"Hungry Baby"

Hungry Baby

11x12.5"

Fabric, beads, silk paper, ink

1 in 7 children in America today suffers from routine food insecurity -- Hunger.

Oh boy am I behind on this blog!

It's not for lack of work to show, either. More updates and photos coming soon!

a flurry of activity this week

Steaming bundles of garden material, silk and cotton wrapped around leaves and flowers...

Sun-dyed over the weekend...you can see dancing skeletons, and the basket-weave pattern of a patio chair...

India Flint's "hapa-zome" technique of pounding leaf and petal prints directly into cotton, with a wooden mallet...this afternoon, using geraniums, tomato leaves, and zinnia...the orange is rust-stain from a previous experiment.

It's my first try. Next time I'll compose a picture, perhaps. Or pound a blouse or one of the antique children's dresses I own.

More sun-dyes...a "diptych" this time...

It's difficult to say just where all this is heading. I'm getting more satisfaction out of the sun-dye prints, though I don't yet know their purpose, or whether they will all wind up part of the same series. I enjoy the "eco-printing" too though, and having finally hit on the techniques that work in my backyard (with the plants available), results are more sure. And rusting fabric is fun! Though it does require some patience, and some scavenging for interesting metal pieces. The pile of rusted, dyed and printed fabrics on my sewing table grows... Not everything is posted here, since I'm still sans camera.

work in progress...

Different from the "Galaxy" piece - Not much left to do besides shoot a better photo.

the beginnings of a "Galaxy"

something new

Time Flies. August 2011

4x6 inches, mixed media.

a project I'm working on - running a sunprinted and painted image through scanner and Photoshop to reprint on fabric for further needlework

Please respect copyright.

SAQA

"Interviewed" for a volunteer position today, as one of two co-representatives for the MN chapter of SAQA. Sounds like a go...

(Yes, SAQA also stands for South African Qualifications Authority. You've been warned.)

a dream

I dreamed last night that my parents lived in a large old apartment, one with wood floors and many rooms. With all their many antiques they lived, and my sister was there -- still in her teens -- and I was still single, young, though my artwork was in its present stage. I dreamed they had a huge room vacant, one that would easily accommodate all my projects -- large areas for laying out quilts, tables and chairs, lots of light and floor-space. I proposed to the folks that I might rent this room, for $200 a month, to use as a studio. They seemed skeptical...

I see studios for rent here and there, but it's always more money than I want to spend, and so far from the house that I know I'll never make it there -- because work time is squeezed in between my job and my homelife, as it will be until my son is several years older. I've thought about it a long time. My husband would not approve of the expenditure. And yet, now that I'm dreaming about it... I know it's something I truly desire. To have unlimited, un-remarked-upon studio space, where I can make a mess and dream and no one cares what I do. My husband hates my sewing room now, always a mess. I wish he wouldn't be so vocal about it.

sun-printing at Lake Mille Lacs

I packed my art supplies rather hurriedly last week, intending to do some more dyeing or ecoprinting while up at the lake. That didn't happen, possibly because I didn't feel like tromping through the woods in search of dye materials (though I did try dyeing with lake weed, which turned out to be very smelly and disappointing.) I remembered the Setacolor paints I'd packed, and on the bright hot afternoons, commenced with the sunprinting experiments using Setacolors and the raw silk pieces I'd brought with me for dyeing.

I may cut these into smaller shapes for further work, though the "BED" piece will remain intact as it has a direction of its own. That piece includes some stamping, results for which were only semi-successful (hard to get crisp transfer using the watercolor-like Setacolors and unsized fabric, but I'm still content with the results.) Another piece not seen, "FORGIVE", is already being embellished with stitch and will be shown when completed. In the later pieces I did several layers of overdying, adding interest to the positive image.

I also used the Setacolors for regular fabric painting, and started a small quilted piece with that silk which I am embroidering right now -- a Lake Mille Lacs sunset, in honor of our third annual stay at Sunset Bay.

more dye experiments

rich reddish brown using green walnuts

an assortment of marks ranging from brown to dark yellow-green using pods from a catalpa tree

why India Flint?

