Constant Reader, Great Commenter and Generous Friend, Ash, sent me a surprise package, a trove of threads, hoop and frame, evenweave fabrics, threads and even note the lovely Barbadian stamps. The two on the right commemorate the 100th annie of the Panama Canal, I remember it well...
and a beautiful sunflower greeting to go with! It's a two sided card, now on my fridge with a magnet that makes me think of a butterfly, must be in butterfly mode...
thank you so much Ash. Yes, they will all find good homes, either in my work or in work by my friends. What a wonderful addition to my choices to work with.
Such a treat on a Monday morning! I was just struggling with the setup for an upcoming stumpwork lacewing moth's wings -- two layers of hand dyed silk, tautened at 45 degrees to each other in the hoop, now firmly in place, wings drawn, two for each side, pix later when there's something to see. Using Jane Nicholas, great Aussie stitcher, the book of. So it was great to take a break and look at presents! And to reflect on the marvels of international sharing and learning.
Barbados! Panama Canal! Australia! My living room! all together in here, yay.
I've now attached the luna moth and the other night moth to our night scene. I need at least one more critter here, and a couple more for the crocheted daytime scene one, since all the critters I made have migrated to the other two locations. I'm just a helpless prawn in the face of this tide...
As you see, I refrained from stitching a body for the luna moth, since I'm making a suggestion of a moth, rather than a botanically exact representation, which would be a bit too literal for the purpose of this piece. I did similarly with the blue butterfly on the daytime scene, and she looks light and interesting, so I continue to like that decision.
I have managed to get the dragonfly and the lizard rounded up and the stitched grasses done, and some cutouts with brocade behind (and a dull gold colored silk for the backing, just so's to make it a bit solid), and here it is. Framed, phew.
To say that the stumpwork wires were my friends is to state a total big fib. Actually stitching the stumpwork pales in comparison to the difficulty of getting the wires to sit in the back where you want them, so the wings don't turn backward when you stop looking, and so they come out in the right order.
Anyway, here's my first stumpwork presentation, and the first of the three wilderness pieces. The others are on silk and satin, so the stitching will be a different issue. But they're competing with two pieces of goldwork for my attention at the moment.
And I right away see a couple of tiny things to fix, but taking it out of the frame and doing that isn't a big deal. It's just not for today!
I went over to Princeton, to visit Morven this afternoon, and see the place in general, and in particular visit a huge exhibit of New Jersey samplers created by young girls at school in the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries. The reason for the quirky title of the exhibit is that it's from a poem stitched into one of the samplers about the joys and skills of stitching.
I've lived about fifteen minutes from Morven, a national historic house, with occupants over the years including signers of the Declaration, several Governors of the State, and various movers and shakers. Now it's a national site, open to the public as a historic destination.
And you know how it is, when something's in your back yard you tend not to get there and see it. This has been the case with me and Morven since 1965, so I thought, well I'd better go. And since people are coming in loads from all over the country, I really can't complain it's too far to drive.
So I did, go here and you can see around the place as well while you're there. I took pix in the grounds, cameras not allowed indoors, and had a fine old time wandering about.
When I arrived there was a very jolly group who told me they were from the Sampler Guild of Loudoun, Virginia, always off somewhere to see stitchery, and "we love our trips!" Well, yes, that was evident.
After they departed the place was very quiet, easy to see everything, at least I wished to be a few inches taller. Everything was hung just a little high for me to see without craning, and I blessed the curators who also put some of these priceless samplers, from collectors all over the place, on tabletops with glass boxing them in, easy to see and study.
Room after room of them on the walls of this old house, not the original house, that burned down a long time ago, but a pretty old rebuilding of it, all the same. And a lot of great old furniture and dishes to admire. And samplers hung as they might have been when they were first stitched. Much better than a museum setting.
The history itself, aside from the amazement of seeing samplers created by ten year olds, just the sheer stitching, they didn't design them, is wonderful to see and study. And so many of the names of the girls still exist in families living around here. The Stocktons, whose house it was but who didn't make any samplers, are still around. The Brittons whose name does appear in samplers, too, and Buckelews, and various other familiar ones to anyone who's been around these parts a while.
