plugged back in, part time

I’ve been reveling in the colours achieved, now that i “know the waters” here 🙂

(All the purples, greens and reds have already gone to a great home.)

I’m working on a new batch of threads, in various weights and plies, as i am running low myself, and would like to offer them again in the shop.

I rejoined a local fibre group, one that while i really enjoyed on an artistic and intellectual level, felt i never personally “fit” in. To hell with that mind set, i am what i am, and if they look at me like i have a third nostril, so be it. If all goes well, i’ll be joining the group show in April (appropriately, themed “to evoke a sense of community, place-making, inclusivity and intention”) with this from 2011 as a starting point:

HA. Or so i thought. This is the ONE piece i can’t find in ANY box of UFO’s, bits, nada, nuttin’ zip, zero, zilch. I *know* i didn’t throw it out during the move because i still see the potential it has–and yes, i really did toss some unfinished pieces in the trash, because i knew i would NEVER finish them, but this decidedly was not one of them.

SO. The deadline for this show is March 31st. Of course it is, because if i could find the above piece, i’d have somehow been working for a show with a further away deadline. You now how it goes 🙂 (That’s called Magical Thinking.) Because i have to start from scratch, i have 50 days to get cracking, and finish. And there’s no guarantee i will get in either, so it could just be an exercise in time management….

This is my base fabric:

See the face?

This is the sketch i’m working from (OLD and used in many ways since it’s inception in 2014):

These are my colours:

I may switch out the peachy toned one for a duller yellow, a rhubarb root dyed piece.

I know too that the pieces i have of these are not all long enough, so will have to re-invent the wheel maybe to get the effect i need.

 

It’s also going to be a good while until i can show you the “finally” set up studio–we have to re-drywall, move electrical boxes and lights, paint, and figure out storage configuration, so suffice it to say, i have enough room to work, but have to still move piles, or dig to find things.  It’s been a lesson in “clean up as you go, and organize as you store”!

 

sort of a recap

These are why i believe natural dyes in textile arts are important to me and to others with this passion, no matter their “technique” or Practice. Ixchel Suarez had asked about this in a post on FB, in a natural dye group, about the importance of natural dyes to tapestry, *almost* intimating that it was the one use of the medium/material where it was so important, but i know there are other embroiderers, knitters, weavers of all the sorts, twiners, basket makers, rug hookers, book makers, fabric designers etc. who also use exclusively natural dyes. I can’t imagine using commercially dyed threads on anything now! There are nuances to natural colour that can never be replicated in synthetic dyes, and everything always “goes together”.

I know a lot of people can’t tell the difference between synthetic and natural dyes, just to look at them. I’m at a point though myself that when i look at photos of other natural dyers work, i can usually tell what dye they used, whether it’s tried and true historically accurate natural dyes, or “food waste” S**T. Really, i can. Really! There’s something warm and poetic about madder in all its antique hues, indigo and finding beauty in the palest to darkest, no “wrong” blue as a result, clear as the golds and leaf russets of osage, the aureate luminosity of rhubarb root (as prosaic as that one sounds…), the terra cotta nobility of cochineal and cutch, the royal richness of purples from lac, cochineal and logwood. SIGH.

I haven’t done any dyeing since before we moved to our new home, too much going on, too many other projects, but i’m starting to run out of threads especially. I’m planning for 2020 (i can’t believe that at all, that it’s going to BE 2020), and trying to figure out a schedule of sorts with flexibility for making the materials i use, and then making from/with *that* making 🙂 The best i can figure is to devote a week every 2 months (as needed, because surely i won’t have to do it EVERY month) to the dyeing, a week for paperwork, putzing and planning, and two for making. That still isn’t written in stone of course: part of this whole thing is the spontaneity generated by excitement, discovery, tangent, possibility!

I’m not making Grand Art right now (with the exception maybe of the patient Samara, and hopefully others like her), but i am making art that other people enjoy, and that *I* enjoy making. I see all these together and i get excited all over again, knowing that i, me did this from “scratch”–i may not have grown the sheep or cotton plant or moth cocoon, or woven or spun the cloth and thread, but i still “made” these fabrics and fibres, i coloured them and that’s pretty damn satisfying.

Would i be as rapturous if it was the “old days” and i was using commercially bought, commercially made, commercially dyed materials? Not sure, don’t care: i am where i am, and where i need to be now, now.

