More Dye?

Surely not, I hear you holler. But I thought you might like to see What Marion Did with a piece she was given. My friend Helen Howes made this piece, but wasn't happy with it when she had finished it. So, knowing I like to play with such pieces, she passed it along.

What I usually do with pieces like this is to paint and stitch them. This one, however, seemed to want to be dyed, so dye it was. I think the next stage will be to add some fibres, and some more stitch. This is an interesting piece for me, I rarely ever use geometric patterns, and had wondered what it would be like to work with such things...but the wondering hadn't actually extended to *making* them! So this is a good way of stretching my comfort zone.

The other stretch of said zone was a return to encaustics. I had forgotten what a flexible medium it is (no pun intended!). Collage and image transfer are both quick and simple, and the paint has a wonderful translucency, combined with glorious textural possibilities. I paint in oils specifically for that textural effect...but it is much quicker with wax, it dries in seconds...so painting alla prima becomes a real possibility.

Dye Day

Today, finally, it's Dye Day. The dyes have been waving from the utility room, saying, mememe, use me now...so I did. I now have sundry buckets and bowls filled with dye and cloth, instead of the jugs of dye pictured here. As you can see, there's Not Much Room...and no sink. Dyeing without a sink is not easy. But it is possible.

And, of course, nothing in this house is ever simple.
I like dyeing...but increasingly, I find I want to make cloth With Marks On. That, of course, means resists...and I've got a new toy, ostensibly for my encaustic painting, a special palette that allows me to melt wax on it, at the right temperature, without fuss. So I played with that, today. Not entirely convinced that I got it Right...but then, getting it right isn't quite what this is about, is it?

Only problem is, now I've set up the encaustics stuff, I want to go play with that, now. So after lunch, that's what I'll do, methinks. Premixed encaustic paints are lovely things, and very quick to work with, almost too quick, sometimes. Still, if you don't like the end result, you can always melt it off and start again! So I'm off to do some prep work before lunch, sticking some watercolour paper onto hardboard as a base for the encaustics. I haven't done this in a while, and I find myself really quite excited about it. As Robin is away overnight, I can play for as long as I like without having to think about things like meals, and being sociable (arguably I don't do the latter anyway!)

Hope you have fun today, too.

Going With The Flow

Sometimes you look at what you do and think...MmmmmmMMMMMMMMMM. Other times, you look and think, Sigh. Today was one of the latter. This is one of the postcards I made at the playday. It's a definite...sigh... though it was interesting to do. I work small, as a matter of course, but I hadn't considered working quite as small as this before. And might get smaller still.

The good bit about it was playing once again with some fibres, couching on the machine, in this case, onto my handdyed linen. I have a coat made from this linen, which I'm fond of, it's hardwearing but light, a great summer coat, lined with some sari silk that someone gave me. I keep meaning to make a bag to match, but somehow never quite manage it. It's not as if I'm ever that well put together, sartorial elegance wise!

Today seems to be a quiet day, a day for finishing off things, for looking out things and possibly even photographing them...and generally poddling around. I think we all need those types of days. The downside to the gallavanting I've been doing recently, is that I pay the price in sheer exhaustion. I used to try to work through that, but I've learned that it's better to go with the flow, rest when I need to rest, work when I can. And that is not to be confused with working when I feel like it, as described in an earlier post. I can always manage to feel like it...just can't always manage to be able to actually do it!

Going Out

For many years after 'the breakdown from hell', I found it difficult to leave the house. These days, I can manage it, much of the time. Which is why yesterday, I went to play at Helen's studio, and why today, I found myself in Norwich.

I love Norwich. As a city, it is beautiful, bright and full of a positive energy, with beautiful old buildings and a plethora of churches. Good shopping, too, and lots of good places to eat. So, I went to spend my Christmas book token, and, as usual, spent rather more than I was given...well, it's a tradition. Robin would be disappointed if I didn't, and who am I to change the habits of a lifetime! I got excited when I saw a book entitled 'The New Textiles', but that waned when I realised that every picture was in black and white. Perhaps there was a good reason for this...but I didn't hang onto it long enough to find out. Instead, I bought a book on naked raku (fortunately, given the climate, this does not involve stripping off...), one on modern art, and a couple of novels. And then had lunch with a new friend, in a new cafe/bar, well, new to me, anyway. Lovely food.