The exhibit was meticulously researched, and there's a catalog which you can get online at the Morven site I linked for you earlier, if you're a sampler fiend and can't get to see these. Plenty of historical notes and comments on the design.
What I found missing, though, was an appreciation of the sorts of stitches used, the techniques of stitching and where they got their materials, how they were spun and dyed, and all that aspect that as a stitcher I'd have liked. But I expect my embroidery friends and I can deconstruct quite happily. Most of the samplers are silk thread on linen fabric, beautiful stuff, very fine, and anyone who has worked in silk will tell you it's not for wimps.
I liked a lot of the outdoor features: the sundial, maybe you can read the inscription,
and the notice board with a bit of history and a page of Annis Stockton's recipe book. While her husband was away fighting the Brits and being slung in gaol, and later signing the Declaration, she was keeping things going at home, as all the women did.
Here we can see her recipes for French Rolls, Syllabub and Floating Island.
And I liked very much the old brick garden wall with the door in it.
There still is a kitchen garden as well as a sitting garden,
and the oldest tree on the property, probably dating back to the eighteenth century, it's pretty much had it now, except that it's hollow and would make a great habitat...I'm so tempted to go over secretly and put a couple of little modeled animals there, but that might be a federal crime. Latter-day attempt at a Brit takeover by stealth art..
I thought you'd like to see what you see when you come up on foot to the house and around the grounds and if you sit on the porch looking out
All in all, a good time was had by me!
Long time since I took studio courses, and exhibited at this gallery, and I don't know the faculty any more, but this potter, Lyn Ports-Lopez, died very young, in August this year, and was truly talented. Go here to learn more.
So I went today to honor her, really, and see the other faculty members' exhibits. Not the strongest show, so I signed the visitors' book, and took only a couple of pix, including ceramics by the featured artist.
Paul Mordetsky had a lovely charcoal drawing and a very good watercolor. So I enjoyed what I could, had a couple of nibbles from the food table, and went for a stroll around the campus.
Some nice architectural design on this windswept campus, which really needs hundreds of people to bring it to life, but I never saw more than a handful at any one time, in the years I was there.
The Gallery's in that building on the left.
But, for some celebratory reason, these balloons were waving about, in a what were they thinking sort of way
Little gazebos here and there.
And there's some great landscape design, too, since that's a specialty of the course offerings. People come to have wedding pictures taken at various nooks around the campus.
And on the same property, producing renewable energy for the campus, are acres and acres of solar panels, which look oddly like lowslung greenhouses from a distance.
Interesting afternoon.
After all my big talk about workshop work, and wilderness work, I thought I should at least show you a little something.
As you may know, if you've done these forms of goldwork, the or nue aka shaded goldwork, seen here just started, see the dragonfly motif recurring (!)
and the stitching over string seen here, a fleur de lis motif, string mostly in place, goldwork couching just started,
are very slow methodical processes.
The wilderness is a bit more sudden. And after two days of workshop and one day at home on the goldwork, I urgently needed to switch to the wilderness.
I stitched down the lizard into his new home, and after a bit more stitching of grasses and plants, some of which is already done, after I made the pic, the dragonfly will take up residence, too. And after that another bunch of ideas I have in mind but not on needle yet. I must say I'm glad he's in place, really tired of whipping him in and out of his little baggie.
On the subject of design, you'll see that the lizard touches on three plants. The dragonfly will probably do likewise, and may touch on the last plant the lizard touches, so as to lock the design together.
But I will be very particular about the angle at which the dfly goes in, to activate the space between her and the lizard. You note that the lizard draws your eye left to right and up a bit, because that's how he's looking, ready to notice the dfly, which will, in a way, cut that off, so you don't slide right off the side. Your eye needs places where it will be stopped. These diagonals provided by the stumpwork animals, will provide the relief from all the verticals of the grasses and flowers.
Later this afternoon, I'm off to see an art exhibit, someone else's work, yay, change from doing it myself, and will duly report.
I just came across a wonderful little butterfly, from a treasure box from Judy T., a fine piece of beading on net, which really has to go into the night scene, since it might be a moth.
