nichobella

builder's code

As long time readers may recall I am not a huge fan of constant music or other auditory input here in this work room. The "soundtrack" usually relates to what I can hear from the garden beyond the windows and, also, whatever emerges from a deeper place of conversation with the work in my hands. Yesterday I spent a few hours with Blue Whirled and in that time I found myself engaged in some difficult truth-telling. For a couple of days now I've been walking through a wall of uncomfortable symptoms. Sometimes I tell myself to just keep going and other times I tell myself to slow down or flat-out stop. As I sit with my stitching I think about my ongoing choice-making process.

The past week has been an optimum time to sow seeds of all kinds and there have been plenty sown within the landscape of Blue Whirled as well as elsewhere in the larger frame of my life. On this micro-cosmic healing piece, I have made a point to include bright red seeds for vigor and stronger awareness of necessary boundary-building. Am the sort of person who doesn't automatically think about limits or boundaries for a piece of work or the aspirations behind it; I often allow them to define themselves in an organic way that makes itself known to me over time. When I am working on fabric collages I almost never begin (or continue) with any sort of boundary awareness. That part of the design is usually defined by the size of the collage and its backing fabric.

With this piece I tried my hand & mind at a different approach. Even though the boundaries aren't actually constructed I have been consistently visualizing their presence. I have a sense of containment that's a very close echo of the energetic and linear limits I've been placing on my life in general. So many thoughts and quiet flickering moments of illumination have visited me as I work. I see the unmanifested boundaries morphing into a liminal corral - a kind of disembodied journal-making process that surely has much to teach me. One of the most compelling reasons I speak of visual expression rather than art is because I do not want to get myself entangled in the all-too-prevalent boundaries and 'fence-building' that "art" engenders. I do not care to think of myself as an artist or somebody who aims to become one: I just want to think of myself as somebody who is authentically motivated to share what they know - and fervently imagine - to be true. I want to speak to and for that authenticity.

I believe that becoming adept at building a synonymity with any given medium is somewhat different from being skilled at noticing trends before they explode and, thus, becoming part of any given vanguard. I also believe that the so-called Cutting Edge cuts both ways: frequently slicing away the filaments that root us to our most necessary creative matrices. Self-conciousness on any level automatically removes us from the possibility of shifted consciousness. I know there are innumerable reasons to pick up a needle and thread - my favorite reason is to change within my mind & soul, through my hands & eyes.

Earlier in the post I mentioned working through some uncomfortable physical symptoms. At this time I find that they are, likewise WORKING THROUGH me. I've decided to unplug for a couple of days and see what kind of impact that makes on my overall energy flow and coping abilities. Seeya on the flipside...

ripple in still water

Today the weather is cool and sunny - perfect for stepping back, taking a good long breath, and getting a feel for the rhythm of the summer's harvest season.   I enjoyed a full weekend that didn't hold enough extra energy for stitching.  Now it's time to re-unite with Blue Whirled.  Have spent a pleasant hour or so working on some bead and couching details.  After I finish a few points of business here at the machine, I'll return to the work table.

One thing I enjoy about keeping well-stocked caches of creative supplies is that I generally don't know how I'll use the various raw materials until a sudden moment of inspiration strikes.  I love those moments the way some people love devising a careful and clever plan.  I have a friend who works from detailed graphs and sketches; sometimes when we go out treasure hunting together she becomes distressed by what she perceives as a lack of methodology on my part.  But the other day she came into my work room and blurted out - "this is the happiest place on earth!"  I burst out laughing - images of disneyland and the countless times I've heard that expression used as a cynical perjorative wouldn't have it any other way.  But I think I know what she meant.  I consider the energetic field and physical space in which we work to be an active part of the creative process.  For me, it doesn't have to be picture perfect and magazine ready or to die for drool worthy. But it does have to be real.  Really really really REAL.  From such authenticity contentment and joy are bound to sprout wings as well as roots.

If I'd planned ahead with this particular piece I would miss many of the stories it's been telling me; the collage and I have been growing together over the past few weeks.  It's been very cool as well as comforting to feel this small block of handwork serving as a perfectly copacetic companion in this moment of life transition.  Am now slightly farther along than these pictures indicate.  By this time next week I'll need to start to think about how I want to back the piece and, also, finishing treatment options.