I used to see the not going out thing as a problem. To a degree, it still is, inasmuch as I get very tired when I do it. But really, I'm not so sure. Lots of stuff to make...so little time... why would I want to be out when I could be dyeing, painting, sewing, reading...the list is endless.
Sometimes, all you have to do to change your life is to change your perceptions.

Meanwhile, just to show that I'm not entirely prejudiced against yellow, the painting above is called Ask Another.

Avoidance

I was out at a 'playday' today at a friend's studio. She has this huge space, great facilities, I'm quite jealous... or I would be if she wasn't so good at sharing it. We did a variety of things...starting off with making fabric postcards.

Now, I have been avoiding fabric postcards like the plague. No, no, no, I don't want to do that, I would mutter...but when someone gives you the wherewithal to do such a thing under your own nose, it's churlish to say no, right? So I made, not one, but two, playing with some of the yarns I have bought over the...emmm...years, now that I've worked out that I can couch them with a boring old free motion foot. It was FUN.

I have to wonder what other wonders I've been avoiding because I edit what I want to do and what I don't. I did that with dolls, resisted them for years. I did the same with painting. I have to say that that lasted a lot longer...nearly twenty years...and I only learned how to paint and draw because my son dragged me kicking and screaming to my first class. Now, I don't know how I lived so long without painting in my life.

What are you avoiding today, then? Oh go on, try it...you KNOW you want to!! Just think...you might even like it!

Dye, Dye, Dye.

So there I am, in the utility room, dyeing away. Why is it when you're up to your arms in coloured water, gloves and mask on, someone always either comes to the door or phones? Or both. Usually to offer you cheaper insurance, or a bank loan... sigh. As was the case today.

I didn't have all that much time to dye today, just as well that the made up dyes can go in the fridge and wait for Saturday. I found myself dyeing oranges and reds, having made some turquoise cloth the day before (which worked out quite nicely, as it happens, or it seems to have done, so far; some of it is in the queue for overdyeing. Reds and oranges, particularly yellows, are not my favourite colours. Well, red and yellow aren't. I use them, but I find them difficult to work with. Orange, though, I find to be energising, but not overly so. Yellow, though, seems hard and harsh to me...yet today, I find myself making up more yellow, planning to make some single coloured cloth.

I went through a phase of reading quite a bit about colour healing, the idea that colour can help us to face all sorts of different problems, physical and mental. And there are examples of that working, for instance, in Edinburgh, the police experimented with holding cells painted pale pink and pale blue. They became rather popular with the 'regular' inmates, apparently...oh, just take me to the pink cell, I'll be all right then... Personally, I admire houses with bold colour schemes, but wouldn't want to live in them. Light is really important to me, and I want it to reflect off the walls, rather than be soaked into them. Yet I work with dramatic colours, all the time.

But I do wonder about that yellow...why do I want to work with yellow???

No Man Is An Island. Still in process (see below for more detail)

Just When I Thought...

I was over the distractions of yesterday, I went to visit Val's site, and lo, I was led astray by the beautiful colours of her handdyes. So today, I thought, I'll dye (note the spelling...especially important for a depressed person... or anyone who has been described as 'dyeing in the utility room', by a child, to an unknown person over the phone...). No. Today, I dyed a wee bit. I did the teeniest bit of shibori, with clamps. I mixed a lot of dyes...not as much as when I used to dye to sell, but enough to confuse me. Did a bit of scrim, in sea colours. But mostly, I just enjoyed the colours. Tomorrow will be my dyeing day, as it were. Although the way things are going this week, who knows !!

Today, however, I did some work on the piece I started yesterday, vaguely patting the photocopies of the day before on the way past. As promised, the photo above is of the piece, which now has its top layer of lutradur, with additional stitching. I intend to try adding some more couched thread around the edges of the central motif, and then we'll see.

The piece for some reason makes me think of the poet John Donne, and his wise words:

"No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; ... any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
—from "Meditation XVII" of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

So, I intend to add them to the piece, or some of them.

