phy that I was most interested in close- ups of tree bark, ripples in water bodies and cracks in the rocks. My quilts then began to take on a more abstract qual- ity,” she says. So Ciolino took a class in Columbus, Ohio, with Nancy Crow, recognized by many as “the mother of contemporary quilts,” and never looked back. She still gives quilts as gifts, but her work is now also exhibited at muse- ums and quilt shows (SandraPalmer
Ciolino.com;
NancyCrow.com). Like many craftspeople, Ciolino’s process in creating art is part technical skill and part intuitive imagining. When she starts a new quilt, she pulls fabrics from her workroom into groupings that appeal to her. She then takes a black- and-white photo to make sure the values of light and dark in the fabrics create an interesting pattern. Next, she uses a rotary cutter to cut the fabric by hand—like drawing a line with a pencil—into shapes freehand, without referring to any pattern. Finally, she sews the pieces together in a composition and uses machine quilting to add another layer of textural interest, finishing each creation by hand. “The craft is when I make some- thing as meticulous and impeccable as I can,” Ciolino concludes. “The art is when I bring an authentic version of my- self—my voice and spirit—to the work.”
Judith Fertig celebrates the craft of cooking at AlfrescoFoodAndLifestyle.
blogspot.com.
CREATIVE THERAPY
“The hand is the window on to the mind.” ~ Immanuel Kant
by Judith Fertig “O
f all our limbs,” explains Pro- fessor Richard Sennett, “the hands make the most varied
movements, movements that can be controlled at will. Science has sought to show how these motions, plus the hand’s different ways of gripping and the sense of touch, affect the ways we think.” Sen- nett expounds at length on this topic in his book, The Craftsman, and teaches sociology at New York University and The London School of Economics and Political Science.
He explains that making things by hand engages the brain in special ways. The furniture maker, the musician, the glassblower or any other person en- gaged mindfully in arts and crafts needs to first “localize,” or look at just what is there—a piece of wood, a musical instrument or melted glass. The second step is to question—“What can I do with
this?” The third is to open up—figure out how to create something unique. “To deploy these capabilities, the brain needs to process visual, aural, tactile and language-symbol informa- tion simultaneously,” says Sennett. Working pleasurably with the hands
also helps to enhance brain chemistry ac- cording to author Kelly Lambert, Ph.D., a psychology professor and lead researcher with the Lambert Behavioral Neurosci- ence Laboratory at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia. Lambert, author of Lifting Depres-
sion: A Neuroscientist’s Approach to Activating Your Brain’s Healing Power, makes the case for hands-on crafts like gardening, cooking and knitting as antidotes to depression. In a “Recon- sidering Crafts” segment on Wisconsin Public Radio, she remarked: “We’re still carrying around a brain that appre- ciates working in the dirt and planting and hunting and preparing food.” Using both hands to do something enjoyable, like knitting a scarf, entails engaging in a repetitive motion that pro- duces calming serotonin. Lambert adds that counting stitches distracts us from other worries or concerns, and knitting something that we find pleasing and seeing the process through to comple- tion activates what she refers to as the effort-driven reward circuit in the brain. This further prompts the release of the feel-good brain chemicals dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, she adds.
34 Collier/Lee Counties
swfl.naturalawakeningsmag.com
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