Front Runner in Progress

Almost all of the fabrics for this piece were selected from the slush pile...the redheaded stepchilden headed for the overdye pot someday when the mood moved me. Pink flannel, fer crying out loud. Transparent Setacolor has started working it's magic. That and pollen, bug crap, cat feet and whatever else is out on the top deck after a long, hard winter. It's raining out there now.

Sweet Saturday

There's thread of communication here running through Alien Alphabet (left, made four or five years ago) and these recent random gridworks. The letters are starting to form. I wonder what the message will be?



It's wonderful to be easily amused. Homemade Bruschetta for lunch, a few scraps of fabric and thread and the last spring training game of the season on TV before Opening Day tomorrow. Go Braves.

starting place

Every piece has to start somewhere.

reply

dear ANT...forgive the public reply but after I finished writing you, I was fresh out.... No Yogi here...Of all the writers on that blog, I like Clairan best ( I used to follow the blog but lately there's so little time) it's just that after I read one of the posts, like this one, I heave a great sigh and think, just like you, "Meanwhile, Cy was off in a corner, toking on a bone and having a great laugh on the rube who just gave him six months rent for something he did while grunting over a tough bowel movement, damn that week-old fried rice anyway." Who KNOWS what an artist has in mind and if you asked them at the moment (or close to) of creation, would they tell the honest truth? "I was just dicking around with the new colored pencils...you know, the ones that still had sharp points and I was mad about the bitch on the third floor turning her pointy nose in the air when I dared smile at her in the lobby, I mean who the FOCK does she think she is anyway, the nasty twat, and thanks for asking but NOW the General Tso is giving me diarrhea. I think I'll take a canvas in the crapper with me and see what comes out...." I wonder what percentage of the entire AB-Ex (or any movement, for that matter) movement stems from so many people having private, personal and completely non-artistic moments with some art materials because somewhere along the way they got the notion that being an Artist was glamorous and some loving family member seized on the opportunity to encourage the little demon in a non-destructive direction. I mean, really, my gramma taught me cross-stitch embroidery to get me the hell out of her kitchen where I could be found at any moment eating a square of Bakers' chocolate (and swearing it was great!) or crunching on whole roasted coffee beans just to hear the noise. My memory of her kitchen and it's contents is photographic right down to which of her two parakeets would bite you to bloody and which one would ride around on your head, crapping merrily into your braids. Have I digressed? Go to the studio, you say? Last night a restaurant manager called to report an employee's slip and fall in the kitchen. I was required to ask "What type of tile is on the floor?" and before he could tell me, I offered "Butter Creme or Chocolate?" Also " A woman ran out of the establishment without paying claiming that the Devil sat down at the table opposite her and was making a racket with the silverware". The police were called to the scene but did not respond. Addendum - As I look around blogland, I see the wonderful work of artists everywhere who are working with their favorite stuff merely for the pleasure of doing it. Some of these pieces jump off the page and move the heart. Their work speaks openly and honestly of their motivations. To me, the joy found in the making of it is enough.

stash

I've been at the computer for a while rebuilding the Fiber Fandango website and digging through my files to find the images that go along with the pieces from my stash that will be on the block...I really don't want to have to reshoot these things. I'm finding things that are speaking to me in ways I wasn't paying attention to back when they were first created.

casting about for direction

We had a solid week of gray weather and rain here. I've been hard put to think about any larger creative issues beyond what I could hold in my hands under the lamplight. I spent most of yesterday torturing this little piece of black wool. Now I wonder what will become of it if I try to iron/steam it flat. Last weekend's dyefest took a lot out of me and now the pile of bright colors mock me from a corner of the studio. I started another one of these at the office the other day but the fluorescent lighting was giving me a headache. It's one of those cube farms where you sit wherever when you get there, our schedules vary day to day, and I made the mistake of getting used to a particular seat and the lighting there. Several days last week I had to sit in strange places with bad chairs and worse lighting. Now I have to take the time to go to my doctor so she will write me a note saying I have to have an ergonomically correct chair and have it committed to a seat where the lighting suits my needs too. Whine, whine, whine. Next!

gross commerce

It's hard to see due to the color scheme but this is a little bag I crocheted from ribbon for my tarot cards. I started it at work and finished off while we watched "Wall-e" on Sunday. Of course, I wept. A lot of folks have been asking about the sugar dyed damasks so I went through what was left in my stash and put together some sample bundles. They are for sale on my resurrected Fiber Fandango (Raw Materials for Fiber Artists) page where I sell the fabrics I make that I don't hoard for myself. Not much to show these days.

