Patience and Self Empathy

Today started out as a good day. And one absentminded comment from a stranger unraveled me.

This morning I prepped work for my Mom and I for me to deliver to a local gallery, freshly showered, mask on face, clean clothes—pants and all. Big deal. After dropping off some art and catching up with one of the owners I bought a handmade happy mug and my annual pysanky egg ornament. Then I left to run a few errands, one of which was to swing by the bank to deposit all of my loose change.

I’m not sure it’s this way with all banks right now, but my bank’s lobby was closed due to the pandemic and all business has to be done online, via mobile, at ATMs, or through the teller window or chutes. I certainly appreciate the safety for everyone involved, so I stayed patient and kept listening to an audiobook. After maybe 15-20 minutes my car made it to the front of the line and I saw one of my regular tellers. I explained what I wanted to do. She said “all good” and sent me a few coin bags, told me what to do, acknowledged that it would take some time for me to do it so they said they’d redirect anyone who pulled in behind me to other open lanes.

I’m working on my bags, I’ve pre counted and sorted everything, written everything down for reference. A car pulls behind me, they redirect, and few minutes later I overhear an impatient woman in the lane next to me
(same woman who had pulled in behind me) complain to the tellers through the intercom, “I’ve been waiting behind this guy for 10 minutes.”

I’ve been waiting behind this guy for 10 minutes…

For some quick background, for those of you who don’t know, Crowing Hens Bindery is owned and operated by one woman. Me. I’ll be 37 in a week. I’ve never felt more secure about how I look and feel about myself. It’s taken me a long time to get where I am.

So… I’m cashing in my counted and bagged change—everything from my dollar coins to my half dollars that I collected so I wouldn’t spend them (it seemed like a good idea that year). Everything except my $7+ worth of pennies because about the time Ms. Karenconvenienced misgendered me, my sandwich bag of pennies ripped open, spilling out my diligently counted coins onto and under my passenger seat. I eventually finished my business—minus the pennies and thanked my teller. I drove off and side-eye glared at the woman in the next lane (she didn’t notice). I get home and start hunting for pennies in car crevices and tried to go about my day.

But I kept thinking about what happened and wanted to figure out why it still bothered me. “I’ve been waiting behind this guy for 10 minutes.”

Was it being misgendered? Yeah, that hurt. To be honest, it happens a lot, mostly by strangers, mostly in social settings, sometimes at the 2nd job I had before the pandemic. Last year I was even followed into the bathroom at work by a woman who thought I wasn’t supposed to be there, who insulted me and gawked at me until I left. The potty police. That had never happened before. And yes, I reported the incident.

I’ve been misgendered for well over half of my life, ever since I was a kid. Even when I had long hair. The options for responding are varied based on the situation, but are typically compassionate because I can tell people usually realize they’ve made a mistake. They’re embarrassed, they correct themselves, and apologize. Sometimes I don’t correct them because I don’t like confrontation and it doesn’t feel like it’s worth the chance of making it worse. Sometimes I find it funny, but most of the time it hurts. And it’s been hurting a lot more lately.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” Letterpress printed linocut and metal type, 2017.

It hurts to be misgendered. It hurts to be viewed through the eyes of a community that filter “femaleness” as a narrowly defined category of features that exclude me, especially in my hometown, which has been voted one of the “friendliest cities” in the US. It’s one of the main reasons why I started my “Tomboy” series of self-portrait linocuts in 2017, especially after I felt the country was continuing to shift to an atmosphere of discrimination and intolerance towards people like me. I had never before felt compelled to make any art that felt personal until I began to process my own experiences of gender, sexuality, and otherness in my art.

I wish I knew this would eventually stop being a theme in my life, but I know it probably won’t. Sometimes, and especially when I was younger, people would say, “well, why don’t you just do this and that to ‘look’ more female. You’re pretty, why are you trying to hide?” Here’s the deal: I’ve tried that. I went through painful years—both as a child and as an adult—trying to express myself as more outwardly, stereotypically “feminine” to try to fit in, to try to avoid being misgendered (even at a time I didn’t know that term even existed.) I grew my hair out, I wore jewelry, I suffered through cosmetics, I bought women’s clothes in colors I didn’t like that never fit me well. I learned to be less assertive, I grew quiet. I was very unhappy, and most of the time I didn’t know why.

