Category: journal: lessons to learn

Posted in Probably talking to just myself

when is enough

Posted on by arlee

This is me this week. I’m just not as cute or lovable. The last three weeks, i was pushing, running, pushing more, running again, as piles grew, but the piles while working didn’t feel that big when i’d stop, so i’d push and run some more. After last weekend and the following days, explanations for which i am not going to go into again, i’m exhausted. Physically, emotionally, cerebral-y (that is SO a word, even if i just made it up). Small world of one’s own, large world one lives in, i’m just so tired of it all. All i want to do is sleep. I’m taking two naps a day, going to bed early (though i do get up early from years of habit), but it’s still not enough sleep.

I’ve got plans, lists, ideas. I try to be disciplined. I keep a sketchbook handy. I’m not short on materials. I’m pleased with what i have done, confident in my skills, assured of future work– but I still just want to sleep.

Isn’t “lockdown” perfect for sleep? Sleep it all away, all the wilful ignorance, vanity, hatred, jealousy, self righteousness, self entitlement, self importance. Keep the circle small, make it smaller than it already is. If i sleep until January, maybe that magic flip of the calendar page will work this time.

I’m trying to find that one bit of perfection in a day but for whatever reason, sleep is the thing.

Posted in a collusion of ideas, journal: lessons to learn, Probably talking to just myself

different kinds of simple

Posted on by arlee

What makes something simple? Minimal colour, minimal texture, big details or small? Clean lines, perfect angles, closed shapes? Archetypal symbols, personal interpretations of symbols, no symbols? (That’s a non issue the “no symbols”: somebody somewhere is going to read something into it.) One swoop on a colour field? No flowers, frillies or lacies? One technique? Maximum  ℑ/⊇/ℜ**** techniques (that merge, don’t fight)?

This is simple:

Original Truths, detail 2, hand embroidery on cottons, natural dyes and rust processes, 20×31″

So is this:

Winter Prairie, detail, 2012, rust cotton, hand embroidery, 18×26″

And this:

Lady of Sky, indigo and Procion dyed cotton, ecoprinted cotton, naturally dyed and commercial threads, 9×24″, arlee barr©, in private collection

So too are these:

I find myself fighting with things, trying to be more direct. Ideally, the goal is that last simple dotted circle: THAT is the kind of minimalism i desire, but it’s not as easy as it looks, having a harsh Inner Critic.

Spent three hours on this today (base with minimal work SO FAR in photo):

To the left, i scattered three hot pink dots, and then ripped out four versions of stitching around them–flowers yes, but i want simple, not foofy. Sometimes i see too much in these, then overwork, then rip out, start again (or toss aside). How’d i let myself be distracted by all the jeuje-ing of colour and texture?

Actually, the above started like this:

Because what i WANTED to start with, i think i threw out when we did the Big Move downsizing in September and October of last year:

I’ve torn apart my whole studio trying to find it. I wanted to cut it into at least 3 parts, then use the offcuts in a fourth piece, but. But but but, the one i came up with is not even near what i wanted, or expected of myself.

 

Each interpretation/mistake/solution-change-fix though does usually lead to other work being “easier”. Maybe that’s the point.

****imaginary part/superset/real part symbol

Posted in cochineal, cutch, Ensphere, indigo, journal: lessons to learn, Natural Dyes, osage, quebracho rojo

Sotto voce part 2

Posted on by arlee

After smashing our trusty Nikon D90 last month, i’m still trying to get used to the new Settings and Things on the replacement, a Panasonic Lumix FZ1000. Apparently i need to read the manual, go figure 🙂

The Nikon would allow me on the automatic setting to get the most beautiful daylight shots that showed texture, true colour and fine detail. The Lumix does fantastic close-ups on several settings, but the light effects are not the same. I suppose i should be thankful though that testing it doesn’t ‘waste” film, HA.

So, with 4 different settings (that i of course did not take note of), here’s “Sotto voce” again with different looks. None of them portray it properly, so i guess that’s this evenings reading, and tomorrow’s testing  on the to do list.

And those green dots are coming off, changing to the tawny fox and peachey colours instead. I have a few things more to do to it, and then it gets mounted, hopefully for a virtual exhibit. (If anybody from the fibre group i’m in ever answers my emails and FB questions that is………………………………….)