Closer in so you can see the new butterfly/moth better
And here's how it sits in the whole piece. Along with the luna moth. Not complete, more will happen, but not a lot, I think.
Then the dragonfly decided to move into the lizard's habitat, so the original work is losing its inhabitants and will need more! disregard the wires on the dragonfly -- they'll slip through the fabric and be secured at the back once we get there. And she will probably be angled differently at that point.
Tomorrow I'm off to the goldwork adventure, pix later, so I'm leaving this project in nice shape to pick up and continue when I get back, no doubt with ten other projects in process.
He's actually quite a large lizard in this setting. It's all relative. Anyway, I've been trying out a few ideas here, as I stitch on the grassy areas in the foreground.
And here with the lizard in residence, but he may move before his final decision.
There may be some nice shreds of trailing shiny stuff from the tree areas later, like Spanish moss, trailing between the lizard and the viewer, but meanwhile, I'm seeing how this goes. And remembering that there will be a background of probably silk fabric, to emphasize the openness of the design. If I keep it open and don't fall prey to filling it in in a burst of enthusiasm and stitching.
And I'm finding that I'm working with slippery but pretty threads. I loved the colors just what I wanted, and the texture nearly made me go spare. Some silk, some rayon. Finally I'm stopping long enough to find the wax and apply it.
As usual, ready, fire, aim, I waxed a couple of threads, passing it through between my thumb and the wax block, both ways, before checking out how to do it, and found, oh well, that was the right way to do it. Just as well, really, since it was done, for better or worse.
You'd be amazed at the improvement in the noise level around here, many fewer screams of rage because the thread is not knotting itself up on the back while I'm concentrating on the front. And when the thread has been on a card, it's kinked, and the wax smooths away the kinks nicely. The cats notice my irritation level has subsided, too.
And here's where we are. I love ideas from blogistas about what might happen next, thank you Florence, for a great one, and I invite everyone, stitcher or not, to contribute.
Well, one thing has led to another. The little lizard just couldn't settle in the original wilderness piece, so I thought at first he might work on the black satin one, but then realized he needed his own habitat.
So I found some beautiful evenweave linen in my bits of fabric place, stretched it on stretcher bars, the stitching kind, very easy to put the thumbtacks in, not like artist stretcher bars. And painted it with silk paints, then salted the result.
This is the back of the painting, but the front of the artwork, channeling Helen Frankenthaler here..this is 8 x 8 inches.
He seems more at home here. But this is only the start. Next I will be drawing threads out to make grasses, and doing possibly needleweaving and various other fancy steps, to create a more 3D environment for him. He will work in and out of the grasses. This piece will be backed with dyed silk, I think, to complete the illusion. And I can't wait to get cutting and drawing..
I thought of all this when I read Mary Corbet's blogpost today with great links, one of which took me to Susan Elliott's blog which had info about a wonderful needlewoman, Catherine Jordan, and the idea of painting and drawing threads I saw there was so compelling I dashed right up to the studio and got to work on it. This new wilderness piece owes a lot to all those women, thank you all, and I'll take off on my own path with it! why are you not surprised to hear that.
While I was up there in the studio, after you climb two flights may as well make it worth your climb, I stretched the black satin piece with the copper monotype on it, as a companion piece to the crocheted wilderness. This stretches to 12 x 12 inches finished size.
The luna moth will be very happy on this one. Haven't yet decided on the orientation of this one, but I'll see how Luna likes it.
And I fixed the blue butterfly on the crochet piece, and I think the dragonfly will go into residence there too. I need a ground based third critter, though. Again, this is the same size as the night version, 12 x 12 inches.
Of course now I have to make more critters since I now have three, count them, wilderness pieces to populate..this is what happens when you drop your guard.
Speaking of which, while I was busy on all this, there were movements in the rl animal kingdom, in the shape of a local very well cared for cat, not a stray, trying once again to move in. He shows up every couple of weeks insisting he ought to live here.
Here he's on the fence having seen Marigold hissing and puffing up while Duncan snoozed on, above it all. So their drama was keeping them busy, too.
The much cooler weather has slowed down all the insects and other outdoor tiny animals, bees flying slowly, crickets just sitting posing for pix.