“You have nice hair. Why cut it all off?” Letterpress printed linocut and metal type, 2019.

I’m tired of being told that if I only looked a certain way, or acted a certain way, or wore this color, or that thing that I’d be less likely to be mistaken for a man, or a boy, for that matter. I’m tired of being told that it doesn’t matter, that I should just shrug it off. Because it does matter. Being gendered correctly matters, because it’s a sign of respect. It’s an acknowledgement of my dignity as a human, and I am deserving of respect.

And I honestly don’t know what the answer is. Our society and language (most of it anyways) is evolving to acknowledge, accept, and help define this ever-present diversity and fluidity of gender and sexuality faster than people can adapt. Sometimes it’s a struggle to find one that fits just right. I see a lot of young people struggling to find a definition that fits them perfectly, and all I can say is it can be a life-long journey for some people. And sometimes just one identifier isn’t enough to describe us. And I guess that’s ok. Sometimes I’m ok being a female question mark. Most of the time I’m sick and tired of being called a man, and at a loss of how to respond and stand up for myself. I am tired of feeling invisible because of my perceived otherness.

“I miss your long hair.” Letterpress printed linocut and metal type, 2019.

It’s a weird time for most of us now, we’re all just trying to live day to day. And I’m sure if I’d have confronted that woman, ( like I’ve imagined on replay,) she may have been mortified that she made a mistake, or that she hurt me. She probably just saw short hair in the driver’s seat—and even though she had short hair—she thought “dude.” The thought doesn’t make it hurt any less. But I don’t know how to deal with this when it happens every time it happens. I don’t know how to stop it from happening at all or how to change the way it makes me feel.

All I can say now is just continue to be patient with people, and try to remember that everyone is dealing with far more stress than they normally would be experiencing. Try not to be an asshole. More importantly, be patient with yourselves. Feel what you need to feel without minimizing your emotions. Give them space to breathe and sit with them, process them without indulging in them. And show yourself a little more self care, whatever that looks like. Write in a journal, take baths, stare at bugs and flowers in the garden, take naps, and make bread and eat it (even if it’s ugly.) But remember that there’s nothing wrong with you. None of what is currently happening now is normal. But you are not abnormal either. And how you’re feeling is not abnormal.

Rediscovering Purpose

I’m back in the bindery again, finally getting into the rhythm of shop life as I work to complete custom orders, answer a backlog of emails, and attempt to keep in touch with new friends and colleagues that I met in Idaho more than a month ago. I am also writing a blog series on the experience. You can read the first installment here!

My Oldways crew for the first 2 weeks on our last morning together, holding completed Gothic and Romanesque bindings. Click names for personal websites and ambitions. Top row from left to right: Brien Beidler, Kerri Cushman, Brenna Jael. Bottom row from left to right: Jim Croft, yours truly, Roger Williams, Laura Miller, Evan Davis, Alyssa Sacora, Kelly Moody, Kimberly Kwan, and resident poet Justin Williams. Not pictured: Melody Ekroth (photographer), Peter Thomas, and the 3rd-week crew yet to arrive.

During my interview with Kelly Moody, our Oldways leather instructor, for a forthcoming episode of The Ground Shots Podcast, (subscribe and support on Patreon!) I said that my biggest takeaway from this workshop was definitely the people I met. The chemistry was wonderful and downright spooky. It felt like everyone had been best friends for decades which is the last thing you’d expect from a group of 12+ strangers. It was unlike any other workshop experience I’ve ever had, for people to fall in with each other so easily and earnestly. I miss them all dearly and I will challenge myself to develop these new friendships and not to disappear as daily life throws mindless minutia at me. 

There was another thing I took away from the workshop, something unexpected but perhaps something I was hoping for: permission. Permission to change. Permission to try new things. Permission to reprioritize myself, my business, and the parts of my job that bring me joy.