Posted in "OPINIONATION", Garden Hard, indigo, Indigo Dreams, madder, natural dye research, Probably talking to just myself

madder returns, and baby blue hopes

Posted on by arlee

So………………..this is the culmination of 3 and a half years of growing madder. There were 4 winters in that time span, and the first three i had the good fortune of a large garden, where the huge pot could be heeled in (buried and well covered in other words) for our harsh winters. Not so with the recent move and downsizing though: i kept the pot against our sunny house wall by the heat escape vents, wrapped and covered it well, but no growth at all when spring started. Time to “harvest” roots, regardless, as madder is good to dig up in at least it’s third year (5 is optimum apparently).

I dumped the pot, and pawed through it, working as fast as possible because there was a new ant home in the bottom (i HATE ants: they creep me out, have done since i saw Salvador Dali’s “Un Chien Andalou” when i was 16…..) and was very disappointed. Not only did the roots never get below the depth of half the pot, but they were SMALL, stringy and unfortunately, had started to rot. POOP.

I ended up with 65 grams of “fresh” root, which as i understand means they would dry down to about one sixth of that, not quite 11 GRAMS…… I can see a red tint to them, but am not hopeful for good depth. I will use as soon as i can because they don’t *have* to be dry to use, though it’s suggested that letting them “age” develops more of the alazarin. (Although as i hit “publish” on this post, i note they have been drying now for 32 days, admittedly a far cry from drying for a year 🙂 ) I won’t be trying to grow it again as our new garden space is too tiny to heel anything in, and seriously, the “return” on all the effort was not worth the effort… If i ever win the lottery, and have my big space in the country and a proper greenhouse, well, then we’ll revisit that.

Most of the Indigo suffruticosa seeds i planted did pop up. I lost a couple to drying out, because of the winds we’ve had lately, and due to the fact that Calgary is very dry at the best of times. I’m not assuming these will get as big as they grow in Texas at Deb’s though (SHE”S HARVESTING ALREADY!), because we have a shorter growing season, much cooler nights (due to our altitude) and so far this season not a lot of heat….. They did manage to get through 3 hail storms unscathed, probably because they are so tiny! I’m going to cloche them for awhile, trying to keep some heat in, and hopefully they will get big enough that i can get something. I still have a very tiny harvest from my first indigo Persicaria tinctoria attempts at the old house–a handful stored dry since 2015! (Edit: Even cloching these babies didn’t do much though they did double in size in a week. Still pretty teeny! And i don’t know if a bug/virus got them, or it’s the cold weather, but they are all spotted.)

I’ve decided in future, i won’t be sharing much about the actual process of natural dyeing, just the results. I get a fair number of hits on my “how to/how i did it” posts, but since 99.9% of readers don’t acknowledge even with a simple “thank you”, it seems rather pointless. (I’m sure it also bores the hell out of my readers that don’t care about that part of the process.) I seriously think schools have done a poor job teaching anyone HOW to research correctly, but i ain’t getting into that. All i can say is “just because it’s on the internet, or “popular”, doesn’t make it true”.

Posted in Probably talking to just myself

booked out–and back

Posted on by arlee

I needed a nice long break. I just read. No stitching, drawing, planning, dyeing, sewing, painting, nothing.

Worked my way through 75 books since the first of May, when i finally figured out how to access library ebooks. And yes, that is correct, 75 books. I learned to read fast, and i mean really fast when i was a kid, 900 words a minute at that time–we all did the three of us kids, this was “self defense/interest” in my family because if you wanted to finish the book that the family was all reading at once, you had to be speedy before Dad got it and spent hours with it! I read about 700 per minute now as i get older 🙂

I gardened a little, walked the dog, did the minimum (TOO minimal, actually…) housework, watched piss all TV as even Netflix is rather boring right now as all i can find that i am interested in is usually Scandinavian with stiffly translated english subtitles, and read, read, read, for hours at a time. Books were a big escape for me when i was a kid and a single mother, and in times like we’ve had lately, and the times i’ve had lately, escapism was needed. I feel neither guilty nor as if i wasted time. Worked my way through series of David Baldacci, Frances Fyfield, Karin Slaughter, Nicci French, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Jo Nesbo, Kathy Reichs, the first volume in the Villanelle series —totally different than the tv series— and assorted “one off” novels by various writers. I read NOTHING for research purposes, nothing to learn new techniques, nothing to do with my passions.