Here is my collage from yesterday featuring images from a walk Jim and I took at Snow Pond.  Today's collage will include the leaf I used to print on this one.  Something I learned from this collage - It's a mistake to paint feathers with sealant.  Not only do they lose their textural appeal, they lose enough identity so that you have to squint at them and think to yourself what ARE those things, anyway?  Fortunately I had gathered extra so I pasted a few more over the sealant.  Should be interesting to see what kind of development occurs as this week ends and it becomes my task to keep up the studio journal habit without prompts or cues from the class notes ...

studio journal week #6

In the final week of Sharon b's studio journal course we are focused on collage.  When I read through the lesson notes I was immediately drawn to the idea of using gesso to embed elements of the collage.  One of the suggestions for a textural inclusion was sand.  I decided to try it in the first of a series collages that follow the suggested theme "this is your life".  From the wording in the notes it was unclear if we were meant to gather elements for a collage spanning several days or if we were invited to make a collage a day, similar to the color-a-day exercise in an earlier week.  I decided that my reading of the notes could follow their own path.   After all, this isn't a competition or an interview/placement process.  So even if I was "wrong" in my decision to try making several collages over the course of as many days, it couldn't possibly be an error in the greater learning scheme.

In addition to embedding sand for texture, I decided to also embed angelica seeds.  This added more texture and it also represented the culmination of my experience gathering angelica seeds to sow in my own garden and share with friends.   These seeds have a very short viability span and so it was a time sensitive activity that played a major role in two consecutive days.

In addition to embedding seeds in the gesso, I also sponged-on some gold lumiere to embed more groups of seeds.  I worked with yellow watercolor and gold lumiere as acknowledgement of the day's solar eclipse.  It was also a very bright sunny day after several rainy days and grey skies.  In the past, I have enjoyed using poppy seed heads as a stamping element on paper and fabric. Note that these seeds are a bit more decayed and brittle than what I'd normally choose.  When seed heads or pods have gotten this dry I will sometimes hydrate them with a gentle water mist.  This time I just allowed the fabric paint to provide some flexibility.  The impressions give expression of the decay as well as the basic geometry this particular seedhead yields ...

The completed collage speaks of "bright promise" in the new moon goals and committments I set for myself.   This includes watching my diet more closely.  I also gave a nod to the amount of time I spent on the phone with my doctor, the insurance company, and my pharmacist.   Really enjoying the double-meaning to the health care provider phrase since working in my garden, sunlight and creativity all serve as very tangible ongoing healing agents for me.  I think this collage could be easily worked into an all-over texture oriented stitching project.

By yesterday morning it was obvious that I was going to need a finishing sealant if I hoped to keep the seeds embedded on the page.  So I took a trip to the nearest craft store.  It happens that another element suggested for embedding was lace that could then be colored with the watercolor washes we selected for the collage background.  I did not have anything in my stash that I felt like "giving" to this purpose.  But there - directly beside the shelf of sealant options - I spied a little box full of lace/trimming remnants on sale.  Brought home a little baggie containing a ten yard length of rayon lace.  Cost:  an entire dollar.   I don't think I would have considered bringing it home even at that price if I didn't have the intention of experimenting with coloration techniques.  And yet for that purpose, I think the lace is an awesome choice.

As you can see from below and the first image in this post, I used some of the lace in yesterday's collage:

Yesterday began with a very vivid early morning dream with a leopard theme.  So I made a point of including the Big Cat sticker that came my way a few weeks back.  I also spent time gathering calendula flowers in the garden.  When I made the collage I sacrificed a few already dried flowers - strewing the petals throughout the page.  This time I used the sealant as an embedding material.  The heart is actually part of a pattern I made to create an enlargement from a Jacobean tapestry detail.   The world/globe theme expresses the amount of time I spent answering emails to people from different parts of the globe on a variety of healer-healing topics.   The tarot card inclusion (from Michael Tierra's Herbal Tarot deck) is also a special expression holding a few layers of private meaning concerned with yesterday's happenstances.