The focus of the bindery has constantly evolved over the course of five years of being in business. I designed my business this way so that it would allow me to do anything and everything to stay engaged and diversify my skills. I’ve designed a full in-house inventory of high end journals, notebooks, art prints, decorative papers, book jewelry, even shirts and mugs that I sell on Tee Public. I’ve completed custom book and print commissions. I sell my goods both wholesale and retail while managing three websites and all of my social media profiles. I’ve tried out the trade show circuit, taught workshops, and performed bookbinding demonstrations in Victorian era costume. I’ve given lectures, served on panels, and experimented with book arts installations. It’s a lot of work for one person and much of the work behind the scenes, what you don’t get to see, sometimes keeps me from the studio.

Some of the work such as accounting, web management, product photography, filling and shipping orders, and responding to emails are directly related to the bindery. Other things like working part time jobs are indirectly related. While they obviously keep me out of the studio they make it possible for me to come back to it.

At one point earlier this year I was working three separate part time jobs in addition to the bindery. It was too much, but the problem was that I loved each of them. I was teaching an Intro to 2D Design class at Middle Tennessee State University, a prospect that has always intimidated me. I got to teach students not only how to make art, but how to see and think about art. I was on the frontlines of educating a new class of talented artists, activists, educators, critics, and consumers. That’s a huge responsibility! I hope I made an impact on my students to think critically about their potential and the power and responsibility they have as young, engaged artists. I know I grew more confident as an instructor and I can’t thank my buddy Thor Rollins enough for lovingly kicking me in the pants to try it and the department for giving me the opportunity. 

Taken on my last day of teaching at MTSU after our final critique.

Part time job number 2 is one that I’ve worked on and off for over 10 years, starting back when I was employed at the famous Hatch Show Print as a letterpress poster printer and designer from 2006-2011. I worked at FRAMED! part time as a framing technician and consultant for longer than I’ve been binding books if that says anything about how great the job was. After I graduated from the University of Iowa Center for the Book and started to slowly grow the bindery, I went back to framing because I needed camaraderie. Working solo in a home studio for a few years does a lot to morale, even for an introvert. I made many friends at the frame shop and learned from a woman who has grown a reputable, successful small business purely by the caliber of the work and by word of mouth. The work we did, the solutions we designed, and the sheer volume of input and output was astounding. If there is one piece of advice I would give to young artists it’s to work in a frame shop. The knowledge of how to properly and safely house artwork, no mater the media, is a valuable tool that you will get nowhere else.

My third and newest side hustle is completely unrelated to bookbinding and physically demanding: rigging. Rigging? Yup. My best friend, with whom I’ve rock climbed for almost 13 years now, her partner works for a locally owned rigging company at a convention center in downtown Nashville. He’d been trying to recruit me for years, knowing that I love to climb, that I like a good challenge, and that I’m a hard worker. Earlier this year I tried it out and fell in love with it instantly, not because it has anything to do with bookbinding, but because it had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Each day is a challenge both physically and mentally but somehow I always manage to come home with an abundance of energy—to create, to workout, to socialize, to take care of myself. I learn something new every day that I rig and I can feel myself getting stronger.

Exhibit A: My fictional Victorian storefront carved as stationery.

It’s strange, the expectations we put on ourselves to be successful, how we measure our own success. Even before I earned my MFA and moved back to Nashville I dreamed of a brick and mortar store with a quaint Victorian storefront full of equipment and retail stock and employing fellow bookbinders and printmakers. It didn’t matter that I had no savings, that I had no previous experience growing or running a business. It was the shiny pot at the end of the rainbow that I imagined for my business and for myself. At the time it seemed like a reasonable, albeit naïve goal.

 I also never would have dreamed of holding down a part time job much less three just to make ends meet, or even admitting it to anyone outside my circle of family and friends. I thought that revealing that I was holding down multiple jobs would somehow invalidate my work as a bookbinder and tear down that third wall that might reveal me as an imposter. My experiences this year, especially at the Oldways workshop, has changed my thinking and I now have permission to accept that I may always have another job besides the bindery, and that most small business owners have some sort of side hustle they may or may not talk about. I also came to realize that there might be some practical advantage in doing so.

Earlier this year I was interviewed by Rob Wilds for an episode of Tennessee Crossroads, a local NPT show that highlights successful local businesses and artists. Before the shoot date it occurred to me that while I had been busy with my various part time jobs I had rarely set foot in the bindery except to fill a random online order or reprint a greeting card design. My bindery had been forgotten, it was an afterthought, and just as I was about to be filmed hard at work I realized that I was woefully out of practice. The book that I finished in the episode, which was shot in February, was the first book I had completed in months. Even still, I was running the risk of burning out. This realization hit home, and hard.

