The Grunt Work

Cara is coming for a sleepover, today, so I'm not gong to get a lot done.  So, before she arrived, I decided to do a little carving on one of the lino blocks.

The one on the right is finished, more or less, ready for a trial print.  I've never particularly enjoyed carving lino, and I like it even less now that I don't have much energy.  I can carve for about twenty minutes at a time; once upon a time, I would have carved something like this in a single sitting.  So it's taking quite a long time to get these blocks ready to print, because if I do something else, like work on a book, that's the energy used up, so the blocks have to wait.  What I really need is a slave...cough...assistant...but that's not going to happen.  These will be the last carved blocks I make, I think.  Mono printing will be my method of choice in future, and I intend to try collagraphy, which has been on my to do list for years, but I've never actually done.  Must try to find a workshop, locally.  Or an online course, perhaps. 

There's a lot of grunt work in textile art...all the preparation for dyeing, for instance, scouring the cloth, mixing the dyes, rinsing (my personal favourite, not...), and finally...ironing...groan...  I think that people who don't do this stuff, don't appreciate that... I think they think we all sit around in a genteel manner, hand stitching... well, okay, sometimes we do...but sometimes we lug gallons of water around....

So...that's it for today.  We'll doubtless go out, so I might be able to get some photographs...here's hoping...

Waste Not...

...well, yes, I have a thing about not wasting paint.  And there was some left over from the painting I did on the last piece so...reader,  I made monoprints.  Well, technically, one monoprint and one ghost print.  I had been given some interesting paper, just the right size for the inside of a pamphlet book, so...

A ghost print, if you're not familiar with the term, is the second print from any given monoprint plate. There isn't anything like the amount of paint left, hence the term 'ghost'. The texture of the second piece of paper, which holds the ghost print, is quite interesting.  I think, for once, I'll leave the white as it is, it works fairly well.  I don't have any more white at this size, which will make the book more interesting, I hope, though I will stick to pastel colours.  And because of the nature of a single signature pamphlet book, I will only add perhaps another two sheets, three at most.   There's a fair amount of work to be done before they are made into a book, though.  Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, there needs to be another monoprint made on the other side of the paper, because books are three dimensional (yeah, I know, I'm repeating myself...). And then the same with the other pages. Interestingly, fortunately and completely coincidentally, there's clear space on both sides of the print, allowing me to add words....hurrah... and that will have to be repeated throughout the book. 

So now, I need to work out how many pages, what the theme is (landscapes, I suspect, and possibly  Norfolk landscapes, more specifically), what the words are (I may already have a poem...but I think I have a different idea...so perhaps a new one).  And what the cover will be.  But it's a good start...and all because I didn't want to waste some paint.  See what I mean about ideas?  They're ten a penny.  All you have to do is pay attention.

Life's A Beach.

Well okay, these days, not so much.  But I decided to keep going with the piece from a couple of days ago, which made me think about the beach. A specific beach, in fact, the beach at Cramond.  When I was nine or ten, my mother was lent a flat right on the edge of the River Almond, and we spent the summer there.  My mother worked, so my sister and I were alone most of the week.  It was magical.  Actually, it was probably dangerous, my sister can only have been about six, and I had sole responsibility for her...but nothing untoward happened. 

Cramond is beautiful; I'm pretty sure that my love of beaches and the sea came from that summer.  So...this is a memory piece, and here's the memory :

endless summer

day on day the beach

sand between our toes

And here's the poem added to the piece, and some lutradur lace the colour of sand.

You know I don't like white... and this is just too stark.  Plus, I felt that the words were too dark, too stark a contrast against everything else. So, a little painting seemed to be in order.  First, I stamped some gold spirals into the centre of the 'sun', then dabbed three colours of metallic acrylic paint onto the background, giving this : 

Better?  Umm.  Different.  Possibly a bit cluttered, but it's too late to worry about it now.  And I'm still not happy.  So I stitched the words.  I'd been debating doing that ever since I added them, and finally succumbed.  It didn't take anything like as long as I thought it would, it adds a bit of texture and seems to somehow soften the overall effect of the writing, though the pen is still evident underneath. 

I've avoided writing on work for a very long time.  I started to learn calligraphy because I've been told so many times that my writing is abysmal.  It's a sort of cross between Russian and English handwriting, and not in a good way.  Finally, though, I decided that, like every other mark I make, it is authentic.  It's me.  And I do my best to be legible, on textile work at least.  Perfection is not required.  In fact, perfection is boring.  Hold that thought. 