Am I involved in mankinde? I don't go out much, don't know many people here, though that is changing as time passes. But the magic of the internet lets me talk to you about me and my work, wherever you are in the ever shrinking world. Visitors leave (much valued) comments, for which I'm grateful. And so, often without meeting, our lives brush each other gently. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.

Distractions...

Right, I thought. Let's go play with those photocopies. Upstairs I went, took some extra copies, making sure I put aside a set to use as originals. Then further up, to the cloth studio, where...I got distracted.

Well, the first distraction was, I suppose, at least related to the photocopies! While thinking rootlike thoughts (and waiting for something or other to happen, I forget what), I drew a design of sorts onto paper with transfer crayons. So I thought I'd 'warm up', literally and metaphorically, by ironing the design onto some lutradur. So far so good.

Then I thought, well, a bit of stitching might be nice...so I looked at a piece that was on the board already. It seemed to lack A Little Something. The Something it Lacked, apparently, was some yarn couched on to the base (photos to follow). My friend and ace quilter SallyBramald has been doing some lovely work using a new couching foot for her Bernina that allows you to do free motion couching. I don't have the technology (my Bernina is ageing and wonderful, but has the wrong shank altogether), but I wondered if I could emulate her...the answer being, no!! But given that the pattern isn't structured, it's easy enough to forgive myself. Photos to follow, when I've added the lutradur. Or possibly even before!

As for the photocopies, well, there's always tomorrow...or even this evening...no, tomorrow sounds fine. Now to go switch the iron off.

ps the painting is called Norfolk Garden.

Four copies...different in texture, in feel, just about everything...and yet, somehow, the same.

The root painting. I always thought it looked as if they had all got up and gone for a walk through the forest...whimsical? Probably!

Roots Too or Why Thinking Is Not Always Enough

Well, talking about roots yesterday made me think a bit... and remember that I'd made a painting with root like shapes. It's a very early painting, I've only been making paintings for around four years. I thought it might be interesting to take some of those shapes and work with them to make a screen for my Print Gocco, which is sadly underused. So, I took it upstairs and photocopied different parts of it. Interesting stuff... I've taken a couple of pictures, and will share them if I *ever* find the cd I burned them onto (don't ask...I had it a couple of hours ago...). I thought, since I was up there, I would also photocopy a drawing, and elements of a couple of other paintings that I'd like to use in this way. So I played with the copier, made the images smaller, generally had a good time.

Funny, you know, this photocopying and looking in black and white is recommended in lots of different books. I've always nodded sagely and thought, mmm, good idea... understood the concept, but never used it. Now that I have used it, though, I can REALLY see why people recommend it. What's more, I can see a number of ways of using it that I haven't read about...though doubtless, they too are not original.

I'm a natural thinker. I learn by puzzling at things, understanding them theoretically. Always have. I forget that sometimes, thinking isn't enough. You have to DO things, to see their real value. So...enough writing, I'm off to DO something!

Roots

My husband hates going out on walks with me and my camera. He likes the walk, you understand...it's the photography he can't stand. He'll think, it has gone very quiet...only to realise that I'm waaaaaaaay behind him, still taking photos of the tree that he glanced at in passing...or worse, kneeling on the ground taking pictures of its exposed roots.

Roots are beautiful things...I think a lot of my drawing is affected by their sinuous wonder. They look deceptively frail, peeping up out of the pathway, but they spread out and hold great, old trees in their place in the earth. I seem to spend a lot of time poking about at the bottom of trees, looking for treasure, taking pictures. And eventually, those pictures turn into textiles or paintings; an organic process, just like tree leaves mulching into the earth to feed the tree. It would seem that my process, like my life, is rooted in nature.

More lovely Norfolk flint.

Location, Location, Location

When we moved from the North of Scotland to Norfolk, about eighteen months ago, the general consensus was that we would 'find it very different'. After all, people said, it's flat. And that is not something that could be said about the village we lived in in the Highlands, which was built either side of steep hills. Here, what they call a hill, we tend to think of as an incline. But that actually doesn't matter a bit.

