Tenacity

I had too many ideas about what to create for this one.

Wanted to keep it simple because I’d been in a bit of a funk and not sewing at all.

Was really just going to do a weed growing out of the driveway.

Maybe just use duct tape for the driveway?

A tenacious cockroach, maybe?

A cockroach surviving a nuclear blast?

Or my daughter surviving – hanging on with life support in intensive care.

Or not hanging on when she fell 100 feet in the first place.

Enough already.

Then we saw the NOVA program where David Pogue at The NY Times says spider silk is the strongest substance around.

There we go.

Spider silk; not rope.

Spider; not cockroach.

I pieced a quasi-spider web from scraps.

Attached a Halloween spider ring on with tenacious old Velcro. Made a duct-tape rock for a tenacious weed to grow out of.

Backed it all with everyone’s favorite tenacious fabric: denim.

Attached sticks so I could attach that fun Halloween spider-webby stuff to. Voila!

Tenacity

What a GREAT word tenacity is. When I was still in high school my father used the word tenacity all the time when he was talking to me. He told me to persevere and to stick to my commitments, get the job done, and stop procrastinating all the time. Complete the task you start, and follow through because the job won't get any easier if you wait. I have generally followed this advice throughout my adult life. I decided to take the word and break it apart and illustrate each part of the word. Therefore, you have the number 10, in a cart, being pulled by a donkey, or ass, standing in front of the city. I cut the pieces out of wool and used my needle felting machine to adhere each piece to the background. I then machine, as well as hand quilting to complete the piece. Tenacity, "stick-to'a-ness" is what I did.