And here's the finished piece.

The starfish was added for balance, and picks up some of the paler colours in the piece.  Am I happy now?  Meh.  It's not the best piece I've ever done, but I like the poem.  I'll put it away, now, and come back to it, see whether absence works its magic.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.  And if not, I'll throw it out...but I will keep the poem.

The Poppy Photo

For once, the image I'm talking about today wasn't taken by me.  I very rarely use other peoples' photographs, but this one is a definite exception to the rule, .  It was taken by my friend Margaret McLaren, and I'm sure you'll agree, it's very beautiful.  Margaret has kindly given her permission to share the image with you.

Margaret has caught the moment perfectly.  I saw this image first thing this morning on my FB feed, and felt the need to respond to it, other than just raving about it.  So I wrote this haiku :

Poppyland at rest

           bathed by the setting sun

crimson to fuchsia

I don't think the poem is anything like the beauty of the image, but that's okay.  What it does, though, is to remind me of the beauty of the image, and that's enough.  When I look at the image, I'm reminded of pictures of poppies that I have taken over the years, like this one, places where I have seen poppies, walks in the country, all sorts of memories triggered by this one image.

This isn't the first time I've written about poppies, either; there's a post here, and another haiku.

The haiku I wrote for the photograph, though, has its own allusions, for me, at least.  Mostly, it reflects Margaret's image...but the word Poppylands comes from my childhood.  I was in a choir, as a child, and we put on a show every year....and one year, I was the Princess of Poppyland.  It's an odd reference, really, doesn't sit with the image itself, but it is hugely personal, and has meaning for me, and nobody else.  And that's the thing about images; if we allow them to, we can find all sorts of allusions to all sorts of things, memories, ideas, dreams.  

I'm a visual artist, but I find that poetry and writing in general help me to access my visually creative side.  Writing is very direct; I'll often write about something I'm contemplating making work about, to explore it.  Mostly I'll write in haiku, short and disciplined; sometimes, though, I'll write text.  I tend not to tell stories, but rather to write descriptively, write down what I see and what it makes me think of.  That process usually produces several ideas.  Were I writing about Margaret's image, I'd be writing about a wide range of things.  The first thing that draws me in is the colours and the light; working in those colours would be an interesting thing to do...particularly in abstract.  There's the structure and balance of the image, which is remarkable in itself.  It could be used directly to produce a representational textile image, or printed off as is, and stitched into.  The shape of the tree, and the way it sits slightly off centre, the relationship it has with the position of the setting sun...all of these things could be explored.  And then there are the poppies themselves, so many of them, so beautiful, so fragile.  They memorialise the war dead of so many nations, and yet are full of life for their incredibly short existences.  

All of that, and far more, from one beautiful image.  People talk about creative blocks, but I have never been a great believer in them.  'Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working', Picasso said, and he was right.  One way of making sure you have more ideas than you can comfortably deal with, is to stop worrying about creative blocks, or the muse (who doesn't really exist, trust me), and to sit down with a photograph or other image, and really look at it.  Let it tell you stories, and write those stories down.  Those stories are really ideas: let them come, and allow yourself to explore them however you wish.  Better still, take your phone or camera out with you into the natural world, go for a walk and see what you can find...and then use the photographs you take as the basis for new work.  Or go to a public gallery, sit in front of a painting and really look at it.  Take notes.  You know you want to...have fun!

A Less Than Perfect Day

...and it's only 2pm.  First, we discovered the bath plug doesn't work.  It's the type that you press to close, and press again to open...except that it doesn't close properly.  This wouldn't be a big deal...except that having a bath takes a great deal of energy, and it took ten minutes to get enough water for a small child, much less me, making things worse than usual.  Then the gardener broke some bit of equipment or other, and will have to come back tomorrow, meaning I'll have to be up early, as Robin has an appointment. And then, to cap it all, while finishing off cutting one of the more complex lino pieces I'm making, the knife slipped and damaged the adjacent section.  Just Great.  Hours of work ruined.  Well, okay, I can paint over the relatively small area, once I've printed it, but that's really not the point. 

So I thought I'd play with some fabric, and ended up with this.

