Turn Your Back...

...for a minute or two, well, okay, a couple of days, and some cat or other will obligingly create a nest for herself (not naming any names, are we, Molly?) in whatever textiles are lying around. In this case, it's bits and pieces and samples from the embellisher. At some point, I suppose, I'll have to decide what to do with them; at the moment, though, I'm just Making More Bits, and trying things out. Helen very kindly brought me some lovely black wool cloth to play with, and some fleece, Jacob and Alpaca, too. Doubtless, between that and the paints, I'll be kept out of mischief for another wee whilie.

I find the textile work and the paintings are coming closer together, somehow. I'm contemplating a swap to acrylic paint (from oils), to allow me to work with textile and cloth on canvas; the effects of oil paints on cloth are problematic, though I've seen paint and textile used together recently without any apparent preparation keeping the two separate, ie no gesso or other medium between them... who knows? I've got a painting somewhere that has scraps of silk embedded into the oils; it was painted a couple of years ago, and still seems fine. I like the embellisher, the way it allows me to paint with cloth, yet distorts the imagery on it, dilutes it somewhat. It fits in with the way I'm working just now, considering mark making, its interpretation, the way we reach to create meaning for ourselves in what we see, the way we blind ourselves to what we think is extraneous, even if, in fact, it isn't. Just like therapy, really. Looking again at what we take for granted, at who we think we are, or might have been, or even should have been...and making what changes seem appropriate. Just like painting, really...