Now i HAVE to learn to work with silk.
Author: arlee
I am a Canadian textile artist in Calgary, Alberta. As textile artists, we connect and are connected to communities larger than our Selves, or our immediate environs. We encapsulate culture, technique, history and innovation every time we touch cloth.
for my next trick
Working on the commissioned piece “Tabula Memoria” has taken much of my time over the past 6 months, in thinking and in doing, not leaving much wiggle room for other projects. It’s time to rev up and get something done for the end of “res” exhibit!
On my work blog (private), i’ve been looking at photos of older work, from sketch to sample to finished pieces, and finally decided i just might do something with this from 2012. The original figure was sketched out and used in 96 (?) as applique on a vest, back in the days when my business was wearable art. (I had intended to do this from years ago, but the fabric processes that i envisioned for it just aren’t co-operating!)
Given that i have a definite timeline, (the exhibit takes place at ACAD from Aug 27 to September something….) this piece will be MUCH smaller than works done lately 😉 I’ve bogged myself down in some sense with large expanses, and while i love the finished work, i’m going to go back to more intimate sizes. For years i was afraid to go big, but i think it’s time to be reasonable in terms of what i am able to accomplish—size does matter as they say, but there’s no proscribed acreage for successful work.
shop update
Winnowing through the studio piles, i found these beauties. *You* can find them here, ready to ship hot and stitch needy!!
codex
Hopefully my reasoning will now make sense, and the explanation clear. I embroidered most of the phrase in binary code, but left some words, and some parts of some words as text. ( I did leave “by” as binary too.) Those sections became their own phrase, poetic, and meaningful within the context of the whole original phrase, and the intent of the whole work.
I’m nearing the final phase of the other embroidery on this piece: a teeny bit on the standing figure still to do, then to attach both figures,do a bit more work on the top left panel, and then sit back for a week, just looking at it, sensing if it needs anything more.
The next phase is to figure out the journal that goes with it, the explanation, the sketches and samples, the whole meaning and the subtexts, the wonderings and wanderings, the crux of the biscuit.
euc in the house
I missed a week at ACAD–summer holidays with the Greyman, and some serious Garden Hard time, both necessary things, and also time to think on things. If the school studio is too cool now for my favourite processes, what else can i do?
My favourite eucalyptus in “in season” again–that means it’s an import, as it just doesn’t grow in Alberta! One of the perks of working in the fffFlower Mines means access to things that just aren’t available in my garden or neighbourhood. There *are* certain “go-to’s” i can pick fresh, but the majority of plant materials that give satisfying results are neither “native” nor zone 3 hardy.
Yesterday i stitched in the home studio while these were percolating.
Two euc “trees” 🙂
LOVE this silk:
It was a good day.
an elegant solution
That’s a Binary table above. I wrote out the entire phrase in it, punctuation included, and surmised that it would be insane to stitch the whole thing this way…………I’m “translating” a phrase that holds 58 characters, a piece of cake in regular text, but multiply those by 8 and that’s 464 little marks! The space available for that means my “numbers” have to be too tiny, which makes them impossible to read, and therefore pointless, and the TIME to do this wholly in Binary would exceed my timeline–given that there are other parts that still need working.
EUREKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Truly, the punctuation does not have to be in Binary, and when i started looking at the phrase, certain words jumped out, and became another phrase in themselves, fitting with(in) the original phrase, the meaning of the whole and *as* another consequential but purposeful catch of words. It also lessens the numbers of signifiers by 238, so i have “only” (HA) 226 to do. Given that some of these are now going to be actual letters/words, it’s less daunting, and requires less space, time and layout!
Yesterday at ACAD, i made a start as i waited for fabrics to percolate and imprint. And it took less time than i thought, not as much a worry as anticipated!
Proofreading was the hardest part 🙂
coding for Tabula Memoria
01010111 01100101 01110011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01101001 01110110 01100101 (we survive) oh boy this will take some time and patience……..
I’ve had this brilliant idea all along that the work needs some text, but last night “saw” what it would be. Nobody but a programmer will be able to read this i suppose, but it’s fitting given my client’s profession.
The full phrase will translate as “We survive by remembering, but sometimes we survive by forgetting.” That’s a lot of 1’s and 0’s, so best get on with it! At least it’s simple stitches to do though: uncomplicated shapes, small and straightforward, no frills needed. This area will be around/by/below the figures.
FybreSpace re-opening
Or maybe i should say “RE-re-opening”!!!!! I’m tired of fighting with the coding between Paypal and Blogger, so i’ve gone back to BigCartel. Same address as the “old/previous” shop, but a new look, hopefully, enticing new and old customers 🙂
The shop is here, so please bookmark it!!!
the heat is on
Not really. The heat is OFF, damn it.
My third “batch” of fabrics are totally disappointing. The studio now is air conditioned, so things dry out much too faster. Every previous year i’ve been in there, i’ve sweltered and dripped, brought in fans while i was working, and didn’t worry about amounts of water on things. This year, HA. I’ve had to dump pints and quarts on things to make them work. Day three results are now actually day four results, because i had to leave things for 48 hours instead of the usual 24, and they were still SHIT.
Sigh. There’s going to be a lot of overdyeing. The largest piece was supposed to be for my res end exhibit piece, but i’ll have to rethink that now. I am reminded of my first res tip back in 2009: “Make a plan for what you’ll do, half it–and half it again”……………..
I guess i’ll be doing the majority of this technique at home in a hot sunny back 40, fighting the wind and bird poo instead! But there are other things i can do at the school stoodio, so with three months in this res, i’ll be trying a few different things. I have time to experiment and mess around, refine other processes, and just get dirty.
My deadline for Tabula Memoria is looming, the end of July, and while i have put in time with it, and am actually at a point where there technically is little left to do on it, it still needs to be worked on. (Phew, that’s one hell of a run on sentence…) I’ve been taking it with me to the fffFlower Mines (Day Job), and to the residency, so i can work on it—while doing the hurry up and wait thing!
The moon area was completed several weeks ago, and the standing figure is almost finished this week.
I can’t attach either figure until the other stitching is all done, because i don’t want to snag anything.
I started shopping around for a suitably sized stretched canvas to mount it on. The variance in prices is astounding! I’ve been quoted from $60 (seems way too low!) to $168 (way too high!) for a uniquely sized 41×43 frame, and might just end up building it myself. I do a wrap around technique, so though the actual work started at 48×46, stitch “shrinkage” had to be accounted for as well as the wrap around.
res exhibit ideas
At the end of every Contextural residency, we have an exhibit of work (hopefully) done through the summer. (Some people put whatever they like in, done wherever and whenever, which to me is pointless…….but we won’t go there.)
Being as this is the 10th anniversary for Contextural, and even though i’ve only been a member since 2009 (though i missed one year), i thought i’d look at my own work done 10 years ago.
Seriously? Very little i did then is show worthy really. Futzing about with mixed media, extraneous details, overloaded with technique and colour, the only value they have now is as samples and whatnottodo-whatthehellwasithinking’s! ICK. Fortunately (?), most of them are photos only, lost, tossed or given and flooded away (2013), so i don’t have to store them 🙂
But i did find this:
Above, the finished page, below, in progress shots:
A page i had done for an international fabric art journal exchange, i could work with this. I can incorporate the indigo, ecoprinting, rust and potassium permanganate and create something new. Looking back can take you ahead.
albedo too 
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