Piece of evolon, with elements of rust dyed silk and paper.  Small element of stitch, but really, I wanted the fabric to do the talking.  I'm tempted to now add some hand stitch, to emphasise the verticals, but it would need to be very fine variegated thread, possibly silk, and to be honest, I'm not sure the piece is worth it.  Did it make me feel better?  Not really; it took me three goes to upload this image, so I think I'll just go and sulk somewhere quiet, and drink my coffee.  Which I'll probably spill.  Sigh. Definitely One Of Those Days.

In A Bind.

Reader, I finally did it.  I bound the first of the ME pieces, described here.  I used the feather fabric I found, kindly donated by a friend among some scrap she gave me from her stash. 

The binding is far from perfect, and perhaps that's not surprising; it's probably the first time in over twenty years that I've chosen to bind a piece. I don't like binding, but this piece seemed to need it.  And, imperfections apart, I don't like the binding on here, either, but it does add another layer of meaning.  It speaks of limitation, which is the core issue of ME.  I've always thought that binding on an art quilt limits the eye.  By that, I mean that it stops any movement contained in the quilt, at the edge.  I like to encourage the eye, and the mind, to wonder about what's going on outside the edges; the binding stops it dead.  How does that meaning, that movement, continue?  Does it stop, or does it continue into infinity?  I'm not all that fond of mounts and frames, either, but I think they're better than binding.  This piece, though, didn't seem to want to be framed; it's too tactile for that. 

I've said that limitation is a key element of ME: let's continue that theme.  Robin brought in a postcard-sized piece of Lutradur he found in the car...no, I have no idea how it got there.  This is what I've done with it :

It is made from some bits that were lying on my side table, left over from previous projects, plus a starfish from my bead and bit collection.  I started by stitching on the blue hand dyed silk organza, and then added the strip of fabric.  At that point, I realised what I was making.  This is a postcard from another lifetime, my pre ME lifetime, when I could do what I wanted, when I wanted.  I love the beach, and for the first time in our married life (39 years this year) we live near the sea.  In particular, I love beach combing...but I can't do it any more.  I can't walk far enough, and the number of wheelchair accessible beaches are very, very minimal (you need a special wheelchair.  Turns out there are two in Scotland).  Either way, though, I don't see myself visiting the beach any more...so this is a postcard from my previous, beach combing existence.  It's very simple; the sea, the sand, the starfish.  It was photographed on top of my laptop, so that you could see it clearly, but I need to think carefully about what I'll put behind it.  I think this is probably the first piece in a series, and unlike the quilt, it will happily take to small frames, probably box frames....the ideal would be to make frames from driftwood. 

I feel the need to say that this is not about self pity; it is about making something meaningful out of a bad experience.  The ME is unlikely to just go away, so I need to find ways to live with it that are meaningful for me...and this is it.  I have been contemplating a blog specifically 'about' ME, but the jury's still out.  There are a lot of ME blogs around, some more useful than others, and I'm not sure that I'd be adding any value.  Mind you, there's a lot of art blogs around to, but that fact has never stopped me blogging...

I'm pretty sure I have some more postcard sized bits of lutradur around, so I dare say I'll be making some more of these.  I think perhaps the frame needs to have a luggage label attached, with a personal story.  Clearly the making of books, and their associated poems, are having an effect on the rest of my work.  We'll see.

Unexpected Changes, or Feline Intervention

I thought it was time I finished the stitch on Borderlines, so that was what I did this morning, until the birthday boy swept me off for breakfast (yummy pancakes and fresh fruit).

I'm quite pleased at the way this is turning out; only one fair sized section to go, and the stitch will be complete.  The nature of the piece has changed, somewhat. however, as I discovered when I picked it up to start stitching.  Part of the paper block on the left hand side of the quilt is no longer as it was when I started.  Here it is now...

Yup...it's frayed, distressed, nay, disintegrating in parts.  What can have done this?  Well, that's where the feline intervention comes in.  I have the habit of putting whatever I'm stitching behind me, on the back of the sofa.  Turns out Merlin has been sleeping on it.  I said early on that the paper was quite fragile, and here's the proof.  Some of it has just disappeared, although by and large, it's hanging on in there, thankfully.  Also thankfully, I like the result.  Just as well, really, as it would take an inordinate amount of work to replace it.  And fortunately, the books are too small to treat like this, so we won't be having a repeat performance, though if anyone wants an alternative method for distressing hand made paper, here it is, help yourself.  Just keep your fingers crossed that your cat doesn't attempt to shred it (Mollie probably would have).