 

 

I also have in mind to if not REPLICATE, but to redux, remake, re-interpret a few older works in natural dyes:

Too, there are also old techniques i favoured, themes i loved, and mediums, and i’m testing some for the use of natural dyes in them. So many ideas! Piles, heaps, hills, masses, oodles and multitudes, stacks and torrents! Good thing it’s not 2020 yet 🙂

 

mining the past again

That’s a page from a 2007 “fabric art journal”, a time for me of experimenting and heavy machine embroidery. “Kirlian Hand” is a portrayal of the so-called phenomena of a person’s “aura”. Named after Semyon Kirlian’s accidentally discovered observation in 1939, that if an object on a photographic plate is connected to a high-voltage source, an image is produced on the photographic plate—- and touted in the 70’s as captures of the human spirit! (My ex was heavily into this, Hollow Earth theory, pyramid power, Chariots of the Gods alien conspiracy, and the whole “new age” crapola of the time….used to drive me nuts…but then *he* was/is.)

Anyhoo, i did like the design possibilities of this, so wth. The hand was cut from screen printed fabric, all of the embroidery is by free motion and the abalone shell piece was attached with glue and beads (i think..the page is somewhere in a box with other relics of the time, in a little room at the back of the house so stuffed i can’t get into it. Note to self: do something about that this weekend, there’s some Good Stuff in there too…)

It’s interesting to look at old work and not only remember how and why it was done, but to go forward with it as well, in a new direction. Yeah, some of the results from the way back machine are either embarrassing or weak, but some of it is still valid, good, intriguing, and touches a chord. Let’s roll with it!

As i mentioned in a previous post, i’m working on improving my ecoprinting skills, and while my little tests are very quite promising, i’m not completely satisfied yet, BUT, i can still use some of the bits in the Summer of Madder Study project 🙂 I’m going to “condense” the above layout a bit, due to the size of the moon i want to use, because the original layout would make too big a section to work on comfortably, considering the scale.

I’ll have to be tender with the moon too: a silk, i always have problems with stitching on this fabric, by hand or machine, as the threads of the fabric tend to “pull” when the needle goes through. I’ve tried finer threads, and smaller eye bulbed needles, but haven’t solved the mystery yet, so minimal stitching on the moon. Given though that the details are so fine and so delicious, less is more anyways: not everything has to be encrusted!

And the potential layout–just pretend/imagine the fingers are separate so the moon shines through 🙂

It’s now time then to set up the outside stitching corner!

 

when you do a series, and didn’t realize it

I was looking for something this morning in the studio, and in the photo archives, and realized i have inadvertently done a series of these. Based on my original pen and ink drawing from 1975 (!) (photo cropped because the other side has a drawn-by-an-angsty-18-year-old demon figure 🙂 ), apparently i’ve kept returning to it in my textile work.

2010

 

2012

 

2012

 

2015

 

2015

 

2017

 

2017

This/these are what i’m looking for, as i have some more ideas in mind 🙂

2014

And they involve Lac and Madder dyed fabrics from the recent dyepot adventures, and BLING.

Who says bling doesn’t go with naturals?

 

incarnations

Above, original drawing/painting from 2012, below work inspired by the sketch, started in the same year (!!!!):

(these 2 clickable for enlarging)

She still needs a few more stitches, and a name though…… As much as i love her, there’s been something holding me back with her, still undefined.

Playing a bit in photo editing (i use Irfanview, a free program and relatively easy to use), i put her into “negative” and got this lovely indigo surprise:

Now THAT gets my juices flowing. Any juice these days is appreciated. I’m still wavering mightily between giving it all up, and scrabbling searching scraping probing studio and psyche for new work.

This necessitated buying some cheesecloth to supplement the harem cloth. Harem cloth is sheerer than most cottons, but not quite transparent enough to layer as i wanted for colour gradations. And i’m too tired these days to worry about purism, so i’m combining indigo dyed cotton , with some fabrics i dyed with commercial dyes as well. I’m using what i’ve got, in other words. I don’t see a lot of use with natural dyed threads either, by other artists, so ain’t gonna fret it. (Though i do have them in the shop….)

Those ***“commercial”dyes are quite pretty on these soft fabrics, cheesecloth left and top, harem cloth bottom right:

Need a few darker ones, as well as a dark indigo for the base, and then i can start laying out, and (probably 🙂 ) stitching at work.

