The thing about memories is that we seldom see them clearly.

Looking back is not like a straight shot of vision.

We are seeing through time. We are seeing through whatever haze our perceptions and emotions may create. We are seeing a memory that has been formed and changed by its interaction with dreams—even pictures from a scrapbook. Are we remembering the event or re-seeing it as it appeared in the photo?

As an artmaker interested in depicting remembered images, I think about how to recreate this experience. My hope is not so much to create a realistic scene but a real scene – one that touches on the truth of experience.

How can the simple “stuff” of textile art do that?

I am continuing to work through that decision-making in the work-in-progress about a house with shadows of tree limbs. (I wrote about this same work last week. At that point I was working on individual parts, and the process of putting them together as the background.)

Here’s where I am so far. This is the quilt in pieces on my easel. I will be putting the two halves together, but not yet. (It helps me to do the stitching on smaller sections.)

There are things I like. I like the palette. I like the figure of the girl. (Based on a scrapbook image of my mother as a young girl.) I like the house. It’s an actual old house here in DeLand, which I photographed from a number of angles. I like the way it evokes nostalgia of a grandmother-farmhouse-place, even if no such place really exists in our personal histories.

I like the superimposed tree limbs on both the house and behind the window. The sense of layers has a start.

It feels like a good beginning. But the emotional component isn’t there yet.

I have had this on my easel for a few days looking at it. And I came upon the idea of adding a new layer in front of what’s there now. Something to look through to get to the memory.

Trees. A new layer of trees.

Now comes the translation of this emotion into the working “stuff” of my medium.

I have painted a large section of sheer polyester with deep blue. I am tracing out forms of trees to be applied in several places across the composition.

I believe this will add more depth to the work. Here, where the limb will overlap the window, the foreground of the new limb is in front of the window, which is in front of the photographic limbs seen through the panes.

I also think this new layer will add contrast and unity. The simple shapes as a top layer will contrast with the intricate textured images below. And, the new trees crossing from one section of the work to the next should tie them together.

At this point in the creation, I need to give myself time to look and feel. I’ll put the trees in place with masking tape and hang it up to look at for a while. Having worked in this way before, I know the technical side – how to put them together. I need to focus on the story and the emotional side.

Because that’s the whole point of making the work.

. . . . . .

For readers in Florida: Please accept this invitation to see group exhibits by fiber artists. In my hometown of DeLand, I will be exhibiting as part of a Water-themed exhibit in City Hall. In Venice, Florida, I will be exhibiting in the juried SAQA Regional show, “Awakening.” Both are a way to experience the variety of artmaking possible with textiles.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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