portals

every doorway,

every intersection

has a story.

-katherine dunn

i've been thinking lately about the story of my cloth work. not so much of the story of how i came to do it, but rather the why of the art itself. whether the "art" in question is cloth, paint, music...or even the way i arrange my personal space...it all boils down to my desire to reunite and record fragments of thought, feeling, and memory in such a way as to convey these fragments to others. to allow them a glimpse into my joy. my sorrow. my...whatever...and by doing this, i continue to discover new things about myself...how i relate to the world...through the process of quieting my mind and working with my hands and the interplay of them and the materials i am working with. this opens a doorway into the inner workings of how we each look at the world in which we live. provides an avenue for sharing...

namaste'

colors speak louder than words

"clouds come floating

into my life, no longer

to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky."

-rabindranath tagore

while posting on my instagram account about how i love digging through this oversized basket of hand dyed threads with which to spill a bit of colour on cloth on a rainy day, i was struck by my hoarding tendencies when it comes to art supplies. do i have a problem? should i seek help? divest myself of my treasures? comply with normality??

...nah! not when it allows me to manifest bunnies like this little guy soaking up a little rusty sunshine:

yeah, yeah...i know...he's purple! but he wanted to be purple. honestly!  i'd better get back to stitching him. having only a sketchy body is making him nervous...

namasté

working through

an uneventful weekend. one of those periods where you feel swaddled in cotton wool. everything around you seems muffled. so you busy yourself with things close at hand. the pants, which have begun to call themselves working through, stirred and whispered. they were as close at hand as anything else. i began laying the foundation. a scrap of red to remind one of the wound upon which this new cloth will be built. stitched up a few rips that were silent.  brought what was left of the hem back into close proximity of the leg.  on my last pair, i underlayed a hem from a different pair of pants. i'm not sure yet what i want to do with this pair. though i do not wish to repeat the past.  next will come layered fragments in a boro style...to strengthen and connect. 

namaste'

salvage blues

things that people

have used 

and cherished. they

have personality,

character,

and soul.

here we have two of my favorite things: music and cloth.  both created, or to be re-created, from salvage.  in the background is my latest acquisition, the troubadour, talked about here.  in the foreground is one of my favorite pair of work jeans. carpenters, complete with the extra little side pockets and hammer loop.  blown out knee with a minor repair already chanted in. chewed to salem and back heel cuz i love to were my jeans a few inches longer than my legs can manage. one of the legs is ripped several inches up along one side where i stepped on the trailing fragments of hem and continued to try to walk.

if you've been following my blog for some time, you'll remember i've already done a pair of skull pants. now it is time for something different. new. at first blush, i'm thinking something japanese. oni masks; foo lions; noh theatre; hannya masks...that sort of vibe. so, over the next few days, i'll be sketching some ideas while needle chanting in some stabilizing scraps and preparing the jeans for what is to come!

namaste'

laying a foundation

it's strange, sometimes, where a tear will appear. center back of the neck. ripping stealthily. sneakily. but the opportunity to play with fragments of cloth and thread will not be missed!  first, a foundation to strengthen. next will be a layer or three of stitch and fragments. perhaps a skull? a crow? whatever, it will be a fun diversion. creating a quiet little secret hidden beneath the hood of my coat. except for when my ears get cold...

namaste'

old cloth, new direction

in an effort to simply start doing, rather than thinking about doing, i've picked up community and begun top stitching the seams on the first row. just continuing on. though i have the thought that the name will be changing soon. i'm still listening for the this new name, so until the whispers become loud enough to hear, i will still call it community.

as some of you may recall, community began as a human wrapping cloth comprised of various salvaged scraps from discarded and unwanted clothing from the community in which i live. some garnered from local thrift shops. others from yard sales. still others donated to the project from friends and strangers who heard about the endeavor.

now, as i enter into the last year or so that i will be living here in montana, my thoughts about this cloth have begun to evolve. grow. enlarge. it is no longer content to be a series of squares and rectangles quilted in a more common manner (i had been contemplating even machine quilting this one). it wants to have more story to it than this. whispers of beasts and words are becoming coherent. insistent. so between bouts of stitching the seemingly endless seams with vintage variegated threads, i will begin exploring visceral, almost totemic, illustrations of beasts. lions. tigers. leopards. bears. who knows what all else? but these are foremost in thought at the moment.

with the riotous color already present in what will now become the background blocks of this cloth, i shall have to get somewhat inventive to keep the new beastie population soon to appear from disappearing into this cacophony of color!

namaste'

my lovely bones

"these were the lovely bones

that had grown around my absence..."

