glowing against the grey

"only connect!

that was the whole of her sermon.

only connect the prose and the passion,

and both will be exalted...

live in fragments no longer."

-e.m. forster, howard's end

it is strange, how ideas fold in on themselves and re-present themselves. a stray fragment whispered longings for something to make her shine. i gifted her with a star. seeing her joy, i sought to give this gift again. before i knew it, there was a tiny galaxy of stars, just there, glowing against the grey.

soon other celestial bodies whispered into existence.  moons. suns. planets.  these could be any or all, for what is in a name?  tiny echoes of the sunbursts and moonglows that have been manifesting in my studio. celestial fragments.

they look familiar. yet different. new.  ah! but of course! inspiration bathes us in its own celestial glow. jude hill's nine series of indigo moons and stars. pale resist-dyed "threadcrumbs" luminous in their deep indigo sky. jude has ever been a beacon in the star-filled sky of my creativity! so to keep that element, these celestial fragments are grouped in nines as well. to pay homage to the one who seeks "a cross-pollination" which "seeds a larger and exotic garden of delights."

so very different, yet related. these smoldering rust-printed celestial fragments would play quite nicely with jude's mysterious indigo jewels in that garden...

namaste'

hex happens

"life is too short

not to experiment."

-jamelia

being a creature of habit, i find myself slipping into patterns and stale routines at times. of late, i've indulged my inner brat with sulking through the holidays. moaning about the things i don't have in my life. blah, blah, blah, roll eyes, etc.

in an effort to form new habits, i let go of my self-decided dislike for hexies. to be honest, the hexie quilts i'm used to seeing are the vintage, lavendar and moth ball scented old lady flower garden types. now, i love vintage quilts, but these just do nothing for me.  this afternoon i saw a critter of altogether different proportions. a scrap hexie quilt. now *this* i can do! i was awestruck. it was beautiful!

of course, being a hoarder of fragments, i am in no short supply of material, so i decided it was time to stretch my legs and do something different. i decided it was hexie time.  starting with scraps from community (still in the works), i began making my first hexies.  little two inch hexies (note: apparently hexies are measured by the length of their sides...they are only 1" hexies). after the first few, i was already skipping down the primrose path to hexieville!

i guess this dog ain't too old yet...

namaste'

recovering a sense of play

"the creation of something new

is not accomplished by the intellect

but by the play instinct."

-carl jung

life can sometimes bog us down. adulting can be a very serious matter which can take over and rub the shiny off of just about everything.  in order to remain sane, we must remember to cultivate a sense of play.

play energizes us. enlivens us. it has the capability of renewing our sense of optimism and makes us open to new possibilities. in our art. in our lives. in general.

there are many ways in which one can play.  one of my favorites is to create and play with little people. needle chanting new spirit-filled people into existence and fanning the imagination with their stories.

here are three such people in their beginning stages. a perky boobed lady emerging from an old fragment of experimental batik. a woodsy fellow in winter holiday colors making his way from a vintage clothing fragment. finally, a peachy, flesh-toned dude taking shape from a "failed" dye experiment. beyond these few shreds, their stories are still transpiring. being whispered quietly in the background.

me? i'm carefully listening.
with scraps of cloth and fibre.
allowing.
being.

namaste'

a fail is not a failure

"you don't have to

change your goal.

change your path,

be willing to, and

do not see that

as a failure.

that's just life."

-diane hendricks

there seems to be some sort of rusty or corroded metal that does not transfer rust to other things.  whatever the particulates were in my rust mush is of this metal.  it left absolutely no marks on the fragment.  rather than counting this as a failure, i figure i've learned something.  i'm not quite certain of some of the details of that learning. ha! but learning was had.

next step was to pull out some rusty bits from my other stash and star rusting a ground line. also, to grab those new swirly bits from the newly plasma whacked steel plate and rust some stylized clouds with them.  in this process, i found several of my rusty bits that are of the same particulate structure that populated the rust mush and ended up with blank spots.  aaargh!  ok.  learning was had again.

rusty old hand-forged square nails came next to create some tall grasses.  oh, and a tiny rusty moose acquired at a craft show or through etsy or somewhere no longer remembered.  i figured i'd really montana this fragment up a bit!

tadah!  a foundation of rust depiction is achieved!  now to liven this cloth up with some thread chanting and stitch sketching.  maybe some beads. a little piecing. who knows what all else will put in an appearance by the time this fragment is fully realized?!?

but for now...i am at peace with the direction it is taking and quietly enjoying the serene tableau...

namaste'

like alchemy...

"my work

is like a dialogue

between me and 

unseen powers,

like alchemy.'

