – and figured we would be notified in time that I could add a bit of stitching for an entry in Ocean should it not be chosen for Wide Horizons. Because there is a statement in the rules that the quilt must not be altered after a picture has been entered for competition.

Earlier this week, however, we still had not heard from Wide Horizons, and today was the final day for entering for Ocean. And I did want to get a professional photograph this time… I could have managed that, as I am a regular customer with the photographer, I think I would have been able to talk him into processing the photo so quickly that I could have had the picture taken yesterday and receive the fully edited file today. But no notice, and I found out that we would only be notified today. Too late to wait for confirmation about which, if any, of my two entries would be accepted… So I decided to take the risk, as I really wanted the Ocean-candidate to get a bit more stitching. 

 

I added some more quilting, a few more embellishments, and figured it was worth the risk to maybe have to pull back should it be chosen, or just ask whether I could send in the final version, even if it did not match with the picture entirely. Stitching took place yesterday, but that definitely did not leave enough time for having it photographed professionally. I took photos this morning, hoping that they turned out ‘ok enough’ so it would not be dismissed for reason of insufficient photography.

Got in my entry with EPMbefore midday – couldn’t wait around all day, because there were so many things that needed to be done I just did not want to put it off. And well I did, because it took quite some time to get the application finished, they made me fill in all the relevant information several times. (I am not too plussed with their website: the German translation is rather faulty, I did not check the English version, but finally returned to doing it all in French because I figured I would understand well enough.)

In the afternoon the message arrived… and I was happy to read that Seeing Red had been accepted. 

 

Detail photos of "Seeing Red"

I had hoped that this one would be the one chosen, but you never know. No need to withdraw the Ocean entry. But again there I entered with a non-professional photo…

In any case, “Seeing Red” has been chosen for Wide Horizons and will be shown at EPM in September. I need to wait a few weeks to find out whether a second large quilt of mine will be shown. But definitely a small one will be as well, as I have started on the binding of my bird quilt for the EQA challenge.

More life is happening right now and I am on the train to visit my father in hospital, I fear there may not be as much time for creativity within the next few days as I had hoped to have in my two weeks off work. I brought some knitting, though, to calm my nerves, and am allowing me to cast on a new piece. In yellow.

 

It is an idiosyncratic combination of a knitting pattern I saw and Sarah C Swett's method of  increasing at the beginning of a row. I love what I am seeing and getting - but right now it is a complete pain in the neck to be knitting the pattern because I only brought knitting needles with a rather roundish tip and it is proving rather difficult to get into a swing or flow with the knitting. I am steadfastly resisting the consumerist urge that says 'go get new neeldes!' because I do have well-pointed ones at home and don't quite know why I did not bring those. But they are there and I will wait until I get back home. Until then I can just knit a bit more slowly and meditatively, I do not need to buy any knitting needles.

Intentions and unintended developments

One year and a few days ago I started a project. On the day after my 58^th birthday I began posting daily on Instagram under the hashtag #58plusdaily. My intention was to post mostly about my creative activities, with a little bit of ‘life’ thrown in. I figured my love for taking photographs, although it has never developed into anything reaching any kind of artistic standard, would always enable me to post at least some creatively taken photograph. The ultimate aim was to boost my creative activities which have been suffering, I think, since I started the nursing course and then working as a nurse. A post a day is a minimal time investment but would always give me a line to keep my eyes open for something interesting to photograph. In the beginning of April 2023 I had reduced my working hours and dreamed I would be back to quilting lots and lots, finally finding a way back into making mode. I did not count how many posts I did, I did not actually post every single day, but I did not miss too many.

The intention of boosting my creative activities, which I, mostly, wanted to turn back into the fabric realm, didn’t realize to the degree that I had hoped for. There was a lot of life going on, and many reasons kept me from sitting down at the sewing machine, putting my mind to a quilt design wall, picking up a few pieces of fabric. I was making, making something with my hands every day – I completed a sweater, socks and a few other knitting items, I handspun yarn, I did some hand stitching, relatively mindlessly putting scraps together which might turn into something eventually, it is good company to take along on a train or on travels.

 I even completed quilts.

This piece became a section in my entry for the 'Ocean' challenge by EPM.

The Essence of the Haiku, for 20 Perspectives

A baby blanket from orphan blocks for a little girl

This became "Seeing Red", my entry to Brno Festival Challenge

"Family Histories in Textiles and Books" for 20 Perspectives

My contribution to the Round Bobbin Challenge
for the Swiss Patchwork Guild's 35th anniversary

 

Searching for the hashtag now shows me that the pictures are mostly indeed pretty good, but there is much more of ‘life’ being shown on Instagram than ‘creativity’. Looking at the photos in my gallery the overall pictures changes – there are a LOT of very very good and creative photos indeed. (Not intending to brag, but hey, it’s true.)

 

As the year of that hashtag is over simply because the number changed recently I am still trying to get back into the creative regularity I used to have – but who am I kidding? Even if I am not working full time, I am working 50%, and have set up a rather strange commute situation. I can’t expect to be able to make so much time for creativity as I could when I was not working outside the house at all, ‘only’ doing the small fabric dyeing business and bringing up a child.

What did happen during the past year, however, were a lot of changes I had not foreseen or envisioned. And some consequences of these changes I cannot fully grasp yet. And there are more to come – ageing parents (we have had dramatic developments on both sides of our family, my husband’s mother as well as my father), an extremely difficult-to-deal-with colleague for my husband, who has now decided to draw the line and move to a different position (problem ahead: emptying out and moving house after 19 years in one place), sending my son off to university, adapting to the changes Long Covid has brought into our lives as my husband is dealing with it, a ‘mild’ version that is still a very unpleasant experience for everybody affected and involved. All this while I am still adjusting to the new work environment, colleagues, that extreme bi-weekly commute I willingly inflicted on myself.

Many people have told me before that they admire how much I seem to get done. I think I have mentioned before that I never have the feeling I am actually getting enough done of all the things I set myself up to. But that may be the problem, resulting from my philosopher-father who, of all things, constantly worked on the topic of achievement. I have to be kinder to myself – I have indeed achieved a lot during the last year, and I need to be gently with myself to be able to tackle whatever lies ahead in the near and not-quite-so-near future.

I won’t be doing another daily-photo-thing on Instagram, mostly because I am less plussed with Insta than I used to be. I do intend to make daily, I will report about it here and sometimes on Insta and I hope to get through these very challenging times ahead of us without a burn-out, freak out or complete collapse. But making is important, and daily making indeed. Some idea I had about getting into a daily regular habit has started but not achieved the regularity or continuity yet. Perhaps, soon...