arlee

Stoodio purge, a “fill up yours” sale :)

Posted on February 1, 2016February 1, 2016 by arlee

Part of my new discipline is to get rid of things i am not going to use. After carrying some of this stuff around for 32 years, it is way past time to let go!

If you are a “precious scrap” collector, you may be intrigued 🙂 Many of these pieces were culled from clothing in the very early 80’s, things i would guess were the result of someone cleaning Mom or Gramma’s closet, so some are definitely vintage/classic, and then taking it to the nearest “donation” box, whether charity or “neighbourhood commmunity house”. (Do those even exist anymore???) At that point i had discovered Yvonne Porcella’s “Pieced Clothing” chapbooks and was totally enthralled with patchwork that was neither a quilt, nor main stream “fashion”. I didn’t have any money to buy full yardage, so these fabrics ended up in some rather wild and spontaneous pairings.

Machine pieced above. Made during pregancy’s long sleepless nights!

Hand stitched below, hand embroidery, hand quilting, hand beading…i had time then when the boychild was asleep…..

And OMG, i actually found a chunk of that blue floral in one of the bins!!!!!!

I see a riot now in this coat below, hand dyed velvet, applique and things all adanglish.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — “Love Lies, Bleeding” coat detail, 1996

Many hours of cutting and sewing this cloak, but i was SO warm–and it doubled a blanket on cold nights camping!

cloak 2000 — Velvet cloak for SCA wear, 2000

Alas, i have none of these anymore, all lost in the 2013 Calgary flood……………………………

Digging through the rubbermaid bins that survived that flood was both a trip down memory lane and a few moments of “dear GAWDZ why did i save this????” (and yes, i admit to saving a few pieces for myself after all…) The fabrics run the gamut from glitz and glamour to “ethnic print”, and a few trends in between, in everything from cotton, velvet, unknowns and metallic blends and i-don’t-know-what’s. I tried to group in colour, but there are a few Wild Cards as well. Are you a “Crazy Quilter”? Someone who loves to incorporate little bits and tell stories with them? Make big cloth out of small cloth? Does a scrap fire up your Mojo?

Cheap, now in the shop, under “supplies: fabric”. Buy three, i’ll give you a discount of 10% (refunded after purchase), buy 4 or more and i’ll take 10% off and 10% off the shipping also (also refunded after purchase). Spread the word—there’s lots to go to good homes!

Body of Water

moving a river

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by arlee

Only a couple of floating sections left to do along the river strip.

The next challenge is to do the main component, the figure. Several of the smaller “cut outs” will have to be removed as they are just too small to correctly turn and stitch. Less is more, right? 🙂 I’m also thinking some colour might work under this section as well.

The blue lines above at her sides will stay “open” as those delineate her arms, but the insides are asking for some contrast or show.

Browns might work, but i want a bit more colour–my primitive photo edit program shows that brown as blah, too solid, not very exciting–guess i’ll have to audition something under–don’t want in your face guts, but something from my hoard of Deb Lacativa’s luscious dyeways may fit the bill.

a collusion of ideas, Creative Strength Training with Jane Dunnewold, journal: lessons to learn

resistance to the machine

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by arlee

I talked about Stubborn in a previous post. She’s the stoodio visitor that puts the blocks to the flow. Whether it’s the thought that you’re not going to try anything new or daring, or the one that says i’m already good at what i do, so why try anything else, Stubborn refuses to admit that the tools can be used in concert. Stubborn is sister also to Complacency–and the rest of the siblings: Boredom, Stagnation, and Predictability.

Look at that piece above–what joy, colour, expression!!! It’s got hand AND machine embroidery, done at a time when i was realizing that they could be used together, and that there was a strange pleasure in doing more hand work. I had decried that in previous years–too used to silly little florals and heavy ecclesiastical work samples, it bored me.

Serendipitously this morning my computer was acting very very strange. Even after changing the battery in the keyboard, i was having problems, so decided to let it have a rest 🙂 (Still acting weird, but at least it’s working now.) Instead i fired up the sewing machine and pulled out threads and memories of just noodling around. No purpose, no grand idea, no use for it, but hey, i had FUN.