-cai gua-qiang

delving into unknown territory today...  first "what if" was to rust dye in layers.  wrapped my salvage fragment around the band from an old whiskey cask to dye a large, summer moon.  once dyed, i dunked the fragment back into the vinegar water and then stretched it out on a plastic sheet and laid the metal tree cut out on it, smoothing the wet cloth gently to remove wrinkles and distortions, then carefully folded the fragment back onto itself to get the second tree image rusted in....all the while, being meticulous in keeping any part of the cloth off of the moon so as not to accidentally transfer the first image back into an unwanted area of the cloth.

i was very happy with my initial results...except that all this carefulness left the image a bit stark for my taste.  what to do? what to do?  okay....here's a thought...grab some of the rust mush from the bottom of the dunk tank and spread it around to create clouds and ground after another dip in the vinegar water!    i'm liking this so much better already.  only thing is...i have no idea how this will turn out.  i've never used rust mush to dye with before.  it's just the rusty flakings from the floorboard of my international that i dumped into the dunk tank to act as a rust starter.  it's black.  i don't know why.  but it is.  i don't know if it'll turn orange and rust like any other rusty metal. or if it will dye the fragment black or grey.  or if it will just sit there stubbornly. sticking its tongue out at me and do nothing to color the cloth.  i shall just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow...  isn't it exciting?!?

namaste'

squirrels and other distractions

"i often imagine

that your mind wanders

through the same

forest as mine."

-raine cooper

a dear friend of mine opened a wondrous resource for creating new artistic tools.  it is amazing what a plasma cutter is capable of making from a flat sheet of raw steel!  these lovelies are still shiny and as distracting as chattering squirrels, but will soon be coated in lovely rust and ready to go to work!  i have some very specific ideas in mind to try out with them this weekend...

she also had this delightful rust dye tank created for me.  created from raw steel, it will soon be rusty and ready to go to work.  my idea when discussing the possibilities of such a thing with her was to create a rust dye tank that i could use to get an all-over dye bath brewing in.  my hope with this experiment is to be able to create softer rust dye results than direct to metal rust dyeing.  i'm also hoping to see if it will lend itself to more of a shibori dying technique with rust.  i don't know of anyone who has tried this as yet so don't know if it will work, but the theory seems viable.

to this end, i have already dumped a starter rust dye mush into the tank, created from the rusty bits and rust dust collected from the floor pans of my 1960 International Harvester B112 truck that were removed in the process of fabricating shiny new floor pans.  this rust dye mush has been cooking in a bucket with rainwater for a few months already.  now i'll add more rainwater and some vinegar and really get the tank cooking!

as a happy serendipitous surprise, she also found this lovely small rust dye tank for me.  we are not sure what it was intended to become before it was abandoned in the scrap pile, but it is water tight and made of raw steel, so it is now my new experimental rust dye tank.  the perfect smaller size for one offs and mad experimentation!

so many new squirrels to chase after!

namaste'

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'

the birds and the bees

"my father told me 

all about the birds and the bees,

 the liar - i went steady

 with a woodpecker

 till I was twenty-one."

-bob hope

the urge for a change of scenery...for the hands as well as the eyes...found me puttering about in the wood shed these past couple evenings. reacquainting myself with the various array of power tools which reside there in.  exploring a back story for a character i've been contemplating. 

from scraps of discarded "waste" this bird house began to arise. it all began when a cast out board "marred" by a gaping knot hole whispered stories of shelter from the fire pile. shifted from there to my truck bed, and then along to my wood shed, it began to whisper in earnest.  buzz. buzz. bang. bang. the foundation of a home arose. blue pine, gifted with the happy happenstance of a large knot hole (the perfect door), needed little coaxing to take form. now to dig into the pile of scrapped cedar cut offs in search of shake shingles to roof this little house (ok...so it's not so little at 23 inches tall). and then....who knows what else will find its way home?

i shall have to begin work on its future inhabitant soon...

namasté

...and another thing

...and another thing hunkering in during rampaging winter storms is good for is to get those creative vibes bouncing all over the place!  i always have a wagon load of ideas floating around in my noggin...most of which will probably never realize manifestation. but every once in a while one or two will push through like a hope filled seedling on a cold early spring morning.

for some time i've been entertaining focusing on the "mixed media" part of my creativity...something that has not been prominent of late as i continue to explore the fiber filled avenues of my musings. somehow, these cold winter days and nights have been inching me closer and closer to those mixed media roots once again. i've been digging through my old jeweler's bench, re-acquainting myself with the tools and possibilities that have been laying dormant in their own creative winter for some time.