So I'm dyeing these bits of silk, and I assume it will yield improving results as I experiment more -- but I wonder what the purpose should be? As much as I love India Flint, I know there must be some observers who see only muddy clothes and yard-stains when they look at her work. That's unfair to her aesthetic, to her years of research, but I feel there must be some justification -- for my endeavor, this woman here in Minnesota (so far away from the eucalyptus of Australia). A rationale -- why should I go to the trouble of dyeing fabric with organic matter? Why should anyone care what it looks like when leaves mold on a piece of cotton? Flint buries her cloth in the compost heap and digs it up months later, to transform what must be a smelly rag into an amazing work of fabric art. Is that profound or just obscure? Is it too precious, too close to the trends of "green living?"
"India Flint is known for the development of the highly distinctive “ecoprint,” an ecologically sustainable plant-based printing process that evolved through combining Latvian dye traditions with Shibori-zome from Japan. She completed an MA researching eucalyptus dyes in 2001."  

I'm not a "biter" - not a person who is ordinarily susceptible to trendy ideas. But I loved the sight of those stained silk strips on the clothesline in my studio, and I totally fell for the look of Flint's "Landskins" when I first beheld their wholly organic, process-driven sensuality. I'm inspired by her, and everyone seems to love her latest how-to, EcoColour. 
If I mention onionskins in a dye class there are invariably a couple of people who will pipe up and tell me that they ‘did’ onionskins in the seventies and that they really weren’t all that exciting. I beg to differ. Onion skins are one of the most versatile sources of dye color yielding tones ranging through yellow, ochre, tan, burgundy, lime green, olive green and black depending on the water quality and the composition of the vessel used. Not bad for a humble papery substance casually discarded in the preparation of food. The traditional Latvian use of onion skins to color Easter eggs led me to the discovery of the ecoprint; a low impact ecologically sustainable dye method that imparts color to cloth by direct contact.
Terrific slideshow of her work here. It is gorgeous. And I am enthralled by the real-time, decaying, evolving nature of the work in all its impermanence. Is it rational? Is it important?
Click HERE for an interesting article in SDA's online forum about the world of natural dyes.  

carrot tops

Not that this picture near does it justice...But carrot tops used as a dye with a salt mordant in stainless steel = a delicate shade of green that is nevertheless distinct and evenly-toned.

first experiment in dyeing

Well. After something of a hiatus -- July was very busy with work, and I spent all last week divided between organizing a summer arts camp for kids K-6, and teaching said children how to machine sew -- and what with June having been so rich in terms of workshops and exhibitions (alas, so much I didn't see) -- I had a few hours today to experiment with natural dyes, India Flint style.

Mordant: Stainless steel pot, vinegar water. Taking my cues from Flint's "Eco Colour" I selected blossoms for dying/ecoprinting from the yard and garden that were relatively innocuous -- blue bachelors' buttons, violas, squash blossoms, tiger lily petals. Some fresh, some frozen in baggies as I collected them over the past few weeks. I added fine grounds of coffee and cardamon, and dried hibiscus. I used mainly fresh raw silk scarves purchased through Dharma Trading, in small sizes. I also used cotton and linen scraps, which didn't take dyes well and probably had some sizing or something in the fibers that retarded the process. But the silk was very sensitive to dyes.

I found in my first primitive experiment the following:
The squash blossoms did not release well, except when combined with hibiscus in larger quantities, and left in the bath at least two hours. Then the result was a delicate but pleasing wash of apricot hue.
Tiger lily blossoms stained reddish orange, though with fairly weak intensity.
Bachelors' Buttons release well, but have more effect in combination with onion skins and stems.
Purple onion skins and dark viola petals release well, and leave bluish-purple to reddish-purple markings.

I have not yet tried any greens, though an artist friend who took a full-week workshop with India Flint assures me that catalpa pods stain a lovely green -- and I can find those right at the end of my street.

I know I can have more fun with this. The trick is to be patient with the brewing, and I think to have greater quantities of blossoms.

trinity

workshop piece

untitled H

MQ Starts Tomorrow!

Workshops start today, but I have to teach this afternoon and so won't take part. Looking forward to the vendor fair tomorrow morning! And on Saturday, Tea & Ephemera with Judy Coates Perez!

