Finally finished! It’s a larger piece than usual for me but I really loved the process of working on this (not always the case!). The creating flowed and the niggling voice of self doubt stayed quiet.
I’m digging through my stash, rediscovering some buried pieces of lovely silk I dyed and putting together a group of little creations. These 10″ x 10″ pieces will be mounted onto 12″ square black gallery wrapped canvas. I’m hoping to create at least eight and they all will be available at the upcoming Brattleboro West Arts annual first weekend of December show.More on that later!
Working at such a small scale gives me space to play with new ideas. Like did you know that embroidery thread can be curled on the edge of a scissor blade -like ribbon on a present??
…Main St. Bratttleboro, VT.
I’ll be there at least most of the time! Stop by Mitchell Giddings Fine Art gallery Friday between 5-7ish if you can. This exhibit will be up until September 18th.
Alsa, I’ll be giving an artist talk at the gallery with Jackie Abrams:
Saturday, September 17th at 5!
The opening of my solo show at Mitchell Giddings Fine Art gallery is 6 weeks away. Despite trying to balance my day job and my elderly Mom here for the summer, I find I’m being much more productive during the precious minutes of studio time I can carve out.
detail-in progress
No dilly-dallying! No endless indecisiveness and tortured second guessing! It all feels a bit scary but so satisfying!
The first two large convex seeds are mounted (with rigid rug padding inside) and the third one is mostly finished. I’ve also simultaneously begun working on several smaller pieces for the show. This is all such a revolution in my usual only-work-on-one-piece-at-a-time style.
Once the show is hung and my mom has left, I wonder if I can somehow keep myself creating in this way…
I’ve decided that these new seed creations would each have a gentle convex shape that would emphasis it’s design and structure.
I toyed with the idea of using wire mesh underneath to create the form but I felt I wanted to keep things soft. So using wool batt, a form was made. Then came the (for me) tough problem of how to insure this form would push out the front and not the back! I mickey moused a solution. I’m sure there’s some professional way to do this (if you know please clue me in!).
I’m in the process of dyeing a piece of background charmeuse silk for each seed. A color is auditioning to the left. I’m planning on heavily stitching each background piece and then hand sewing the seed on.
And I have sketches for the third seed shape.
On a roll!
I’m working on a continuation of my Seed Dreaming series with some new twists. These will be large stand alone seeds which will then be mounted (somehow…working on lots of options at the moment) on a fixed silk covered frame for hanging. I’m hoping to have at least 3 or 4 done for my upcoming solo show at Mitchell Giddings Fine Art in August.
Here’s a detail of the first completed seed:
new seed- detail
“The plant is the dream of the seed.” Australian Aboriginal saying.
This quote has inspired me in the past…
Seed Dreaming I
…and is inspiring me again. Large seed shapes are taking root in my studio!
New Seed
Stay tuned.
During this past summer, due to other obligations, my artmaking was fairly fallow. Periods of time like that leave me uneasy and both eager to get back to it and anxious that it won’t come easily. Though I wasn’t dyeing and stitching much, my mind was playing with an unformed, vague idea that I wanted to do something about Breath. This connects to my (mostly) daily meditation practice and the role breath plays. It also fired up my curiousity to understand more about respiration both in us and in plants and how the miraculously efficient and rapid exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place. And this (of course, to me!) lead to thoughts about the interconnectedness of our world.
I get excited about making art when the seeds of an idea are connected on multiple levels like this! I felt a series coming on…and about a month ago, I got to work!
There are several new-to-me materials I knew I wanted to include one being silk organza (lovely but tricky) as well as attempting to sew bombyx silk directly onto fabric and felt. Many mistakes were made! A lot to learn! Here are a few glimpses-close up detail shots-of the workpiece in process on my design wall right now.
glimpse 1
glimpse 2
glimpse 3
Hmmm…hard to believe these are all coexisting in the same piece! Hopefully I’ll finish it and post a photo soon.
If you’re late to this party, here’s Part 1 and Part 2.
Now that the lower left and upper right cellular sections were mostly complete, I needed make some choices about how to use the large space between them where I wanted to somehow show a flow happening. This took time-with lots of ideas tried and rejected. This is the stage in the process where a lot of self doubt creeps in. I had a pile of felted “elements” which I had separately stitched to add shape and sculptural lines . I knew I wanted to incorporate them but there were endless possibilities as to how. I considered color, balance and line as well as the abstract “story” in my head of what moment of change/transformation was happening. After weeks (really!), I found a direction, I was happy with.
Roots of Rhythm X-step 6
some of the felt elements looking for a home
Lines were couched to carve the space into flowing sections. I had known all along that including the blue felt was critical, but wasn’t happy till I stumbled on the “ladder” possibility.
This now defined the basic structure of the space so I was more sure of myself and confident I was moving in the right direction. It was then much clearer to see how to show movement and flow with stitching,the felt pieces and some lovingly placed french knots.
detail
Next time: the whole enchilada done.
If you missed it, here’s the previous post about this process.
Once the underlying structure was complete, things got much more interesting for me. I selected a piece of silk I had dyed over a year ago that had a beautifully complex and intricate texture. This was cut and fused to each cellular section.
Roots of Rhythm X: step 4
…until all were filled.
Roots of Rhythm X: step 5
…and I happily free motion stitched each one. I love this part-podcasts and stitching!
Here’s a close up:
Roots of Rhythm X: step 5 detail
More to come…
