Link Love and a new Condition

Thanks to Lines and Colors for reconnecting me with Odilon Redon and leading me to Cure the Blind. These and Lorraine Glessner's (exquisite encaustic) "Oh, What World, What a World" are my solution for I don't get out much anymore.... If my internet behaves I will be using it to distract me from my first adventure in fasting. I'm embarrassed to admit in front of a world that starves on a daily basis that I don't think I've ever gone a day (let alone 24 hours) without eating anything but there you have it. In preparation for my first colonoscopy (why do I think of My First Communion?). Sad to say the gallon of nasty that I'll have to consume later this evening does not come in Merlot or Mimosa. After spending some time looking at a variety of his work I get the feeling that Odie and I would have gotten along quite famously. Can you believe that someone put a poster of this cyclops painting in the children s library where I spent a lot of my childhood? I think the spider print was in the restroom too. Odilon's nearly abstracts are inspirational for this surface designer. A package from Dharma came yesterday bringing colors that I have never worked with so, under the altered state of Hungry, I will be mixing up some new dyestock this morning and working on some new wholecloth notions that have been clamoring for attention.

Sunday fruits

These are some of the fabrics that I discharged with painters tape and Softscrub yesterday. Any artist who has cats has probably never worked on anything without some feline assistance. Once this was all pinned down I had to spend half an hour with tape before I could start stitching. Closing doors is not an option with Jinx. If you are not in the room she dig up the carpet in an effort to get under the door. If you are in there, she will beat her head against the door until you cave in and open up. Shadow Fence #1 16"x20"

more gridwork

I working the grid again for the moment only I'm more interested in what is not there in the spaces between. It's very satisfying taking to take a murky, unsuccessful piece of hand dyed cloth and bring it back to something with potential. I stuck these scaps down to the work table with grids of painter's tape and then paint the openings with Softscrub. And then, you wait and see what happens. Now to dig into a comfy chair and see how to organize some of these with needle and thread. This one was started with Elmer's glue as a resist, dyed and now discharged. The cotton seems to be getting stronger the more things I do to it.

Happy Birthday Jimmy

It's my GoodMan's birthday today so the cloth is taking a back seat to the party preparations.

Inspired by "night stitching"

I forgot how discharging hand dyes will reveal the various layers secrets that go into making darkness on cloth. A bit of black damask... Who knew what was hiding under there? This piece of black cotton was jammed up in my vacuum cleaner. and here's a snatch of ancient tee shirt...