some of the things that have caught my eye are metal alphabet stamps like these; random pieces of assorted metal sheets and scraps from past projects; etching supplies; and various tins of random adornment fodder.

ideas are beginning to form amidst the whispers. unfinished cloth art dolls have found their way to the top shelf of the jeweler's bench. as have tiny baskets and minuscule boxes of beads and vintage buttons and other bits of riff raff just begging to be used somehow. to the left of the bench appeared a tall wooden hatbox sort of critter, overflowing with scraps of salvaged cloth and fibers.

something is lurking just outside my peripheral vision... i can see piper fixing his feline eyes intently upon it. but, as usual, i still can't quite see what it is that has captured his attention.  so i will continue stitching open seams on community and allow this silent lurker to watch and perhaps grow more comfortable with his new surroundings. comfortable enough to reveal himself in due time...

namaste'

not hand stitching

a new storm front moved in yesterday and we've had another 12" of snow blanket the countryside so i've been staying indoors as much as possible. at least whenever i'm not shoveling snow...

a month or so ago, i remember mentioning that i was going to play with strips and squares for a bit but i never really got around to it. i needed a little break from all the hand stitching i've been doing on community, so pulled out my old sewing machine and a basket of scraps from old quilt projects and started cutting and sewing.  i've ended up with a roughly 24" square comprised of 2" strips and 2" square sets in predominantly greens and browns...with a few other colors tossed in because, well, let's face it, they simply got in the way. ha!

i'm just sort of allowing this quilt to manifest in whatever manner it chooses. though i think, at this point, that i will alternate the orientation of the blocks so that i end up with a sort of a woven effect. but we will see what happens when i get a few more blocks done (i have 3 pieced together already, and strips/squares pulled together for another 13 or so). in the spirit of not hand stitching, i think i may end up machine quilting this one with cotton batting and a backing in a somewhat more traditional manner. sometimes, there is something to be said for instant gratification. ha!  though i don't think i'll take this over to laurel and rent a longarm machine. i want to try out a stylized technique of "quilt as you go"...only instead of quilting each block and then having all that endless hand stitching on the backing (remembering the spirit of not hand stitching), i'm going to assemble the blocks into rows and quilt them a row at a time. i think i have figured out a way to avoid hand stitching the back seams on the rows, as well!

more as i get a little further along...

namaste'

mathematical cats

just continuing is a good practice to be doing. i started doodling various and sundry felines this morning while sipping a hot mug of chai to ward against the inversion temperatures dropping outside. a couple of them are quite "jude-ish" in style, aren't they? it's always fun to recognize elements of people you admire. ha!

i may not be able to control myself long enough to finish the endless miles of seam stitching before these felines sort themselves out on my cloth. but isn't that the way of felines? mine are always making themselves at home right in the middle of any cloth i am working on...whether or not they were invited. such entitled little buggers.

namaste'

she said "rusty" like it was a bad thing!

after having breakfast yesterday at a trucker dive just outside of town, a dear friend and i decided to poke around a nearby antique shop for battered, vintage cigar boxes and the like. joyously waltzing up to the register with an arm full of boxy treasures, we got to chatting with the 150+ (or so it seemed) year old british lady behind the counter and listening to her time-worn war stories back in jolly old england of yesteryear. it was a fascinating trip down her memory lane! somehow, the conversation about the bombing of england and hunkering down in the dark recesses of bomb shelters found its way around to an old bedspring sitting out along side the barn. i don't know how we got onto it, but i expressed interest in it and the clerk raised an eyebrow in surprise, and perhaps a little disdain, and wondered what on earth i would want an old rusty bedspring for? always having a bit of stitchery tucked away somewhere on my person, i pulled out a rusted sunburst cloth that i had been stitching on and told what wonderful patterns i thought i might be able to coax out of the bedsprings, what with the repeated circles and x's that i could immediately see across the top and so forth. with curiosity in her eyes, she informed me that she couldn't take less than $5 for it. she said it hesitantly, as if she thought i might abandon my cigar box treasures and flee the shop without a making any purchases at all! of course, i couldn't leave my new found treasures behind and was only to happy to cough up $5 for the bedsprings...my mind awhirl with ideas of visions of the cloth that i might be able to create!

the next few days are supposed to be quite warm, dotted with thunderstorms. wondrous weather for earth dyeing!  i can hardly wait to fling some vinegar drenched fabric across these springs, blanket the whole affair with plastic sheeting and see what emerges over the next few days!

namaste'

silent sunday - 02/24/13

sometimes

sometimes all you need to do is arrange cloth to bring out its beauty and depth. without threads stitched through its surface the cloth is free to shift. move. evolve. express. without hindrance. allowing a natural and temporal fluidity that could not exist when constrained by the chains of needle and thread.