So far today I have created a background watercolor wash and printed-out copies of a couple pictures from a woods walk I took with my husband.   Have also collected some woods dove feathers from the yard and some oak leaves (chewed by deer) that I'm going to print over the watercolor wash.  The collage above differs from the first in that I don't see its completed form serving as a direct designing model.  This one is more about the influences and inspirations of the singular parts - brought together as a valentine to the day itself.  On the back of the pages holding these collages I am pasting print-outs of online discoveries made on the various days - things I especially want to study and dissect for their potential in future graphic design or scrap quilt planning.  My goal is to make each collage different enough so that I will maximize my learning curve and also form a bridge into the realm of continuing to keep a studio journal under my own steam without prompts from an outside source.

P.S. Thanks for sharing so much enthusiasm in the comments of the last post.  It seems I am not the only one whose ready to put some news kindsa pedal to the metal ...

auspicious beginnings

Jumped online this morning to download and print the final studio journal class.  Thought I'd dig up this picture from my files and post it with a couple of little notes.  This is Greg Robinson's tribal artwork again - the image is titled "eclipse" and it's the design on his personal drumhead. 

Much has been written about today's eclipse and new moon; I don't really have anything to add beyond Sow Those Seeds!!!  This is an excellent time to start fresh & clear in all matters related to the fifth house/leo spheres of influence and that makes it a REALLY excellent time to ramp up the energy on all your creative dreams & aspirations:  to visualize more clearly what it is you really want from those dreams and to begin making tangible steps in manifesting those aspirations.   Leo/fifth house energy also has a lot to do with maximizing our personal resources and focusing on how/why/what we project and actively communicate with the larger world. 

Leo is also a very generous sign with a strong emphasis on children and raising them.  If you're able and so inclined, this would be an excellent time to begin volunteering some energy and materials to a creative arts program.  Maybe you can clear up the pockets of excess in your work/studio space in the process of gathering materials for such a purpose.    The possibilities are really limited only by the boundaries of your personal imagination.  This is an ideal time for expanding those boundaries and what you believe to be in your best interests and capabilities.  It's alo an excellent time to begin active work on that special Dream project - you know...the one that you perceive as being an integral part of your life's work yet it always seems to find itself on a back burner.  Maybe you don't think you have quite the right skill set to bring it to its ultimate form.  Maybe you think it's too important to you to risk messing it up so you've been over-thinking rather than diving in.  Maybe ... "maybe" has been given too much power in all of this.  So maybe it's time to just do it.

At the very least this is an excellent time to take an inventory of those extra-special pieces in your collection of creative raw materials.  How might they be upcycled?  What can you create from them that does your creative spirit - and the individual objects - a new world order of justice?

Begin as you mean to continue.   That's one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received - from a long ago and not-so-far-away mentor whom I continue to respect and consult in the role of Life Guru.  The advice was originally offered when I was in my early twenties.  At the time I wasn't really sure how to interpret the words into a consistent flow of action(s).  But I have remembered them often over the years and this morning when I first woke up they were perched like happy birds right on the edges of my waking consciousness.

Begin.  INTEND to continue.  It's the best prayer and blessing I could wish for any of the fantastically creative people I know who read this blog ...

meaning-full

Yesterday I spent my stitching time immersed in the Blue Whirled.  It is definitely one of those pieces where each stitch and bead/thread selection tells a story.  Recent events have led me to conclude that "the story" I tell - or feel myself being told - through the various materials at play doesn't necessarily have to fit perfectly with the story somebody else chooses to see/intuit.  One of the realizations I've held as I've been stitching is that I don't have to care about aspects of perception that don't fit with my intentions and what I know to be true of myself and expressive aspirations.  While I've been stitching, it seems I've had a refresher lesson concerning something I learned many years ago as a writer:  it's perfectly okay to be misunderstood.  The world, for instance, isn't going to collapse and ultimately neither am I.

The linear ego being what it is, some kind of periodic whack upside the head that conveys the above message seems inevitable as well as appropriate for most people I know - self included.  In my healing practice the most prevalent common denominator of angst and wounded feelings that I've encountered is an unwillingness to be misunderstood. Many folks don't even label it as a choice or act of will on their part - they see it as a constitutional incapability.  Sometimes they are nearly shell-shocked with grief when it happens and sometimes they're a lot more like a junkyard dog.  Said dog may or may NOT enjoy raising a ruckus in the wee hours but that's nonetheless the job and life's role it's been given.  Recently I was misunderstood in a way that prompted somebody else to perceive me responding as a junkyard dog.  On my end, I felt a lot closer to an ultra-peevish librarian who's sick and tired of having the books misplaced on the shelves.

