studio upheaval

I'm preparing to give over a portion of my studio to the day job. 40" of wall space for 15 hours per week given back to my life? More than fair trade off.

So tubs of shreds and "somedays" are making room for a small desk and chair where I will work at a computer. A long overdue deep cleaning is underway.

I'm throwing out a lot of crap and uncovering some amazing starting places. These fabrics were bundled together for some distant notion. I have SIX finished tops, all of them bedware waiting to be batted, backed and quilted. There will be a lot of giveaways in the near future.

haunted places

There was a lot of revisiting the past while I was in NY. I spent a morning with my Dad touring my first hometown, Armonk, NY.  I didn't know there was a private family cemetery for "his people" which included Useteds, Smiths, and Wrights.  Working folk all.

Then I spent a delightful afternoon lunch & tea with my former neighbor Terry as if I hadn't been gone from Carmel since '93. There is never enough time and we never run out of things to talk about.


These four pieces of cloth (which continue to taunt me) were called to mind by this shot of the water under the bridge up the street from my family's house. Layers of light and color. Reflections, memories and reality all in one place at one time.

the Wheel turns

One phone call and everything changes. While I was still in NY, my supervisor called to say that I was being considered for the next telecommuting class and was I still interested?  Being able to do my day job from my home will mean 2+ more hours of each workday coming back to me to use however I want. Could more Art be in my future? Sure as hell won't be house cleaning! And going forward this blog will be the only input I have to FB. Having given up the time vampire Lexulous, I see no need to go there. Google reader let's me know when the people I care about have updates. likewise email notices when someone posts to me in FB.  There's been a lot of background buzz about "disconnecting" and I'm paying attention.

home

I'm home from whirlwind visit to family in NY. I was expecting fall to be well underway but when I arrived I was surprised to find Summer frozen in time - the leaves all still green and in place, the sun still strong and hot. When I mentioned it everyone shushed me strongly - they are hanging on to summer tooth and nail. Given the four gorgeous days I had there, it's all understood.

What with all the visiting around there wasn't much time for stitching but I hung a few doors on "Ocean Homes" and took a lot of pictures all over two counties. Hope to get them posted somewhere for the family to share.

Here's my Monet Moment. My family lives close to the vast NYC watershed reservoir system. Large numbers of mute swans congregate on the upper reaches of the reservoirs and winter over there and then spread out to ponds and rivers in the spring and summer. Getting closer shots of these birds involves a level of risk I am no longer interested in. These fuzzy long views will have to do.

September 11

 Later on this day of remembrance and reflection, I will pick up and finish a novel I've been reading, "Stones From the River" by Ursala Hegi.
It's about a community of regular people who allowed their government to fall into the hands of a charismatic leader and his cronies who snake charmed the people into accepting that any problems they were having, as a country and as individuals, were the fault of others in their society.

This government convinced people to  assign blame on "the others"  and while they looked the other way and abdicated responsibility, members of their community began to be arrested for no reason, their homes destroyed and their property confiscated. The country fell into wars with the rest of the world and was ultimately crushed. 

It really dismays me that there are young people today who do not understand the monstrosity of the expression "Holocaust deniers".  I grew up next door to some elderly neighbors who once had numbers forcibly tattooed onto their forearms and that was probably the highlight of that day. From Max and Ethel Rosenberg and a man I worked with, Joe Weiner,  I learned the stories behind those tattoos from the people who lived those lives and they spoke for those who did not live to tell their own tales.

History should not be a mystery. When are humans world wide going to grow up and stop being enslaved by religious and/or political dogma  and the fear and narrow-mindedness that it breeds?  There are so  many other things we could be doing with our passions, energy and resources. Wonderful things.

I had a dream that a very scary looking alien sat at a table with a big industrial sized blender and piles of scrolls, Bibles, Korans and Torahs. With a manic look on his face he began feeding them into the blender along with a few raw fish - was it Dan Acroyd doing Bass-o-matic?- all the while he's describing how these books appeared to be the source of power of the puny humans. Gleefully, he hits the LIQUEFY button for a minute and then chugs the whole mess, wipes his face with a scaly green forearm and strides away shouting "NOW TO CONQUER THE EARTH!".  Was it the burrito I ate for dinner or too much CNN?

cusspots transformed

What is it about containers that compels us so? Little places of safekeeping?  When I was a teenager I would take the train into Manhattan and head for a store called Takashimaya. It was a department store that sold everything under the sun. Looking back it was probably a Japanese version of Walmart. But I was drawn to a department that sold transparent, colored acrylic plastic container. Hard little brilliant jewel colored rectangles and squares of plastic with tight fitting lids. The magpie brain was always overwhelmed and ever covetous.

 As I got older the compulsion switched to baskets which are everywhere in my studio stuffed to the gills and woefully disorganized. When two dimensional design ideas fail me, I take up the crochet hook and some heavy cotton  string and set to my version of basket making. A memory from some former institutional life no doubt. Here we have some pseudo Boston bean pots and a few wild ones complete with tails. (for scale, those are one quart mason jars they are perched on, drying out)

lost cusspots

While I was rummaging around for things to overdye I came across another bunch of cusspots. These are getting the "Boston Bean Pot" treatment and will be left soft. That's it...no more soda ash, cloth or dye....for awhile at least. 



