Brain farts. Can be good, can be bad, sometimes brilliant, sometimes SO SO SO stoopid……….
Why re-invent the wheel?
Though i will still be using the procion dyes, i decided this project NEEDS fabrics created during my summer residency at ACAD. My evening’s “celebration” includes a glass of good wine, a cheesy action movie and the first 8″ stitched of a large commission that will take most of my next year! So, happy new one to every and all.
Salut!
but do we ever have mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm fruit salad moons 🙂
Of course, the Chosen don’t always make it in 🙂
Some of those corals and oranges are dibbydabs left over from long ago, brands or dye lots that i haven’t seen in ages, so we’ll see who makes it to the final round, and who gets thrown off the island.
The fabric is two different “filler” fabrics i made during residency.
While i want the hexes/honeycombs/cells again on this piece, this time i want to stay away from bees! They are a recurring motif in my work, but beyond just laying there on the surface, they really wouldn’t be adding much to the story, so no bees this time, i promised myself.
But what else often shows up? Yes, rivers and roots, but not for this, methinks. MMMM, roses.
From “The Weight She Carries”:
Being as it is now the end of August, and Autumn is moving closer, it’s not the flowers that are around now, (though they will make an appearance as well), but the “fruit”, the rose hips. And so, until she has an “official” title, she shall answer to “Rosehips” 🙂
Fortunately, there is a yard down the way that has a wondrous showing of rosehips, so i quickly did a clip-by and brought these home to study:
Fast and dirty paint studies this morning:
Now i have to dig out some more fabrics and figure out HOW i will use these on this:
(Actually i already know what fabrics and what technique i will use, so stay tuned for that 😉 )
This is rather a trite exercise below, but who knows how it will transform with stitch? This cloth wasn’t terribly successful on its own during residency, so maybe just a bit of make up, and it won’t be such a plain jane!
On the other hand, it may just become a sampler/test cloth, which is okay too.
And just because traditionally one shows off one’s garden produce:
This one slipped under the radar by hiding under a monster leaf–i don’t usually let them get any bigger than 4-5″ long and easily circled by one hand, as it’s too much for one “sitting” to eat. Still tasted great though–pan-fried with butter and garlic, then dipped in sour cream-MMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
Thinking of Autumn already.
Madder dyed silk to start.
I have a clear vision of this one already, with some different techniques going to be used to add life and dimension.
There are no machine made nodules, no “dimension” beyond the tactility of the stitching, but elements of my overly ambitious plans for something else have crept in and settled comfortably.
To hell with “Concept” as i said in an earlier post. I’m tired of trying to write statements that explain WHY i did something, especially when a well written tailoring can adapt almost any piece to any show. Concept can be in the eye of the beholder as well, right? As we develop our style, our voice, whatever you want to label it, certain truths and ideas, interpretations become self evident don’t they. (Not a question, a fact.)
When you make 8 pages of notes and sketches, and still can’t quite “git ‘er done”, it’s not the right time for that CONCEPT.
So, this then is the piece i will be exhibiting. Finally titled also as “Original Truths”, since i went back to what i love and love doing. No influence from anything else, any other artist, just me. This *is* me on the other side of the mirror. I’ve heard it said that when an artist draws faces, unless in a deliberate style, that elements of their own face, or their internal guise, are more evident, so though i’m not completely sure what this says about myself, other than the feeling that i have always felt alien, outsider, misfit, stranger in a strange land.
Though most of it is done, there’s something missing. I shall have to pin it up and stare at it for awhile.
I need to pull some of the starker white to the left top somehow, but how? Not more hexes, too heavy handed then.
It’s also been a bitch to photograph—-i need that perfect afternoon light, because otherwise there is too much yellow imparted to the golds and browns in this. I’m happy with the detail shots, but the whole, not so much. Since it *is* not quite done though, i’ll worry about that later. The detail shots are good enough to submit to the show organizer.
There are 12 days until the exhibit gets set up, so hopefully i can finalize a solution to what’s missing, execute it, and photograph the whole properly.
Though i have pulled old work to finish and am excited about that, i am still working on new work to keep the juices flowing, and prevent the stagnation that occurs for me when i work only on one work!
