Pour me a fifth of moon (shine), honeycomb moon, honey moon. Fifth moon in the series, cotton with indigo, indigo overdyed ecoprint, rhubarb root dyed threads, hand embroidery, 7×7″
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.
new moon rising
The fifth in the “series”.
Will finish this one this weekend, no doubt. And there’s a pile still of them to be done!
(You can see the completed to date moons #1, 3 and 4 on my Gallery 2016 page. #2 is still in progress as a much larger piece.)
getting ambitious
For a person who waaaay back in ’99 told her son “i don’t need a computer–what would i do with it: store recipes???”, i’ve come a bit further than beef stroganoff notes 🙂
Residency plans are shaping up well. These self directed times are perfect for developing new work, building skills, and hopefully, finding a few surprises in one’s self.
While i have copious ideas for my beloved natural process cloths, the ones i use in most of my work, this is the one that will be a challenge this year.
The original paint sketch above was done in 2012, and she has had one incarnation in the piece (still unfinished!) below:
While idling time yesterday before the ffFlower Mines day job, i was playing in Dreamscope again, trying various filters, and came up with this version:
This made my heart race! There’s definitely rust, potassium permanganate, iron and brazilwood, piecing, hand embroidery and a fair number of hours of work in her! I find it quite satisfying too, knowing that an intuitive sketch can become digitally transformed, and then finally “translated” into/with more organic processes.
Before i start “res”, the first week of June, i’ll be drawing up the “pattern pieces”, figuring out scale, pulling potential threads, and dreaming.
reading runes
It’s time to start worrying 😉 thinking about other work, time to move away from blue.
Funny how an artist’s sketches become a form of shorthand–no one else understands the signals, signs and runes. I can see in my head how these little thumbnails would look, i can imagine the effect certain stitches and specific techniques would have. I can even feel the texture. Over on my work blog, there’s a long post with notes and random thoughts, observations and what if’s abounding. Since June will be residency at ACAD again, i have been planning what i will do there, or rather, planning as much as natural marks and processes will allow the maker to assume! And as much as i love my hand stitch, i want to incorporate some machine back in, either as a base, or as accent, making the two meld together. FrankenStitch can and originally, way back in 2009 when i started it, DID combine both processes.
With what i have learned specifically in the past two (?) years from my dear friend Karin Millson, it’s time to rev up “Lalage”, my temperamental sewing machine.
big sky prairie moon
Back at it!
Leighton lady done
(But still without a name.)
Whilst Greyman and our dear landlord fixed the plumbing in the laundry room, i did my usual “gotta get it done” thing, and switched the tubage on to a really bad “natural disaster/supernatural” Cheesy B movie. Last night’s offering was “Ba’al: The Storm God”, perfect for chortling at and letting the Inner Needle take over.
The Inner Needle always knows what it takes and why, so she did end up with a Corona of sorts, a repeat of snowflakey stars, or star flakey snow thingees, which i quite like. The indigo dyed silk thread makes it luminescent enough to be illustrative, but not overpowering. Being as the Milky Way is represented in that shibori-ed swath, and she’s in the mountains, the interpretation works with the sky area.
I’ll be re-photographing her this afternoon, as the light between 1 and 3 is perfect to show off true colours and texture.
For a little break now, i’m working on two more small moon pieces, then must get back to the big moon, also untitled! Normally i have a naming choice from three or four phrases that pop into my head while working on something, but not this time. My thesaurus is well thumbed, but nothing’s popping yet. The deadline is July 30th, so hopefully inspiration will come! I’m not a big fan of “Untitled #1/#2/#3 etc” or “Moon #1/#2etc”.
what shall she be named?
The Leighton Lady is almost done, but i hesitate to name her anything yet. She epitomizes not only a response to the response 🙂 to the original work done by Marian Nicoll at the Leighton Art Centre that inspired me, but also a connection to the earth and river forces that are so important to me. I’m having a hard time articulating what this really means in terms of simple language.
With the Milky Way behind her as so visible in the mountains, trees and roots from the site, and the river below (which is not at that site, but rather near me personally and physically), whatever she is to be Named must contain all that.
Anyhoo, “art speak” and “concept” aside, the last few inches have me in a bit of a dilemma. I completely veto-ed the first idea (done in photo editing, and imagine the white corona is in blue thread!), as trite, “expected” and a little too religion-y for my tastes.
With photo editing again, i added a few of the circles to the right corner. I like the open lighter space around her, but it’s too loose physically, so will have to figure out a way to anchor it without the stitch being obvious, perhaps in the same silk thread used on the figure itself. I’m also going to remove that semi circle on her left shoulder, as it just looks wrong.
Here she is in her almost finished entirety.
When stretched on her 24×9″ canvas, some of the stitched edges will wrap around the sides and back. I hate blank edges when i use this method to “present”–painters do this if they care, so why wouldn’t i?
calm
Sending calm and cool to Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta……………….. Praying, and rain dancing asked for…………..
working on (a)sides
Are they eyes, eggs, areolas, holes, moon craters, pollen or bubbles?
Light as they rise to the Milky Way, darkening in shadow and deep water. They’ll rise above and darken again in dusk.
roots trees roots
They anchor, they protect and provide. Encircling, hidden but supportive, invisible but aware.
What is anything without roots? No connection, no growth, no change, no immutabilty. Paradox, needed but forgotten.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. H.Hesse
albedo too 
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