In Scotland, the landscape is dominated by the mountains, it is true. They have a fierce beauty, standing tall, proud and changing little from year to year. They are a reminder to us of our own impermanance, of how small and insignificant we are by comparison. Here in Norfolk, it is the sky that is huge, and the land, which spreads out as far as the eye can see, disrupted only by a stand of trees here, or a church spire or two there. And that huge sky has an equal beauty to those hills, and serves as a similar reminder. If you will, Scotland has vertical scenery; Norfolk, horizontal.

When asked, but surely you miss the mountains?, the answer is, usually, not really. I love the light and the openness of the Norfolk landscape. It encourages me to be open with myself and others, to take risks with my self and my art that I might not otherwise take. The hills can be claustrophobic, encourage you to be secretive with things, about things. Dark.

The buildings are different, too, the vernacular architecture using flint to embellish its buildings. See the picture for an idea of what the flint looks like, each piece a tiny painting by itself. Truly, there is inspiration wherever you look in this lovely place, and for that, I am profoundly grateful.

Inspired?

I had a wonderful day out, yesterday, with fellow quilters and partners in crime Helen Howes and Heather Hasthorpe (and one of these days, I'll change my name by deed poll to Hermione Heaven, just to fit the pattern!!). We laughed a lot, ate a lot, and threw out an incredible amount of fabric. This had been donated for use with young quilters, had been sitting around for a long time in a garage, and was feeling very sorry for itself. It made me wheeze, made Heather's eyes run, and made Helen sneeze. So the young quilters will get some nice new fabric from our respective stashes, and All Will Be Well With The World.

I thought I'd paint, today. I had a couple of prepped canvasses just waiting upstairs, so off I went. And found myself surprised. Generally speaking, I paint in a very unstructured style...just like the illustration, Emerging. Or at least, it looks unstructured; it doesn't feel that way to me. I found myself painting something which is quite unlike that. And then realised what it was. Helen had shown us a quilt that she wasn't satisfied with...I had liked a particular part of it, which had lovely, simple curving quilted lines. And here were these lines, appearing on my canvas this morning.

Thanks, Helen.

Where is your inspiration coming from today?

My Magnificent Obsession

Well, okay. I have a number of magnificent obsessions. But the one I'm referring to here is the book one. I used to be known at work as 'the woman who has a book on everything'. This was, I have to say, a bit of an exaggeration, but nine times out of ten, I would be able to say, yeah, I've got something about that...and the tenth time, usually my son had something suitable (hi, Andrew). I'm known both within and outwith the family for being unable to pass a bookshop, and, once in, being unable to exit without buying at least one book.

So, when I ended up in Borders before Christmas, ostensibly shopping for presents, it was inevitable that I would buy one for myself. A little pre gift...hell, a girl has to practice her gratitude!! The book I bought was 'Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists'. I have to confess, I bought it for the pictures. Lovely pictures, at least one illustration on almost every page, a lovely, glossy reference book. I like it particularly because it shows how different artists approach their sketchbooks, with plenty of examples. I have to confess, though, that I haven't actually got round to reading the whole thing. And I may never do so.

I've been sewing for a loooong time...longer than I care to admit. When I buy an art book, these days, it seems to be for the pictures, rather than the text. I've been making up technique for so long, now, that it seems silly to worry about how something is done... I just want to admire good work, let it percolate through my own thinking, and eventually come out with something that I can probably trace, indirectly, to looking at the pictures.

And I tend to read them back to front. And quite often just dip into them, when I have a moment, just to look at an image or two, over a cup of coffee. It's a good way to rest, takes the mind of whatever that particular problem was that you took a break to get away from!

But I digress. The sketchbooks in this new book are beautiful, and hugely relevant to textile artists, as you might expect from the title. You have already seen a couple of pages of my sketchbook. My sketchbooks get carried around and drawn in at spare moments. Written in, too. Notes from an exhibit, or made in front of a particular painting, muddle in with a sketch here, a snippet of cloth there, a leaf or feather or something picked up from the ground tucked in the back. Compared to the multicoloured offerings in the book, mine look like everyday clothes, compared with someone else's Sunday Best. Know what? I don't care. It's my process. I can do what I want. And believe me, I do!

It's amazing...

...what you can achieve when you don't feel like it.