Done And Dusted.

This morning, I finished off the maze book I showed you here, by writing and adding the poem. 

Unless you look closely, you may not see the difference.  Here's the book laid flat :

I didn't want to make it too easy to find the poem so the words are scattered over the pages in different places.  The poem reads:

stone trickle
spread wide
across the barren land.

I'm contemplating adding a couple of lines of stitch to hold the book in place, although it's doing better than I thought it would with standing upright.  Books made from paper have crisp folds; I've been trying to match that, but actually, it's foolish.  Textile books will never have that crisp effect; it's not possible with layers of fabric, and with the nature of fabric itself.  The folds are rounded, and that's okay. 

This was a genuine experimental piece, made to answer the question, 'is it possible?'.  Turns out it was.  Often, with experimental pieces, I find that they fit into one of my themes.  This is a landscape piece, certainly, possibly even an inner landscape piece, a theme I followed for a while in paint and mixed media.  I don't think I ever know for sure what I'm making, and what it's about, until it is finished, even when I start out with the intention of making something that fits into an existing series.  The work, and my unconscious, usually have plans of their own, and they don't always consult me about them.  I like it that way.  Ultimately, it's all about process....trust the process and you won't go wrong. 

Small Things And Coincidences.

often lead our minds to remember significant things, and by that, I mean things that are significant to us.  We have no garden in this new house; the garden space is under dispute, and we can't do anything with it until that is resolved.  There are no plants to admire, and I had not been aware of how much I rely on plants for inspiration.  Given that this is a new estate, there are no established gardens to enjoy, either, just a couple of cherry trees that have been planted either side of our house by the builders.  To my surprise, though, I found this leaf the other day.  I have no idea where it came from, blown in on the high winds we had last week, no doubt.

I find it beautiful.  A small thing, but it carries the memory of the plant it came from.  I'm not a gardener, so I have no idea what that might be, but it doesn't really matter.  It reminded me, though, of a poem I found while looking for something else (which is the way of these things, really).

The Vine Leaf
I know these lovely yellows and these greens,
These blues and all the moments in between;
Summer is full of them.  This, though, is the tipping point
Where green begins to turn to browns and golds, crimsons,
Aubergines, all the rich and fruitful tones of autumn. I find them
In a single leaf, a newly gifted vine, growing
Fair and unfettered in my Norfolk garden.  No grapes this year
(the plant is far too new); its tender leaves suffice
To capture this single brightly balanced moment
Between burgeoning and the slow slide into sleep.
For now it is enough, for both of us.

And when I read it, I remembered standing by that vine, admiring the colour of the leaves as they turned, taking photographs (I'm pretty sure I probably still have them somewhere), feeling that change in the weather that presages the shift to autumn.  Here's an image of the vine taken a couple of years later, in the early summer.

I'm not much of a poet, really: I'll never be published, certainly.  I don't write often enough, and I'm not terribly disciplined about it, either, as you need to be if you take it seriously, just like any other form of art.  And I've always thought of it as completely separate from the visual art...but this poem shows just how silly that is.  It is full of visual imagery.  In some ways, it is a better aide memoire than any photograph could be.  A photograph is a record of the way something looked in a particular moment; a good photograph suggests emotion.  This poem, though, contains a miniature universe of emotions, sights, smells, textures.  There's at least one textile book in there...perhaps an entire series.  All that, from a moment, a leaf and a handful of words.  Isn't that wonderful?

A-mazing Books

I managed to finish the stitching I was talking about here, before I took my machine for a much-needed service; here it is, complete with ironed-in folds.

It clearly takes creases well; my hope is that it will also be firm enough to stand under its own steam (as it were).  I want to make a book in the same way as I made the last one.  They're called 'maze books'; I found them in Shereen LaPlanz's classic book on book binding, 'Cover To Cover'.  I've made quite a few of them before; there's a variation of a maze book in my studio, made from hand made paper which has been painted with encaustic paints.  And here is the book, cut and folded :

And yes, it stands by itself.  Phew...given that I'd made the cut, and the creases, so it was irredeemably a book, though I could have turned it into a series of very small pieces, like a jigsaw...that would have been interesting too (hold that thought). This one has been made to stand in a different way to the one you saw yesterday, a bit of variety is a good thing, and somehow, this one is more mysterious than the other, and needs this structure to reflect that.  Now, though, I have to decide what else to do with it; it has a distinctly unfinished feel to it.  I think there's a need to add words, I'm just not sure what they are, though I think they will be snipped from book or newspaper text, small in size, one to a page.  Does it need more than that?  I don't think so.  It's interesting to look at it from different angles.  I said in the earlier post that I thought it would be more interesting like this, than as a flat piece of stitch, and I think that's the case.  I think it's a landscape piece... the words will reflect that...perhaps a poem, word by word, that reveals itself as you contemplate the piece.  Now, all I have to do is find the words.

