a collusion of ideas – Page 8

a collusion of ideas, Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative, Residency 2016, Residency 2016, Rust

my residency challenge

Posted on May 29, 2016June 4, 2016 by arlee

Today is Contextural’s residency orientation, a procedure we all do, no matter how many times we’ve done residency. It reminds us of where everything is, proper studio procedures and safety, and introduces us to each other. I don’t count it as “Day One” though—household matters aren’t going to let me start today with actual work there! And because i do have that pesky Day Job, the first day may not be until later in the week.

This year, amongst the glorious free-form do-what-they-want-to-will-do natural process fabrics i’ll be making, i set myself a challenge.

In a previous post, i showed you these, the original painting sketch and the Dreamscoped “amber fractal” result:

I could take an easy way out, and simply dye paint the fabric and do the usual “crackle stitch” to delineate the lines and fractures, but i want more than a flat surface.

From previous experience, i know that each type of cotton weave or finish has a different effect on rust marks. Cotton sateen lets the rust have crisp, almost floating marks, broadcloth lets small details be clear, twill and anything with a distinct “motif” (stripes or florals woven in, think damasks) “interrupts” itself, flanellette is, well, fuzzy, haremcloth makes the sheer aspect visible, and pima can do all of the above, except for the fuzzies! I also know how any dyes will “spread” or separate on the surface. This year, because of my participation in a recent Susan Purney Mark ice dyeing class, i may try to exploit the effect in combination with natural processes. I’m going to work with specific colours–if i can find them in ACAD’s student supply shop! This all being said, rust does what it wants to, as it wants to, so we’ll see how much control i really do have 🙂

First i’ll have to draw up a basic pattern for placement. There’s going to be a fair amount of piecing, and i’m thinking by hand, simply because the seam line is softer, and because there are so many “directions” the small marks are making on the “fabric’ in the drawing photo edit.

But first, i must “pack” for it! Greyman has to chauffeur me there, as i can’t carry all my supplies on the bus and train. Fortunately, we have a home studio there while in residency, and everything can stay put. And i’m looking forward too, to the student cast off box–always interesting to see what ends up as hopeless in someone else’s eyes, in this box. Reminds me of the old “free boxes” in the 70’s and 80’s!

Edited: Some of my previous fabrics done during residency are here, here and here.

a collusion of ideas, Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative, Residency 2016

getting ambitious

Posted on May 19, 2016May 20, 2016 by arlee

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.

a collusion of ideas, Leighton work

working on (a)sides

Posted on May 4, 2016May 4, 2016 by arlee

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.

a collusion of ideas, journal: lessons to learn

time is a river

Posted on April 13, 2016April 13, 2016 by arlee

Periodically, i dig through my old Flickr account, and to my surprise, found this from July 2009. And Greyman thinks she might be in the basement rolled up in an old garbage bag! Apparently from the notes on the flickr photo, she was to be part of my plans for my first residency at ACAD through Contextural, and actually was going to be a Hoodoo figure. (No, not the WooWoo Voodoo Hoodoo type, but one of these.) Since that first residency was a HUGE bust, she got packed away and forgotten.

Sometimes i find my ideas go nowhere for a long time: not because i don’t want to implement them, but because i don’t have the skill set at the time of the concept, sometimes because everything hasn’t been thought through for end result, execution of idea and face it, true interest. Sampling is a wonderful thing, but obviously at the time, i got lost, biting off more than i could chew.

THIS is the Blue figure i mentioned in a previous post–i just hadn’t realized it at the time. She needs to be a little less “pointy”, though i also don’t want an obvious “head” either. The first step will be to take her apart completely. After being stored for all these years in a basement that was flooded in the 2013 Calgary disaster, i don’t want to be finding any surprises in her.

I discharged blue velveteen for this piece:

Not indigo dyed, but sure looks like it! When i take her apart to check for possible damage, i think i’m going to add some more of the mokume style discharge, just a bit as i love that contrast of earth and water.