Confluence

Well, I might have overpaid a little for the SDA Confluence convention - I loved my workshop, but the vendor fair was so-so and I wasn't able to get away from work as often as I'd hoped; so there wasn't the opportunity to enjoy exhibit tours and concurrent sessions. But I LOVED my workshop. There's still time to run around and see the many exhibits associated with the convention as well, and I will, if I can. But the major part of my investment in the convention was the conference fee, and in retrospect I probably could have put that money to better use. SDA allowed separate workshop registration, and day passes; if I have the opportunity again, locally, I'll be more careful.

My workshop was with Jennifer Reis, who offered a basic primer on embroidery stitches and different types of embellishment for cloth. She was funny, clear and direct, a good teacher and a tolerant one. Her heavily-embellished artworks were the basis for classroom technniques, and not far removed from the techniques I'm using -- but I taught myself, and needed to see someone with more expertise demonstrate proper methods.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the conference. Possibly a much bigger vendor fair -- no reason really to assume that, but maybe the effect would have been enhanced had there been exhibits I wanted to see under the same roof as the workshop. People (women really) who have been to conferences in the past told me that the traditional location in Kansas is a concentrated university campus, and all exhibits and activities are located close together. "Confluence" was based out of the Radisson University, at the U of MN's Minneapolis campus. The U is a dispersed campus: at least 50% of the land is located miles away in St. Paul, or across the river from the main campus on the East Bank. So there were shuttles and campus connector busses needed to get around, from my workshop (St. Paul) to the main site (Minneapolis), to the exhibits at participating galleries (West Bank and other venues in and around the downtown area.) Plus, the city decided at the last moment to start construction on the new rail line that runs right through the heart of campus -- closing a major thoroughfare. Consequently there were detours aplenty.

I scheduled too much activity at the office. I hope I can do better this week, once the MQ Show gets rolling. And, maybe, a bigger vendor fair to look forward to?

random updates

more from the japanese sketchbook - "pearls lie not"

another view

this has changed since the photo was taken - updates later. pieces were moved from page to page. 

Inside Out, Part 2

So after all the ranting over my disenfranchisement from the average interior, here's the kicker: I am in a position to have significant input into the interior design, furnishings and artistic commissions pertaining to a new worship space in the city. And I find this exciting!

The space itself is a renovated interior, and a damned complicated interior at that. It is an atrium constructed in the center of a mid-60's elementary school building. It has an off-center inverse-peak concrete ceiling, two lines of skylight windows set vertically above the roofline on the north and south sides, walls of  brick tile and concrete block, and a cement floor. It was for a long time subdivided for classroom space; we recently removed the interior walls and exposed quite a lot of added ductwork, sprinkler pipe and cabling. The acoustics are chaotic. The whole room is not two-storied; the central portion is, but about one-third of the square footage is actually beneath a one-story overhang.

The overall space is almost-symmetrical from every direction, but there is no perfect orientation. Since we will likely site the altar on the East wall, the asymmetry will only be noticeable if one looks up, given the off-center inverse roofline: picture an inverted triangle, one side slightly longer than the other, its peak pointing down at you. Its the Sword of Damocles, that roof! Though fortunately well above the casual sightline. We plan to suspend much of the lighting, which will be a trial for the installers but will "even out" the upper portion of the space in some degree. We may stick with hard flooring versus carpet, but will shim out the walls to soften the sound, soften the look, make space for wiring and audio, etc. We also plan to build simple walls and track lighting under the overhangs to create space for art to be shown there.

The design team is struggling a bit with the architect. Enough said about that.

Worship space. Suitable for varying congregations from four different faith backgrounds -- Lutheran, East-African Seventh Day Adventist, Hispanic Pentacostal, Black Charismatic. It's the Lutherans building the space, paying for it. We really do want everyone to be comfortable there, even inspired.

Sounds complicated, doesn't it?

Inside Out Part 1

Something I have known for a while -- years -- is again brought home to me: I don't engage with interior spaces. The vast majority of memorable places I have been, those I can recall, memories I cherish years later -- are outdoor places. Landscapes, parks, bridges, vacant lots, city streets, skyways (interior?), woodlands, etc. I don't easily visualize renovations to interior space -- paint changes, walls removed or added, windows widened, etc. I can't see these possibilities, with my mind's eye, or my body, the way I can see a woven wall-hanging in an atrium or a font in the sanctuary. I don't love interiors. I can admire them, and prefer some furnishings over others -- but the real aspects of interior are largely abstract to me, and I see this in my workplace now that I'm involved with the efforts of both architects and landscape engineers.

