The Dollivers set up the papermaking studio for K.B.

Tomorrow a young artist is coming to visit, bringing his parents, to see handmade paper and to learn to do it for himself.  So today we're busy setting up what he needs, collected from the studio two floors up.  Blondie Firstborn brought her doll, and Bette Davis said she was always in the newspapers years ago, and would like to be there again.  I had to explain we're going to make original true paper, not newspaper, but that did not deter her from barging taking part.

Here is all you need for great papermaking. 

It's what I use for all my stuff, somewhat simplified since the visiting artist is six, but basically all there.  To wit: second run cotton linters, pulp sheets, bag of my own cotton paper to be repulped and reused, molds and deckles -- as you see, made from embroidery hoops and picture frames, with screening, the kind you use on screen doors, stapled or pinched on -- blender (this kind of paper is clean enough you can in fact return the blender to the kitchen,though it is hard on the blender to make pulp), vat (dishpan in this case) and felts, those sheets of dressmaker's interfacing Blondie's reclining on, and a bucket.

The other Ds bustled about curating the living room so that the visiting artists can see some examples of art made from artist made paper, just for understanding how the paper itself is the art, rather than something to write or draw on.  All this work was done with the same basic tools you saw above, plus I did some molding after the original sheets were dried, and stitching, and other processes.

Tomorrow morning I'll make up a bucket of pulp and we'll be all set to go in the afternoon.

New loom weaves clean...

I was engrossed in the new small tapestry I'm making, fine warp, and embroidery floss weft (embroidery meets weaving) and decided I needed a small loom for finer tapestry work that I have in mind. And it would involve sitting down to weave, a nice thought, according to my neck and shoulders.  And that though I could make one -- I have a range of them, in cardboard, stretchers, retooled wood frames and so on-- it would be nice to have a predesigned one. 

So I sent away for this dear little potholder loom -- Harrisville, old family company in New England, loom made in metal, very well finished with no snags, and made in the USA, all great points in its favor. 

It arrived with the speed of light, and turned out to include not only the loom, but a hook thing and a fat crochet hook, and  a bunch of loop things for making potholders.

So, though, no, I haven't been away to Girl Scout camp recently, I figured I really ought to use up the loops anyway, to get the feel of the little loom, and see how I liked the general dimensions.  Turns out I like them a lot, and since the potholder (ages 6 and up, so if you go far enough up, you get to me) has hooks on all four sides, that gives me other ideas, too,about tapestry weaving and design.  So that's in the queue for my attention very soon.  My inner little kid is all excited about this.

Possibility has arisen for an exhibit locally, via various friends having a word with one another, and I think the small tapestries might work into that very well, along with bigger ones already made.  As they say, it's all go!

So currently, there's this tapestry in progress

in the studio on a bigger loom, several items of needlework in the living room, the potholder loom reigning there, too, and in a couple of days' time a little guy is bringing his parents to visit, haven't seen them in ages, to learn how to make paper. So I had to organize some paper artworks in the living room so they can see what you might just do once you get the hang of it.  More pictures of that in action, with any luck.

And with time out for helping my honorary granddaughter with her college app. marathon, today has been pretty full, and it's only lunchtime now...

The Prayer Flag Project exhibit has opened

I received a group of pix of the newly mounted Prayer Flag exhibit at OMA (Oceanside Museum of Art, Ca) today, and found a blog much easier to direct you to (moving the attachments of my email into my blog having temporarily stalled my inventive faculties).  So, if you'd like to see the opening, and who knows,may even see my flag in there somewhere, go to http://theprayerflagproject.blogspot.com/2012/10/photos-from-oma-exhibit.html  

Oh, and here, too: http://www.leenieworld.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-few-more-photos-of-artist-reception.html

It doesn't really matter where my flag is, though, since it's a prayer, and as long as it is up there and flying in such good company, all is well.

When in doubt, do everything

This has been a lifelong policy for me, not always a wise one, but usually ending in a lot of fun.

The current "do everything" involves two pieces of needlepoint and a newly warped tapestry and a photograph and newly dyed threads from a canvas.

