I spent some time today going through the inventory and cutting prices!
Random Acts of Dyeness is fat with bargains and in plenty of time for holiday gift giving, in fact, a few of those magic cloth burritos came off the shelf and fell straight into my sewing basket.
Will wonders never cease?
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?
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'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.
After all that yaddayadda and left brain stuff yesterday it was good to unpack the basket and get started on the fourth in this series.
Setting the stage was pesky -working with that woven, gridded rayon is like weaving oiled eels- then, after half the morning shuffling and pinning it became clear that I had lost my space eye and bearings. Pulled everything off and started over with #3 close at hand to keep me straight.
I love these nylon body Ginghers - super tool and very photogenic.
From Robert Genn's Painter's Keys, the latest article "How to critique yourself" has sparked a lot of interest in my circle of web acquaintances. Like any other lesson, I'm sure it's only useful if you actually implement it as intended.
I was inspired to take a long view of what I have been up to by snatching up some four or five hundred or so images taken from all the blogging I've done (there's a speedy little tool for that) and you know how I love my eye candy.
Then I pared that batch down to just under 300 images that showed finished or nearly finished pieces.
Then I made three folders on the desk top. "What Was I Thinking" (read with a sneer) , "Don't Care One Way or the Other", and "I Would Hang That on My Wall" . Taking some more time to learn a movie making tool that came with my new laptop was good for a few hours aggravation, so here are the ones that made the cut.
I made the movie complete with music by Neil Young , the song timed by Windows Moviemaker to match the images ( or was it the other way around?)
...and yes, Neil, I liked it so much I paid for it. Alas, YouTube has decided that paying for it wasn't enough and the music has been stripped away (but you can see and hear it here if you want but be warned, it's huge)
As for this whole process being an exercise in self discovery...that remains to be seen. It turns out that these images are in fairly accurate chronological order and that's been a revelation of sorts. If you want to comment and Blogger gives you any kind of trouble, email me...and thanks!
I spent several HOURS looking for that gridded rayon that was the base for "Rêver 3" and finally unearthed it in the "safe" place I had stored it in. I've been wanting to start the next one in the series and last night fell asleep listening to "Diving Bell and Butterfly" which prompted me to get on with it, stocking the basket with scraps for the project. Once I have the fourth in this series I may find a way to mount all of them together.
We spent most of yesterday morning under tornado warnings but were luckily passed over by the worst of the weather. The cats were all acting up and Karma insisted on having a ringside seat from the planter on the deck. Her senior moments and eccentricities keep us hopping and waiting on her hand and foot. Sweetie chewed on my right elbow while I finally put together the artists statement I needed for the one that's going to AQE12....99 words!
"Using vintage fabrics in my art is a constant and welcome reminder of the character and original purpose of this cloth - beautiful utility.Old damasks and linens take to contemporary surface design techniques,such as dyes and resists, in unexpected and satisfying ways.
This composition came about while waiting in my car in the winter sunshine outside the laundromat and observing several women inside go back and forth between heated arguing and companionable agreement as they watched their own laundry churning. "The fabrics of our lives" seemed to be the theme of the day for all of us."
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.