Sometimes...

things just work out.  That book I showed you yesterday is now complete, though I had thought it would take a while to work out what to do with it.  I sat down to add some more stitch to the single line that was already there.  After  three lines on each side, I wondered if I did indeed want to continue to stitch that area, which was my original intention.  I was stitching in that colour to link the respective areas to the colours of the rust in the middle, 'secret' section.  It didn't seem to be right.  So what would?  This piece is about disintegration, and indirectly, about suicide and death.  What could I put in the four areas demarcated by the stitch, that would suggest disintegration?  Lutradur lace.

And as luck would have it (pure luck, definitely not judgement), I had a piece of lutradur already stitched, ready to be burned out.  For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about... here's the lutradur, complete with stitch.

And here it is after heating it with a heat gun....

Disintegration?  Hell, yes.

And then there's the poem.  Again, wanting to link the poem to the colours of the rust, I used a Posca marker pen in a light brown colour, on the reverse of a yellowish paper bag with grey stripes.  I had originally intended to use the front, but it just didn't seem to work, but the reverse was reasonable.  And I wrote a second poem for the reverse side ;

Consuming itself
through a change of condition;
a natural death.

So...here's what it looks like.

The white blobs have disappeared now; they were wet glue in the lace, which has now dried.  Overall, I'm pleased with the piece, and will make more books using this construction method.

Working Things Out.

I'm currently working on a book (surprise, surprise).  It's a folded book, made from a single piece of material, and it has a secret.  Here's an image.

The paper is quite highly textured; here's a close up...

Interesting, isn't it?  I'll be adding more stitch, I suspect, to the two side areas, more horizontal lines, probably.  I like the loose ends of the thread.  I remember submitting a quilt to Hever (I think it was),  many years ago.  I had deliberately not trimmed away excess thread in several specific areas, because it represented broken connections between people; apparently, I was told later, two women had stood in front of the quilt and loudly discussed it in critical terms, including the line 'these art quilters are so lazy, they can't even be bothered trimming the thread...'.  Sigh.  The thread ends here have no particular meaning; I just like that way it looks.  I know I could add beads (for instance), but that would give the whole thing way more significance than it actually has, or than I want it to have.  

So... can you see from the image, what the book's secret might be?  Here it is.

That central section opens out, and contains rust dyed silk.  In texture terms, it both complements and contrasts with the texture of the paper.  I like rust....but of course, it can't really be neutralised, and will continue to work on the fabric.  I have had some rust dyed fabric for over ten years, and see no deterioration in it, but it's not archival in the true sense of the word.  That doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I make to create meaning; sometimes that meaning is fleeting, and the use of rust dyed fabric is important in work that explores impermanence or uncertainty.

I've written a poem as part of this book.

Metal ourubos

Consuming its host

Til nothing remains

That, to me, is the nature of rust.  It consumes and consumes, until the host is gone, and nothing remains but dust.  The poem reflects the nature of the rust, and by extension, the nature of the piece.  It is made to self destruct; it's really only a matter of time.

The question I'm debating internally is what to do with the text.  Same poem on both sides?  Or write another poem on the same theme?  Or spread the words over both sides, and make the viewer piece the poem together?  Write them, stitch them or applique them?  Write them on a luggage label and attach it somewhere (I like that one)? The jury's out.  And it may stay out for quite a while.  It's unusual for me to have no idea how to progress, but here we are...so I'll put it aside and let my unconscious do its work.  

I think the issue I have is that the book is not for the poem, or the poem for the book; they have equal weight, with the fabric, in terms of expressing meaning.  I don't want the poem to dominate the materials, or vice versa.  It's a question of finding an appropriate balance, and that may take time.

Small Stuff.