I was careful not to let this little guy indoors, though, which I think was his next plan. Nothing as irritating as a cricket in the house, cricking away for hours, and impossible to find and eject.
I was happy to have him sit a while and let me study him, for future stitching purposes.
This is my part in the Around the World blogging project, which I explained over here, so if you arrived safely, I invite you to scroll as long as you want to and enjoy my art in many media. There were suggested questions which I studied and well, no use giving instructions to an artist...so I've adapted to my own thoughts.
I firmly believe that all the arts are one, and in the visual world, you express yourself in whatever medium suits your current purpose, so that I would never follow a single method or material. Not for me the notion of being a watercolorist, or an oil painter, or even a sculptor, though I've done all these approaches and had a wonderful time doing it.
I do think it's vital to develop skills in all kinds of media so that you can call on them at will. So what I learned in painting I apply in designing stitched artworks, and what I learned in miniature making I apply in created tiny stumpworked insects and small animals, and what I learned in spinning I apply to working in goldwork, and what I learned in drawing I applied in photography.
And what I learned in writing and publishing and being one of the earliest artists to use the computer as a medium, has borne fruit in blogging, and what I learned in playing several musical instruments, solo and in groups and orchestra, taught me a great deal about timing and white space and color and shapes and sharing.
I also learned a lot from teaching many artforms to people ranging from 18 months to over 80, many from other cultures and little English, but art is universal. And what I learned in those many workshops over nearly 40 years, in writing as well as art, prepared me for the sharing I experience on the internet.
It's all about talking with the materials and letting them take part in the decision making. It's really true that when you are asked how long a given artwork took to create, it has taken all your life! because without all those experiences, both of life and art, you couldn't have created it anyway, regardless of the hours this literally took in your hands. It's been in your head and your core all your life! and your life, what happens to you and what you do with it, is a huge part of how you make art. It gets in there no matter what you think you're working about.
As to why I do it and how, well, there's really no choice. An artist is seized by the work, not the other way around. Can't remember a time when I wasn't building or making or drawing or writing or dreaming, about artworks in my future.
Just want to finish with a reference to Betye Saar, and if you don't know her work, check her out, to the effect that an artist trusts to instinct, and the more you trust it, the stronger your instinct becomes.
Thanks for reading this far, and please be my guest and just take a look around in here, and ask whatever crosses your mind to ask! and let me thank you for supporting this artist. And thank you, Mary Anne, for inviting me into the project.
I have attached the freeform and painted crochet to the dyed silk background for my wilderness piece, at least one of them. The other is the black sateen one with this crochet design monotyped onto it with copper metallic paint, so it will echo this one.
Next will come some strategic beading, using silver,copper and gold beads as you see in the little dish, attached with the gold silk thread which you see there, too. After that will come the denizens and probably more yet to be thought up.
I photographed this from two orientations, and this is where I would like some input from blogistas -- do you have a preference as to which way will be up? before I attach animals and butterflies, I need to decide this.
The black lines you see, which in rl are a perfect square, but I couldn't get that faithfully, are the outline showing me the edges of the box frame this piece will go into. Incidentally, that's a good tip for any artwork if you already have a frame in mind -- show yourself where the edges will come as a guide.
So if you have a thought, please share it.
Art comes in all forms, and today, instead of looking at myself, I'm asking you to experience the work of a wonderful poet who is a friend but even if she weren't I'd send you here
and warn you to be ready to be blown away. Just sayin'
She has been warned I plan to link her, but isn't the sort of self marketer to ask, so I figured I'd just do it.
The dragonfly is complete, but not assembled, and I put the parts more or less together to show you how it goes. Top pic shows part of the original drawing from which I made it
Bottom pic shows her a bit closer up. A couple of repair stitches will be needed once I anchor the body in place, since my scissors slipped once or twice. No harm done, though. The closeup shows her about twice the life size of the work.
The wires will be slid through the base fabric once in place, and fastened down at the back, and the body stitched down to the background. Here the wires are in the way a bit, but you get the gist. They will allow me to pose the wings once the whole thing is in place. That will be fun.
