As i work with this large expanse, i’m better appreciating the nuances of colour created by chemical reactions between rust, potassium permanganate and brazilwood. Pinks, purples, teeny bits of blue and charcoal, russets and washed out reds. Amazing how that works, and really wondering how i managed to get such clean whites too!
These long lines of seeded backstitch, paths, divisions, separations, they appeal to the memory and sense, for otherness, unpredictable, centering, old consciousness. I’m struggling to express this in words, but words are an important part of this project as well. I’ve been writing a lot of free association exercises on my work blog, and will be condensing them down to make clear what it is i’m making, sharing, experiencing. I think of everything from Jimi Hendrix, to memories of childhood, passed friends and washed away river banks.
Think i’m going to be offline for awhile. Damn computer keeps freezing and acting bizarrely………………………….
On the good side, my Valdani order arrived 3 days after i placed it, so stitching at least will fill the hours. And better really than computer time anyway, yes?????
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!
My Dharma order arrived 6 days after being ordered, but with the silly season upon us, those pesky spare five minutes’s available had to wait until after chripcrapmas………..
I ordered 4 colours (teal blue, rust brown, oxblood red and warm black), planning to augment the palette with what i already have (golden yellow, red, olive, violet and true blue), trusting i will be able to approximate the colours and blending shown on the acrylic painted paper mock-up (left in photo below). Didn’t use all of them though!
On cotton, right, previously soaked in soda ash, though i also added the soda ash *to* the Procion. These fabrics won’t be washed, but i still worry about fading or exposure to any elements in the air. I’ve never had any luck in removing all the alginate before (think icky snail trails…), so bypassed thickening and directly “painted” on the cloth. I do know however, that though usually one wants super saturation with the dyes, this one is too dark, and MUCH too red! I still like it and will continue to work on the idea.
I also did another piece:
The Procion “Rust Brown” has a LOT of red in it, shall have to tone it down. It was based on this, and in a larger scale, may become the background for something.
Mood/story board in the stoodio:
I also did a little ice dyeing, tshirts for the Son below and the Greyman (still batching).
Somehow fitting that i end the year with how i started the year!
Speaking of ice, my camera captured this, a trick of the light and of the time.
Dec 26 icicles in Inglewood
And then i remembered, fortunately in plenty of time, that i also need to dye some threads as well! The quantities i’m going to need precludes buying “ready made’ though i’m sure some will come by mail 🙂 Some i’ll do the same way as the cloth, painting bits on , and some will just be immersion dyed.
Still just peering over the edge of the rabbit hole, but on the way up now. It was a long fall.
Paint on paper above, painted cotton below.
FM on painted cotton above, hand embroidery below.
As i’m writing, i realize this exercise made me think of this:
(Hoodoo Sky, 2009, in progress)
Tests for possible work, i still have 2 other techniques to try with the remaining painted fabric.
There’s nothing more satisfying than bringing a cloth to life. I could easily stretch and frame these beginnings on their own, but that needle and thread thing is so addicting, and really, the translation from flat image to textured story is what turns my crank.
“A Birth of Silence”, 2015, base cloth to finished translation
While i “designed” the base cloth for the one above, because it is an abstract, i had no idea when i made it what i would do with it, story wise. Sometimes narratives just happen. Stockpiling cloth like this is like prepping a bunch of canvases, or journal pages, no dreading that blank space!
Admittedly, the deliberate shape and design of a face means the face is the story, but things still can become what they are as they want.
“Original Truths”, 2016, from deliberately designed base cloth to completion.
It’s with much regret that i must withdraw my intent to participate in the Contextural Artisan Christmas sale on the 19th.
Personal reasons, which i will not go into here, in public. As much as i appreciate the thoughts or wishes, please do not email privately either. This will pass.
I’m very sorry if this has caused inconvenience, or false pretense for publicity purposes.
I’m reminding myself that the intended audience cares nothing for or about my “serious” work, that they want “pretty” or “interesting” for a reasonable price, and no one can blame them for that. The aim after all, of a Christmas Market is to get something into someone else’s hands for gift giving, and to get a few dollars in your own pocket. How can i complain about that? When i made “wearable art” in the 90’s that was my ONLY concern: i *didn’t* want things hanging about the Stoodio, or it was wasted materials, time and effort. The big problem really is that i committed late to the endeavour, giving myself only 37 days to get enough work together………..I blame ME for all of this then……The Financial Me says GO GO GO, and the Artist Me is dragging her heels and whining.
“Next year, i’ll start earlier for Christmas.” I *do* have an 11tybajillion ideas for that, so we’ll see what percolates up from the wells then. And all complaining aside, i like these efforts, BUT..
I keep staring at this, currently pinned to a design wall, trying out things in my mind, jotting notes, holding my breath.
I’m reminding myself it will all be “over” at the end of Nov 19, and i can return to this and other new work, with copious ideas, plans and colourways, motifs and techniques.
The slumps are here again. Two exhibits in the same time frame, and as always after intense periods of productivity, that means i don’t know where to go next. You’d think i’d be happy, energized, excited, but i always feel at a loss after finishing. My life is good, i like where i live and what i do at the Day Job, but in the time after the current work is completed, there’s always that feeling of something missing in the stoodio, that search for the Next Big Thing. I wish i could grab back some of the verve i had when i first started blogging 12 years ago: 4 posts a day, tons of enthusiasm, experimentation out the hoo-hoo, “WOW, OMG, HOLY SHIT, THE WORLD IS SO EXCITING”——— where’d that girl go?
But this time i’m going easy on myself. There’s no race, no competition. I’m enjoying what’s left of my garden outside, admiring the indoor jungle, note making for C***mas at the fffFlower Mines, and not doing much of anything but observing and thinking.
The beauty of old roses:
Orchid cactus:
Funk of the week at the fffFlower Mines, Leonotis leonurus:
Odontoglossum orchid:
A sad sad Medinilla! Lost most of its leaves this summer, but valiantly blooming again anyways:
The Orchid Cactus blows me away:
And the very little i have done with needle and thread, the start of a sixth indigo moon:
….The art of the breakthrough is the practice of figuring out all the ways to not do it on your way to an insight….We find our way by getting lost. Anything other than that is called reading a map. Seth Godin
I/we don’t mark birthdays anymore (or Christmas, New Year’s etc), just anniversaries–another day, older, sometimes wiser, sometimes more patient, sometimes more curmudgeonly, just more.
🙂 Wellllllllllllllllllllllll, they say you illustrate with your own features……………..
I should have looked at the original paint-sketch for her legs!
Shall have to pick out that madder on the right side–that leg should be bigger because she’s standing with a hip cocked forward, but even *my* sturdy alabaster thighs are proportionate, and this sure as hell ain’t.
This fabric is also quite a bit “brighter” than the photo, but i do love that chiaroscuro effect of the poor lighting today!
As i work with this large expanse, i’m better appreciating the nuances of colour created by chemical reactions between rust, potassium permanganate and brazilwood. Pinks, purples, teeny bits of blue and charcoal, russets and washed out reds. Amazing how that works, and really wondering how i managed to get such clean whites too!
albedo too 
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