Paige Smith Orloff invents sisterhood from scratch.
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IAM NOT MUCH for New Year’s resolutions. They mostly just make me feel like a slacker by the time March rolls around, one more thing for me to beat myself up for not doing well enough. (And don’t we all have enough of those already?) This year, instead of chaining myself in the guilt of unkept resolutions, I’ve decided to take a more, uh, aggressive approach. [click to continue…]
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YOU KNOW YOU’RE a sister when your friendship can survive one of you writing, publicly, about the other. Or can it? It all started innocently enough. I sat down for a coffee with the editor of a regional magazine based here in the hinterlands, talking about what I might write for him, what I was writing for other folks, and inevitably, the conversation turned to The Sister Project, and our amazing oldest sister, lovely Margaret. I should have known what was coming. The editor, like everyone else I meet, wanted to know all about her, her garden, her projects. Now there was a subject! Could I finagle a profile of my friend (and regional celebrity) Margaret? Yikes. [click to continue…]
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REMEMBER MY SUMMER GOALS? Now that summer is more than one-third past (read that bit again, why don’t you, as you weep into your iced coffee) and I’m about to embark on our few short days of family vacation, I thought I should check in with, um, myself, and err, you all, and ‘fess up to what I’ve done, or not, on that list of mine. [click to continue…]
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I THINK WE have all watched in varying degrees of disbelief and horror as the saga of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has unfolded over the last week. He of the uh, impressive, hair and apparent ethical deficiencies isn’t alone; his wife, Patti, has been pilloried by everyone from Barbara Walters onward, for her “potty mouth” (that, sorry to say, I have to forgive her for–I can’t throw that stone!) and for threatening revenge against her husband’s enemies (OK, that’s pretty bad–stand by your man and all, but maybe try to maintain a moral compass while you do, no?) But when the $%&% hit the fan last week, what did her sister do, bless her? Something any of us might when trouble hits our dear ones: She showed up with a bag of groceries for the beleaguered first family. Thick and thin, indeed. I think it will take more than a canned ham to bring holiday cheer to the Blagojevich’s, though….
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I HAVE BEEN thinking a lot lately about my semi-compulsive need to surround myself with girlfriends. I know, we all need our girlfriends–that’s totally normal. We all want to know we have a core group of women who get us and who’ll get our backs. And as an only child, I don’t have the option to turn to sisters-by-birth, so I have to make my own.
When Margaret Roach first told me of her inspiration to create this–The Sister Project–my first reaction was, “How in the world can I fit in?” (Yes, it was a bit of a pity party.) But as we talked and brainstormed and plotted and planned, I began to realize that in addition to my search for substitute sisters, I also look for sisters of a less literal kind. In my reading, in my ‘net surfing and shopping, in my movie-watching–I’m drawn to things that convey or examine or suggest some kind of sisterhood, and I have been for a long, long time. [click to continue…]
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NEARLY FOUR YEARS AGO, I went to the hospital, on the day before my own birthday, and delivered a baby sister. She was just under 8 pounds, with a thick head of dark hair and deep, dark blue eyes that seemed to focus instantly, and would not let go. My husband likes to joke that if we’d had a daughter first, we might have thought our son a little, um, slow. He also occasionally says that if she’d been our first, she might have been our last. In both cases, though rude, he’s not necessarily wrong.
Her name means “Rock.” As in stone, not music. She lives up to it. At 3-1/2, she can carry on a conversation about almost any topic, whether she actually knows anything about it, or not. (In this, I am not too proud to say, she closely resembles her mother.) She has complicated relationships with an extended family of dolls, most of whom are named “Baby,” though a couple are called “Butterfly.” She can draw excellent flowers, recognizable humans, and vibrant suns. [click to continue…]
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THIS SAYS IT ALL ABOUT ME: Art by joeforte.com, husband of a friend.
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in friendship or in feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top on our homepage says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men.
TSP’s Galleries were created to show off that outpouring of art and craft, poetry and prose. Come see a show or two—no ticket required, no lines to get in—and suggest others whose work we ought to showcase.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there.