- alice sebold

so much of my time has been wrapped up in music of late. exploring this new (to me) world of cigar box guitars and their link to depression era delta blues. so much so that it felt almost foreign to my fingers to pick up a needle and thread and begin chanting upon cloth once again. almost. but memories have a way of ebbing back into place once we are receptive to them again...

oh so long ago (there's a blog entry somewhere about it, but i haven't taken the time to hunt it down) i mentioned having this enormous collection of vintage linens. pillow cases. dresser scarves. chair leaves. candle mats. kitchen linens. i had been contemplating using them somehow in a new interpretation of a crazy quilt. perhaps there is a predominantly white crazy quilt or two out there somewhere. i'm quite certain that a quick google search would probably spit back an endless flow of images (google seems to be good at that). but i don't want to contaminate my idea with someone else's so i will resist the urge to investigate further. instead, i simply acknowledge the old axiom that there are no new ideas is most likely true and forge on ahead nonetheless.

this is the beginning of my first block for what will become a large shelter cloth. it will span generations of expression in that it will be comprised of the daily toil of countless stitchers from unknown generations, cobbled together by my own vision. i'm calling it (for the moment at least) my lovely bones and will be infusing it with tangent images and design. as many of you know, bones have long been one of my own personal symbols of great meaning and endless whispering... i will be dispensing with "traditional" crazy quilting techniques (with the exception of embellished seams) and utilizing contemporary boro, or slow cloth, techniques. building layers of cloth fragments one upon another until the shelter cloth is of the size and weight desired. allowing the layers of time to provide its own density and warmth.

for now, however, i must get my head back under the steam cloth for i can not breathe (how dare this cold strike me down in the hour of my inspiration!).

namaste'

not all roads...

"when's all said and done,

all roads lead to the same end.

so it's not so much which 

road you take,

as how you take it."

-charles de lint

i have been spending a lot of time lately communing with my cloth and eco-dyes. music and imagination. opening myself to the possibilities of my work. trying to see where it has all be leading me. this past year has seen many new starts. new directions. new experimentations. and i am quite certain that there are many more to come. will always be too many to contemplate. however, in this moment, this is what comes to mind: each path, whether explored in depth or merely given a cursory glance, seems to be leading me in a myriad of directions. not as easy a journey as the old proverb suggesting that "all roads lead to rome." instead, each road leads me to the next. and the next. and the next after that. each contributing a cobblestone, if you will, to help pave the way to what will come: figure; story; eco-dyes; salvage cloth; re-designed cloth; tattered edges; community; fragments of thought and fiber... but where is it all leading?

at the moment, i am taking a step back. creating some spaciousness wherein i may see more clearly. a task which has lead me to pull out my salvage quilt and begin working once again on its seemingly endless array of mindless machine-stitched seams and hand-stitched allowances. there is a story in this cloth. a story of community. cobbled together from the cast-off garments this town's residents. some known to me. some not. and like all communities, there are layers forming. first, and simplest, are the machined seams holding the fragments of garments together. forming a foundation. second, the hand-stitching to hold the seam allowances down, yes. but also to begin to add texture and a foreshadowing of color and line and direction. once these have been brought to a level where the cloth will reside in strips (or rows) we will begin to see a coming together of community. then will begin the next layer. the continuing of story. figures. thoughts. fragments. stitched in layers upon this foundation. and the next.

it will be a long journey. no community manifests overnight. but it will be an interesting one. full of revelations. of heartbreak. and celebration. a laying down, step by step, fragment by fragment, of the story of this community of residents. human and otherwise. which will create a human wrapping cloth...a haven of fragments of time and memory to warm the body. to hearten the mind...that will allow me to take my town with me when i leave in a couple years. a gift to myself...and to what will eventually become my memory of this place.  amongst its whispers, this cloth has been asked to be re-named: relic, a gathering of lives.

relic is keeping me quite busy tonight...

namaste'

fragments for chanting

ah! it feels nice to be stitching again. i've pulled together some fragments of linens, silks, and hand block printed cottons together to manifest this little cloth. everything has been tacked down and is now waiting for some serious needle chanting to commence. perhaps even some beadwork will be in order. i'm still listening to its whispers. those organic bits on the sides may become wings. perhaps extend some of the stitching on the silk sleeve hem that cuts across the length of the cloth. some texture will need to be added as well. so many possibilities!