To be randomly specific -- I hate chairs. I have chronic pain in my lower back, and all chairs are of the devil. I sit in front of the computer typing, a large portion of each day, and this is likewise of the devil. All chairs are crap.

Work surfaces are crap. Though I like high tables, like library tables, and chairs (stools) that match. Someplace to put my feet. A clean surface to work on. Large. Everything else is crap.

Lamps are crap. Fluorescent lights in particular.

Give me natural light, big wide spaces with stone-like boundaries and comfortably natural textures. Give me the feeling that I am outside -- not with the bugs or the bright hot sun, necessarily, but outside and free to fly.

Give me a bike I can ride.

Martha Graham and the "Blessed Unrest"

No Artist Is Pleased"That seems like the kind of thoughts that lead to heavy drinking and permanent despair. Or maybe it’s just a matter of how you look at things. I read “No artist is pleased” and I start thinking words like failure, discouraged, dismayed. But I’m not sure that’s what Graham meant; or, maybe more important, I’m not sure that’s the way we should take it. We don’t live in a black-and-white world: saying you aren’t happy doesn’t logically mean that you are sad. There are many, many, many emotions on the spectrum to get a person from one end to the other. Graham goes on to call this a “blessed unrest.” -- a reporting from the Missouri Review.

Should I call it "Pearl-diver" ? Mixed media; fabric, Pitt pens, found objects. 10 inches by 8.

more on tsunami series

Those images (and several previous unrelated images) are part of a Moleskine accordion-style blank book, with a double-page spread of about 10 inches by 8. A terrific paper, very workable, takes a beating. This series of pages is mixed media, including Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens, Pentel oil pastels, graphite, matte and gel medium, and found objects including window screen, duct tape, rust, fabric etc.

As I've said, there is something terrible and lovely in the images of flood-wrack, though the loss of life and lifestyle, home and security, is profoundly sad. The human experience of flood is nothing to envy, but the images are breathtaking, as we've seen in hundreds of YouTube videos and still photos. It's the archeology of ruin, the terminal moraine, what's left after the current passes over the landscape, that interests me visually. I realize some people can't bear to look at the real destruction; these are obviously abstracted impressions. Time tells the story.

tsunami 2

tsunami 1

going somewhere?

union suit me

More fooling around in the sketchbook. "Let Munsingware Union Suit You." Ah, the "union suit" - so many connotations. The advertising image of discreet yet tantalizing female forms takes advantage of that old catch-22, the purity/sensuality dichotomy, woman as virgin/mother/whore. The ad is of course for underwear, and it's a lovely drawing in early-twentieth century style.

As I get older I've come to appreciate anew the weight and density of these cultural "screens", layers through which women are seen and judged. The dichotomy and contradiction, of course, as well as the underwear. And while I've become more interested in and attracted to some of the garments associated with the female archetypes (aprons on the one hand, garters on the other), I fully realize the tendency of society to desire the symbolic female form over the complexity of the internal woman.

That said, I'm not a neo-feminist. I live in relationship with others. When I want to, I can use the language of a woman's body to my advantage, and I do so often. My body has never conformed to a contemporary notion of beauty, though I get close enough. I'm too tall, my hips are too wide, my thighs are too big, and until recently my hair was too short. Growing my hair long has catapulted me into a whole new realm of desirability, as has losing 25 pounds. I don't mind. It helps me feel better about myself -- versus swimming upstream. I've become a Christian too, and I doubt very much that God cares how much I weigh.To the point though, if people occasionally do what I want them to because my looks persuade them, so be it. I won't complain.

I've known men who wanted androgyny in a woman, but these guys are mostly closet bisexuals and underdeveloped college students reinventing the virgin for the 21st century (or rather, believing they have, though the flat-chested gamine took her place in the Western gallery of desirability long ago; and even androgyny has gone by the fashion wayside now.) Having very short hair never made me a prepubescent runway waif. I looked like a woman already in the 8th grade.

