Wylde Women, prototype II by Tammy Vitale

Caren wrote in a private email, after leaving a comment in yesterday’s Contest!: "No name is forthcoming, but the feeling is that they help us remember our wild selves – they remind us to get out in wild nature, and in touch with our own.  Raw, earthy – they remind us to be naked and real and authentic – wild."

Most of you, dear readers, didn’t know me back when I was running the Wylde Women Gallery (and summer shows on the local boardwalk)as a way to make a space for all of us (mostly women) who had no place to show in Southern Maryland because we weren’t doing watercolors of birds, boats and barns (although some of you may know the birds, boats and barns part since I tend to harp on that here from time to time).  So when Caron started talking about "our wild nature" – well, those were the exact words I needed to remember Wylde Women.  The name is mine although the Gallery was co-founded, and then run, sort of, like a co-op.  I haven’t used the name much since the Gallery closed (even though people still  talk about The Wylde Women because the name got bigger than we ever were) because there was no place to use it that felt right.  So Caron has named the line – I know that I said I’d leave it open until the end of February, but when it’s right, it’s right.  And Caron gets #1 prototype, published yesterday.

HOWEVER:  and it’s a big however.   The story that goes with the Wylde Women is not yet written.  I am tending toward Leah’s suggestions of each one having a spell to go with her…but I need the spells and stories.  I was thinking of doing the dresses, now, with the plant imprint of the spells (the major ingredient – see my response to Leah in yesterday’s comments).  And I love Leah’s:  each powerful in her own way (symbolized on her dress) but together they are powerful beyond words.  I LOVE that.   I want to sit with that for a bit and see if it stirs up anything in any other suggestions – but you see the direction we’re going.

This second prototype (above) will go to the person whose story line (this includes symbols for the skirt and form of story – we need a template) I finally decide on.   BUT that’s not all! (I feel like one of those advertisements here).  Once we get the story thing nailed down, each person who creates a story for a particular Wylde Woman (and it needs to be able to fit on a card that attaches to her:  so succinct and very specific within the mythology that we are creating), will get a word tile as a thank you. 

Thinking out loud, and again building on Caron’s comment from yesterday:  we could rewrite mythology, so the line could be:  Wylde Women: Herstory.  For instance, instead of spells we could write a story on Pandora, who, like Eve, got a raw deal in the rewriting of her adventuresome spirit by male authors (and Pandora was powerful because curiosity is what leads to discoveries…so, following Leah’s thought line, I could use paw prints for "cat" who also gets killed for curiosity….but if it’s a man being curious, why then he’s a genius…ooops, a little feminist anger coming through there).  If we were to do that, then what symbols would go on the skirt? And the story card:  maybe write Haiku for each one?  That would be hard.  The lines are 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.  But it sure would be creative.

So we have a ton of stuff to work with here….help me keep thinking this through.  If we wind up with something hard, like haiku, then it would have to be more than a word tile (3"x5"), maybe a designer tile from the Butterfly series, as a thank you (this is Opening (5"x7") the first  of what was supposed to be a series of 12 but it only got to 5). Or maybe even the prototype for your particular Wylde Woman’s story.  We’ll have to see how big the response is and how much I can accomplish in a realistic time frame.

And the prizes may not be these colors as one of the glazes I use to make this color has been discontinued (sigh).  As you can see, it is a signature color for me.

What do you think?

And thank you for all this help already!  I’m getting really excited about this line!  Which goes to show "together [we] are powerful beyond words."

thought for the day:  For a human being, finding good work and doing good work is one of the ultimate ways of making a break for freedom…Ambition takes us toward a horizon but not over it…But desire is a conversation between our physical bodies, our work, our imaginations, and new worlds that  is the territory we seek…desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every moment, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility itself.  A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements.    David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea:  Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity

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Because I can’t figure out how to imbed the following in a side bar, I am going to try to remember to post it daily here at the end.  I think it’s important.

The Cost of the War in Iraq.