luxury

When I got up this morning I discovered that the Head Chef had turned his kitchen fairy loose in the night and my one big chore for today had been handled for me. Molte grazie amore mio .

I took the great luxury of starting the basting on this piece with only one or two changes along the way. As the stitches replace the horde of pins it begins to feel like cloth again and not a clanking torture device determined to slash me full of holes. I am happy with the layout now  but the colors are feeling very fruity so the next layers will be all about moderating the first go round of color choices. Looking at it closely, not in a fugue state with eyes all crossed and crazy, I know there is going to be arguments about the stitching...what thread? how loud?  all those variables.

eye candy friday!

So this one is shaping up to be about 30"x30" and the individual elements worked themselves out to be scaled the same as the four previous, smaller pieces. This is only the first layer of course and I'm seeing one or two things I want to change before I start basting.

And speaking of grand scale eye candy, check out the amazing works of   I Wayan Sudarsana Yansen.. here and here where you can get an idea of how big his work is.


Recently I was fussing with myself about wanting to make cloth look like paint and here is an artist who has made paint look like cloth at it's most glorious - in motion on the wind or in water or maybe worn by a dancer.

broader strokes

I've decided to stop bitching about it and see how I can go about using fabric more like paint. There will be  a lot of false starts with stitch so I've basted this one loosely so the end wont have little blood stains all over it.

Most of yesterday was given over to finally getting my hearing tested and confirming what I suspected - that I am hearing less than half of what is said and have worked out a complex of methods to work around the loss. I really didn't realize how much I was depending on visual cues in face to face conversations.

The phone is another big issue. My job entails listening to incident reports over the phone and I depend a great deal on the fact that nothing much new and strange happens on a daily basis...repetition and anticipation, sort of human predicative spelling. I have reports typed out before people even finish dictating them. How many stupid ass ways can one slip and fall or burn oneself in a commercial kitchen anyway?

The doctor couldn't say if the tinnitus was a separate issue from the hearing loss but it certainly compounds the problem. I really miss stone cold silence. My range of hearing is narrow and odd and hearing aids are called for as soon as possible to prevent further loss/damage. They may or may not help the tinnitus. When it's at it's lowest level, I can pretend it's only cicadas partying hearty on midsummer's eve. At it's worst, a jet's engines revving up just before take off...only it never does. A new element cropped up the other day -- a mercifully short low toned hum, not unlike the reverberations of a really big bell ..it came creeping in my left ear like a fat fuzzy brown caterpillar, and then thankfully slunk away. Sometimes it's hard to hear my own thoughts.

rêver 4 finished

Except for a handful of white french knots here and there on the avenues and a little blocking, "rêver 4" is finished.

I had a fleeting notion of mounting the four of these together on a big canvas but seeing them together this way I have changed my mind. Now to commit to mounting them with acrylic medium on canvas.





and to every one who commented on yesterday's post, one by one I will be responding. many thanks for the input and food for deeper thought - all lights on a dark path are welcome light.

conflicted

detail from "Rêver 4"

 To continue a private conversation in public (and one I have been having with myself)  - Why use cloth as an art medium when the expressions I want to make have nothing to do with stitch or texture or hand?

What a pain in the ass it is sometimes and why in the world make art in a medium that has been stigmatized in so many ways that we have to spend valuable time countering stereotypes and consign ourselves to figurative textile ghettos to have any public voice at all.

It's been pointed out to me that a big reason people make art in the first place is to get "buy in" or acceptance of the visions that please or speak to them- an agreement of sorts. "I  like pie. I made a great pie. Have some. It's delicious if I do say so myself"

It's clear that most creative people would rather have agreement with their audiences (whoa!..sometimes in the form of exchanging art for cash!) than spend time cultivating the attitude of "F@#K you if you don't like it" and working in a vacuum or making pies and letting them burn black or throw them at passersby.

Since many of my readers are artists who work with textiles,  have you ever asked yourselves "Why cloth" and what were your answers?

untitled Rothko

bonbons

We continue to be satisfied working in this effortless manner. Some much like eating expensive chocolate truffles..but so much better for me.



There is a message in here somewhere.


 
PS... thanks Mimi..this is not even finished and someone submitted it to
CraftGossip but they cropped out my assistant!

eyes wide open

As I work on this with ever tinier stitches  (I've switched over to the 2.0 cheaters - I keep thinking about distant horizons, wider vistas and working larger. Thinking of each little element as if it was measured in feet instead if thread counts. Judy Martin's recent post has given me another point of  view about working large with cloth. Commitment to the outcome after long, long engagement is a daunting prospect. It's not like there's a shortage of raw materials around here.

Meanwhile, I've been touring other art courtesy of a crazy little widget on the bottom of each post at Oh, What a World and other sources. Getting away from cloth and standing back to look at other art  has  been refreshing. Take a look at the work of Paul Baumer, Brian Rutenberg, Emily Mason, Clare Kuo and Clara Fiahlo  among others...are you drunk yet?

my not-black friday

This is how I am feeling this morning. I am so grateful to be off today from work. We had a great time yesterday, birds, biscuits and all. It's nice to have guests at the table during the holidays - makes me clean the house like nothing else. Between the cleaning, cooking and working a shift last night I am done in.



Except for tending my friend's cat family while she is away, I will not be leaving the house today. All this lunacy over shopping for a lot of crap that you have managed to live without for a whole year is just plain ugly.

I spent some time this morning  working on this with a little help from Voodoo. I unburied my beloved sewing chair in the studio the other day and sat sewing in the sunlight with a friend. Later....leftovers for everyone. He seems to know.