I had a friend who used to constantly wonder out loud how I got all the stuff done that I did. And I suppose I do make a lot of art...most of it small in size, but that in itself doesn't necessarily mean I haven't taken time and care over it. When I asked her why she didn't make more herself, she would say, oh, I have to feel like it. Apparently, she very rarely did.

The reasons people give for not doing what they want to do are many and varied. Oh, well, I had to do this, that or the next thing. Oh, well, I don't have the right (whatever it is...). Oh, well, I wasn't feeling too great. Oh, well... whatever... It's funny how we never manage to do the opposite, to look at what we have, enthuse about it wholeheartedly and set to work (possibly whistling hiho, hiho...).

I'm having a hard time at the moment. The demon depression is back with a vengeance. And whilst I rarely associate my art with my illness, since I'd hate to be accused of making therapy, rather than art, I have to admit, it would be a good excuse for not working. Instead, I'm doing what I know has to be done, what I'd normally choose to do. I go in to the studio, I pat a bit of cloth, here, paint a bit of paper there...and before you know it, I have managed to get through three or four hours without weeping into my coffee, bemoaning my fate or otherwise moping.

Amazing, how easy it is to feel like it...

Collaborative Work.

For an introvert, I seem to be collaborating quite a bit with other artists, recently. A couple of the pieces I've made with June Underwood have featured on her blog. Today, the pictures on here are of a piece I've been working on with Thelma Smith.

It didn't start out, for me, as a collaborative piece. I made a top with the working title of 'Vanishing Point', which I thought was altogether too structured for me...so it lay around. Thelma had seen a photo of it, and liked it, so I sent it to her with a parcel of other bits and pieces. I didn't expect it to come back again, the top changed, sandwiched up and part quilted! I have to confess that I looked at it and thought, what am I going to do with that? So I added some paint and some stitch, and didn't feel any better about it, and put it away.

Over the last week, though, I've been working on it again. It is still sans title; poor Thelma doesn't even know that I'm writing about it here, and she will have to decide whether she might want it back to add to. You like surprises, don't you, Thelma??? It is pictured here. What was a pale coloured top with a dramatic black streak added to it, with some paint added, has become something different. I'm still not sure that it's finished, I think it might want to be foiled...or Thelma may have other ideas. As always, though, it didn't turn out the way I expected it to.

I like working collaboratively. It makes me take a step back from the piece I'm working on, and really look at what is going on in it, before I add anything. I think, when you work on a piece day in, day out over a specific period, you get too close to it. Sending it off for someone else to work on it is certainly a leap of faith; but it also encourages you to step outside of your comfort zone, gives you time to think, and to make design and other decisions in response to what's going on in the piece itself, rather than what is going on in your head at any one time on any one day. Myself, I think it slows me down, and I think that's a good thing.

I wonder who else is out there working collaboratively? Anyone? It would be good to hear a bit about your experiences.

The Art of Language...

or should that be, the language of art. Either way, I find myself thinking along those lines today. It's interesting how textile artists, and perhaps all visual arts, borrow the language of writing. For instance, we talk about a 'stitch vocabulary', equating our stitches with words. Yet, for me, stitch is quite different to word. Words come with meanings pre attached...a chair is, well, a chair. A stitch is, well, a stitch...regardless of its form. I might associate cross stitch with tedium, for example (and I'm afraid I do, with apologies to anyone offended by this), but it is a personal association, not one that is likely to be shared by a cross stitch enthusiast, for instance, or someone who knows nothing about needlework in its various forms.

So what would be a good collective name for stitches? A collection? Boring. Compendium? Ditto. Needleful? Ummm. Doesn't do it for me. Sampler? Historically quite good...but perhaps its literal meaning is too strong for us to talk about a sampler of stitches. Sampling, maybe? What do you think?

My friend Helen Howes very kindly pointed out, incidentally, that a picture made of letters is called a logogram. I might have known that the work in my sketchbook I showed you wasn't original...except to me! 'There is nothing new under the sun' (except maybe lutradur!); no matter how inventive you think you've been, someone has usually already been there, done that. Isn't that wonderful...I can stop trying to be innovative, and instead concentrate on being myself. Unique. Just like you.