My health had also steadily degenerated. I was exhausted, my back hurt all the time, and workouts had become more infrequent. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was eating poorly, and I wasn’t socializing—I didn’t have the time! On top of all of that I was creatively drained. I had no energy or inspiration to create new work and I was running the risk of disappointing clients by simply not having enough time in the bindery to complete commissions. I needed to make some changes.

I realized at Oldways this year, taking the workshop for the second time, how much I missed the creative exploration that comes with building historic bindings; making the tools, making the materials, the whole learning process. After all, my entire master’s thesis revolved around an all but extinct style of stationery binding that became an obsession because of its meticulous design and utility. Since I started my bindery I have had a vision of the kind of books I’ve wanted to design but haven’t given myself the time or granted myself the authority to begin making them.

My rustic Oldways-style springback: a ‘vellum’ laced springback binding, bound entirely from materials made or found at Oldways.

The last time that I attended this workshop nine years ago I accepted bookbinding as my calling. This time around I was hoping for a similar impression—a realization, some guiding force that would help me sift through the self-inflicted chaos of the past year and make sense of my path moving forward. But in my distraction of Oldways euphoria this desperate pursuit of inspiration was swept aside, replaced by making, exhaustion, and community. Every now again these feelings surfaced through the din of the Hollander beater or in the flames of a late night campfire and I confided in my colleagues over a generous cocktail. Every answer was the same, just like those I received from my family and friends back home.

Pursue the work that makes you truly happy and weed out the things that keep you running in sand.

This is where I am right now. I’m weeding. Expectations, obligations, relationships, side projects, hoarded tools and materials—everything is now being examined. What does this mean for the bindery? It may mean that some of my offerings will expire as stock runs low. I might change their design or process and make fewer of them to suit this new energy. My output may decrease but the work I choose to put my energy into will be far more meaningful and engaging for my clientele and myself. I’m reexamining my intentions both professionally and in my own life to prioritize what gears me up instead of what wears me out.

The change isn’t going to be (and hasn’t been) easy. I’ve relinquished two jobs that I loved, both of which managed to come along exactly when I needed them. I see some of my dear friends and former colleagues far less than I would like as a result. I’ve accepted a new part time gig that offers new challenges and a flexible work schedule that allows me to prioritize my time in the bindery. I like to think of myself as a strong person—begrudgingly petite, sure but strong for my size. But rigging has also highlighted how physically weak I’ve become from ignoring my health, fitness, and nutrition.

I am also reexamining my personal and professional expectations. When I started the bindery I began growing bonsai from seed, watching them slowly grow in small pots on my window sill. They were supposed to teach me patience. Some have survived and some have not, but I have consistently planted new seeds to see what pops up next. This year I also started collecting spent pencil nibs in a small medicine jar that I harvested from a fire dump at my undergraduate university. It was intended to be a metaphor for my persistence. Dropping an extinguished pencil into the bottle was supposed to measure my progress and reinforce how hard I’ve been working. The truth is that I already had a collection of half-used pencils and the mirage of whittling full-length pencils down to the nub as evidence of hard work was a false measure of success.

This tiny bottle has now come to represent something else—purpose. I’m measuring the weight of my decisions and focusing my energy on what drives me, what inspires me to make. I’m reexamining the things in my life that energize me and excited me. I’m investing my time and energy into the people, places, and things that allow me to prioritize my passions and myself. I want to be reminded to work slower, more deliberately—making decisions because I want to, not out of a misguided sense of obligation. More than anything, I want to be constantly reminded of why I was initially drawn to a centuries-old trade and recapture the obsession that consumed me when I first began to make books. I’m finding purpose again—in this jar, in my life, and in my trade. And the pressure and fear of not being able to live up to unrealistic expectations is slowly, gradually diminishing—like the pencilettes and the space inside this previously useless bottle.

In Homage to the Oldways

 1.

The dirt

stays

in the skin.