I might add a bit of hand stitching to it, but it’s not an under pressure piece, so i might not too!

Body of Water

the river flows

Posted on January 24, 2016January 24, 2016 by arlee

Almost done this section, a few more roots, a few more floating sections, and voila. The actual orientation will be vertical, with the right of this as the top.

So glad FrankenStitch is coming back.

There’s so much dimension and crunch in this that i am going to have to rethink how to attach it to the main fabric. It would be a shame to lose all the height and fold.

journal: lessons to learn

love continues

Posted on January 21, 2016January 21, 2016 by arlee

Happy 12th Anniversary to my dear Greyman! 12 years of “sheer hell” has had its ups and downs, but at the end of every day, i love you and want you to be safe and happy. Kisses!!!!!

Creative Strength Training with Jane Dunnewold, journal: lessons to learn

vein efforts

Posted on January 20, 2016January 20, 2016 by arlee

(Thank you, i am well aware of the difference between “vein” and “vain”.)

Digging through myself, unearthing the quarry (ha, two meanings there as well), finding the truth in the bones, mining the veins (in vain? one hopes not), exploring, re-finding again: what’s in my bloodstream, thought stream? Mixed metaphors and analogies, as complicated and as simple as i can be.

I started doing this ahead of the Creative Strength Training class (Jane Dunnewold Studios) without knowing what i was looking for. I’m looking though because i need to–the knowledge of the class and signing up for it came after my search started, so i might be ahead of the game. Or predictably for Self, i am assuming, second guessing, wandering off in the wrong direction, jumping on my horse and riding off in all directions. Today is day one of the first class. I’m not going to be sharing a lot of what i am doing, because i respect the teacher’s intellectual property and copyrights, etc, but some stuff i can, if i want to.

First lesson learned indirectly: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. I admit my feet were dragging and i could feel my heels digging DEEP into the stoodio floor, as i sat at my worktable and Began. So i follow along and do what i’m suggested to do to pull things out–what’s so hard about that? It WAS hard, that start. Then it got easier–and led off to other thoughts, questions, possibilities because i let them happen. Stream of consciousness, opening up, blurring my own borders. You know that “wise” saying “Never assume, because it makes an ass out of you and me“? True, so true. The prompt given was something i never would have thought of on my own, would never have stuck to to dig deeper, would have felt put upon, phony for my purposes and pointless in MY grand scheme of things. Stubborn. Stubborn can mean holding your own ground, but it can also make you rather lonely. For it’s own sake and boundaries, it’s a one sided relationship. Courage of conviction is one thing, unrelenting stubborn is entirely a different animal, a growly, snarly, blindered, solitary herd of one.

But that prompt funnily enough did work–oh yeah, it took 2 and a half hours to get where i thought there was some truth and possibility, but that was the point too. There are no easy answers, but oh, the search and the journey will surprise. There was a LOT of writing, a LOT written that was more question than answer or revelation, some paint and colouring, and several cups of coffee.

A glimmer of an idea for one of these. Wandering with purpose.

Body of Water, Collision: the work begins

same same, but not

Posted on January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 by arlee

Dense, thick, very heavy, tactile–but not done yet. The way the fabric is distorting and moving makes me very happy. I have plans for this particular piece, but now i have other plans for the technique too. A good day for test and expansion.

This is the strip down the side of the original layout:

I might be doing another for the right side, though haven’t decided yet. One? Two? I like an accidental symmetry in my work, so two bars may be too “squared off”.

“Body of Water” will be a companion piece for my own enjoyment in the making to the Leighton work–it doesn’t successfully relate to the original inspiration except in my head. I like that this exhibit is having me try different ideas, but somehow i must bring it back to at least a modicum of “inspired by”.

Though i’m not sure it looks it, i’m feeling a bit free-er in interpretation right now–still not quite where i want to go, but baby steps, baby steps. Part of the problem is that i want to be a bit more abstract, but keep getting pulled back to the pictorial. While there is nothing “wrong” with this–because truthfully i have no interest in slapping some torn squares on and make a concept heavy statement to explain it—-i still feel there is something more to be said in my practice.