Since then certain things that aren't relevant to this post have grown very clear to me.  I wound up releasing all attachment to outcome - including an ability to clarify what I'd most hoped to convey.  I could see that wasn't going to happen.  Nothing "good" was going to suddenly show up to save the day and so I just kind of threw my own emotional, psychic and psychological insights and responsibilities against the metaphorical wall - like spaghetti - and asked Divine Source to sort it out for the highest good of all involved parties.  In the image above my prayer is articulated in the tangle of wrapped rayon.

As I stitched it into place I saw that the unmanagable tangle of emotion and mental constructions was all some measure of Truth that had needed telling.  I saw that - perhaps - there is no such thing as an inappropriate audience.  And that beloved fixture, the unreliable narrator, may be a lot more reliable than we're accustomed to thinking.  Truth can be like a light that reflects and refracts on a mirror. Many times the results can be painfully blinding and yet - for all the confusion and uncertainty the reflections and refractions can cause - truth remains itself in any form.

Pushing back the frame to something a lot more trans-personal:  we live in a culture that doesn't assign very much value to truth.  In fact, truth gets taken out with the garbage several times a day.  It's very easy to re-fashion all portions of un-truth until they are so palatable we imagine they're authentically easy to swallow.  We begin to willingly spoon feed ourselves the myth that these aspects of cultural lies & betrayal are actually good or us; that they are authentic significators of improvement and a better world.  For many years now that sort of thing has never been far from my mind and, given the recent diagnosis I've been obliged to embrace, it's now clear to me that it's never been far from my body, either.

I have been working on Blue Whirled as a complimentary healing action that centers on my personal issues.  But as I stitch I see, also, the trans-personal applications of the same themes: The same problems and basic patterns of dis-ease, the same needs for a return to homeostasis, the same WORLD and WHIRLED inside & out.   Yesterday I followed a link from Red Threads Studio which allowed me to re-connect with a marvelous healer's/healing address given by Deena Metzger.  In light of recent developments in my life I read her exceedingly well-chosen words with fresh eyes and a thirsty soul.  After I read through the address once, I worked on  Blue Whirled for a while.  Then I read the address a second time and meditated in a spirit of strong gratitude.

It's so unusual - and that in itself is to me a VERY weird fact - to hear bright and ostensibly sensitive people speak of illness and disease in terms that do not embrace the languages of warfare or victimology.  Ever since my diagnosis I've been flinching on a regular basis over that fact; have been talking to my near & dear very seriously about the fact that, as a pacifist, I am completely unwilling to refer to my own situation and the healing needs I'm required to meet using the language of a paradigm in which I don't believe.

What if my body hasn't actually betrayed me?  And I haven't been taken prisoner?  What if I don't need to battle my way through the next couple of years?    What if the thoroughly confused antibodies in my system require compassion rather than fear, rage and frustration?   What if there's no reason to assume my body is reflecting a deep personal flaw which I "asked" to express in this way?  What if I take each day as the gift it is?  What if it authentically doesn't matter WHAT somebody else may choose to project on me, or WHY they might make that choice?  What if my hands, mind and heart are more than busy enough with the projections I'm making - one stitch at a time.   These are the questions - and potentiality - I'm taking with me as I unplug for the shift to a new lunar cycle. Perhaps when I return I will be feeling strong enough to re-open my all-purpose blog where this sort of post is most at home.  But perhaps not.  Time and the larger river of life's truth will tell ...

the song in my head

Living with a musician all these years, I tend to think of things running in a dual framed path of the free-flowing live soundtrack created by said musician and a more ethereal version that's defined by whatever song happens to be stuck in my head.  For the past several weeks I keep hooking-back to Lucy Woodward and that's part of how my What's On Hand mandate was born.  In that same time frame I've needed to be creative a lot more than I've needed to chafe against severely limited options that aren't going anywhere in a hurry.  At the moment there's only so much I can hit any kind of over-ride switch with any serious hope of having the effort be effective.  That ongoing reality check needs to be as authentically okay for me as it possibly can be on any given day.  Am not one to revel in melancholy or brooding even though I surely experience my fair share (and perhaps a bit more ...) of such things.  So I was running my life on the Make It Work platform long before Tim Gunn made something of a brand from the phrase. 