The only exciting/worrying/dire/nasty thing that happened during all this was my mother ending up in hospital for a few days with something bad happening–but fortunately with a woman who speaks her mind and impresses upon doctors and staff that SHE IS NOT STUPID, SENILE, OR LOSING HER MARBLES: JUST TELL ME THE DAMN TRUTH (GO MOM!) that worked out and she’s home under the care of my Super Brother. Late night phone calls from family members are always agonizing, and i know there will be more happening as the year goes by…….. (Hopefully yearS!) (Hopefully with little frequency.)

Since my other library requests are “holds” where i am #57 on 2 copies and similar ridiculous wait times, i guess it’s time to get back to studio hours.

 

Posted in Days of Honey, Natural Dyes, pomegranate (as dye and as mordant), Probably talking to just myself, quebracho rojo

yesterday and today

Posted on by arlee

Yesterday, i felt like this:

Pomegranate dyed/mordanted cotton, post modified with iron solutions. A base for bad days, i haven’t decided if i should work on it ON the bad days, or wait until a good day to do! Either way is valid–maybe both to see how it affects the work?

When the going gets tough though, it’s time to get out the brightest crayons and have a good scribble. My version of that is vivid natural dyes, and today these results on mostly cellulosic fibres (linen, cotton lace trim, cotton scrim, cotton threads– and small skeins of wool thread on the far left) came out of the quebracho rojo dye pot.

I’m thrilled with these results as previous experiments, while gorgeous on silk threads, silk habotai and silk velvet were rich, my cottons were pastel pinky browns, nothing exciting, and the threads were even more boring. The water IS different in this house, obviously quite different from the Grand Old Lady’s 100+ pipes.

I *might* use some of the wool thread on the top grey piece, still auditioning thread colours for it.

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

 

Posted in Crafting Art, Natural Dyes, Probably talking to just myself

playtime

Posted on by arlee

A long time ago, i used to play a lot in my studio. That usually resulted in 4 posts a day (!!!!!), because everything was exciting then: textile arts and mixed media were hot in the blog world, as we were all new to the internet and the windows it opened for creativity. There was MORE feedback then: people didn’t just “like” something and then flit to the next page. There were CONVERSATIONS, friendships made, active sharing and promoting of each other, and well, it just wasn’t facebook/instagram preciousness and staging.

I always enjoyed making Little Things, and at the time, it was part of a viable business as well. There were at least a hundred Yule Ghouls that flew out of my BC studio, innumerable really inexpensive wallets, the ubiquitous christmas stockings, penguin ornaments and artsy bags of all sizes. I stopped most of that when i moved to Edmonton in 2003: the market there was completely different, a lot less explorative, a dearth of innovation, and funky individuality was not cared for much…..it was crushing, as an artist and as a small business.

That coloured things for many years. I got rid of a lot of finished product simply by donating it to the Sally Ann, and once in awhile, even in such a large city, see one of the very creative bags i made, slung over someone’s shoulder. But i know they paid peanuts for it, thrift stores generally not in the biz of charging shitloadarmandleg prices, and so won’t make them again AS part of the bread and butter part of my studio. I also didn’t see the sense of having PILES and BOXES full of Things that wouldn’t see the light of day again.

BUT, i am involved with Contextural again, and there is a Christmas Sale, so let’s just think about that. Stocking up, protyping, testing, MAKING.

Anyways, blah blahdy blah.  I made a pile yesterday of recent naturally dyed linens (my new favourite fabric):

I admit to just sitting and staring at it, inspired by the colours and the feel, but not sure where to go. Then i espied an unfinished project and what the heck. I gots lots of those 🙂 Combine!!!! I’m “Goin’ Minoan”, ha.

It’s a start.

 

Posted in Probably talking to just myself

meeting a deadline that isn’t there anymore

Posted on by arlee

Well, poop. No surprise though that the exhibit space for Contextural’s upcoming show is closed due to “the Covid”. I had asked the first of March, and yup, the morning of the 17th brought an email that it’s not going to happen. Contextural’s summer residencies have been cancelled for the same reason at AUArts, something that isn’t affecting me however. I did 6 of them myself from 2009-2016, but when the price jumped so high, had to call it a day. That’s why i do ‘self directed workshops” now 🙂 (And i think it’s time for another one, with the recent “isolation” tactic.) I am hoping however that a workshop i signed up for in Edmonton in May will go ahead, through another “group”!!