Now to see if  I can get in one or two more swims. It's gotten chilly at night and there's no enough sun on the pool during the day to warm it again and I'm not the hardy, North Atlantic swimmer I used to be.

wild things

Whoever designed the building and landscaping where I work must have been a Mayan in a former life. This is the last leg of a huge zigzig stepway...to nowhere. It ends right at the street so no one ever uses it except the wildlife. We are a short ride to downtown Atlanta and this office park, easily less than half occupied, is fast becoming a wildlife sanctuary. This bed of flowers was alive with butterflies earlier in the day. Last year a family of geese took over the opposite tower and you could not walk down the steps because they would attack defending their territory.

The other night I watched trio of coyotes stride purposefully  through the parking lot. I've seen the odd one as I drive home but it was startling to see this squad together. Tall adult in the lead, two smaller ones watching the flanks as they went. No doubt they are working the overpopulation of  Canadian geese that live here - and the feral cats.  

A very large owl flew right across my path as I was driving out of the park. It's encouraging that  there are plenty of creatures doing well despite what humans do to their surroundings.

very Labor day

It was a real labor day all day everyday for me this weekend. I divided my time between working at the whine mine (where people seemed to know that we are a 24/7 operation) and doing an about face and scrambling to make two important venue deadlines. 


For a while, I was going to sulk and eat worms and not enter. I got over it.

Rosemary's Dogs

There was little to no loss of color in the washout. I didn't even bother to iron this lot. Just folded them up to stack and gloat over. 

I've called this one Wisteria. Praise to the bugs in the oatmeal!

hatching out splendor!

Although I do not know the meaning of restraint when it comes time to dye, this new take on using granular materials to  carry the dye has returned some amazing results. Those dark flecks in the foreground are oatmeal flakes and some dead bugs that had taken up residence in the large container of oatmeal.

I couldn't wait to finish hosing it off to take this picture.  The best part is ..I know exactly how I did this and could duplicate the effect. 


and the blues, greens and purples are waiting.

Last Dyefest of 2010

Here are just a few of the smaller pieces from what's probably the last dyefest of the season. there are more to do but the sun is still poaching hot out on the deck..I may wait until tomorrow to finish the rest and do some overdyeing.

It's been a long day already. The piece hanging from the rack in the background was a piece that I put down on the table when I was mixing the colors. There are another whole group off camera that have been dyed using buggy oatmeal. Those should be interesting, bugs and all.

work view

We've been recently given permission to "claim" our real estate at the office if we have been there at least six months. Over a year ago I selected a seat that no one else wanted so I've been lucky and comfortable there. My back is to a wall of windows and a door and it's only half a cube, on the corner of Crazy & Main. I like the natural light, the view of the pines and now, I'm free to decorate a bit so I brought "Backyards" to work with me to enjoy it a bit before shipping.


My marigolds are going into fall overdrive. Here's one of the smallest cusspots on my desk.

And a picture of the moon that was worth getting pulled over for. I stopped for a few seconds on an overpass on the way home and shot this out the car window. It was a spot that had the least amount of light pollution and there wasn't another soul on the road except for a police officer who pulled me over to find out what I was up to.

farewell and adieu

"Backyards 1" will be on it's way to a private collection very shortly. I spent some time this morning taking  a lot of good pictures by way of record and memory keeping and right away I was reminded about the value of working loose & relaxed and the enjoyment that came with the making of this one from the gift of the vintage cloth, the experimental dyeing to the quick and dirty designing that fell together without a whole lot of fuss or angst.

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.

.saving Lush Life

I wondered where this one was. It slipped off the back of a chair in the bedroom and was gathering dust bunnies and dead moths. Not shown in this picture, all the mauve areas got over involved with a lot of compulsive looking machine quilting. What was I thinking??  A big mistake that I am determined to undo. Packed my little stitch ripper in the go bag and see how much I can get un-done this evening. Hopefully a gentle soak with reorganize the threads and the stitch tracks will go away. I really want to save this one.

changes afoot

One full moon, one cool night and you can sense Fall waiting in the wings.

There are changes afoot here as well. I'm reviving an old spiritual practice having decided that howling into the wind and stars is better and more productive than talking to myself.

What's the saying? Fortune favors the bold and if you don't buy a ticket, you won't ever win?

R&R

It was a restful weekend even with a few hours of OT on Saturday.

After several heavy thunderstorms the pool is starting to show the turn of the seasons. Dead leaves and debris from the trees are part of the daily chores now.

I got a lot of stitching done on "Ocean Homes" but it's a long way from finished and nothing much to look at now.

 I did spend the cool hours yesterday picking out, ironing and posting several new sets for RAD as promised. Thanks for all the suggestions.

During the "dig" in the studio, I came across these two very small (8"x8") hand stitched pieces. The tiny "T" stitches are the same ones I'm still using. One stitch in one direction just seems unfinished to me. Or lonely. These are both available. Email me if you are interested.