Above you can see what happens when gears stall and empires crumble.  A few months back my fantasy for this summer involved stripping the peeling woodwork and repainting it.  I intended to design and build shelves so I had more open/organized storage space.  I was going to work - diligently and with a maximum amount of discipline - on two major writing projects and four or five different pieces of visual expression.  Notice I didn't say art.  There's a reason for that but I'm not currently sharp enough to articulate it as fully as I'd wish.

The point is that I had my plan and I was sticking to it but then my body had a whole other idea of where/how I'd be focusing and what I'd actually "do" with the summer.   So the sewing machine table never got sorted; instead it got layered with various sub-collections that I've been pulling to the surface any time I feel energetic enough to do that kind of thing without shooting myself in the foot.  My new fantasy revolves around organizing the depicted chaos.  Sometimes I strategize breaking the goal into more workable sections and sometimes I dream that somebody I love (who in turn loves organizational challenges a lot more than I do) will come on over, bustle around, and get the job done for me.

In the mid/late stages of spring my body felt authentically crappy enough that what's-on-hand boiled down to a few baggies and a little wicker basket full of fabric scraps and a handful of roughly assembled threads and beads.  Plus the Usual Suspect level of tools ...

Gradually things like a proper diagnosis and corresponding course of treatment gave me more play at the wheel with how I defined what's-on-hand.   Anybody who's had the - a-hem - special privilege of dealing with autoimmune dis-ease knows about the equation of good days and bad ones.  On good days I often rustle-up a few more things to have directly on hand at my primary work station.  On bad days I thank all lucky and blighted stars alike for the fact that I tend to have that kind of foresight more often than not. Above is a picture of the yin/left hand side of my work table complete with kitty lounging space,

Here's the right/yang side of the desk.  Between this space, the chaos-stricken sewing machine table, and the top of an antique steamer trunk that's not pictured, I've been able to arrange a good representation of anything I could sanely need to have-on-hand.  Since I'm still at the stage where bad days out-number the good, I've also scaled back my works in progress to just two.  My personality's need for constant variation is fed by the exercises from the studio journal class and Little Samples.  Plus there's still one outstanding PIF gift to complete.  I've eliminated anything that has a hard-and-fast deadline and that in turn eliminates a lot of stress both real and self-induced.  And that eliminates making a physically challenging day worse on an emotional and mental level.  All told I feel sort of like a little kid in that precious year between toddler-hood and kindergarten.  I'm in a coccoon that's more pleasant than imprisoning; the world as I know it may be a lot smaller than what I intuit to be The Larger Truth but it's nonetheless my oyster.  I have what I need to use what I've got.  And that's the best incentive I can find to likewise use what I've got to get what I need ...

moment to moment

During the first week of the studio journal class, several students mentioned Twyla Tharp's book as a favorite motivational source.  It has been on my list for a long while and the flurry of positive feedback prodded me to request a copy through inter-library loan.  It didn't take too long for me to understand why so many people were saying such positive things about it.  Aside from anything else - Tharp writes extremely well and quite vividly.   The words are as intelligent and insightful as they are honest.  Am only partway through the text but it has definitely made some indelible impressions.  At this point I strongly suspect that I'll wind up purchasing a copy of my own as I can see it becoming well-thumbed.

Last night after the ballgame I spent about an hour at the worktable re-connecting with my studio journal.  I had put it aside for the better part of two days so that I could get back into the rhythm and flow of stitching as a spontaneous process.  On a whim I began my re-entry efforts by writing out my responses to a questionnaire that Tharp calls Your Creative Autobiography.  I wrote quickly and without any mind to internalized editing or censorship.  What emerged feels authentic and - more to the point - FULLY VIABLE at the level of creative underpinning and contextual foundation.  This surprised me mainly because I answered the questions rather differently than I had while I was reading the book instead of working directly with the questionnaire.  The changes taught me a few things about the more self-conscious aspects of my nature. 

