In the beginning was…
In the beginning was the idea.
At this stage in the creation of a new large work, it’s not hard to focus on the idea. That’s mostly all there is. All the physical parts are just in the beginning stages of being created.
My plan is a series that develops my works about a girl’s journey. These will focus on images of a house as a metaphor for emotional realities.
The first one, completed earlier this year, is “Living in the House of Blue Shadows.”
Now I am at the early stages of “Living in the House of Leaves.”
I wrote in last week’s blog about the process of stream-of-conscious writing on prepared fabric to create words to incorporate into the work. More of that continued this week. (Turns out I wanted more yardage prepared this way.)
My second stage of writing sit-down sessions became more contemplative. It takes a long time to fill up several yards of fabric with hand written text. I let ideas flow about the leaves.
What do leaves connote? I will be depicting them as autumn leaves, orange and brown and fallen from the trees. Fall leaves are pretty. People drive up into the mountains to see their color. Their crunch on a sidewalk can be pleasing to walk through. Children like to jump in them.
They also represent transition. The tree is going from one stage to the next. The leaves are in the process of dying. People gather them up in piles and burn them. They are not in control of what happens to them.
And the specific memory I have which connects me to the leaves is walking from the bus stop to home in fall evenings, scuffing and kicking the leaves as I walked, and looking at them gathered in piles near the sidewalk. What that part of my life felt like is connected inside me to the images of leaves.
After writing, I have accomplished a few more beginning steps.
This is a photo transfer-in-progress.
I’ll be putting some large photo images in this quilt. This one leaf will be created from four 11” x 17” size color copies. I tile the image into parts in PhotoShop Elements, have the sections printed at a local copy shop, then tape them back together to make one big image. I will transfer it to fabric as one large piece.
I have done the same thing – but larger – with the house-and-leaf image I have taped up on my easel. (Right now this is about 40” x 40”)
I enjoyed creating layers in the digital image to blend the house and the leaf into one another.
I am leaving this up for awhile to let the ideas cook a bit. I like the integration of house and leaves, but I am not sure I want to keep it as a single big image in the quilt. It might be more interesting cut or ripped apart and appearing in several places in the quilt.
More thinking and planning to do.
To take the beginning … the idea … and make it come to life.
For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating
Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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