Saturday, November 13, 2010

Pillow Power



I want this pillow. I want it bad. Maybe it is my warped sense of humor but I love this profile of Alfred Hitchcock and the nod to his great horror flick, The Birds.  I loved that movie and the chills it gave me as a child. But I think I love this pillow more.  It has the power to make me smile, to rejoice in creativity, and to remind me we all look at life and art a little differently.

How did I find Mr. Hitchcock on a square of wonderful goldenrod fabric?  It was part of an act of desperation. My body hasn't been cooperating lately. I had an MRI this week to help figure out why. I am  turning 50 in less than a month and it is bothering me more than I thought. The list goes on. I needed to be distracted. Thanks to a suggestion by my daughter-in-law, I ended up on the www.etsy.com  website looking for cute little headbands and adornments for my two week old granddaughter. This website of handmade items is a wonderful smorgasbord of crafts, art, homemade clothes and more. I have known about it for years but was thrilled my DIL and daughter both wanted gifts from the site this year. They appreciate creativity too! But the thing about Etsy is once you start looking for one thing, you get sucked into looking at all the ways people express their creative bent.

How did I end in the pillow section after the headbands? I love the pop of pillows, period.  Pillows can be one of the most affordable ways to jazz up a room. They are also sized and priced so anyone can afford these bits of art.  Pillows are popular. On Etsy alone, there are over 74,000. I narrowed my search for the day by only looking at appliqued pillows, all 5400 of them made of cotton, burlap, leather, or felted wool squares, on page after page after page.

Some of these textile creations made me smile. I was reminded of my dog Hildie as I looked at the daschund pillows, the most popular dog pillows. Some pillows made me think.  Pillows scream messages like "go clean up your room" or admonish "make love, not war" or whisper "Je t'aime".  Pillows remind me of places I have been or want to go with their scenes of Paris or London. Some pillows left me scratching my head. Who wants a pillow with a decapitation crime scene on it? 

Ultimately, pillows got me out of my funk and off the computer. As I scanned nature themed pillows with birds and fall leaves, I was struck with the urge to go outside and enjoy the beautiful autumn day.  Pillow power. So today I am thankful for these stuffed bits of art but even more thankful for the creativity of the artists who make them.

Have you ever had a special pillow? Have you ever thought of handmade pillows as art? Is there a craft that has made you smile when you needed to get out of the doldrums?

Peace, Julie