My initial encounter with the questionnaire came right on the heels of some uninvited psychoanalysis that I found fairly offensive. Even though I hadn't had an actual audience while I was reading and thinking-through my likely responses to Tharp's questionnaire,  I was 'waaaaaay hyper-aware of what others might think/believe/intuit about whatever I did or didn't say.   Some of that was blowback from the recent experience but most of it was just plain silliness on my part.  Because, really.  That kind of hyper-attentiveness to potentiality beyond our direct or secondary control is far beside the intentional point of any endeavor that's meant to express something we hold personally truthful and emotionally authentic.  Our loyalty (and guardianship) within creation and creative preparation needs to be with that creation/prep time rather than allowing our focus to drift into a never-neverland of speculation concerning however someone else might choose to respond or react. That kind of thing is actually no more our business than it's our problem to fix.

I embellished the smaller cloud of silk flower petals during the second half of the Sox-Yankees game. The much larger drift of flowers now have their orange bead centers but it's likely to take a couple days to get all the french knots and barred chain stitches completed.  I am happy about the progress with this piece but the matter of defining the best finishing treatment has become something of a preoccupation.  At this time I've developed three different ideas and the need to manifest a few samples before I am fully resolved about it...

blue whirled update

Have been going back and forth between the color healing piece featured in the last post and this Blue Whirled.  Inception notes are right here.   The piece is starting to breathe on its own - my favorite stage of working cloth to the point where it starts an active dialogue with both process and my pre-conceived ideas about where I want to take things.  As I've begun to develop a bit more stamina, the frame of reference for "what's on hand" has widened in scope.  My thread and bead stashes are well organized and easily accessible.  So I've been able to amass several blue-centric options that are keeping my mind occupied* even when I'm not actively working on the piece.  Also, today I was struck with the need to add a bit of rubber stamping to the piece.

My plan was to use a fabric stamping paint that's very vivid and bright but the bottle's rather old.  The paint consistency is NOT consistent but the good news is that I made some preliminary test patterns on a piece of paper.  Potential heartbreak was avoided and now I have the fun of deciding how I will use the paint so that its unreliable narrator quality is showcased in a positive sort of way.  Meanwhile I set aside the test page for my studio journal and reviewed the color options at my disposal.  I decided to use indigo lumiere because I've found the lumiere paints are easier to control on rubber stamps than the regular textile paints.  Had I gotten this idea BEFORE the start of so much embroidery, beading and quilt stitches, I probably would have used sky blue textile paint.  But I do like the results from the indigo.  Seems to be a good match for the particular motifs I chose to include.

This is not a perfect imprint but considering the pockets of fullness and the nearby chenille application, I'm satisfied with the result.  This particular handpainted fabric scrap came from Jenn and I like the subtle patterns of the color wash enough to leave it relatively unchanged.  I'll just be adding some quilting stitches that echo the swoops in the couched chenille.

A favorite stamp (both are from Kate Cartwright) inspired by a celtic glyph of three ravens.  I've stamped three glyphs for a total of nine birds.  It was a toss up between the ravens and a pair of jitterbugging skeletons but in the end I went for a little hint of big black wing medicine.  Unfortunately Kate's awesome goddess-oriented site has gone the way of all things.  But many of her gorgeous stamps are still available right here.   Just looking at the catalog imagery is always good for a bit of inspiration even without Kate's accompanying descriptions of their derivation.

The central stylized compass still vibes medicine wheel energy to me even though I didn't articulate that vibe in the normal way.  I am really enjoying bringing the flat collage to more three dimensional life.  Working on this piece and the Red/Orange companion cloth at the same time has been an AWESOME experience.  Have decided to work in this way more frequently because the process is so rewarding.

Above is another fabric sample from Jenn.  I used fly stitching to tone down the white areas and create a mark making process that echoed the original blue clamshells.  At first I planned to top the sequin stars with little red beads but that seemed to take too much away from the fabric itself.  Scattering the sequins in various areas of the piece is one way I'm building some visual unity from the disparate fabric collection.  Another is using bright turquoise thread choices throughout the piece in ways that create a kind of unification at the 'blink' level.

Above, I finished the couched frame for the bluebird scrap with a magical seven layer knot.  When a young friend saw me working he zeroed right in on the knot, insisting it was a "bird coccon."  When his mother tried to explain that birds don't have cocoons he became even more adamant.  Couldn't help thinking how the thyroid gland is shaped like a butterfly.  Maybe the totems of cheerfulness and good luck did spin a special healing cocoon...it's a pleasant thought anyway.  Seems I was wise to surround this fuzzy knot with protective red stitching.

