I’m showing you two Snugs today and
frankly, I never imagined I’d be making such a thing once never mind twice.
These are Sweat Lodge tea cosies. I had no idea what a sweat lodge was when
somebody came to me with idea of making one for a couple for their wedding
present.
(Firstly let me apologise for the quality of
the photographs. In both cases, I didn’t have a proper set up and I was just
trying to get shots to document the work before they had to be delivered)
I listened tentatively as this project was
proposed to me. I didn’t know what a sweat lodge looked like, I didn’t know if
I could make one out of wool and I didn’t know if my abilities would be up to
scratch. As I said in a previous post, I was in a place where I was challenging
myself to say YES to new ideas, new commissions and new tests to my capacities
as a maker.
I was brave in the moment and said that I would
research sweat lodges, look for images and get back to the person if I thought
it was possible. The day you are asked to make a sweat lodge tea cosy is the
day you are grateful for Google images and Wikipedia. I’ll add the Wiki link
below if you want to read for yourself in a bit more detail about what a sweat
lodge is. I would also recommend putting sweat lodge into the Google image
search to get a range of images to see what they can look like.
From my understanding, a sweat lodge is a hut
like structure that is used for ceremonial purposes in Native American,
Scandinavian, Baltic and Eastern European cultures. In the example I worked
from, heavy blankets cover the lodge and stones that have been heated in a fire
are placed inside the hut. Water is poured over the stones to create steam. Traditional
prayer and song can also be part of the ceremony. The sweat lodge practice
holds special significance for the couple this gift was being made for and so
the client wanted to commission this unique tribute to them.
When I saw the images for the first time I was
still feeling sceptical about my ability to make something that just didn’t
look like scraps of material sewn on to a tea cosy. The images of the real
lodges looked very rustic to me. It seemed whatever was going on in the inside
of the sweat lodge was much more important than the aesthetic quality of the
outside of it. But there would be tea on the inside of my sweat lodge and I
found the challenge was how to convey the emotional and spiritual resonance of
the practice of the sweat lodge onto the visual aspect of the exterior of it. I
also wanted to make it personal to the couple for whom it was being made for.
I decided I would make a natural looking basic
cosy to fit over the tea pot. Although it would never really be seen I wanted
it to be representative of the foundation structure that had to be built for
the sweat lodge. I then decided to make individual blankets, each one a little
art piece in itself. I used the personal information the client had given me
about the couple to pick the colours and to create some symbols. I embroidered
these images onto the small blankets.
Then the experimentation began. I laid the
blankets over the basic cosy in many many different configurations, trying to
settle on the most visually pleasing arrangement. I finally picked the
arrangement I liked the best and sewed the blankets into place. I used one of
the blankets to create a doorway into the lodge and I embroidered the couple’s
initials inside as a little secret surprise to be discovered later.
As you have seen from my other work I love
to bead and embellish but with this piece I tried to use a restrained hand. I
only used some tiny shell beads I had collected to compliment the themes of
nature and being in the wilderness.
When I was finally finished this piece I was
over come with relief. It was so different from the other things that I hade
made, that I don’t think I knew how to evaluate it properly. I just had to go
with my gut and my gut said I had done the best I could with the challenge
presented. I had thought about the piece long and hard, I had problem solved
and tried to be creative.
I’m very happy to say that the client was
delighted with the work and again I felt flooded with relief. I had undertaken
a challenge and by all accounts it had proved successful.
You could have knocked me over with a feather
when somebody else who knew I had made this tea cosy asked me to make another
one.
She had done a placement with a Native American
group who work with sweat lodges as part of a recovery programme. She wanted to
send them the tea cosy as a thank you present for having her over with them and
sharing their experiences with her.
Although I had already made the aforementioned
sweat lodge, I felt a new kind of pressure. I was making something for people
whom this practice meant so much and was part of their culture. I wanted to be
totally respectful and handle this new commission with more than my usual care.
I decided with the client that I would research symbols that held meaning in
the Native American culture and use these to convey how the client felt about
her experience and what she had learned from it. I embroidered these symbols
onto the blankets and also a shamrock to represent the client herself. I
slightly changed the structure this time to include a more defined doorway as
well.
I never imagined that my art archive would
include two sweat lodge tea cosies. Looking back now I feel glad that I said
yes and accepted the challenge. It helped me in little ways to be more confident
about my abilities and to trust that I can come up with something for even the
most unlikely of commissions.
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