It is surprising to me how many people have read my post about William Blake. I wonder why that is. I didn’t expect many people to know about his work. It’s been two weeks since I’ve been able to work on my Blake study. Before Caleb and Lauryth’s visit I was resting more than usual and going through all my photographs since 1983 to pull out the pictures of Caleb to show them. Since their visit, I’ve been resting more to recover from the exertion of socializing.
Surprisingly, I haven’t felt very bad, despite 12 hours of visiting during their three days here. Nevertheless, I’m being cautious. When I read a few pages of Blake on Monday, my eyes began to burn and my vision became filmy, always a sign that more symptoms are about to flare, so I went to bed instead. But yesterday I was able to read more without symptoms, so maybe I can get back to work on Blake.
At present I’m studying his great and longest epic poem, Jerusalem. It is an illuminated book with gorgeous full-page images. This is the title page as it appears on the book jacket of the facsimile edition I have.
Here we see the theme of this great work–human beings woefully unconscious but capable of soaring freely once they have awakened. Every one of us experiences, or can experience, both states–unconsciously sleepwalking through our ordinary, conventional, everyday lives or awakened, consciously realizing our potential to live joyful, imaginative, creative lives. Blake says, “Wake up!”
This project is taking much more time than I anticipated. I have not begun to write the essay. I’m still re-reading Blake and books on Blake and taking notes and thinking. And now I’m missing stitching. For some weeks I’ve had a piece in mind that I want to design and stitch, and I’ve done some thumbnail colored pencil experiments; but first I must write my Blake essay.
This is just an up-date to let you know why there haven’t been posts on stitching. After all, I said that this blog was going to be about my life in stitches. Well, I will be back with more needleart to show. Some time.
It’s stimulating to switch between interests and to gather ideas from one part of our world and use them in another. I don’t know much about Blake, but I think his use of visual imagery combined with poetry is very powerful. Perhaps your studies will inspire somthing in the needlework part of your life.