Women trundled down Amy’s stairs with old, new, inherited, and borrowed sewing machines. Stacey simply showed up with some material she’d purchased at a yard sale. Creamy yellow textured sateen curtains. Long curtains. She could picture the living room they came out of, lovingly tended by an auntie who had her friends over for coffee and cards. Maybe crumb cake served on china with tiny yellow flowers. Stacey hoped the transformation of the cloth would do justice to their former life.
Amy had cofounded a group of artists, Chicks on Sticks, a troupe of creative women who walked on stilts. They gathered to create art, camaraderie, theater, and joy.
A natural part of being a stiltwalker is the creation of costumes. One would be hard-pressed to find trousers with that kind of inseam. So prior to their inaugural appearance as a group, a bunch of Chicks convened at Amy’s house.
The basement came alive with scissors, measuring tapes, large hunks of material full of possibility, scraps of myriad hues and patterns saved from other projects, and the hum of small talk and well-oiled machines. Stacey could turn to any number of women for answers. “How do I make the waist?” “Do you cut the fringe before or after you attach the material to the pant legs?” “May I borrow that tool to rip out some stitches?”
Stacey hadn’t known if she could walk on stilts. With encouragement and care from Amy and other mentors, she learned to fall safely and had conquered the short training stilts. Then she built a pair of three-footers. Tall enough to make ducking through doorways a necessity. Tall enough to need really long trousers to disguise the wooden workings attached to her legs. Tall enough to create spectacle.
And costume is part of spectacle. Now was the moment.
Amy had cofounded a group of artists, Chicks on Sticks, a troupe of creative women who walked on stilts. They gathered to create art, camaraderie, theater, and joy.
A natural part of being a stiltwalker is the creation of costumes. One would be hard-pressed to find trousers with that kind of inseam. So prior to their inaugural appearance as a group, a bunch of Chicks convened at Amy’s house.
The basement came alive with scissors, measuring tapes, large hunks of material full of possibility, scraps of myriad hues and patterns saved from other projects, and the hum of small talk and well-oiled machines. Stacey could turn to any number of women for answers. “How do I make the waist?” “Do you cut the fringe before or after you attach the material to the pant legs?” “May I borrow that tool to rip out some stitches?”
Stacey hadn’t known if she could walk on stilts. With encouragement and care from Amy and other mentors, she learned to fall safely and had conquered the short training stilts. Then she built a pair of three-footers. Tall enough to make ducking through doorways a necessity. Tall enough to need really long trousers to disguise the wooden workings attached to her legs. Tall enough to create spectacle.
And costume is part of spectacle. Now was the moment.
“Join the two pieces bad side to bad side. Slip that bit under here. Yup. Now concentrate on keeping the material about . . . there in relation to the foot. Press the pedal and go,” Amy said, standing at Stacey’s side. Stacey followed directions. And sewed and sewed long seams. She asked for help to scoot around the crotch. Stitched up the fringe. Attached a strip of muslin to a safety pin and worked it through the waist. Ta. Da.
Weeks later, Amy sent Stacey a gift: a seam ripper accompanied by a photo. Stacey looked like a second-grader holding up a prize for winning the spelling bee. The caption could have been, “Look, Mom, my first pair of pants!”
≈
"Amy, I think of you every time I sit at my sewing machine,” Stacey said as they sat in a coffee shop decades after those pants were made.
“I remember you looking up at me and saying, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m going to try,’” Amy said. “You had given yourself the freedom to fail or fly. At that time, I was aiming for perfection in everything and stymied myself at every other turn. It did me a world of good to see your grace.”
Stacey reached across the table and squeezed her friend’s hand. Surely, no one was more graceful than Amy.
Please leave a comment below. Tell a story of your friends in creativity or about how "failure" and grace play out in your life.
Weeks later, Amy sent Stacey a gift: a seam ripper accompanied by a photo. Stacey looked like a second-grader holding up a prize for winning the spelling bee. The caption could have been, “Look, Mom, my first pair of pants!”
≈
"Amy, I think of you every time I sit at my sewing machine,” Stacey said as they sat in a coffee shop decades after those pants were made.
“I remember you looking up at me and saying, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m going to try,’” Amy said. “You had given yourself the freedom to fail or fly. At that time, I was aiming for perfection in everything and stymied myself at every other turn. It did me a world of good to see your grace.”
Stacey reached across the table and squeezed her friend’s hand. Surely, no one was more graceful than Amy.
Please leave a comment below. Tell a story of your friends in creativity or about how "failure" and grace play out in your life.
I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m going to try.
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