Dream Boats -- And Intrinsic Knowledge

A familiar thought was running through my head this afternoon as I worked on the latest “Dream Boat” mobile.  I thought of my dad---a man of invention and incredible common sense. Although he spent his life working in an oil refinery, Dad built the house I grew up in---and then a beach cabin on the Texas Gulf Coast.  He had limitless practical abilities--the kind of innately logical thinker that I haven’t observed in many people in my life.

Jim West

 When there was any project going at our house, there was always the “perfect knot” to tie it with--knots with amazing names like slip knot, half-hitch, sheep shank, clove hitch, cow hitch...bowline.  Perhaps it was because my dad had been an Eagle Scout...or perhaps it was just because knots were sensible things to know about--he not only knew about them, but Dad could tie them precisely and use them effectively in every situation.  

A few years ago, I had a burning desire to put up a clothesline in our then, very urban, Denver back garden.  After making a trip to the local hardware store to buy all the necessary bits, I returned home and began fashioning a clothesline in a somewhat unconventional configuration to fit our garden space.  When it came time to knot the line to the hardware, there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation, I began tying a bowline, and I could hear my father’s voice...”the rabbit emerges from a hole, goes under the log, jumps back over the log and back in the hole.”  I had a clear vision of him tying this same knot at some time in my childhood--the patience and precision of his thick, brown hands moving deliberately.  

I had the same experience today as I began knotting the ending pieces of hemp and silk for the “dream boat.”  My dad was again alongside me.  

Isn’t it wonderful that those rich pieces of our childhoods---and most especially, the people we’ve loved--live on in the smallest tasks or moments in our busy lives?

Dream Boat II - recycled book pages, cottonwood twigs,
hemp cord, found objects.

Dream Boats

My love of origami was an unexpected journey. 

It began with making paper cranes with my own children on New Year's Eve of 2000.  My girls were then just 12 and 8.  Looking for something interesting to occupy the children visiting our house that evening, I thought of paper cranes.  As we sat down to fold our papers, we decided to write something secret inside---our wishes and hopes for the coming year.  Just before midnight, one of our guests thought that it would be a great idea to go out onto our deck and burn the cranes just as the new year arrived.  We watched as our secret hopes and dreams drifted up into the night sky of a new millennia.  

When origami paper is set alight, the dyes cause it to burn in beautiful, brilliant colors.  It was just the kind of magic we had hoped for as we rang in the new millennium---and thus, it began...the tradition of paper cranes on New Year's Eve that is followed religiously at our house each year.  I have also shared this with my students over the years and has been adopted by many other families and friends along the way.

The origami "dream boats" are a shape uniquely reminiscent of childhood to me.  I love their sharp angles and child-like quality.  I painted and hand colored book pages before folding them, then strung them with other found and natural objects to create the piece.

Dream Boat 1 - "Stars Shining Bright"

Detail of "Dream Boat"

On Inspiration...

“Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.”

                                                                               ---Bob Dylan


So, where does inspiration come from?....I think it can come from anywhere---and anything around us.  For me, it often comes from what I see out my studio window...the prairie that stretches for miles, the wildflowers, and the deer that I often see as I come into my studio first thing in the morning.

Sometimes, inspiration is just about color, a pattern or texture, or the exquisite beauty of some natural material or found object.

This afternoon, there was a brief rain shower, an unusual event for us this summer as we struggle through another season of drought and wildfires in Colorado.  As I looked out my studio window, there were raindrops collected on the screen behind a nearly finished “Dream Boat” mobile I’d been working on earlier in the day.  The play of light and shadow between the paper boats and the brilliant, clearing, blue sky against the prairie made me smile...inspiration.