Monthly Archives: March 2011

A Big Day

IMG_2212Today was a big day. Today I took the last stitches in the last piece for Soft Earth, my April Foster/White show. It’s been five months of concentrated work: planning, forming, dyeing, stitching. I’ve been pretty hard on myself (and my family, too) but now I’ve got twenty-one new pieces, thirteen Blades and eight Cotyledons. That averages out to about a piece per week! A good bit of work I’d say.

The other big thing that happened today was a studio visit from Marci McDade, the editor of Fiberarts. We’ve been in touch recently because I’m going to write an article about the workshop I’m teaching next week with Larry Calkins. I was really excited about her coming because, well, she’s the editor of Fiberarts! And because I feel really good about my work and in a good place to share it.

Marci was like a curious honeybee visiting every flower in the studio. She was drawn to  my stash of fabrics, petting the velvets and full of questions about technique and concept. We talked about the magazine and staying relevant in the changing world of fiber. We talked about process and journaling and maybe putting together an article for the magazine on blogging. We talked about balancing parenting with work. We talked about good places to eat while she’s in Seattle. And all the while she was taking photos of everything, arranging them in still lifes, standing on a stool so she could get a better shot, and having me hold up drawings and fabric.

It’s really great when someone who holds a place of power in the art world is so accessible. Curators, gallery owners, magazine editors, they’re all people like you and me. They have knowledge, for sure, and they have influence but there’s no point in being afraid to talk to them. You might make a new friend.

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Spring!

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Spring is in the air, I can tell through my watery, itchy eyes, and I just couldn’t stand sitting at my sewing machine another minute today. I went for a long, lovely walk and of course I was drawn to the trees.  I loved the contrast of this small bud emerging right from the gnarly bark. I loved the texture and depth of the bark on the trees in the picture below, too. They are like layers of documents pasted one on top of each other, each marking the passing of another year.

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Finding My Faith

Cotyledon 5 in progress

Cotyledon 5 in progress

I’m not a religious person so when I’m talking about faith, it’s faith in my creativity and ability. Sometimes faith requires taking big steps at the edge of a cliff and sometimes it’s only baby steps along a stitched line. Sometimes taking even those baby steps can require a giant amount of bravery. I have to trust my intuition, have faith in that undefinable place where the ideas come from when I’m making all those big and small decisions that lead up to a finished piece of art.

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These last few weeks have required more than the usual amount of bravery. My daughter has been my studio companion lately as she has been recovering from a really difficult period of persistent headaches. She is finally feeling better and at school for the first time in two weeks. It’s been difficult to watch my little one deal with chronic pain and not be able to fix it.

I guess that’s where we have to lean on faith. And sometimes I wish I was a religious person because it seems it would give a focus to that feeling of giving up one’s trust to something or someone that is invisible and undefinable. It would be reassuring that while I’m doing my part here, there is a higher power looking out; to have faith be Faith.

If you haven’t seen Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, Nurturing Creativity, it’s really worth watching. She posits that there is a creative energy, a “genius” that comes from outside of ourselves when we are in the act of creating. That our job as artists, is to show up and consistently do our work, so that we are available to funnel this genius when it comes through us.

This idea of the “genius”  is the closest thing I can think of to describing the way it feels when I work. That if I keep doing my part, the showing up and putting in the hours, I can trust that all of those decisions are leading somewhere. Somewhere in my head there is a vision of the finished piece and all I have to do is find the path to its completion.

Sometimes that faith is harder to find than others and I have to remember, baby steps.

Cotyledon 5 detail

Cotyledon 5 detail

Crisis of Faith

bacon?

bacon?

There is always a time in my work when I have a crisis of faith. I think everything is shit and wonder why I’m doing this. I’m going through that now.

These are uncertain times. My daughter still has headaches and hasn’t gone to school in almost two weeks. Is the radiation from Japan making its way toward us?

I put up some in process photos of my work on Facebook yesterday and a couple of people commented that the piece looks like bacon. Yes, I know it’s just insensitive people trying to be funny. But it made me cry because, of course, they’re right. Fuck! Can I ever think of this piece any other way? Should I even finish it? Is the whole body of work any good? I really don’t need this right now.

I know that the answer is just to keep working, that the decisions I make as I go along are good ones, and that my vision is true. It’s always worked out in the past, it will work out this time. The other work is coming along, it looks good. I just need to get out of my funk and get back to work. Enough of this pity party, right?

Cotyledon 8 in process

Cotyledon 8 in process

inside stitching on Cotyledon 8

inside stitching on Cotyledon 8

Working with a Heavy Heart

The news is bad. Images from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami are everywhere. I have to look and then look away, like a traffic accident on the side of the road. So much loss, so much tragedy, so much devastation, and so much fear of what is to come.

Things have been difficult here on the home front, too. My twelve-year-old daughter has had a persistent headache now for over two weeks. We’ve been to her family doctor, a neurologist, a chiropractor, she’s taken a boatload of big drugs and still no relief. My husband and I have been playing tag team. He works one day, I work the next. The good news is that the MRI she had on Saturday was normal. Phew. The bad news is that her head still hurts.

So how does one keep making art?

Well, I’m very thankful that I’m at the part of my process that doesn’t require much creative thought. I’m just ironing fabric on to my panels before I stitch them. I don’t think I could be creative right now.

But images and thoughts still bubble up. I was just looking at some of the photos of debris of homes, cars, people’s belongings. There was a mixture of bright colors, plastics I assume, and it looked like an inpenetrable tangle of multi-colored thread, strewn across the landscape. Someday soon I might be able to talk about these disasters using my visual vocabulary.

In the meantime, I keep working. I have a deadline, after all. And my heavy heart keeps time.

Now Add Color

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I’m just about finished picking fabrics for the Cotyledons. Progress is being made. I’ve had a sick kid this week. That was not on the schedule. But I’m doing my best to keep working. Yesterday, hubbie worked at home so I could be at the studio. Today I’m working at home.

Above is my studio table in the midst of “auditioning” fabrics. Below are the final fabric choices. Just have a little overdyeing to do to tone down some white backgrounds. The amazing thing, and the only reason I may actually get these pieces done for the show, is that I’ve taken all the fabrics from my stash. And, even more amazing, is how much fabric I still have left!

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Tick, tick, tick

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Cotyledon bases

I had a good day at the studio. It was Sunday, still is actually, and my family spent the day skiing. This gave me a weekend day to spend at the studio and not feel guilty. I’m working all the time now. The days until my show are dwindling and I’ve still got a lot I want to get finished. Really only 20 or so days until I should have all the art delivered. Okay, I’m going to go breathe into a paper bag now.

Phew. I’m back. Can I really finish eight pieces in 20 days? I guess we’ll find out. I’m making good progress. I’ve got all of the bases for the Cotyledons basted together and initial fabrics selected for half of them. I’m getting both more efficient and more confident and taking less time making decisions.

Then there are these other pesky demands on my time: mailing list, tweaking web site, Powerpoint presentation on Tuesday for Elder Hostel, a proposal to teach for next Spring’s SDA/SAQA conference . . . oh yeah, and my kids and husband. Good thing I love what I do.

initial fabric selections

initial fabric selections