My body is a library; a catalogue of short stories, comedies, and tall tales chronicling three weeks worth of research in the form of bruises, lacerations, and scorched skin. All in various stages of recovery, each wound threatens to heal into a blurry, imperceptible scar only to fade into a foggy dreamscape of longing for my Oldways Eden in the dense conifer hills of Santa, Idaho.

Hunched postures, the repeated swinging arc and clang of hammers on anvils, and chirping pulls of bone and brass across keen files and rasps scribe exhausted anecdotes in muscles that have rarely been called upon for this dialect of industry. Hours of leaning over murky vats pulling fibrillated cellulose into evenly felted sheets of handmade paper write riddles of knotted fibers across my shoulders and down the length of my stiffened spine that even sympathetically sore, palpating hands and probing fingers cannot unwind.

Tender bruised ribs once provided leverage for long draws between a sharp Sloyd knife and a half-whittled spoon. And my lightly foxed skin now deeply, abundantly freckled reveals a prolonged healthy dose of sunshine that will soon fade into an ephemeral memory back to its previously milky complexion.

On my right forearm, a mole-sized burn slowly draws together surrounding tissue, a divot of skin burned away, the scab red and angry. A wandering ember landed there, floating from a homemade coal forge while I toiled to hammer wrought iron into amateur chain links in a dirt-floored aluminum shack.

A cinder that escaped from a late night garden campfire nearly three weeks ago left another burn on the first knuckle of my right middle finger. It wormed its way between my right thigh and a chair after a series of pops and crackles ejected it from a log of punky sycamore. In pleasant inebriation I punched out the glowing coal to save my jeans, and the chair. The ember, then extinguished, left its dying reprimand branded on my finger—pink skin pulling on an orange weeping scab, and slow to heal.

My right hand, my dominant tool, is a topography of scars, blisters, and cracked skin, dyed in deep irregular tidelines of foraged huckleberry juice. I have etched my fleshy pads with ferrous tools and sharp brass. Moments between exhaustion and impatience mark conflict between honed edges, and the careless positioning of novice fingertips hard at work. Small, round losses of epidermis are the payment for careless petulance.

My left hand, my stabilizer, became a splintery form at which I absentmindedly whittled. I landed a penetrating sting into my forefinger with an engraving tool, plunging deep to the bone as the tip skipped over the polished surface of a wasp-shaped brass finishing tool—a reckless disconnect between force, direction, and mass into a misplaced knuckle. The V-shaped entry wound still marks the spot but no longer weeps—constantly covered by ointment and sterile cloth.

My left palm, the meat residing far below my smallest and most useless digit sustained the worse loss of all. A gradient, seed-sized scoop of flesh hollowed out by a poorly sharpened hook knife in an impatient attempt to excavate a length of Rocky Mountain maple. They say a dull edge can cause more injuries, but a moderately sharper tool when combined with exhaustion and inexperience can prove to be more efficient for carving craters in a poorly placed palm.

I removed the flap of skin that had once lived there, clinging by a pitiful isthmus of cells, with my teeth and consumed it—explored and eviscerated by canines. This inkpot bled for days, and wept wide under frequently replaced bandages. And angry punctures, tears, and splinters of anonymous origin still march through my lifeline, outlining past-life and future experiences, haloing a nut colored mole at the center of my palm I once believed to be my sacred stigmata in times of devotional delusion.

My fingernails on both hands detail indiscriminate biting passes of rasps and saw blades and the deliberate skipping edge of a well-stropped pocketknife. Beneath nicked nails lies a collection of grit and pitch that clings to its beds, holding fast, refusing repeated soaks and soapy brushes. I’ve never felt so guilty from trying to wash away the dirt. The gouges in my nails, visible only by raking light, will eventually grow out along with this particular vein of sediment.

Days tick by as I witness these memories begin to fade—those buried in my mind and written onto my skin. The darkened, cracked calluses on my hands will slough and soften. Scratches and burns that mark my body will scab and itch, turn pink, and then scar pale. My engraved and berry-dyed nails will grow out and pretend that this was all in a dream. It was a dream in its own way, but one made of beloved people, places, and things—smells and tastes, sounds and sacred visions, touches and exhaustions, successes and failures—wisdoms that shape a person.