As is my wont, i am thinking of rivers again/still. Can one represent a river as a vertical 3d form? In the Feminine, i think so. Notebook scribblings:

a river is a space, a river is time one ripple sweeps another changing the first and shaping the second, forming a third but still the mother

old rivers become ripples in shape, winding and wandering back to themselves, carving deep veins in the earth

old rivers are womanly, curving and undulating, swift along banks but still and deep in the centre

she/river nurtures but sweeps roots to cross and tangle, knotting nets and weaving links

a collusion of ideas, Deliberation--do something you don't do--or haven't in awhile, journal: lessons to learn

new play tool

Posted on April 6, 2016April 6, 2016 by arlee

MM, what a fabulous ~~time waster~~ tool 🙂 I usually just use my trusty free download of Irfanview to fiddle with photos. It has enough “effects” and capabilities usually that it suffices to get the fires going. I also don’t have one-a them fancy newfangled “smart” phones that can download all the (mostly) useless apps everyone thinks they have to have. Once in awhile though, a computer tool comes along on a site that is useful for manipulating colour, line and feeling. It’s good to shake things up once in awhile.

I really like this tool, so i spent a few hours with it this morning. Most of the “filters” distort your photo so much that the point is lost, IMHO. (And who really wants their work to look like a mass of peanuts or jelly beans, the American flag, or “Citradelic”????) I stuck to the “Kandinsky” filter, and found that while black and white uploads can give lovely images, the more strongly coloured your photo is, the more contrast and interest points there are. The panoramas below are the original sketches i used for my “The Weight She Carries” ( i used only one wing alone in the final work!) and the manipulated image. I find it fascinating that the mood of the original becomes completely different, joyful even. I still want to use the whole original sketches as works, but companion pieces in the “happier” version would be interesting as well, with different methods used in each.

If you want to play too, go to Dreamscope, but be warned: you could spend HOURS, DAYS, WEEKS futzing around. Be selective 🙂 I won’t be going back for awhile: i have all the grist for the mill i need right now. (The larger your photo upload, the longer it will take—and magically, a 650×871 sized photo becomes a 894×1200 manipulation, go figure…)

a collusion of ideas, ice dyeing

damn damn, double damn

Posted on April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 by arlee

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I don’t know why i keep *&^%ing up with the background for the largest Leighton work. I try things and they don’t work, so again today i will pick out stitches. It might be time to alternate with some new stuff as well, stuff that doesn’t involve domesticity 🙂

I was looking at these yesterday, a treasured watercolour from sweet Serena, and an old fabric journal page from 2006.

And these ice dyes:

Still loving that moon thing that has been happening, so they will undoubtedly pop up here as well.

And the texture on this older sample gives me some ideas as well.

I *do* tend to obsess over possible multiples, but in the end, only a few will make the cut–that short attention span for a motif still crops up. Even so, looking at them this way prompts other uses, techniques, and stories.

I’ve subscribed to Seth Godin’s blog, and today quite resonated with me:

The focus that comes automatically, our instinctual or cultural choice, that focus isn’t the only one that’s available. Of course it’s difficult to change it, which is why so few people manage to do so. But there’s no work that pays off better in the long run.

Your story is your story. But you don’t have to keep reminding yourself of your story, not if it doesn’t help you change it or the work you’re doing.

a collusion of ideas, in progress, Leighton work

mumbling

Posted on March 21, 2016March 21, 2016 by arlee

I’ve wanted to start something else while i work on the Leighton Art Centre exhibit piece, as i have enough time before the deadline to implement other ideas for separate work. This one has sat in my sketchbook since 2012 0r 2013 (?), and i’ve been wanting to do something with it for a long time obviously.

And since i tend to alternate “natural” with COLOUR when i make things, first i wanted to do this :

(And i will, because that is lovely. Maybe even two of the figures as shown, on that parfait dyed cotton i did a couple of years ago.)

BUT, then i realized this might work with the Leighton thing too.

OO, if i flip the fabric, she has an eye!

