fiber apostasy

I felt the need for some retail therapy yesterday. I got some nifty gift cards for Christmas and have waited to pair them up with some 50% coupons. At Michael's I  scored a long coveted set of Derwent Inktense blocks and busied my self seeing just how 'tense the ink was. I opted for the blocks instead of the pencils -why pay for wood?

They are pretty blazing amazing on paper but not worth wasting on cloth..I've dyes for that. Can you tell by the rainbow riot that I'm a little parched for color so deep in the B&W series? I feel a tattoo coming on.

inktense on muslin

questions from left field

The strangest things will come in dreams.

I had a dream that I was looking at a painting - it was a very large, old oil landscape, something like a Frederic Church spectacle - quickly, the painting morphed into an intricately worked leather belt and, when I looked again,  a bracelet of layered silver links and then, a very large watercolor seething with flowers.

Then I realized that I was looking at these things from the perspective of a person who had no concept of "making" anything - a pure consumer of end products made by others, the mysterious Makers.

It was the oddest feeling; an off-putting incompetence with a dash of defensive arrogance. I thought of a TV show where a crystal skull was being examined and it's provenance could not be explained so it was attributed to aliens. It was a little scary. Who are the Makers? What was their objective in creating these things?

My Maker guise quickly stepped up and took back control of the dream and I was left with questions.

Who are the non-makers and what do they think of Art? What does Art matter to them. Are they another tribe altogether? When does resentment fade and wonder take over?  Do they ever get over being on the outside looking in? I have to ask around outside of this space since I know 99% of my readers are Makers of some sort.

2013

"Starwatcher"  by Moebius

"The start of a new year can be like opening a magnificent gift"
 Thomas Haller Buchanan

my 2012

music by Choi Seung-hyun from the film "old boy'

close comfort

The last of the posse was just too eclectic to join forces with any of the others. All on it's own, it's acquired a little color and, as time passes, a lot of hand stitching.

So all told, in the B&W series ( the Karmas) there are two fairly large pieces, one with a mix of machine and hand stitches, the other strictly machined, and two small pieces; one hand and machine and this one,  only hand stitching. I have a feeling that I'll be setting up an entire segment of the cloth closet strictly for the B&W. I love the drama!

There's a disturbance in my personal force right now; both my brother and my dad are in the hospital and my baby sister is sick..everyone with varying forms of flu-ish things.  Here I am dispensing old wives wisdom over the phone and clutching at my cloth 800 miles away.