To explain:  the fish, Jane Sweeney's design,

has a fish motif separately stitched, to be appliqued to the bigger canvas which represents water and sand, so the excess threads of its canvas are removed to enable it to move in on the water area.  Then there will be a bit of trapunto stuffing to make the fish 3D.

However, once I'd removed the white threads, I figured it would be good to save them, and dye them for future use in a tapestry, possibly the one you see further down.  I used one package of Hawaiian Punch, one of Lemon Lime, Koolaid, if you're interested in the techy details of the dye job.  Done in the microwave in a ziplock bag, resting in a container.

Meanwhile, this pillow is going on apace, also thanks to Jane, and you see her sample pictured left, different color scheme from the one I chose.

Then up in the studio, I've warped up a new tapestry, very fine (for me) warp, on which I'll reproduce the photo image you see slid behind the front of the warp.  This won't stay there, just put there to show the intent.

  The photo image is my own, tricky stuff from way back when I used a film camera -- close up of a junction box or something, down the street, double printed, then I turned them up in relation to each other to make an abstraction.  I did a lot of this a few years ago, and exhibited them, all photographs, no photoshop, no fancy lighting or footwork, just pix, two prints of each, moved in relation to each other, all taken within 200 yards of my house, my time being very limited for leaving HP alone.  This turned out to be a great art adventure, though, all restraints forgotten as I explored.  I sometimes think of this as the Emily Dickinson approach to art!   a.k.a. world travel not included.


Writing this has given me an idea for another small tapestry, with my hands in the image. Must find that photo set and get that warped up, too.

Art updates Prayer Flag and Mary Walker Designs

I just heard  from the Oceanside Museum of Art, the prayer flag venue, that installation of the flags is almost complete, and they'll send me a link of the resulting pix.  So I'll post that here, really want to see all the other flags.  The few I've seen were great.  So watch this space!

Also,  go to http://www.marywalkerdesigns.com/2012/10/show-me-what-you-got-oct-10th-to-16th.html
for a new weekly show and tell of art.  I've put my link to the tapestry in there, hoping I got it right, and there will be other interesting links on current artmaking.

Tapestry is now rested, and ready to be stitched to a dowel for hanging, and the next one is already taking form in my mind.  I went to the hardware store for art materials: dowels.  All dowelled up now and ready to go.

Tapestry and painting done

The tapestry has landed.

Here's the tapestry at the last leash -- I tied these with bows for easy removal -- before I took it off the loom. I'd already cut and knotted the warp ends, flat knots, to secure the weft, top and bottom.  

Now it has to rest for a day to see its final shape and size.  It probably won't change much from being off the tension of the loom, since it's a mix of natural and synthetic yarns and roving and string.  But the day's rest is good.  Also good for the weaver, letting my neck get back to normal.  Quite heavy work, standing and working at shoulder height, with repetitive motion, so many short breaks and waving of arms and flexing of neck is also involved.

I framed the little painting in an 8 x 10 box frame, backed onto my handmade paper.   The weaving size is 18 x 16 counting the fringe, 10.5 x 16 not counting fringe.  I have to decide whether to keep the bottom fringes, maybe knot them more, since the warp fits in with the color scheme of the tapestry.  The top ones will probably be turned over and woven and stitched back in to support a dowel for hanging.  Then Pair Two will be complete.  click to see better.

Several ideas are jostling at once for next on the list of pairs, but I think I'll let them simmer a bit while I get on with needlework that needs coordination but is very restful.  It's about sitting down! also this is a Jane Sweeney design, the needlework, that is, lovely to work someone else's design and get an insight into how she works.  She has a joyful approach I like a lot.

The tapestry is getting there

Cheerful sight in the studio -- yarns galore, and the tapestry about three quarters done.  I like to have a great array of yarns in sight to suggest what should come next.  Often it's not what I first thought, so if I organized them too well, I might miss some ideas.  there are handspuns, sequin fabric, unspun merino roving, acrylic, Scottish wool, ribbon yarn, novelty fluffy yarn all in there. 

click to see better
And for nonweavers who wonder: those yarn leashes up the sides are meant to maintain the proper width of the weaving as I go, otherwise it would get narrower and narrower.  Sometimes I want that narrowing, but here I would like to keep the rectangular shape.