That, all of that, I would gladly revisit every day, drinking it in like a round whiskey or a good book in the warm corner of a quiet room. For as I labored to shape wood and bone, celluose, metals and skins into an artifact worthy of my forbearers I too found myself in an altered, reverent heart. Drawn and quartered, spun and plied, hewn, etched, and forged into a new consciousness that cannot unknow it’s own making. I will not, cannot forget that place, or the people that made it a refuge for three weeks in Northern Idaho. I will go back to this hallowed wood, hopefully sooner than my last visit that stretched nine years between multitudes of hopeful promises. Until then I will mourn this place and all who visited and still live within it—my paradise, not lost but waiting for me to return home.

C. 2019 Mary Louise Sullivan, all rights reserved.

#ShopSmall and make a BIG difference!

Handmade Books • Letterpress Printed Stationery & Art
• Gifts for Book Lovers •

This time of year you begin to hear a lot about shopping small, shopping local, and supporting small businesses. But what does it mean to "shop small" and why does supporting local small businesses matter?

If you’ve visited Crowing Hens Bindery a show here in Middle Tennessee, you locked eyes and shook hands with the business owner responsible for designing and manufacturing everything in that booth. Every journal, notebook, print, and piece of stationery and jewelry that you saw was made by my head, heart, and my two hands. Meeting and getting to know the maker one-on-one, that dynamic is unique to small businesses!

The truth is, my love of bookbinding is only in part due to my fascination with how books are made. It’s ultimately how my books are used, who uses them that drives my book obsession. It's the curious romance we have all cultivated for this living, breathing artifact that has helped shape who we are and how we communicate with each other. 

When you show interest in my work, ask how it’s made, and how in the world I got into my craft, we are building the sort of relationship that brings meaning to my work. Half of my job is in the design and making of my work. The other half is getting to know the people like you who have chosen to make my work a part of your everyday lives.

You wanted unique, deluxe journals that won’t fight you or break when you write in them, so I developed my Scribe springback journals.

You asked for convenient, pocket-sized notebooks for everyday note taking with a variety of ruled page designs, so I developed my Daybooks and Scratchbooks.

You wanted to continue to stay in touch with family & friends with a personal touch, so I’ve continued to expand my letterpress printed stationery line, including my newest William Morris monogram stationery.

And you wanted to show off your eternal love of the book every day, so I developed my handmade book earrings and pendant necklaces.

Small businesses like mine rely on being able to develop these special relationships with you so that we can make meaningful work that makes your lives richer for living with our work. I want to thank you for all of the support you’ve given me over the past few years. With your patronage, input, and encouragement, Crowing Hens Bindery continues to grow into the symbiotic book and print champion that I dreamed of years ago.
 
To show my appreciation, I’d like to share with you an exclusive promotional code to both my online store as well as my Etsy store (yes, I have one of those too!) It’s good for free ground or priority shipping on any order of $150 or more. Just enter the code “CYBERCHICKEN” at checkout at crowinghensbindery.com or crowinghensbindery.etsy.com between now and December 31st to redeem your coupon. Remember that shipping cutoffs to receive your orders for the holidays is December 15th!

Thank you again, from the bottom of my inky, paper heart. I couldn’t do this without you!

Yours in book love, chicken scratch, and gratitude, 

Mary L. Sullivan

*Please add crowinghensbindery@gmail.com to your email contact list and follow me on Instagram (@crowinghensbindery) Twitter (@crowinghensbind) and on Facebook!

((P.S. Please remember that many of the local small businesses in your area—just like Crowing Hens Bindery—may not have brick and mortar stores but you can support them too by shopping online! Indie Nash (The Nashville Independent Business Alliance) is a great resource for Nashville-based small businesses!))

Come visit me at my last two shows of 2016!

My final two shows of the year in December are the Studio Be Holiday Market December 2-3 in West Nashville and once again I'll be in the Victorian Trades Demonstration Village in costume in historic Franklin for Dickens of a Christmas December 10-11. Both of these events are free, family friendly, and open to the public!

Come enjoy the food, festivities, music, costumes and demonstrations! I'm so glad to be a featured demonstrator again this year! The Victorian style journals that I sewed last year at the festival will be available for sale exclusively at this year's Dickens of a Christmas. This year's sewn books will be available next year!