 

You can see I have been working mainly on the right side of the collage.  This mirrors the way life's daily flow has contained a lot of healing orientation that is outward and inter-relational in nature.  I know what the symbols mean to me and why I've selected the specific stitches and colorations.  But ... one of the things I've been learning on a variety of levels relates to the wide range of ways different people view somebody else's creative worth.  Their ways of looking/seeing/perceiving/defining/re-stating may or may not jibe with my intentions and/or inner truths.  This is how I've come to understand that the blowback aspects of visual creativity are a lot more like writing oriented reactions and responses than I've previously imagined.  For the most part this realization has been derived from very pleasant experience.  All manner of learning has been illuminating even when it's been disappointing and/or distasteful.

Will be stitching on these two pieces throughout the weekend but now I also want to get back to the studio journal exercises I set aside in order to re-unify myself with needle & thread.  Have printed out the fifth week's lesson but haven't yet read it.    Stay tuned ...

* am also thinking a lot about the Van Gogh samples I've made vis a vis the sample I want to make next.   I need to create time to indulge that idea soon or it will start to turn brown and curl around the edges.

sacral flowering

Last night I stitched while visiting with friends & family.   Had a silk hydrangea flower head that I wanted to defoliate so I could use the individual groups of petals for my Red Square/Orange Ocean healing meditation piece.   I quickly developed an attachment format that worked well for me.  Am pleased with what this development adds to the overall statement of the piece.

The cascading flowers form a call and response with themselves in the upper right and lower left hand corner of the piece.  I also added a couched row of fluffy orange silk boucle to the outer edge of the couched weaving threads that contain the orange fly stitches.  Have been sitting on this knitter's scrap of yarn for about fifteen years.  It's a perfect inclusion in this piece and there is still a bit left to save and dream with.  It's really a lovely quality and absolute heaven to couch.

At a certain point in the evening I started paying more attention to the conversational flow and moving more automatically with the flower placement.  So I unmindfully stitched a few of them on the opposite side from the one I'd decided to use.   This choice is a little like placing sequins.  I wanted the flowers to be stitched with their slightly cupped side down so that they would draw and hold light rather than reflecting it from the flares of the cup.  Now I have to decide if I want to leave the few renegades reflecting light; I may leave them there as if it was planned all along seeing as how it's at the upper edge of the corner.    Emotions aren't always fully cooperative, after all - they don't always cooperate with our programmed expectations or reflect what we might wish to discover in ourself or others.

The piece so far is 14 x 16 inches.  But there is another border and edging treatment planned.  Today I am going to sew the rest of the flowers into place and perhaps do a bit of filler embroidery stitching as well.  Then it's back to the Blue Whirled and more time with the studio journal.

the process of process continues

Here's a look at how much stuff I've compiled since the studio journal class began.  This is where I've been spending the bulk of my work table time so last night I made a point of switching gears so I could do some stitching.  Worked on the blue healing meditation piece without accomplishing anything that seems share-worthy.  Mainly I just experimented with different types of stitching in varying portions of the collage; now I'll have to go back and begin creating a cohesive layer of texture from the sample areas.

Here's the little stack of color print outs and photocopies that still need to be added to studio journal.  Plus there's been an exciting addition to the table area.  My husband has a quilting co-worker and sometimes they discuss what she and I are working on with him serving as a proxy for more direct conversation between the two fiber obsessed people.   The other day the were discussing our mutual preference for elevated work space.  For the past year or so I have been working on a table that's raised on thick wooden blocks.  It's been an okay situation if you discount the two times the table has slipped from the blocks and lurched sideways. 

In both cases I made the mistake of instinctively trying to hold the table up with one of my shoulders but  Atlas I'm not.  So in both cases I wound up scrunched beneath the collapsing table calling out for somebody to help me.  In both cases, nobody heard.  I wound up [finally] extricating myself.  The other night when it happened Tony came down after the fact to get the table legs that were still on wooden blocks down on the ground.  So it was fully usable space from a sitting position - I just couldn't use it standing up which I often prefer.  My husband told this story to his co-worker who told him she'd solved her version of the same basic problem with bed-raisers.  He thought this sounded more feasible and less labor intensive than what he'd devised in a mental problem solving session so night before last he scooted down to Linens N Things and got a set of the risers that are exactly the same height as the wooden blocks.  So now the table is high enough to be of optimum use but a lot more stable. 