The tapestry continues..

So far so good.  I'm using a giant needle to do the weaving -- heading it in eye first, to avoid snags. The frame of this loom is thick enough that it's easy to slide the needle through one way, and not too tricky to pick up the threads on the way back.  I really prefer this method to butterflies or bobbins and using sticks and strings to manipulate the warp.You can probably see dots on the warp higher up to indicate where the sun will be woven in.  click on pic to see better. 

More adventures in media

I already showed you the line drawing and the line stitching in black on white that relate to one another. I'm pursuing this concept of rendering the same composition in different media.  Right now I have a small watercolor painting of  cliffs on the coast of North Yorkshire, that I showed you some time ago, and I'm rendering it in tapestry. 

This is another of my homemade looms.  The frame you see at the front I salvaged ages ago from some building trash, not sure what it originally was.  I think maybe the underpinnings of a kitchen counter, because it's perfectly squared, absolute right angles at the corners, heavy wood, well finished so it doesn't snag the yarn.  And I figured out how to make it stand upright by attaching one of my stretcher looms to the back with strapping tape, which "gives" as you open it.  Then a simple flat stick to keep it from closing again while I work, and there you are, very functional loom, steady, no need to hold onto any part of it, a big advance on the hand held looms I made before.  In fact, I could warp another tapestry on the back of this one, on loom currently acting as a support.  No need to warp right over the top, just sling a dowel and warp over that.  But I get ahead of myself...

The yarns are either gifts (Ash, you'll see yours at the bottom right, Stefi, one of yours is in the sea, Miranda, yours, too, that brownish purplish one , roving donated by Carol, my own spun yarn or my own roving from fleece I processed.   Click to see better. I just started this, warped it day before yesterday with variegated acrylic yarn, strong stuff, and interesting peeks of blues and whites, and I started the weaving yesterday.  So this is very new. This artwork is totally recycled if you like to think of it that way.  The shuttles are craft sticks, another freecycle.  In fact the top the whole thing is standing on is a heavy glass tabletop rescued from the trash years ago and often used as a base for printmaking when I make monotypes.  Nothing goes to waste around here.

The concepts and labor, however, are strictly firsthand, and time consuming.  But transformation does take time.  My hands have recovered from the damage done during the care of HP, so that's not an issue in making tapestry any more, though it kept me away for a while.  But the stamina you need to work your upper body for a long time, now that I have to build up!  an hour is as much as I can handle without having to do different things to let my ribcage rest!

Blackwork revealed!

About to get to the mail with this one, a little gift. 

This is the blackwork you saw earlier at different stages. It's a book cover (the book stays here, she has her own copy), and it's backed with fusible web, then finished with buttonhole stitch all round, to secure the edges when it's handled.  Click to see better.

I learned a lot from working this, the challenges of blackwork itself, and how to adapt the stitches to my own design needs, and fnishing, and so on.  I think it's pretty nice, and I hope the recipient agrees!  there's a major subtext to the choice of blackwork, relating to the period when it flourished in England, and that I'll narrate to the recipient in a note I'll include.

Great stuff waiting to happen! watch this space...

Anyone within traveling distance of the public library of  Plainsboro NJ needs to put a checkmark on your listing of plans for September 22, 1-5 p.m, for the Festival of the Arts.  Many art activities, all participatory, music, food, embroidery, painting, weaving, dancing, poetry, found object sculpture.  They'll all happen.  Just show up and you'll be part of the group.

And because the Earthloom is a centerpiece this year, I dashed up to the studio to find interesting fabrics, cut them into weavable strips, and will add them in to the loom stash as of next week.  Take a look and tell me you don't want to weave this delicious stuff into narratives and dreams on the loom...

Weaving at the Library, a community celebration!