'Don't Sweat The Small Stuff' was written by Richard Carlson, one of those annoying touchy-feely management books from the 1990s or thereabouts.  The sub-title was 'And It's All Small Stuff'; now there, he has a point, but not quite the point he was trying to make.  For an ME sufferer, it is indeed all small stuff.  Every task has to be broken down into its component parts, so that at least some of it can be achieved with the energy levels available at the time.  Today, technically, it was Tidying Up, mainly because I can't get the stuff done that I want to, without clearing some space.  You would think there would be a limit to the amount of mess I can make on a table top, wouldn't you?  Apparently not.  Particularly as the energy levels from previous activities had run out before the tidy up stage...so there was transfer dye to go back in the drawer, the papers I'd printed and painted to put away (well, okay, put on the floor...haven't worked out where to put them yet), the goodies that I'd been given, to go away...you're getting the drift, right?  This pine cone needed somewhere to live too.

When I began to run out of steam,about half way through clearing the table top,  I sat down and managed to encourage my Bernina to limp through the rest of the stitching on the piece I showed you yesterday.  It started playing up as I worked, yesterday, a problem with the tension that I couldn't resolve by the usual means, so it'll be off for a service.  It would already be there, but when we drove up to drop it off, the shop was shut, despite both FB and Google assuring us it was open...sigh.  And now...I need to rest.  I might manage to clear the rest of the table this afternoon...or not.  Tomorrow, as we all know, is another day.

PS.  I don't sweat anything...I haven't got the energy...

A Leap Of Faith.

Sometimes only stitch will do.  So much of my work is about responding to things, seeing something interesting, if only to me, and working with it, to see what can be made of it.  Way back, in the days when I was still dyeing to sell, I used a dye catcher in what I thought might be a final rinse, but proved to be otherwise.  The resultant dye catcher was interesting, so I kept it.  Then I paired it with some lutradur and forgot about it.  For some reason, it survived The Cull (probably because I still find it interesting).  So I decided to stitch into it, thinking that it might make an interesting book, if I could get it to fold well (the jury's still out on that one). 

The first image shows the cloth as it came out of the washing machine; if you look closely, you can see it has a sort of dappled construction, presumably to strengthen it to keep it intact through a wash cycle.  It also has a strange, almost greasy feel to it, not unlike a dryer sheet, but it is far more robust than that, and is slightly scented.  The second image is the reverse with the lutradur added; it immediately adds colour and visual interest. I decided to stitch in circles, respecting and supporting the blob-like way that the colour had transferred onto the cloth, and attempting to link the dark areas together. 

I then started to meander round the lighter, background areas with a matching thread (both threads used here are variegated, surprise surprise). 

You can just catch glimpses of the pale stitch in the first image; it's clearer in the detail shot that follows.  I still have a fair way to go with the pale, background stitching, but I've not been well enough to do it...perhaps today. 

Were I doing this as a flat piece of embroidery, I don't think it would be interesting enough, even with all the stitch in place.  I suspect it would be a rather ornate background for something else, perhaps an applique.  However, I want to turn this into something three dimensional.  When I do, the surface will change completely (duh...); lots of small units, juxtaposed one on the other.  I have no real way of knowing if that will be successful.  Maybe, maybe not. And I suspect I will add words, somewhere, somehow, probably printed on paper, cut out and stuck, a poem, probably, written for this book. 

Sometimes...actually, more often than not... making work in this way is a leap of faith.  I have to believe in my own ability to take something relatively unprepossessing, and turn it into something special, through the application of ideas and technique.  I have to believe that I will choose the right ideas, the right techniques for this particular piece.  And that I won't stop until the piece is resolved (well, okay, there will be rest breaks...it may take some time).  I may doubt myself (may?  probably will) as to the quality of the finished piece, but I rarely ever doubt myself during the process.  Process is just a series of choices, and I can make those choices, even in this situation, where the piece is a one off by dint of the way it came about, meaning that I can't just make another one.  And even if the book doesn't turn out the way I think it will, that will be okay, because I will have learned something, and can probably turn it into something else, instead, which will be more successful.  And at the end of the day, it's only fabric. An individual piece of fabric is much less important than process, and another interesting bit will be along in a minute.  It won't be the same (thankfully), but it will have potential...and that's really all I need.

World Textiles Day

Went up to Bridge of Allan for the World Textiles Day, Scotland.  I seem to remember going to such an event in Norfolk, not long after we moved down.  It was a civilised event, relaxed and friendly, not overly crowded, and that's pretty much what I was expecting today.  The world, however, has moved on, and I'm sure the traders involved are delighted.  Reader, it was a feeding frenzy.  We arrived fairly early, but the room was very busy, and people continued to pile in behind us.