PHEW~!!

We had a bad shock yesterday morning. Awoke to find the water level down almost a foot from the edge.

We thought there was a leaking in the aging hose system that is concealed under the decking all round the pool - a nightmare to service or replace.  The water loss turned out to be from a valve that had stuck not quite closed during a backwash.  Thanks to the Pool Deities and other interested parties.
 Living without air conditioning down here would be brutal if it wasn't for the relief of the pool.  I will be spending the morning preparing new fiber collections some have been clamoring for  to post in the store...and then diving in!  Any colorway requests before I begin? What's the color mood?

honor thy process

My scant creative time has lately been eaten up by hand stitching on two ongoing, large projects and I find myself getting antsy. It's been so long since I've started something new that I needed remind myself how.

While looking for something else in the archives I found the post above. It took a few seconds for me to remember that after a long time staring at those fabrics as they hung on the wall in the bedroom (I used to just stare at them before falling asleep when I woke up) they sorted themselves out to this, one of my favorites, "Hopped Up". It's time to take some things out of the piles of fabric and hang them up for my mind's eye to doodle with.

Hello Belgium

Did you ever get the feeling someone was talking about you  - well, your work, as an artist?

A whole bunch of folks in Belgium seem to have discovered this blog. I'd like to say "hey" but I can't uncover which is the best language to go with so "Bonjour", "Guten Tag" and "Goeiendag" for openers.

blues and blooms

I woke up before dawn this morning and "Witness" was on the TV, sound way down low so it was all about the marvelous colors that everyone (except Harrison Ford) was wearing. I wonder if the Amish really dress this way?

and for the first time since they were planted, all four of my crepe myrtles are blooming at the same time.

moving the mountain with a teaspoon

I'm using four strands of Sulky 12wt cotton through all these layers of muslin, damask and silk. It goes so smoothly with no fussing or jumping into knots I know I'm going to have a hard time finding the stopping place even though this piece is something like 40"x65".

My intention is to build this piece as if it were to be used as bedding so the quilting layer has to look as good on the back as it does on the front (but don't call the quilt police just yet) .



And once again, while I was in the studio looking for something else, I unearthed this one which is waiting it's turn for the same treatment...

a weekend with (not at) the Beach

It's going to be a rainy weekend here in GA for the first time in ages and the plan is to settle in and stitch on the two large pieces I have in progress.


The piece of sugar dyed percale to the right in this picture popped out of a pile while I was rooting around for something else and it keeps calling me back wanting to be incorporated into "Beach".

Before I go chopping into it I'm going to fiddle with the two of them digitally to see if it's only my imagination that they have something to say about each other.

PS
After cutting and pasting some images together I decided against the juxtaposition. It was just too jarring. Phyllis, I went with another piece of that wonderful soft cotton you sent me.

ocean homes progress

It's been too hot to handle cloth much less do any stitching here in the south, but enough of that whining.
Yesterday there was a slight break in the oppressive weather and I sat under the fan in the studio and took up this long cool drink of water once again. Holding it at arm's length, I can't believe I've committed to a mile of crossed stitches but there you have it. As soon as I started sewing again, I knew this was what the piece required. I also know that one moment I'll find the last stitch is done and then it will be time to add the second layer and start hand quilting the waves.  Each of these pieces of cloth has a history and character and it's a pure pleasure to be bringing them together in this way.

the grove moves forward (only if you are not looking)

Remember this notion of a grove? It's made it's way to the next step of becoming and I hope all the scribbling in my notebook won't be for nothing. There will be hand dyed silk organza and this color example is not even close because there is just no rendering how it will look . Having never worked with this fabric before I have a lot of questions and little cloth to waste.

more for the foot freaks

Just come from dr. footsy who gave me a newer, bigger, better ON TARGET injection of magical monster juice and, if pain of process is any measure of a good outcome, I'll be dancing like Ginger Rogers in no time. 

And for a little added fun, I  get to wear this contraption at night but he said I could wear it at the office too whilst roosting. Mine is not this spiffy yet but give me a few idle minutes and some metallic Sharpies. He says there's no need to be cutting on me for this issue. I am relieved already.

banners continued

I'm still working on my battle banners. Here are a couple of unrelated sections...they should have been vertical of course. Haste and harried.

readying and fresh starts

We almost lost Louie this past winter. This dieffenbachia was a wedding gift from Donald and I left it out on the deck through a freeze and thought it was a goner.   I cut sections of the cane and tried rooting in water but they all seemed to rot rather than root. I buried the slimy chunks of stem in various pots out on the deck and they have almost all managed to make a comeback in the company of lavender and tomatoes.

This Painted Lady stopped by my work table this morning and asked "what the hell? Where's the work? Who stopped making the donuts??"

And I cleaned out my go bag and decided that my needle roll was pretty grubby looking and put in for a soak.  All this by way of preparation for some new beginning. No clue as to the direction right now but vacuuming the floor of the studio so I can actually see it is also a good start.

I've also decided to put these in more competent and inspired hands than mine are at the moment.