But I struggle still with that notion of purity, of goodness. More on this later. 

Updates: March 2011

- I'll be one of two Jurors for an annual exhibit of local artists at Crossview Lutheran Church in Edina. This is in conjunction with a CIVA show there, "Picturing the Parables."
- Gave a short lecture yesterday on the Arts in Worship, at Northeast Community Lutheran. Link coming (maybe) and perhaps a few images.

Haven't been sewing much lately, and in a stubborn turn of events the creative mind refused to generate any worthwhile interpretations of the "watershed" theme (entry deadline tomorrow), instead preferring to collage in one of the sketchbooks. See below.

 Both have in common some birds, and some empty space. A place where something could have been said, but wasn't. Behind the pink square; inside the muslin pouch. Substitute images there -- empty nest. Emptiness.

But an approach to something too, my continuing obsession with found objects and dead things, detritus. Picked up or observed on walks. My private life at street-level.

rain quilting

I'm watching a video over on Stephanie Forsyth's Fiber Nation, in which she demonstrates free-motion stippling; and I immediately notice, since the volume is up, that the sewing machine makes a very comforting noise -- like rain falling, a sound we go without for months and months in MN. No wonder my son used to love being in the sewing room while I worked -- it's probably the warmest room in the house, and small, and that sound.... The "white noise" effect, so calming when is just a nice steady straight stitch.

drat

Four projects on the table all of a sudden...stalled out on the bed quilt for the moment...a deadline of This Saturday, another at the end of the month...and the journal blocks a bust too...my mind bouncing around and the past three days, not much to show except YET ANOTHER new journal (Japanese book Moleskine, mmm) and a sketch for one of the works in progress... I drive myself nuts, I really do. Drat.

happening

The bed quilt is coming along very slowly. Partly because I just do bits of it at a time. And in the meantime, I'm doing something else (see above, and below). But, I'm trying to keep it small, that something else. Some-things... 

No orientation decided upon yet for these... bottom is a detail of the upper image. Transfer medium, still drying to the consistency of flexible plastic, and paper/inkjet on something linen-y... 

 

awesome link

Able Embroiderers at HandEye Magazine

making progress

I spent yesterday afternoon limbering up my professional muscles, getting in shape for a year of conferences and connections. A continuation of last year's resolution to make more of an effort -- while I still have no strong desire to sell work, I need more incentives to show -- and to learn, to meet people, to give time to the art practice rather than always setting this important part of my life on the back burner. So, I joined the Textile Center of MN; renewed my SAQA membership; joined Minnesota Quilters; and dropped a sorry amount of money on my credit card registering for the Surface Design Association conference here in Minneapolis in June. But I'm so excited to attend! Too bad it's five months away...

It's important to make this commitment now; my work year will be quite complicated again, and there's a chance renovations on the Center will begin in June. They can do without me for a week or so. But if I don't make the commitment -- a financial commitment -- to progress in my other career, I know it won't happen. So I'm getting it done. I'm proud of myself. Given my "temporary" pay-cut at work (we all took one), it gives my self-esteem a boost to invest in this part of my life. Credit card balance or no. Just don't tell my husband what these conferences cost...

We all have to balance our own needs with the expectations of others. Meanwhile, I want to see myself playing more of a part with my professional associations. And therein lays joy. You have to give yourself the gift of time, my advisory pals assure me, and it's true. As someone who has spent most of her adult life promoting other people's artwork, rather than making her own, it's a shift in thinking. But it's not too late! And, in truth, most of the women artists I know don't reach mid-career until well into their fifties, or later -- because they've raised families, taken other responsibilities, in their younger years. I have the average sense of entitlement for a Midwestern woman my age. My spouse, on the other hand, has a well-developed sense of entitlement that has served him beneficially throughout his career. I always used to hate the saying, "Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed." I understood the meaning of it, and now that I have the Biblical backdrop I understand the context -- the meek do indeed deserve to inherit the earth. But by expecting nothing in our earthly lives, we're most likely to get just that. Balance....

So I keep going forward. It's not so difficult.

meant to post this a week ago

Another journal square.

Commercial batik, silk flowers, beads, thread, ink.