 

In the process of clearing things away from the table while he was buying the risers I encountered this little book which I forgot to include in my roll call of journals.   This is a literal scrap book that I started keeping around the same time I also started purchasing quilter's cotton to build a stash of my own device.  Prior to that I worked exclusively with my mother's inherited fabric collection.  It contained many treasures but we did not hold similar tastes or favorite colors.  Plus this was the mid-late 80's when the quilting market had just been discovered as a viable way to exploit massive amounts of consumer dollars.  So there were !!!!ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!! oh so very many tantalizing options.  And while I do realize that commercial quilting cotton is routinely disparaged by "serious" textile lovers and some particular types of fiber artists, I have no qualms or shame about admitting my love for the stuff.  Haven't bought any beyond a stray fat quarter here and there in at least a dozen years but that's only because in the dozen years before that I collected enough to more than take me through this lifetime in fine style. 

I can still remember how vividly exciting and inciting it was to me; armed only with my fistful of consumer dollars and the trailing ghosts of my mother (deploring my color preferences) and my grandmother (reading me the riot act for throwing money away in this effort of ongoing Highly Unnecessary Self Indulgence), I took myself to the marketplace with a sense of liberation that is pretty well unparalleled before or since.  It represents the one sustained time in my life when I perceived myself as utterly free to call the shots of making choices to do/purchase whatever the hell I pleased.  It also represents something relatively constructive and "safe" that I did with the various compulsive energies that needed a home once I decided that being a sober alcoholic (26 years and no longer counting closely enough to know exactly how many additional months and days it's been since my last drink...) was really the only way I was personally prepared to deal with having a drinking problem.   Nowadays I have a much better handle on managing said compulsions. At this point I don't really like to "gather" with more verve and focus than I contemplate WHY I might be gathering and WHAT I'm going to do with the gatherings - HOW, WHEN, etc.

Innaways, I got the idea of making a scrap book from this page in the little (as opposed to the concurrently released BIG coffee table volume that I also own ...) Rodney Kiracofe volume pictured above.   I was charmed by the simplicity and unprepossessing nature of what the by-gone fabric lover had saved and her no-nonsense notes.  And so I began to keep a similar book of my own even though it sometimes seemed silly to me and not nearly elaborate or artsy enough to be worth showing to any one else etc. etc. etc.  But since I haven't actually pasted anything into it in quite awhile (instead I have a shallow box full of snips of fabric that were meant for the book but never got that far so I've tried to give it away a few times to people who favor ATCs but they wouldn't take it based on their certainty that someday I, too, will become illuminated with a desire to make ATC's and then I'll wish I had this trove at my disposal ...No...they just can't live with the guilt of thinking how I - and thus they - will feel then and so I myself have lived with the box that was virtually untouched until we had some color/swatch exercises in the studio journal class...), this book is a bona fide archive of "vintage contemporary" fabrics.

 

Some of the pages are collages with elements from a specific WISP and some serve as records for things I received or sent within a fabric exchange of some kind or another.

Some show fabrics I received from a particular person.

 

Some show random examples of what I brought home from the stash-building forays I described earlier in this post.

It has been a lot of fun to reconnect with this smallish book full of big plans & ideas.  It no longer seems silly to me but rather sweet and all chock full of the bouncy optimistic energy that fueled my years of being in that late-twenties/thirtysomething whirlwind of motion.  Last night I had a great deal of fun sitting at the [newly stabilized] table and reviewing each page.  Also removed enough remaining blank pages for the book to close more easily.  The paper's a nice quality for drawing so I think I can make some worthwhile additions to the studio journal in process.  I also plan to finish filling the book now that I've decided I'm glad I started doing so in the first place.  And maybe I will finish it off with a little handwritten essay about a few of the reasons why I love printed cloth so dearly that I am not constitutionally capable of feeling dismissive of it or believing it's unworthy of my creative consideration.  Etc.  etc. etc. etc. etc....