Thread choice because it’s springy:

NOPE. Too dark, wrong flavour, thread choice wouldn’t work either.

Hey, there’s still some of the moon fabric left, and the indigo dyed silk thread as well!

Muchly better-er.

I think she needs a bit of enhancement as well, but not sure if i’ll add the safrrony-yellow-orange— or maybe a violet for shading.

And maybe i can add the long roots piece back as well, IF i space things out a bit more, so they don’t look so crowded.

I might do this one as well. Perhaps there could be a series of these, in different moods and treatments.

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

other colours

Posted on March 9, 2016March 9, 2016 by arlee

Well, there’s still blue in it 🙂

In doing Jane Dunnewold’s Creative Strength Training course online, i’ve been looking at a LOT of old work. I do this regularly actually, but this time am looking at it with purpose, rather than just waxing nostalgic for the days when i was “free-er”, had no expectations and no expertise!

Back in 2008, i had started a specific sketchbook that was just “markmaking”. Not the kind that involves puddles of paint dragged through with various implements, or charcoal done with feathers, or sticks and mud swooped around (i hated those exercises in my textile art program in the 90’s, and i still do), but conscious use of line, shape and colour. I did use various media from metallic magic markers to pastels and watercolours, and thoroughly enjoyed the process and results.

Now i’m looking at this one in particular. The shapes and variations excite my thready expectations, and the colours are rich. I played with my photo editing program (basic Irfanview, free and easy to use) at the time too, and came up with all these variations.

The original:
A change of orientation:

Special effects, mirroring:

Half of the design is lost on that one, but oh well. Didn’t notice at the time, don’t care 🙂

Kaleidoscopic:

VERY Zandra Rhodes-ish!

A circular effect:

What about in greyscale?

Hmm, maybe in more extreme contrasts.

Sepia, ie the “bland, beige and boring” naturals and neutrals i use with fabrics from rust processes and ecoprints:

So many possibilities! I’m going to be doing some small samples and mockups, though i’m leaning to those brighter colours—if my natural dyes don’t co-operate fully, then i’ll add in some procion as well.

I’m realizing too as i go through Jane’s course, that for me, it’s more what the thread can do and how it’s used, rather than any colour combinations specifically. From using it as line, creating shaped voids, manipulating the fabric to building extreme texture, that’s what makes me excited about sticking pointy things with threads all adanglish through cloth.

a collusion of ideas, Body of Water, Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative

a sum of the parts perhaps

Posted on February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 by arlee

I never finished this piece:

From 2010, it never seemed to say anything beyond TEXTURE! COLOUR! 🙂 I see no story in it, so never went further.

This however……

I have used those “cell wings” on other work as well. (Detail above is from “Padded Cell: Boro’d Time” 2011) They showed up on my SDA “Materialities” exhibit piece “How the Light Bends” 2015 as well:

What if i adapted these again and used them on that red piece? I’m thinking of strong(er) colours —– and may take the scissors to the piece before or after adding them. I want this heretofore untitled piece to have something to say.

I also have been working on Body of Water–and progressing not all….i’m not happy with it yet, even as a companion piece. Have been diddling around in the stoodio with dumb ideas and the gelling is taking its time…..BUT the actual piece for the Leighton exhibit is almost solidifed in my head–which means i best get to it SOON. Like NOW!

a collusion of ideas, journal: lessons to learn

texture

Posted on February 17, 2016February 17, 2016 by arlee

THIS is why i love hand embroidery. You are just not going to get that texture with a machine.

You can sort of see in the above photo that the “moon” is not really flat. Another bonus of my hand embroidery is that because i use no hoop, some areas will become more relief than others. While some may find this difficult to control and end up with bunchies, pulled in areas and uneven edges, i’ve done it so many times, that i know when the tension of my needle and thread has to be sparing.

The way the fabric moves on its own is another part of the joy.

And now i am looking at this piece from 2012, never finished. It’s quite crunchy as it is, due to the heavier silk and the netting over some areas, but i’m thinking i’d like to do something with it now too.