Opening Day at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx

It's a good thing I have really tolerant neighbors. All they have to do is step outside and look left or right to see what I'm up to but in all the years I've been doing this there's been nary a peep, bless 'em.The deck reminded me of a few scenes from "Slumdog Millionaire". This stuff is all wet of course but since these pictures were taken, the sun has set and the dryer has tumbled and everything is very nearly as bright and intense as you are seeing it here. Not everything was perfect as is (see some murky looking buggers up there) and other "things" will be happening to even the perky colors. I'm not in an entirely perky mood design wise but I'm grateful to have all of these as a starting place. The Chino came out wonderful after I gave it a healthy dose of Golden Yellow. Jude sent me a piece of gauze like cotton weave that came out glorious with that blend. I even overdyed a blouse from last year that was disappointingly and unbearably minty...now a rich leaf green.

Oh Baby!

Linda look! These are still wet, but Yowsa! Even though these dye powders were over 5 years old, they still seem to have most of their steam. I rinsed and washed these little tests by hand but won't commit to larger pieces until after a good thrash in the washing machine. The Scarlet is the first red I have ever dyed that I really liked. Follow-up. Here they are after machine, dry and iron. Very tasty.

What we need & when we need it.

Is it my imagination or is a certain famous brand of crayons seriously lacking in pigment these days? Maybe it's the smoothness of the paper in my Picadilly but there are three or four layers of color here trying to reach for the kind of intensity I like best. Still, this one was enough to ring the bell and remind me that life is short and since when did ever I wait for perfect anything, especially when it comes to dyeing fabric. The first load is in the washer getting prepped with Dawn and tomorrow it will go into the soda ash solution for at least a 24 hour soak. Saturday, I'll go with the colors on hand, fresh mixed and if it's not warm enough I'll be bagging stuff into a black trash bag greenhouse. I almost forgot, "Hope Rising" is home safe from the exhibit and I have a page in this book.

scribble Wednesday

I keep dreaming about great floating drifts of fabric on the wind. Great flags of fiber flapping and snapping. Elizabeth has recently written about knowing one's own taste in art. Her posts always provoke me into paying attention to my thinking (or lack thereof) about my work and I traced my notion of motion series back to my very first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I came around a corner and was knocked flat by "The Horse Fair" by Rosa Bonheur. I almost hesitate to link to it because nothing you can see here on a computer can compare to the incredible reality of it. Over 16 feet wide, it's a river of motion and vigor.I might have been 12 years old at the time and I think I've been looking to capture the motion of life in my art ever since. It's a wonder I didn't become a sports photographer. In place of getting Zone A work into play, I'm lucky to have the time, materials and headspace for the Zone B stuff like crocheted scrap rugs and free pieced lap quilts in simple, MARKETABLE color schemes all set for some Art fair someplace in the future when folks are out stimulating the economy, buying local and appreciating slow cloth (well, slower than store bought) and hand made by artists.

still fiber going on

Yes, I'm still farting around with these little make believes but that's just how it's going to have to be for a while. I don't think I have a piece of hand dyed fabric that's big enough to wrap a grapefruit anymore. Until I can rev up the wet studio, I'll be composing with scraps...hey, just remembered that's how I got started with fiber in the first place. Some excitement - this piece that I made for an early Quilt Art Challenge has been requested for a Day of the Dead exhibit planned for later this year at the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art in Scranton, PA Guess I better get busy and finish the edges somehow and get a sleeve on it. And tack it down a few places on the skull. Finish the thing for it's public appearance.

The Bicycle

Back before people were asking "What would Jesus do?" or "What would Buddha do?" I was asking my self "What would Jiminy Cricket do?". I am part of an entire subset of Baby Boomers who relied on the Disney insect for their common sense training and the development of a healthy sense of self-preservation. Even before it was trendy, I has a suspicion that my parents were clueless but I would listen carefully to the bug. That being said, here's my new-to-me beach cruiser and me with no beach. Still, I'll wear out the neighborhood and my knees on it now that we can step outside without drowning. Nifty, eh?

The song may be "I'm no Fool" but that was the card that fell from the deck in the full moonlight last night and I find it happily appropriate.