'The Spirit in the Mat' of Creative Rug Hooking Artistry

By Deanne Fitzpatrick

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So I say to you: focus on your work, and mine yourself and your environment for ideas. We all have the richness of our own unique story. Believe in yourself and your own ideas. Know that all of our stories are small because we are small but that small things matter. Small things are beautiful. Annie Dillard knew this as she wrote “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” when she was in her twenties. She wrote a book about her own relationship with a little creek near her house, and she examined every tiny aspect of the creek that she observed. She won the Pulitzer Prize. Little children know the importance of small, and we know the importance of small when we observe them. Small things can make huge differences.

I think of my own life as small really. I live in a plain house, on the edge of a small town, and I make mats but I believe that small things matter, and so I matter, and my stories matter, and my mats matter. Your self is your uniqueness. I often heard people minimize their own experiences as uninteresting. I think it is uninteresting because they have not explored it. They have not used their mind to think about. They have not used words to understand, and they have not used to colour to recreate and embellish it. None of our stories are that unique and interesting. Most story lines have been told and retold. It is your spirit that you add to it that makes it unique because your spirit is one and only for all of time. It is the only uniqueness in any story. It is what makes your story your own. Your spirit, your individuality is the gift that you bring to the world when you are born, it is the gift you offer your friends and family every day, the gift you offer to your rugs, and finally it is the gift that lingers after you have gone from the world, and remains in the hearts of those whose lives you have influenced. Believe that you are small, but that small matters.

I always think of the time I asked Ghita Levin about her childhood. I had imagined with a name like Ghita, and a long time career as a such a fantastic potter, who now lived in a homestead outside Port Elgin that she would tell me that she grew up as the wandering waif whose parents carried her aboard small sailing vessels on fantastic voyages. I expected a story. What she did say was, “I grew up in Ottawa and mostly hung out at the mall.” I laughed. What that told me was that Ghita created her own life, her own story, in her work, and her beautiful work, is her real story. She has mined both herself and the natural for understanding. What she told me that her real story was within her. It was not about stories, experiences, or travels, but was about her relationship with the natural world. Her story was in her spirit.

I have since found that when people talk about great travels, and places they have been at dinner I am not all that interested. What I am interested in is journeys. I want to know what happened inside themselves, what was revealed to them as they travelled. I have found that some people can drive to Springhill and come back profoundly altered, while others can go to the Himalayas and come back with little more than a list of place names, and the name of a good guide. Sometimes people’s journeys are small but they are fascinating. Others are long, maybe even arduous, but not very compelling. In a good life, and to make good rugs you have to find yourself interesting. Do things that are interesting. Spend time with interesting people. Get at your own spirit. Know it, understand. Romance it and charm it. There is the practical things you can do, read great books, cook wonderful food, learn new things, go out about town to galleries, but the real romance with your self happens when you sit with yourself at the mat and let your mind wander. This is the time when you both create, and if you are willing learn about yourself. I find that when I am alone with my wool and my rug on the frame, as I hook my mind relaxes and all kinds of things have come to the surface. I have learned more about myself as I make rugs than I ever cared to know. Hooking alone, letting your thoughts flow freely is a gift to yourself. It will uncover the richness of your interior self if you want it to.

Some people don’t want to and that is fine also. One of the most wonderful stories I have heard over the years is about Brenda Heads’ mother. Brenda was visiting the studio, and I was telling her what I just told you, that rug hooking gives me time to think. She told me that her mother once told her that she likes really complicated knitting patterns because she had to focus so much on the pattern that she her mind did not wander to all kinds of old worries. I like this idea as much as I like my own idea about why I hook. Rug hooking can be used to get to know yourself, but it can also be used to save yourself from yourself. As much as it is a chance to get to know who you are, it is also a chance to lose yourself in colour, pattern, texture, and design. No doubt everyone here has a story that is too difficult to tell, and we have let our hands lead us through it. We have a gift to make things but we also have a gift for, and of our spirits. We are the lucky ones in that way. We have this gift of handwork that can see us through. We can use it to charm others but also to charm ourselves. We can use it show love as we make a gift of it, and give others a rug. This craft, this art, is enduring. It is our ideas, and thoughts laid bare upon the floor in front of us. If we let it it can be our spirit, our very self revealed.

Once years ago, my friend Lynda Burke told me another story. She dropped into the house as I was about to go on a trip. I said to her, "You know since I had kids, I think I have become afraid of flying.” She said, ”You’re not afraid of flying, you’re afraid of dying. That’s what we’re all afraid of. No one is really afraid of flying, but we all afraid of dying.” I have thought about what she said to me for years, and I think that I have discovered that the real wisdom in hers words is not the flying, and dying wisdom, which is pretty good in itself, but it is the fact that we all have fears, and sometimes we use one fear to cover up another. Sometimes the idea of really putting your spirit into your mat, and laying it bear, is scary. What if it does not work out? What if it is not good? What if no one likes it? Worse again, what if I don’t like it myself? You cannot always be the best judge of your own work. I have made mats I do not like, but they tell the truth. They tell the story with out my approval. You can let it be, but you can always start over. You can always make another mat, better than the last one. You know on one level you have to think you are really important, important enough to bother putting your whole self in something. On the other hand you have to think that you are not all that important, if you waste time, or mess up, it really is not going to matter all that much.

I know that the more time you spend with the hook in your hand the more you will learn. I know that many people get great joy out of hooking with groups but I also know that you need to hook alone sometimes in order to become passionate about it, in order for the art of rug hooking to emerge. It is a meditative, and creative activity. It will give you one thing if you give it your full attention, and another, if you just play around with it. Both are rewarding.

You can use your mats to tell the truth about the way you see things. Use them as an expression of yourself, as a way of telling what you know to be true and important and they will not fail you. Use them as place for you to go to that offers solace and comfort, a place to escape to. For me, I have sat down at the frame angry and gotten up forgiving. I have learned the truth about myself both good and bad. I have learned that in a kind of way, my hook and frame are my home, I belong with them, and they belong with me. •

© 2008 Deanne Fitzpatrick

About the Author | More by Deanne Fitzpatrick
Deanne Fitzpatrick is a member of the Editorial Board of Rug Hooking magazine and has been the subject of a television documentary and features on national radio shows. Her credits include numerous magazines, solo exhibits, and authoring several rug hooking books including Hook Me a Story, a History and Method of Rug Hooking in Atlantic Canada. Learn more about Deanna and her beautiful works of art by visiting HookingRugs.com.

12/27/08