namaste'

fragments of word and cloth

i have a mind to embark upon a new journey. a journey of cloth. and words. i am done with attempting to coerce myself into completing cloths that simply don't have their heart in being completed. that's not to say that they will never find themselves finished. it just means that i am tired of beating myself into submission to try and finish something that isn't ready to complete its cycle of metamorphosis. to this end, i have designated my great-great-uncle's old steam trunk as home for wayward cloths and will continue to visit, live with, and work on (as they allow) on my various creations of cloth and fibre, have pulled my travelling boots on and pointed them in a new direction.

i have an extensive collection of thoughts and words. my own. those of others both known and unknown. while sitting by the fire and allowing my shoulders and neck time to heal this past week, i had a thought or two that ultimately lead me to an idea. one where fragments of word and cloth come together and instill deeper thought by their seemingly incomplete natures.

there have been many whispers bantered about in mind with regards to what will be done with these fragments. incorporate them into something more? or simply allow them to remain in remnant form? i imagine the answers to these whispered wonderings will emerge at a much later time...

in the meantime, the fragments will flow and manifest and simply be allowed to be what they choose to be. transforming a seemingly impossible situation into a very possible one!

namaste'

just continuing...

working a string of 70+ hour work weeks in the cottage leaves little time for much else but sleep, so i'm just continuing to stitch some neutral backgrounds of rust-dyed cottons, linens and silk blends stashed in a small linen bag to help fill the between time with something useful. i would like to start in on something more. or continue something else more. but mostly am too tired to think. to tired to listen to the whispers. so, for the moment, i am just continuing thusly...

namaste'

urban guerilla boro

it is always inspirational when we meet someone finding new ways to connect their art to the community in which they live. michael swaine is one such artist. i did not run into him on any of my forays into san francisco, but hope to some day. i would love to spend some time chatting with him and hearing more about his "performance art" project.

here is a man who is a potter/sculptor by trade (teaches at the san francisco art institute) who reached out into another medium and found a way to express it in a new and elevating way. he designed and built his own mobile sewing station after finding an old treadle machine in the trash. has spent the past couple of years wandering around one of the roughest neighborhoods of san francisco known as the tenderloin, and mends local residents' clothing. but he doesn't stop there. he connects with the residents in meaningful ways. talking with them about life. about mending. or sometimes just about the weather. whatever they need to talk about while he treadles boro patches and mends seams and rifts in their clothes...and, quite possibly, in their lives through his outreach and warmth.

between his mobile forays of urban guerilla boro, michael is currently building the free mending library in the tenderloin area at 509 ellis. it is a place to borrow thread and sewing machines and talk about life.

i wonder what other ways we can connect with our community through our art besides the more traditional gallery?

namaste'

unexpected boro opportunity

as all y'all know, i've been taking another of jude hill's amazing workshops, contemporary boro 2. i've been struggling with ways to incorporate her techniques into my own garments with an eye on actually being able to *wear* them afterwards. "what's the problem?" you might well ask. well, most of the inspiration found in this workshop is just too...well, um...*girly* for me.  i can't see myself tromping around with the boys in a shirt that's had the cuffs torn off and re-purposed into plackets, much less had salvaged lace or skirt fabrics boro'd into place here and there to create a stunning moonlit scene. ha! it's a sad, but true fact: men's clothing is decidedly boring in the modern age.

the other day i did happen to notice that my favorite jeans with the blown out ankles were getting a bit too "blown out". mind you, i actually *like* blown out ankles on my jeans. it's one of the reasons i purchase them so long. that and because i like the way the extra cloth bunches on the front. but, with time, they become *too* far gone.

i was about to toss them into the scrap basket when an idea hit me! contemporary boro. duh! clearly, i have been stuck inside the envelope lately... so, i dug around in my overflowing scrap basket and found another pair of jeans whose knees had blown out so bad that i couldn't see wearing them anymore. at least, not without getting arrested for indecent exposure since the tear had ripped nearly through to the crotch! tearing my eyes away from that frightening possibility, however, i also noticed the cuffs were only mildly worn...just to the point of the beginnings of seeing some fringe. one of my favorite stages before going into all out FRINGE!!

as you can imagine, ideas began whirling about and out flew the shears as i began hacking away at them, deconstructing seams, and digging around in the thread box to begin basting my little heart out...

next step: kantha, kantha, kantha!

namaste'