I shoulda been a stone mason

I'll pull out the basting stitches and correct the helter skelter as I go but the overall composition pleases me.

Each little brick is a world unto itself and I keep thinking about what it would be like to make one like this on a much larger scale. Scale matters a lot when you are working with cloth.



(Earlier this morning I stumbled across the paintings of Matthew Johnson)



I am so happy to have the respite, the promise of this scrap of cloth over the upcoming days and weeks.  Hope you all have happy Thanksgivings.

grey day mending

It's overcast and unseasonably warm today so I thought I'd take some time for stitching.
I'm following Jude's lead and putting a much missed breast pocket back on the Magic Invisibility Cloak. At first I couldn't find it, then I remember getting some shmutz on it and setting it aside to be washed.

Alas, it got scooped up in a wash day  frenzy and got pounded as in on a rock at the river with a load of jeans. Some of the damask and linen pieces have slipped their mooring stitches so some decorative and restorative work is in order.

Fall Fell

I have been working rather exclusively on this project and letting too many other things get away.  Things are in flux around the household  and my mind has been in other places. Just yesterday I finally sorted and folded a pile of clean laundry that was the size of a Volkswagen parked on the floor in my bedroom. I was waiting for a rainy day!
Did it ever! Fall fell yesterday and right this moment it feels like I'll be lucky to have a few days with temps right for dyeing..silly for sure, this is Georgia we will be sweating again before fall sets in for real.

I was thinking that I had kinda-on-purpose let several deadlines slip away but, no, the calendar mocks me and there is still paperwork to do.

back in the hoop

This one is just large enough for my middle sized hoop. I had pinned and basted this over a base of cotton batting but last night decided that the batting had to go. Picking it apart was a mess but also allowed for a few design changes.

This one has me in that same confused and uncommitted place that "Taken by the Night" had me in until it was nearly finished. This time I'll trust more about being in the dark as to where and how this one wants to go.

so raw

What do you see?  A pile of old sheets?


I see pure potential!

A friend has a naughty dog who raises mayhem with the bedsheets, digging for that ever elusive comfortable place, tearing the fragile 100% cotton fabric in unmendable ways. I hate it for you but I'm thrilled you thought of me before deep sixing  all this fabulous cloth.

This is hands down my most favorite kind of cloth to work with. Vintage, well used sheets take the dye in strange and wonderful ways. Not just into the cloth and the thread, it seems like the very soul and being of the cloth is anxious to absorb the color as if to find, one more time, a way of  being useful and alive in new and wonderful ways.  I am dizzy with the anticipation of color.

WIP languishing

Sometimes things just stall.

I found a little scrap of fire in the bottom of the sewing bag while I was looking aimlessly for something else - anything else, to move this piece along. I'm still shuffling things around.

The triangle is real and the smaller bits are digital. I realize that I could move these pieces around forever. Too many possibilities will keep me from making progress every time. I'm seeing the circle of things shaping up again and it pleases me.

revision

When I unfurled yesterdays start today I wondered who put acid in the yogurt so I dismembered and cannibalized it right down to the dirt.

One false start after another finally got me to this place by about 10pm.  Now it's working for me and basting is under way.

I really loved that "storm cloud" commercial batik that I wrapped around it yesterday but it was just too busy  and had to go back in the stash for another day.

old comfort

"Old Comfort"




I done stitching on this one. I have an old favorite shirt that's this raggedy and stained - no longer fit for wearing and yet I can't bring myself to take it out of the closet.





It was good seeing everyone up in New York and getting a taste of winter but it's so good to be home again.

I was reminded of how I used to seek refuge from a cramped and overheated home life by being outdoors for hours on end in the wintertime.  The stillness and peace was, and remains, narcotic.

treatment day

I had an injection in my back this morning that's supposed to cure the problem but now I have a brain breaking headache. 



I wanted to work on this one today but I'd rather not be sewing my fingers together.

And more proof that the nut does not fall far from the tree.

replacement player

 

I found a tiny scrap of pale blue green  like the one that went into "Memories Feast" and carried it around in my pocket all day until about 10pm when I dismantled that false start and worked with what was at hand, all in support of this little piece of sky. 

Is this a color from nature? some ocean somewhere no doubt. I am possessed by this one. It's past midnight and I spent the afternoon hearing, among other entertaining tidbits,  how someone could crawl under a desk, ostensibly to check on some connections, and wind up sticking his tongue into an electric outlet. That should be fatal but it wasn't . I should be tired but I'm not.

WIP tuesday

As I knew it would as soon as I basted it, and as quickly as it's namesake has disappeared, "Georgia Snow"  has bored me and I'll set it aside rather than trash it for now. If any knows where I can by a spool of Sulky 12wt cotton, Brite White, let me know. The web has let me down. I really like using it for hand work and since Country Quilter in Somers closed I have no source for the solid colors.

  I was craving to use some of the silk scraps that M. sent me so I knew another grid piece was in the wings. This is very prelim. I'll stick it up on the cube wall today and spend a shift eyeballing it and moving things around. So far, it's not saying much beyond "oooo, yummy silk colors".

PS - dark and stinky, I took it all apart and started afresh

It's going to be a long and complicated day. For some of us life is so much simpler. Sweeties only question is "why don't I put out more birdseed so she can sit at the sliding glass doors and watch "the Squirrel Housewives of Lawrenceville".

Georgia Snow

...is quick and dirty and makes you long for summer the day after if falls.

except for this