The upcoming Leighton Art Centre exhibition is the “big piece” this year (so far). I got a bit bogged down with it and decided to forgo the “companion piece” (“Body of Water”). The figure has a bit of work on her which i am letting puzzle for awhile, but i decided the background she was on is perfect for the actual exhibit piece. (I can always make more blue fabric for her.)
This is the original inspiration:
I have gone many ways since seeing it last year, with copious notes, sketches and samplings.Riffing off your own work is hard enough, but to use someone else’s deliberately WITHOUT COPYING, is even more problematic. One does not wish to copy, emulate or reproduce, one wishes to “respond”. Blech. In the final analysis, it was the sketch of the parts that fired the stove:
I’m therefore pretending that the bare bones shapes are mine. How would i translate them into cloth and technique?
That blue background already has a vague moon shape in the form of a rusted ring. Play off that then.
I made fabrics deliberately for this work, drag ’em out.
The grevillea ecoprint perfectly reflects the batik cracks in the original Leighton cloth.
Looks a little dry though:
I used to paint, paint with paint, paint with dye. So paint with some dye:
Now it’s juicy. Picks up the colour again of the original.
I then got hung up on what stitch to use, what colour the stitching should be, where should i put the stitch………
Well, duh. Blue, on the blue sections, and teeny crackle effect as i did on “All Water Under the Bridge” in 2014:
For reference sake, those stitches are probably 30-40 per square inch. Using a 20wt cotton was more than myopic but the effect is fantastic.
Onwards and upwards. On March 12th, the participating artists are going out to the Centre again to again review the originals. Think i’ll take this moon piece with me, there’ll be some stitch done on it by then–not going to let the original scare me, just want to see how approximate my take is without being too much of an approximation!
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.
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.
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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.
I’ve written 9 pages of notes, scribbly sketches and what-ifs to myself over the last couple of days. Hands down, it’s circles and blue that attracted me to the Leighton piece, but part of it wasn’t gelling because i saw no “me” in it. In the small study i did, it was the rust dyed over-dyed cotton, and the good ol’ Frankenstitch that really grabbed me. Thinking on a larger scale made me dig through the few remaining pieces of rusted cotton, but no joy was found. All i have left is one piece that is so encrusted that i know there is no way to get a needle through it with satisfaction. I have enough holes in my fingers as it is, and am not going to fight with my medium!
On Wednesday morning i found something, hanging on the design wall, pinned behind a pile of other projects-to-be. I don’t know that it will be the finished piece for the exhibit (perhaps a “companion” piece???), it’s not a new direction, but maybe a project “for me” will inspire something?
So, gritting my teeth, i threw it in a dyepot with a different blue–i had run out of the original one i used. What’s to lose really? If i didn’t like it, i could redye, or toss it as a bad lesson. I also redyed the background.
That one bar down the side: left, right, gone?
I do however have a problem to solve with the figure: my usual method involves turning under the edges, but some of these are very frayed and very small, so some of the smaller areas may have to be eliminated for the technique. It won’t change the look or intent much, so “so be it”. I must have had some now forgotten plan for it, otherwise it wouldn’t have already been cut out.
Dyed a lot of threads as well, mostly #10 perle cotton. I love the extra texture and weight of these, and they are perfect for Frankenstitching with, as they bite better. Commercial blues will end up in use also. When i said the next piece would have colour, i didn’t necessarily mean ALL colours!
Yes, that’s a LOT of blue, but browns of all sorts will be added as well in the work, in variegateds and solids, maybe even touches of black or deep grey. Hopefully there are enough variances all told that i’m going to be able to differentiate the figure from the background, add another piece behind the figure that will be visible also, and not have it read as “just” blue with no “focal point”. Oh dear, lots of hand work again……this one should measure it finally at 30×42″, give or take a few inches either way. (Depends on “draw-in” from the stitching, whether or not i add a bit to the sides for mounting on a canvas, my preferred method of presentation, or whatever the hell else also happens….)
Can a “new direction” be found by actively looking? Is it something that just happens? How do you learn to lean away from yourself?
I’m hoping the upcoming Dunnewold course, starting Jan 20th, helps with this.
albedo too 
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