Collision: the work begins, journal: lessons to learn

borgle, borgle, borgling

Posted on January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 by arlee

The Stately Barr Manor Stoodio is a mess. There are a few organized plateaus in it, but for the most part, it’s adrift and rudderless. (I’ll spare you the photos: you’ve seen them before: “look at how creative a spot i have with all the mess–*****gimme a gold star, a medal for my joie de vivre, lackadaisical attitude.”) I could spend the whole day, and more, straightening up, but have decided as long as most of the piles are hidden ie put away, and i can grab fastly what i actually need, it’s alright to not have one of those pristine magazine perfect pretty places with the comfy chair, the flowers and sunlight hitting hung prisms (the ones that blind you when you are actually working, not just admiring with the reporter/photographer….). And of course, there’s the rest of the house–put this away, find a spot for the crockpot, walk the dog, interact meaningfully (or not) with Significant Other (because it’s not always about undying soulful love), what’s for supper? Delay, delay, delay. Avoidance.

Habit.

Something simple to begin with. Work/stitch/research/notate one hour a day. Even if it’s 15 minutes here, 5 there and 29 there, it will add up. One of my embroidery heroes spends 6 hours a day stitching—it’s rare i have an uninterrupted period like that, unless there’s a deadline 🙂 Do the basic layout. Lay out the tools i need. Get the notes handy. Load the camera. Thread a couple of needles. Use the threaded needles until they’re needing reloading. Get off the &*^%ing computer. ONE HOUR. Otherwise, i dither around so much, fretting about starting, that i never start. Well, why don’t i have something to work on in front of the evening tubage?? Who’s fault is that? Certainly can’t blame the crockpot or Significant Other. Acceptance.

Habit.

So, first i made a pile. Threaded needles. Loaded the camera. ETC.

Then i started.

Two hours to do the five lines of Borgle. Strip was 39′ long by 5.5″ wide, now 4.5″ wide. (Good to know the draw-in/shrinkage.)

Admiring the blues together.

Next step, start the browns stitching.

Admittedly today was a day off from the fffFlower Mines, so i had more time than an hour. Lookit! Lookit! Lookit!! (Remember being 6 and showing Mom you could “swim”?) “WOW. That is SO exciting, lumpy and all borgly”, i heard you say under your breath. (Yes i did too.) Lookit!: i’m swimming! Yeah, my feet are still on the bottom of the lake, but i’m in the water, hey?

I also heard “WTF is a borgle??????” When the blankets get all twangled and stuck under your hip and you can’t straighten them out in the dark with your eyes still closed to cover yourself in the middle of a freezing cold night, as in damn it, the blankets are all borgled, so that you have to actually get up, turn on the light and remake the bed, thereby thoroughly waking yourself up so you can’t get back to sleep even though now warmly covered and comfy, that’s a borgle. It can also apply to the state of the stoodio. Also, known for my purposes, as one of my “semi-patented” FrankenStitch techniques.

*****Now i can have a semi-soggy Hero Biscuit with my coffee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have had a few puzzled enquiries WHY i would take a “motivational” course. Because i *know* HOW to do things, because i’m tired of classes where you “make marks” with sticks, feathers, charcoal, watered down ink and possibly dirt and blood. Because i want to know WHY i do –or do not–do what i do, and because i want things back in me that fell out. I want to know HOW i work, because it’s forest for the trees right now, and i want back under the skin down to the bones that propped up all of this. Because i don’t care about deconstructed screen prints, new ways to use a chain stitch, evolving methods to ecoprint or how to colour in zentangles. I want WHY i need, want, have to do— any of these things should i choose to are only tools, they’re not the muscle memory and firing synapse, the JOY and pleasure i’ve lost. I wouldn’t call this a “motivational” course, but HELL, if it gets my motivation back, call it whatever *you* want. (You’re probably in the midst of a “Soul journalling” class, and ain’t that “motivational”? (A chacun son gout, with appropriate accents agui and circonflexe.)

