I’m exploring a new idea. I made two experimental blocks months ago that I didn’t use. So what to do with them? I hate waste, so this was my challenge. Famous quilter Victoria Findley Wolfe’s book 15 Minutes of Play encourages sewing scrap pieces together to use as parts in a future quilt. She does this to great affect in her work. I was inspired to cut these blocks up and add strips. Here are my resulting pieces. I find it amazing that although similar in pattern, each piece communicates very different ideas and emotions.

“Power Trip” illustrates the way someone with a controlling personality stifles all creative and beautiful ideas around them. It’s a good reminder that as a classroom teacher I need to hold back. The role of teacher is intrinsically one of extreme power, and I must encourage my students to take control. It feels risky, but in the end creates a strong community.

“Holding It Together” is a picture of how I feel at the end of the school year. People would be shocked in the digital age, at the amount of forms required of a 2nd grade teacher. Most of the work is simply copying the same information onto multiple forms—the blue form, the yellow form, the orange form, and on and on. The end of the year is frazzled exhaustion, and important energy and time connecting with students is sacrificed to repetitive paperwork.

I can’t choose when I get a new idea, but find the discipline of regularly taking photos of interesting details around me keeps my brain alert and my eyes awake. I never know which picture will trigger an idea. I’m excited about this new one, and my brain is full of iterations.

A New Idea