There was a small exhibition, which looked quite interesting, but though we could get into the room, the combination of three or four people and lots of chairs, set up for the first of two lectures, meant that the wheelchair couldn't get down the side of the room without causing a major inconvenience for everyone else, so we left that one alone. It's a long time since I went to an event like this as a participant; I've worked FOQ and KSS, but working comes with its own little oasis of clear space.  I'd spoken to people in wheelchairs at events, and they told me how difficult it was.  This was my first event in a wheelchair, and they were very, very right.  Wheelchairs have a cloak of invisibility fitted in, I suspect, or maybe people were just so focused on the fabric, and each other, that they missed the small woman in the wheelchair.  Even waving fabric and money in the air wasn't a guarantee of attention at one stall; in the end, Robin took it from me, and that seemed to work.  I can see why so many people in wheelchairs get a serious chip on their shoulders.  People didn't notice us until they walked into the chair....and then they apologised profusely, but without making eye contact.  Okay, rant over.  You want to know about the fabric, right?  Well... I couldn't see all that much of it, couldn't get close enough.  Someone had some fabulous clothing, but if they were on or near the stall, they didn't make themselves known, so I have no idea who it was.  There was some indigo dyed fabric; not my thing, really, but nicely done and presented.

What did I buy?  (Yes, of course I did). 

Some fabric from Magie Relph at The African Fabric Shop, (the package at the top), and a couple of Javanese fabric selections from Textile Traders. The selection at the bottom of the image is wedding cloth, and glitters.; it's gorgeous.  And Sashiko needles from Susan Briscoe; her stall was so busy that all I managed to get were the needles; browsing was an impossibility.  Which was a pity, because she had a great selection, and I had hoped to get some.  Never mind.

So... won't be doing that again, methinks.  It was a frustrating and mildly upsetting experience. Nice fabric, though.

Getting It Wrong?

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that I'm not fond of the word 'wrong'.  I don't think it's got much of a place in art.  However, in terms of the mechanical doing of a particular process, wrong is possible.  And did I ever get this one wrong. 

You may remember that I said I'd brought boxes in from the garage...well, in one of them, I found a small lino block (and this one is actually made of lino, not soft cut, so dates before ME).  I actually ditched most of my lino blocks, not sure how this one survived, to be honest.  I thought it might be fun to print it on one of the books.  So... first I needed a background, because I didn't want plain white.  I have a fair number of ink blocks, the kind used for stamping, and one of those was in the same box.  It happened to be green, and I wondered if it would work on Lutradur.  The answer to that was, yes, it could.  I simply dragged the ink surface across the fabric, and it worked fairly well.  Bit unfortunate that the ink pad fell off, bending itself in two as it did so, but actually, it left some interesting marks, so that was okay. 

And then it all started to go to hell in a handcart.  I decided to transfer dye the lutradur, using the block I'd found.  Firstly, I found a couple of places on the block that should have been carved away. Takes too much energy to remove them, so I sucked it up like a good little princess.  One or two of the prints I made looked okay, though, so I left them to dry.  So far so good.  Ish.

Later, I went to iron on the transfers.  And there's where things went pear shaped.  I made every single mistake in the book, all the things that I advise students not to do....yes, them.  I didn't check the iron temperature, because I always have the iron at its hottest setting, right?  Wrong.  So when I transferred, I got something that looked like a ghost print, and managed to drop the paper when I checked it, so couldn't realign the print, and ended up with a smudged, double image.  I used one of the prints I wasn't happy with, the one with lots of odd bits and pieces that shouldn't be there, and no, I have no idea how they got there, either...but they're on the book now.  And then another double image.  Things were starting to get out of hand.  The back didn't go as planned, either, and I have no idea why. 

And yet... here's the book, ready for stitch.  (I know... at last, a book that's going to include stitch as a major design feature... finally...).  And I Rather Like It.

The front has a good balance to it.  Yes, there are flaws; click on the image, have a closer look, you'll see them.  What's important, though, is that they don't dominate the piece.  They don't scream, look at me, I'm a mistake...ha ha ha.  Adding stitch will take what little attention they get, away, I think.  I rather like the double images; think I might try that again, deliberately, see what I get... some other time.