***“Commercial” dyes in my books are everything from Tintex and Rit, to Procion, Pebeo silk dyes, Jacquard products, and other products that are usually predictable colour-wise for everyone.

paging inspiration, inspiration please come to the front desk

My sketchbooks would never be considered “art journals”, but that’s okay–they’re WORK books, not cheesed up multi media shows of virtuousity. (Yes, some of those are lovely, and for those who work primarily in painting/sketching/printmaking, perfect. Not so much however for those of us who “translate” to another medium!) And honestly,  most of my notes, sketches etc, are actually loose sheets in an expandable folder from the dollar store. When i finish a project, i file them immediately. I have only once participated in a show where the “documentation” was intentionally part of the show. It’s interesting for some to see the process this way, but a lot of artists i’m sure would have a heck of a time “explaining” the linear progression of sketch to sample to work–because usually it’s all decidedly NOT linear 🙂

I have no desire to re-create precisely what is on the page. Work books are just that: lab samples, experiments, epiphanies and eurekas, cryptic notes and puzzled fumblings, shared only, and rarely, as part of the process, documentation that indeed, i did invent this. I have no need to pretty up the performance so i can wow somebody. Workbooks are gardens, the ideas are seeds in mysterious packets, and no one really knows what will pop up under the right–or wrong- conditions. My “back 40” is wild, unkempt, full of what others consider weeds, piles of branchy debris and bits i’m “saving”. (Much like the actual Back40 at The Stately Barr Manor……)

I think the planning for the “vision” for this one is going to take more work than normal. These are only snippets of ideas,  like creating a mood board from scratch! Sometimes i do that, sometimes i don’t.

An old sketch that was used for two different pieces of work, has surfaced. (One and two.) This one has me quite fascinated again, not only that it helped create two totally different from each other works before, but that i can use it again, and it will be again completely unique to itself.

The river and sky colours keep attracting me, though i’m thinking of earth and a dusky sky now, rather than the clear blue of indigo. I have some logwood dyed fabrics that are astonishingly purple, but think i’m going to fire up some of the cochineal and iron again also, for the haremcloth.

I’m quite excited by the idea of this particular “hope it works, and hope it gets done” piece. I’m a bit scattered now, with Real Life issues that are Very Important to Deal with, but am planning some dedicated time with the whole process. I have no clear vision yet of the size, the whole, the techniques or the end result (!!!), but i know i AM on the right track.

(I have only ever ONCE taken sketch to textile interpretation “faithfully”, exactly as shown, pure luck that i had the fabrics to do it, and the stamp and stencil that started it. Heart stamp and crow stencil, my designs.)

 

Redux start

I know i’ve started when the printouts, and the plans for the plans begin. I write all my meanderings on my private blog, with wild flights of fancy, because hey, ya never know what will connect, then slap all that in a dedicated sketchbook, and start colouring in the lines, way out of the lines, adding “patterns”, shapes and technique notes, and even more scribbled why nots.  So far there are elements of several previous (finished) projects (Mother’s Heart, Nightmare Interrupted, Ebb and Flow, The Difference Between A Plum, unused Leighton work) and seeing how the interpretations fit together is where the fun, and the serious work, begins. I have the notes from those previous endeavours as well, and will riffle through them, slotting them in and out and away, as needed or rejected. It also makes it impossible then to “COPY” myself, as now there are Frankensteiny mishmashes happening!

I even have a title, though that will wait until some definite work has started.

This little bit has been stored in one of my sampling/”component” boxes since Jan 2013. It’s not the “thingness” of it that draws me, but the potassium permanganate dyed cheesecloth, and that wild stitching on its peripheries.

Though that stitching was done by machine, i don’t want to use Lalage again, bitch that she is, because she *is* a bitch to work with. (One of THE worst machines i’ve ever had…) After the work i did on the figures for TM, i now know that it is possible to tame the harem cloth enough to stitch, by putting it in bondage on a tapestry style embroidery frame. (Never say never though…) I can do the stitching also pre or post dyeing, depending on the effect i want with the threads.

I’ve decided to start the intended Redux project with some sampling for hearts a la “Mother’s Heart”. Off to the potassium permanganate vat in the Dye Dungeon!