Striking’ while the sun is hot… the unexpected… and some closeups

When the rain finally broke earlier this week, I knew it was time to spring into action. I had lots of yardage that needed painting, and we’d had nothing but rain.

I set up a 6-foot door on sawhorses right outside my studio door on a concrete area which I gave up trying to keep clean a long time ago. I can drip without fear here, and a nearby fence section provides a place for drying.

I generally start with plain unbleached muslin for my quilt backs and then create painted patterns compatible with the quilt’s front. I like to work wet and fast. First I used the garden hose in a fine spray to get my yardage pretty well damp. With a wet natural sponge and acrylic paints, I got down the background color, a deep violet blue.

I hung it on the fence to dry.

That ‘s when the first unexpected surprise occurred. As I lifted the muslin off my table, the vinyl cover over the surface had pools of water and paint in beautiful patterns. It was a now-or-never opportunity. I quickly went inside and grabbed a few yards of sheer polyester, brought it out and gently laid it down in those irregular pools. What a beautiful surface design I’d captured!

Next I needed some teal fabric, so I mixed the color and sponge painted about three yards of that, wet into wet. Again, when I lifted it up off the table, beautiful irregular pools were there. I picked up the sheer that had violet blue on it already, and pressed it into the table surface again. Aaaah!

After all this dried (in a wonderfully short time, thanks to the Florida sun) I painted abstract tree forms, again using the wet natural sponge, but this time with stencils, both the muslin and the sheer.

Result: I have some muslin for quilt backing plus some watercolor-like sheer polyester to incorporate into a quilt front. And a little more spatter and drip on the concrete.

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A chicken or the egg kind of question… and does it make a difference?

If the order of making gets changed around… does it make a difference?

As an experiment in artmaking with textiles, I recently tried reversing the order of the whole process. It's been  revealing and interesting

My textile works have some of the characteristics of a painting and some of the characteristics of an art quilt.  I always start with blank fabric, creating my own fabrics with acrylic paints. I monotyope print, stencil, stamp, use relief printing and paint directly. But, generally, I am making batches of fabric, then cutting them up and incorporating them into a collaged and stitched composition.

There’s a lot I like about this way of creating. But sometimes, by starting with individual pieces, I feel like I lose sight of the overall composition, especially big shapes and values. If there are things I need to correct, I don’t always see it till I’m pretty far along.

So, with a piece that’s still a work in progress, I started with the big picture first. I cut a large piece of muslin a little bigger than the finished size, (about 36"H x 48"W) then ripped it into five random sections. I taped them back together (on the back) so that I again had one large piece. I gessoed the fabric to stiffen it up then treated it like a painting canvas. Using hand-cut stencils in the shape of houses, I painted with a roller to get the overall composition roughed in.  It felt quite different – working more like a painter and less like a quilter. At this point, I could see the finished composition. I knew what was successful ad what was not right from the beginning.

THEN I untaped the sections and worked on them individually. I added some texture with paint, collaged in some new fabrics, and added stitching for texture over the whole piece.

THEN I sewed the sections back together again to recreate the whole. Now, I felt more like a quilter.

For me, this has been like adding a new language to my studio vocabulary. I will continue to work in the reverse order on some pieces, and sometimes combine the two procedures.

My studio “note-to-self” this week says “Creativity demands experimentation.” Yes.

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The need to "Un-Hermit"

How tempting it is. I long for days when I can just bury myself in my studio. I love being surrounded by my artmaking things, going back through my sketchbook, sitting and just looking at works in progress to envision what’s next. Solitary work is pleasing.

But, wonderful things happen when I leave the studio and become involved in the community. Wonderful for me. And, I have to believe, important, in the way that all the simple, huimble contributions of community members add up to shaping the character of the world.

This week, after a coffee meeting in downtown DeLand, I shot this picture of an electric box covered with a digital image of my artwork. The sun was lighting up the box nicely – as if it were posing for me. It was a simple and good affirmation of the value of public art in our community. My work is only on this  box because I responded to a call-for-artists. And that only took place because some volunteers had vision for this project and did all of the legwork needed to make it happen. Now, people I talk to in town, even if they don’t know I have anything to do with this project, say, “Wow. Have you seen those cool boxes around town with art on them?” Simple, small additions to the fabric of life.

The coffee meeting I attended will create a project less visible. My Rotary club is working with the other two Rotary clubs in DeLand, along with the Early Learning Coalition, to fund a program that sends books every month to preschool children in our community. When it’s up and running, there will not be visible things on street corners. But the lives of these children will be better. And it will only happen because groups of people cared enough to attend early morning meetings, write grants, talk on the phone and e-mail other people to ask for help, and do the legwork to make it happen.

Solitary artmaking is pleasing. Living my whole life alone and un-connected would not be pleasing.

What’s the same… What’s Changing? Seeing Ideas Evolve

I spent some time today looking through collected images of my own work. It’s a good exercise – much like looking back through my sketchbook at ideas I had cooking for awhile. But, when I review completed work, I begin to see patterns.

First of all – just to get past this – it’s very humbling. There are a fair amount of things I just don’t like anymore, about which I wonder, “What was I thinking?” OK. The only way never to fail is never to make anything. So I try to accept the ones that don’t much please me.

But “What was I thinking?” may be the exact right question. What impulses have I seen re-emerging throughout my artmaking? I have been working consistently In textiles since about 2010, experimenting with printing and construction techniques and subject matter. With so much variety, is there some common element?

I think so. And it helps to find it. In some way, an interest in surface vs inner has been what interests me. Sometimes, it’s taken the form of landscape explorations, where I’ve tried to see above ground and below ground at one time. Sometimes it’s been in the form of memory pieces, where I have scratched the surface of my own life, digging into issues of outer appearances compared to inner realities.

For 2018, I am focusing on a body of work developing images of little houses. I will fill them with patterns and windows into the inner life, with the shape of the house indicating what’s seen from the outside. I am very excited as I look at the new sketches and mockups, and interested to see how this all evolves.

NOTE TO SELF... RISK-TAKING

NOTE TO SELF – Thinking this evening about the projects I want to work on in the studio this week. What do I need to risk? I need to risk the chance that working in a new way may create a finished project that goes in the “Nope!” pile. Risk the chance that I will spend hours – when every minute is so priceless – going down an unproductive path. But those are really the easy risks. I have begun to think more deeply about the story I want to tell in a series of pieces. I have taken at-bats at the concept of a girl’s inner journey. But there's much more to say. Many more emotions and memories for grappling. Artist-as-storyteller-archaeologist is a daunting role.  May this little taped reminder be a way to keep focused.

Waking from a dream, remembering...

Have you ever awoken from a dream and felt that you could not quite shake the feeling of still being in it? I have found myself at times thinking back into the dream, trying to name the places and events it contained. My attempts at descriptive words never do justice. “Well, it was a forest, but not a forest really. It just felt like a forest.” Dreams are like that. In “Now Let the Night be” I have created a landscape that has that dream-like quality. It suggests a specific place, but it’s not really a specific place. The arch is a portal we can choose to enter. It is my hope that it beckons in a welcoming way.
(You can find out more about this work in the Layered Nature Gallery  HERE)