If a bone is set wrong, sometimes it has to be re-broken to set properly.

a collusion of ideas, journal: lessons to learn

mining, trying to go beyond the status quo

Posted on January 17, 2016January 17, 2016 by arlee

“Mining” =digging through one’s own life and art for inspiration. (Or is it an avoidance tactic or procrastination?) I also think of my last “word for the year, (Origin), something i don’t do anymore, because seriously, like the magical flip of a calendar page from one year to the next is making your life better (NOT), neither will one word define my practice.

Origin(al paths)
08 Dec 2011

noun
1.something from which anything arises or is derived; source; fountainhead: to follow a stream to its origin.
2.rise or derivation from a particular source: the origin of a word.
3.the first stage of existence; beginning
4.ancestry; parentage; extraction
5.Anatomy a.the point of derivation. b.the more fixed portion of a muscle.

So i’ll acknowledge–or not–the source, the origin, whether in words or in the art as i see fit. Look at all those definitions, how can things ever be original?????????? Sounds SO pointless and frustrating to try–but i/we continue, because i/we Must, i/we Have to, i/we Need to. I might “reference” someone, i might “be informed by” something else (ArtSpeak hooray……..), but in the end, it’s me me me all the way ’cause no one forced my hand to move the way it did.

I’ve been looking at really old work, old in the sense that when i started playing with textiles and techniques, all i had done to that point was sew clothing, do machine applique and embroider with only satin stitch, french knots and chain stitch! When the internet finally exploded (2005-2009) with art and tutorials, i tried everything! From melting and burning paper and plastics, beading, inchies and atc’s and postcards, making boxes of various shapes and sizes, from stuffed figures to sewn art journals, i was so excited by all the potential that i often posted blog entries 4 times a day, loaded dozens of photos a week to Flickr, and enthusiastically collected junk and ephemera every where i went. If there was an exchange, i was in, a round robin, i was in; i even initiated a few projects myself with a textile journal going/coming from around the world, a CSI inspired inchies exchange and two (three?) versions of an exquisite corpse game in fibre.

There’s little from that time period i am actually still proud of. A few bits and pieces from that period still hold my heart, but more for the recognition that i could do with textiles something i couldn’t with pen and ink, than with anything truly thoughtfully done.

“Emergency Self Esteem Kit” 2008:

More photos and the story, here.

“Alchemy” shrinebook 2009 :

Cover of “Sea of Electricity” sewn art journal 2007

Below, Copper pod hand stitched, left unadorned, right with free motion on soluble inserted in openings, 2007

Below, “Artefacts” 2006 (4 separate pieces), small dimensional beaded pieces. (Over embellished i see now, and combining two different ideas really, but there are mind jogs of possibility there.)

Noticing a lot of red, and rich deep colours, lots of texture, machine work, layering, can i work this love of visual and tactile excitement back into current work? Way back in the 90’s at Capilano College doing the Textile Arts program, it was being exposed to the idea of texture, depth, THE FEEL of fabric and fabric manipulation techniques that got my gears going. While my current work IS very sensory to the hand and eye, i’m still feeling the lack of something, undefined, ineffable. Colour? Placement of elements? Concept? (Shudder) Technique?

I think that the next few months (at least) is going to be a lot of searching, sampling and studying. I’m watching a few others in the blogosphere going through various degrees of this themselves right now, so it’s not just me. I won’t be satisfied until i’m satisfied. With only one deadline (currently), i do have the time and inclination. The Dunnewold course starts in 3 days, and i’m looking forward to that, trying to let go of misconceptions and stubborn-ness: “This is the way i’ve always done it, why should i change? Ain’t no-one gonna tell me what to do.” There’s a little part of me however stuffed down in the subconscious, that is trying to get stronger–after all, if you learn something new everyday, you know you’re not dead.

EDIT: I realize this sounds all dry and possibly off putting–i want the joy back too.

Collusion: sampling