Who knew that a strange creative impulse that popped into my head in late fall of 2019 would help me keep my sanity (sort of) through the final year of TFG’s reign of terror and the frightening experience of living through (so far) a global pandemic.
Those who have been part of The Friends of Bob and The Panda Chronicles will already know this is Princess Pinky, or at least her felty representation.
I have been a full time painter for decades, and have written my cartoons for about a dozen years.
But just before the COVID-19 pandemic was upon us, I was having A LOT of anxiety. Every year of TFG’s time in the White House was more troubling than the previous. It took me a bout a year of his time in “office” to really grasp that it wasn’t inexperience that was causing him to choose unqualified and ethically questionable agency and cabinet appointments. Those ethically bankrupt “qualifications” were WHY he was choosing them.
I needed something in my creative arsenal that did not require the same level of mental engagement that painting and writing do. I’d tried knitting some years back, and it was not a good match, even though I loved fiber and fiber arts. I then remembered that I had seen some cool needle felted animals over the years.
Like any mostly modern luddite, I figured I could get some supplies from our local craft store, watch some YouTube videos and figure out how to do this.
Pinky in a car. (I did not make the car)
It wasn’t long before I got the hang of it and started making pandas. (Because, duh) In January of 2020, as rumors of some strange, severe virus in China started appearing in the news, I thought I would do a Kickstarter project and see if I could sell a few, to pay for my supply of felting wool fiber. I had found a great source for wool roving: a local mill that makes both yarn and felting/spinning roving.
Just about the time my Kickstarter was ending, COVID-19 decided it was going to be a THING, helped in no small part by TFG’s unwillingness to look beyond his own wants and incompetence.
In the end, I sold more than 200 needle felted pandas through my Kickstarter, and another 200+ after it was over. Not a bad thing to do whilst isolating in my house with a supply of wool and tiny pandas for company.
Needle felting uses very sharp, long needles with which you stab a wad of wool and eventually it begins to look like something. Plus repeatedly stabbing something is extremely stress reducing and satisfying. (Heh) And then you have this tiny panda that you can carry with you when you have to emerge from your cocoon of relative safety to see if maybe the grocery store has restocked their supply of toilet paper.
Stores were closed that were not deemed essential. I didn’t have a problem with that. It made sense to me. But it meant that paintings weren’t selling because the galleries that showed my work weren’t open. Selling all those little pandas definitely kept me afloat in 2020.
But 2020, with the upcoming election, felt like a rapidly advancing apocalypse.
The dumpster fire that was 2020, complete with Frank and Mikey, a couple of ne’er do well grizzly bears that entered the story line in 2018. (remind me to tell you that story later! Yes, they are toasting little felty marshmallows)
It seems like I should be getting to a point here.
I think the point is this: even in the worst of times, or maybe especially in the worst of times, creative work is essential. Both the making of creative things, be they books, music, paintings or tiny felted animals, and the appreciation of them, can help to give us hope. They can help us figure out that it would be better to wake up in the morning than to stay under the covers for days.
During a time when I felt too unsettled to make “serious” art, tiny felty pandas showed up to save me.
Also a bear or two…
Make art. Buy art. Interact with art.
It all helps. Then take your felty panda to the polls and vote for democracy. Please. The bears are counting on you. #Vote Like Your Life Depends On It.
If you’re interested in having your own tiny panda, bear, bunny or kitty, visit the contact page at Your Brain On Pandas. Or leave a comment here. If you want to buy beautiful wool for felting, spinning or knitting from a small family business, please visit Abundant Earth Fibers. They ship for free all over the US and have the most beautiful yarn. They also have a small batch dye pack that really is easy to use, that they’ve developed. I’ve even done it!
Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment! I’ll answer back as soon as I figure out how to do that.
I’m so glad you wrote this…I experienced the same thing. I’m still angry and coming to grips with the “aftermath. I’m working on some things and hoping that we have a good year! ❤️🐼
I read through your missive about pandemic survival and apocalyptic therapy, and heartily agree. The depths of my anxiety was nearly insurmountable, and yet today I find myself deeper into that crevasse than ever before. The insidious infiltration of Heir Drumpf and his minions into the election process, political offices and the widespread belief in lies - along with terrible situations elsewhere in the world - crushed my remaining precarious hold on inner peace and put rising anger in its place. Even efforts at peaceful watercolor art doesn't work anymore ( plus I'm staring at news on my cell phone all the time. Ugh). The winemakers are rich because of me. I pray to the Powers That Be that we don't end up with a Republican majority that installs HWSNBN into a second term from which he will never leave. Thank God for Felty Pandas and good wine. <3