sometimes this is enough to express creative thought...

namaste'

mixing some media

i'm just continuing my thoughts about mixing free-motion machine embroidery with hand stitching and then taking it another step down that brambled path that is the intrepid "what if" trail by adding in some other media besides thread and cloth. i've tossed in some metal and buttons; safety pin and metal beads. before we are done journeying down this road there will most likely be glass and paper and who knows what all else added! all the while keeping within this year's focus: fragments.

i don't think i have really talked much about this focus yet. the intent here is to allow these seemingly "unfinished" pieces to stand on their own. they will range from simple cloth fragments with snatches of thoughts embroidered with simplicity on through the gamut to ones such as this one, exhibiting a riot of color and materials!

of course, i have much still to do with this piece and it seems to be full steam ahead, filled with passionate momentum! there is much embellishment to be done in the lower left corner amongst the metal bits, the knots running diagonally across the cloth are only just beginning to emerge, the bird is still largely untouched, and upper corners and borders need further development. the idea is offset the rather bleak fragment of thought with a counterpoint of joyous color and riotous activity to illustrate that even dressed up. decorated. a broken heart is still always going to be broken. of course, there are many ways one can go with this idea. but that travels well beyond this humble fragment's purpose...which is merely to pose the idea. compel you to think and draw your own conclusions.

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'

proverbial pain in the neck

i've been rather quiet this week because i have been unable to do much stitching. aside from doubles at the cottage, i have also managed to pinch a nerve or something in my neck and haven't been able to move much without excruciating pain. even sitting here trying to type this brief message is exacerbating the problem. my trusty tens unit is helping but i will be more than relieved when the kink works itself out!

meanwhile, i was playing around with overlaying some old sketches on that recent background cloth and am rather fond of this one...

but for now i need to step away from the computer and give my neck a rest.

namaste'

memento mori

i have struggled with time again this week. perhaps i am simply unused to actually having so much time on my hands and am lulled into complacency? perhaps it has been the dull, drizzly weather that has moved in, heralding the immanent arrival of winter?  whatever the reason, i decided today that i was definitely in need of minding my time better, so i picked up some cloth and thread and set myself to work.

dia de los muertos is quickly approaching so i thought i might start with a calavera. i wanted something with a bit of chaos and thought some free-motion machine embroidery might serve admirably as my foundation. i started with a nice variegated thread of black, ox-blood, and tan. then added a couple of black and white flowers for eyes that i plucked from a salvaged cotton skirt. this all laid down nicely on a salvaged linen background.

this calavera is far from finished. it's time now to start adding color and hand-stitching (i've been thinking a lot lately about combining machine and hand stitches). but first, i must delve deeply into my stash and find some other fabrics to compliment and layer with...and rummage through my thread baskets and drawers...

meanwhile, i was inspired by these cookies today. i may just have to try my hand at some of these!

namaste'

departure

i thought i would take a little departure from the norm today and try posting an audio file.  i've received requests for a sample of some of my guitar playing and if this works out, then i will most likely start murmuring every now and again about my clothwork as well. hope y'all don't mind sittin' back and playin' the guinea pig for me...

namaste'

buddhist moon?

i've been playing around with a minor mixture of free-motion machine embroidery and hand embroidery on some scraps intended to become a greeting card for a friend with wildwood affiliations, and since there is a blue moon mounting in a few days, it seems to have become a focal point in this little dalliance. why the coneflowers decided to join the party in deep indigo frocks is beyond my understanding. ha!

meanwhile, another friend was asking me why i have such a strong affiliation with lunar cycles and with full and new moons in particular. she seemed to be under the misunderstanding that this sort of "stuff" was for pagans and so forth. but to buddhists, there is special "religious" significance especially on full moon days as many important and outstanding events are said to have occurred on these days. the buddha (referring to the gautama buddha) was born on a full moon day. his renunciation took place on a full moon day. his enlightenment, the delivery of his first sermon, his passing into nibbana, and many other important events associated with his 80 year lifespan all took place on full moon days. because of this, buddhists around the world tend to look more intently at their own spirituality and practice on full moon days. in many buddhist countries, full and new moon days were once declared to be public holidays. in some, this practice is gaining popularity once more.

of course, i live in a country with a very diverse spiritual and cultural panorama so i doubt i shall be getting a day off work every 14 days anytime in the near future. ha! but i still enjoy marking the cycles of the moon and the moon has a prominent place in my art and consciousness. perhaps it's time for me to revisit rabbit moon for the next few days...

namaste'