Not long ago, as I was touring the Etsy website (for those of you who aren’t handicraft aficionados, Etsy is a kind of online hand-craft cottage-industry mecca), I came across a small business called “Lacewood,” the owner of which sells yarns hand-spun from angora bunnies that she raises herself.
I followed this lady to her Facebook page, where I spent a very enjoyable few minutes looking at photos of her two home-raised angora rabbits, who she frankly admits are possibly the most spoiled and most loved bunnies on the planet.
The picture at right resembles one of the Lacewood bunnies, although I think this cutie may still be a kit, because its coat, although fluffy, isn’t yet very long.
All the same, wouldn’t you just love to take this baby home and bury your face in that luscious soft fur? And the yarn created from that fur – oh my, you simply have to feel it to believe it!
However, what really caught my attention was the Lacewood owner’s artisan bio. I’ve included an excerpt from it that rings so true to me that I simply had to share it. With apologies to Lacewood for the small changes in formatting, here is “Beauty is not Trivial”:
Beauty is Not Trivial
“It is, perhaps, an odd thing to reference a eulogy in one’s artisan bio. Yet my best friend’s sister put it so succinctly at their mother’s funeral, when she told us that one of the lessons learned from her mom was that beauty is not trivial.
It is this same lesson I learned from my own mother, growing up always stitching at one thing or sketching another.
These are the skills, along with so many other lessons learned, passed down from my mother to me, that she learned from her mother and grandmother, and they learned from theirs, and back, and back, and back.
A chain of strong, practical women reaching backward in time, who knew how to make do.
Who didn’t have much, but who made the most of what they had – and made it beautiful while they were at it.
Who saw the act of making beauty as an act of defiance in the face of having nothing, and as an act of gratitude in times of plenty.
Who saw beauty as necessary to the soul, in times good or bad.”
“Who saw beauty as necessary to the soul.…” ah, Lacewood Lady, whoever you are, Amen to that!
Namaste,
Susannah
Etsy – Lacewood’s artisan bio can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/people/Lacewood
Susannah Hay 