Today was the unveiling of an Eagle Scout project, an Earthloom, and the completion of its first wallhanging, under the guidance of the Eagle Scout himself, with the assistance of various other scouting participants, library staff, volunteers, and general public, including the Dollivers, two of whom signed themselves up for the party.

Our Scout gave permission for the pix with the Ds, and the series shows the piece from semi complete, to complete, many hands taking turns to work on it, then cut off the loom and ready to hang as the first piece off the giant loom, designed and built in cooperation with the troop and parents, and ready to live in the library as a community weaving loom. It's an amazing, well-thought-out and executed project, seriously worked and I'd say very successful.

Of course I offered my services to play,I mean work, on this wonderful item.  This is a great community centered piece, good for all ages and stages to enjoy the art and fun of weaving.


Julie D., children's librarian posed with the Ds,

and promised them new earrings.  After they'd supervised the weaving and got all the attention a D could desire, they took a rest against a seasonal announcement. 

I dread being asked to make football uniforms next, but I think it's unlikely, since it would ruin their hair.

Plainsboro Artists 2012 Invitational

This annual event, held in conjunction with the fall Festival of the Arts, this year on September22, is an invitational exhibit for our regional artists' group, and drew a great response this year.  On the day of the Festival, instead of a juried decision on Best in Show and runners-up, there will be a People's Choice vote, the winners to receive cash prizes, courtesy of local companies. Anyone who comes to the Festival, can cast a vote for their favorite artwork.

The opening was a great party, which, alas, because of the brilliant evening sun and the high contrast, yielded pix most of which were not very flattering! I used the few that worked, and I went to the gallery next day to shoot a few shots of the work itself, with no people around. There was more than this, but this is just a summary of the works, very strong show this year.   the white paper piece is mine,and I spent a lot of time at the opening explaining how it was done.

Embroiderers Guild of America take a bow!

Once in a while, I blog about other interesting subjects than the Great Me, and today, I wanted to bask in the lovely afternoon I just spent with my local (Princeton NJ) chapter of EGA, among friends, great time had by all, and best of all, a new project (yes, just what I needed, a new project!).  


But this one was designed and planned and kitted and led by Jane Sweeney, a local embroiderer with national certification from EGA to do this stuff and longtime Guild member.  This certification is similar to City and Guilds, for them as is of brit origin, iow a stellar credential.  Jane is also a lot of fun and a fine teacher, to boot.

So this is our monthly meeting, at least part of it

Suzanne D. is the lady in black watching intently as Jane demonstrates some tricky points in the current pillow project, a lovely geometric with some stitches I never did before

  Notice Jane's white coat: her name tag, which every member has to make to her own design, reads Jane Sweeney, Stitch Doctor!

This is the most fun and supportive group you can imagine.  At their urging, today I took in a bunch of my miniatures from ages ago (decades, but who's counting) and watched in surprise as they enjoyed them hugely.  Turns out everyone loves a miniature. Especially needleworked minis. This is so typical, that they generously look at each others' work and appreciate what's going on.  Plenty of opinions and all constructive. In self defense I also took in two very current needleworks (the black on white lawn you saw in here earlier) just because I didn't stop work in the 80s.  It was nice to revisit the world of miniatures, though.

Pix of the minis may appear in the article Helen H, longtime guild member, is writing about my stuff for the national Needlearts magazine of the EGA, mainly because Suzanne D. took pix with a much better camera than mine! 

I don't know how I would have got through this summer, a rugged one, without the the friendship I found in EGA when I joined just a few months ago.,  Anyway, if you love to embroider and are looking for likeminded nice people (not all members are women, men can join too, but are rarer) just look for your nearest chapter and go to a meeting.  Just try it.   I expect other countries have similar guilds (I love to say I'm in a guild, sounds so medieval!) and I'll bet you can find your own group.

I have to finish on a note of self congratulation: when I joined in March of this year I found I had six months to create my own nametag to wear at monthly meetings. And today was her maiden voyage, wheee.

Blackwork almost there...

Just one more square to fill, I think, and then I can start making this piece up into its final product, which I will reveal in due course.