The back is more densely coloured than I wanted, but that's not the end of the world.  Boring, you say?  Meh.  Not as boring as all that, reasonable variety of both tone and mark.  What will bring it alive, though, will be the free motion machine stitch, following the shape of the flowers.  And that's what this background was designed to contain, to support.  It's not that great on its own, but once the stitch is added, it will be the perfect counterpoint to the front.  And this is an excellent example of how I think fabric books need to be conceived, designed and worked. 

I couldn't work out why I'm not keen on fabric books as a genre.  As a book lover, it ought to be a no brainer...and yet... I think it's because the examples I've seen, seem to be random collections of stuff, sometimes with a theme, sometimes without, contained in a cover.  Imagine a story book created on that basis: I find it very difficult to do.  The story is the thing, in my books, the concept.  There always is one; it's just a question of finding and expressing it.

A Walk In The Park.

Well, okay, not a walk, exactly; I tootled about on my mobility scooter, but that doesn't have the same ring to it...  Someone told us that Grangemouth had a great play park, so we thought we'd check it out on Cara's behalf.  Zetland Park was apparently gifted to the people of Grangemouth by the Earl of Shetland in 1880.  A burn runs down one side, the park is long and thin, and the play park is indeed a good one, but I was more interested in the statuary. 

Parks aren't what they used to be.  Apparently this one has great rose gardens, but we didn't find them on this visit, though we did find begonias...eventually... I used to think of parks as having flowers and shrubs, as well as trees, but presumably cutbacks have taken that kind of thing to an absolute minimum.  I'm not that fond of begonias, but it was nice to see a touch of colour in an otherwise green landscape...

I don't normally do Victoriana, too fussy for me.  And I definitely don't do cherubs.  This fountain, though, I loved at first glance.

It has been neglected for a very long time, it's obvious from the state of the paintwork, and it's cracked, apparently ( I didn't notice, too taken by the cherubs). 

And it was the cherubs that held my attention.  They're definitely Scottish cherubs, with a hint of belligerence in all that piety...

Or perhaps it's 'I can't believe I'm doing this'.... who knows?  I thought they were beautiful. 

It was the lion that got me, though.  No, it's not a safari park.  The lion is atop the war memorial. which was designed by Sir John Burnet, architect to the Imperial /War Graves Commission, in 1923.  He made a great job of this one. 

We approached the lion from the back, and it was clear, even from here, that this is a lion that means business.  He's pouncing on 'the German eagle'...but I didn't pay the eagle much attention, to be honest, it's all about that lion.  Which, presumably, was the intention of the sculptor.  

Belligerence and pride, expressed in stone.  A beautiful thing.  

No work today, we were out for an hour and a half or so, and that has knocked me sideways.  There's always a cost to activity, and this is it.  If I'm lucky, I'll be able to do something tomorrow; if not, the blog will be back after that. 

Unexpected Results.

You saw Merlin making himself at home on top of this book, yesterday...it has progressed a bit since then, perhaps not as much as I would like, but nonetheless.

I realised while stitching, that this is another Purple Rain book.  There's enough of that pink paper to make a series.  This is hand made paper, and it felt stiff enough to allow it to stand up as an accordion, but not so stiff as to make it unpleasant to hand stitch.  So far, so good; all true.  What I didn't appreciate, though, was the effect of the stitch itself on the nature of the paper, or, more accurately, I suspect, the amount of handling the paper is getting in order to put that stitch in place.  The paper is going all floppy (to use that well known technical term).  When you put this amount of stitch into a quilt, it stiffens it; into a single layer of fabric, and it distorts it.  This is both distorting the paper and softening it.  It's actually reminiscent of working with Evolon, which also softens if you handle it a lot. 

I got a bit perturbed.  Here's the book, standing on its edge, to let you see how it is progressing.

I've positioned it very carefully, otherwise it looked rather like a drunk propped up against a low wall.  And I fretted about it, just a bit.  But then I remembered that this is a book; books don't routinely get propped up like this for display.   They're usually seen flat, opened and read, one page at a time.  So I stopped fretting and decided I liked the book as a book, rather than as a sculpture.  It'll be fine.

You can't see it in the image, but there's still a bit of a cat shaped indentation in that front page... I suspect it will be meeting an iron, or possibly a lot of heavy hard backed books, once I've finished the stitch.  The thread, incidentally, is hand dyed variegated silk thread with an uneven texture.  The purple strips are Khadi paper, which I'd bought to make a book with...didn't quite have this in mind, but it works.