BUT. This doesn’t mean i’m calling it quits. I still want to finish this piece, and i will, and goal setting, *by* the original deadline. That’s in 12 days, and i *will* do it. Who knows what will happen in 12 days? And technically, we’re just postponed, not cancelled. All written on the 20th, so not as close to completion as i’d like BUT I WILL DO MY DAMNEDEST.

I have to admit too that the current climate with all the closings, people staying home, and online foofarah, that a possibly developing case of agoraphobia may be okay FOR NOW. That started *before* the Covid pandemic happening. I’m having a VERY hard time going outside the house, can’t explain it, not going to, and will deal with it, but in the meantime, i may as well make the dirty bugger work and pay its keep! (That Edmonton workshop is something i REALLY want, so hoofies crossed i can deal with the hidinginthecloset thing….)

I’m also staying off FB, except for the FybreSpace page, because i am exhausted by the constant bombardment of willfully ignorant fiction, plain old lies, magical thinking and profiteering. I KNOW what i’m supposed to do as a responsible citizen/human being, will get my updates from reliable government sites and credible news sources, and hive in to protect myself and my Greyman.

In the meantime, i pulled out old bags of dried plant materials, rightly figuring that i might as well use them. My scant bag of saved onion skins gave me these, not bad for the amount:

I had expected more orangey colours, and deeper, but 2 handfuls of skin ain’t a lot of colourant. Even so, i find it a very soothing palette of texture and faint peachy tones.

Then i used half of my dried silver dollar eucalyptus:

I adore that velvet! If i were a teddy bear maker, i’d probably use it for that!

The bits of cotton eyelet are slated for a project, a colour record i’m thinking of.

So, we go on, things different but not, life changing but not in the end very earth shattering really. There will be financial adjustments of course, but most of us could benefit from that lesson anyways. Hopefully, a lot of us will refine what we know, learn some new skills, calm down and carry on.

 

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” May Sarton

 

 

 

 

Posted in natural dye research, Probably talking to just myself

testing new waters

Posted on by arlee

At the old house (and i mean where we lived before *and* the fact that the house was 100+ years), i knew what the water would do to my natural dyes. Turns out it’s a new ballgame in the new place, a totally different ballgame.

A. There’s a LOT of chlorine in our water in this location. We noticed the smell when we moved in, but stoopidly, i forgot that if i want to use it as hard water (’cause hard water is good for certain natural dyes like madder, weld, logwood and brazilwood, and we get hard water because our water is from the mountains) *and* there’s chlorine, you have to let the water sit for awhile so the chlorine off gases (dissipates). Didn’t have to do that at the old house.

Did you know that if you add ferrous sulphate to water with chlorine in it, that it turns the water PINK? Pretty, but the iron didn’t want to do what it was supposed to because the chlorine was being all busybody and getting in the way.

B. I use our filtered osmosis system for a lot of my dyeing. But it doesn’t work well, when apparently the tank membrane broke and is letting things into the tank, like iron and gawdzknows what else…..this also doesn’t work well for natural dyeing. There are a lot of minerals in our water too, but i’m not sure what else there is that isn’t supposed to be “is”…..

On the 14th and 15th i tested some of the Ugandan marigold my son brought back for me. I was shocked at the amount of green instead of yellow i got. My tannin was green as well, not a good sign, but a sure sign that there was a fair amount of what shouldn’t be in there, in there. I *did* get some pretty colours so that’s okay, but.

This means i now have to test all the dyes i work with, checking the new parameters and verifying my normal practices as still viable. It’s a good thing then that with the rhubarb root and quebracho rojo work i did last week i made lots of notes, and because of that, the marigold was documented as well! BUT it’s also weird that the RR and the QR gave me close to the results i was used to, even though i had used the (broken) filtered water.

Interestingly enough, in several natural dye groups, this was posted. I mean, i KNEW water affects the dyes, but wow, what a lesson in my own space.

So, i begin again.