Here you'll see two traditional designs, very strictly blackwork, plus one very symmetrical invention of my own, and two rather wilder designs I made, departing abruptly from the trad. designs. I wanted this to be a crossover piece, respecting the origins of blackwork, in that it's counted thread and it's black on a white background,but I also wanted to diverge and create some new ideas, too. 

So this is where it is right now.  I think that last open square will be a fairly intense traditional pattern. The white squares are to give your eyes a place to rest, rather than have all these loud designs jostling each other.  To me visual intensity is very similar to noise.

Whole thing with one open square to work. Again, the angle has distorted the rectangle a bit, trying to keep my shadow off the work in the sun, but it is in fact very true.

Closer up showing stitch patterns a bit sharper The wild threads you see here and there are just markers showing my boundaries and reminding me not to stitch into the white squares which are supposed to be empty.

Blackwork at Black Rock

Blackwork is like dog owning.  You love it, you're engrossed by it, you are endlessly patient with its little quirks.  And you wish fervently it were all easier than hitting yourself in the head repeatedly.

I've undertaken a fairly ambitious piece of blackwork.  This is the Real Thing.  Proper counted thread fabric (kindly donated by my local chapter of EGA, the Princeton one, to be exact, generous sharing group), plus I acquired some stitch diagrams and charts.  Now people who have heard me whine and cry and stamp my little feet on Ravelry about charts and how I can't knit from them, don't ask me, can proceed to listen to my whining about blackwork charts. I can in fact follow them, but you know how it is, the squares on the fabric sort of move and change while you're not looking and omg there's another whole area Wrong.

It's a terrific learning path, despite all my wails and screams of rage, and will result in Something Nice with a destination as yet undisclosed.   As you probably know, the hard part about blackwork is that the back is supposed to mimic the front exactly so that there's no "wrong" side.  This is why your chart is such a tyrant.  This dates back to when the Elizabethans who had some stellar embroiderers available, had blackwork decoration on collars and shirts which could be seen from both sides.  Mine are okay for a beginner, but I doubt that Elizabeth I would have bought them.  Yes, but you see, Your Madge, if you just turn your cuff like that as you play your music, it will look just fine!  trust me, it will.

This project is going to be approximately 32 squares, two lots of sixteen with a gap running down the middle, the purpose a deadly secret at this point.  Every other square is to be left blank, but all the embroidered squares, sixteen in all, will be different designs.  The reason for the little chunk of thread in the blank areas is to stop me from accidentally embroidering in them.  The squares are about 2.25 inches on a side.  Just so's you know.  and the blank squares will allow for an afterimage, a phenom I love in art.  You stare at one square (may not work in this picture since it came out all blue instead of white, I scratch my head in puzzlement) with the design, then shift your gaze to an adjacent blank one and gosh look, you see it again.

One thread of DMC black floss in the embroidered squares, one thread in cross stitch around the blank areas, two threads in floss around the embroidered squares, so as to weight them a little bit. And the different darknesses of the cross stitch gives a subtle change to the overall look of it, not too square and in your face.  Anyway, as I always say, that's the plan!  and though my pic shows the lines a little bowed, in fact it's  just a camera quirk.  They're actually dead straight.

But I will say this:  I fully understand why the Elizabethans, who were into blackwork in a big way, drank beer all day long.  They claimed the water wasn't safe, but I'm not buying it. I'm just sayin.

Turning points in art

I've put a couple of pieces into more of a presentation mode, just to get them off my table and onto the wall at least for the moment.  I have some ideas about how to extend the motifs in them, which I'll get into.  The black and white drawing of the weed is like a drawing I made of the same thing, using a real life weed as a model, beautiful architecture.  The bird has other sorts of potential.

This selection includes a couple of works I made years and years ago, and I'm still fond of them, because they're among the few items I made just for me as a present.  Isabelle, every time I see the unicorn piece I think of you!  this is because I stitched it many years ago, one strand of floss, on 38 count silk gauze, using as my guide a picture of one of the unicorn tapestries that is still in France, in Cluny, I think. I left the background blank, because the silk gauze is beautiful in itself, no need to cover every part of it.  I know you treasure historic needlework, so I shot this image for you.

I realized that the needlework I've been doing this year is only one part of my art thinking.  I'm toying with image transfer -- came up in conversation recently, and I realized it could apply even here -- and with drawing the same image as in needlework, monotypes relating, and other ideas.  I think I see the seeds of a mixed media exhibit starting to fumble about in my mind, where several single media can work to portray the same motif.  The bird here in stitching, there in image transfer, there in drawing, there in monotype form, there in linocut, but all different, allowing for the different ways the medium works.

I've never seen the point of using one medium to imitate another -- no point in photographic realism in painting and drawing since the invention of the camera, after all, and stitched portraits are, well, same objection. But what's really important to me is to investigate what each medium itself can do, working on the same subject.  Anyway, I think that's the unfolding adventure for me this year.

But as we all know, woman proposes, Goddess disposes!

Wild Horses!

Here's the center motif of a little piece depicting a T'ang porcelain horse, I'm told a priceless artwork in some midwestern museum.  I'm going to decide what kind of background will work with this -- in fact I'd welcome any ideas from blogistas on this -- colors? stitches? color mixes?  bearing in mind that the motif -- see the accompanying ruler -- is about three inches total in each direction.

This is the kind of totally self indulgent stuff I love to do now and then.  The pattern is from a detective story by Monica Ferris, sorry, forget which of her books, but she always has a little design or tips on some needlework method in her detection.  She turned me onto the hardanger, in fact, and I plan to do more of that.  And I recommend her books as a nice light read with needlework interest added in.  The T'ang horse was an important plot point in the book the diagram comes in.


But once my horse is done, I'm on to blackwork, the real thing this time, since I now have the fabric and the right floss to work with, plus a great lesson series lent by a friend.

I find that I'm not a UFO type of person, feeling very uncomfortable if I have several needlework projects at different stages.  No good telling myself I'll do what the mood calls for, not that kind of artist at all.  I've always worked regardless of mood, weather, crises, so that doesn't work as a rationale for me.  And I currently have my little horse, a turtle, my nametag all hanging fire.  I did complete my black and white bird and the little drawing black piece, both on lawn, and need to stretch and frame or something.  The turtle I'll do along with the blackwork, maybe..and I'll GET the nametag done, not much left to do.

Souvenir of the prayer flag

After the prayer flag left for its California destination, I was left with a nice scrap of linen, which I turned into a cellphone purse.  Drawn threadwork, hemstitching, my paper bead for a fastening, crocheted strap.  I just finished it now and it's a summer purse, tiny category.

Prayer Flag entry

There's a call for entries to artists anywhere, to create a prayer flag which will be flown at the Oceanside Museum of Art in California in October. Since I walk the labyrinth and experience the Tibetan prayer flags there, this appealed to me as a timely project, in honor of the life of Handsome Partner.

So here's my entry: it's approximately 5 x 8 inches, on linen, with perle thread numbers 5 and 8, hardanger, drawn threadwork and fraying. On the back I'll put a pocket for hanging it, and inscribe the prayer and my name and date, but the prayer is between me and the wind! it honors HP's part in reintroducing me to the fiber arts, during his last years, when I could not leave his side to go to the studio up two flights, and switched to art forms that I could safely work in. No fumes, no danger to his health, and he could watch and enjoy the progress of my weaving, and stitching, and knitting and crocheting. So this prayer flag is a kind of acknowledgment of all that.

If you're interested in entering your own prayer flag, can be any approach as long as it's on fabric, go here for details:

http://janeville.blogspot.com/2012/08/call-for-artists-prayer-flags.html

Look Up -- Shapes in the clouds

This is my entry for an invitation exhibit in September on the theme of Look up, Look down.  It's the result of those handmade paper experiments I showed you a while back, now in place and hanging.  The whole thing, minus the support, weighs maybe an ounce!  lot of loose edges which will catch the air currents  in the gallery nicely, like clouds. It's pure bright white.

It's 20 x 16, my favorite size and orientation.