The work I took to demo on at the residency session is this piece, a cotton lawn piece, which I printed with blockprinting ink, and now I'm elaborating with goldwork. It's starting to take shape and make sense to me now
and it's starting to talk back at this point!
And I think I have a title for the June exhibit: Leap, And The Net Will Appear. This pretty much sums up how I make art, and as I was talking with visitors at the AIR on Thursday, it occurred to me as a good description of the wildly varied work to be seen in June.
It looks as if DoorwayThree might be done, not sure yet. But I do know that this is one of those fragile, delicate artworks that can hardly be handled. It will be a bit of a challenge to exhibit this one, I think.
It's not that the materials are fragile, just the construction is. Between slippery copper knitted ribbon weaving, and silk floss weaving, and the nylon doorway icon woven in sort of secured, and the net overlay, it looks nice, but I have to think how to stabilize the whole thing, perhaps. Iron on stabilizer fabric might do a job on the weaving, though. And possibly some weight at the bottom will help. Anyway, we'll see.
On the offchance that this completes the Doorway series, I'm looking at other design ideas for later on, after the several stitching works I have under way are all done. Here's a longterm idea, and you'll see all the contrasts in direction and subtleties of color and shape and negative space, and well, I like it.
The other stitching works going are looking like this:
Japanese fabric, which I'm continuing from the original designer with goldwork, dyed, and beading. It's about 16 x 20 inches. Much more to happen here. The goldwork icons were my self teaching tries way back, and I wanted to see if they would work in a context.
Almost invisible, a transfer image of a waterlily, on silk, to be worked with gold threads and silk, and I'm going to add in some stumpwork petals as I go. This is probably one to work on in warmer weather, on the patio, in the aforementioned Adirondack chair. A gift from our goldwork teacher.
And here's an initial set, created as an exercise in our goldwork class last year. I dyed the thing with silk dye, after the stitching, and got quite a surprise at how the stitching all shriveled up and crinkled, but I managed to restore it with pressing and resting a printmaking press on it.
I'm think that this, beaded and with more stitching, not yet decided if it will be a Japanese stitching deal, or what, but it will be a signature piece, once framed, to show up at the next exhibit just as my signature to the show.
After the excitement of the Grow Your Blog party yesterday, with new people greeting us in here, and visiting their blogs in turn and others too who had entered, today I'm back to the present! lovely to have new readers, too, joining the people who've been here before.
This is an artwork I found when I organized the studio, from when I did some Polaroid transfers before they "improved" the film so that you couldn't lift the image off. This I transferred onto sheer nylon.
To create a small artwork, I backed it with gauze, stitched a snailtrail of silk thread around, piercing both layers, then did trapunto work. If you're not familiar with trapunto, it's a kind of stuffing. You pierce the backing then stuff batting, in this case a nice roving, into the selected areas from the back. Deciding how to organize trapunto is an interesting phase of work.
It's a form of fabric sculpture, a bas relief in a way.
Then I started using goldwork, couched down with gold silk thread, and running round the contours of the raised sections. This is very engrossing work, figuring out how to get around the stitched lines interestingly.
I think I will probably put a curved doorway shape around three sides of this image, and I'll applique it to a larger work I have under way, if it works there. There's a larger curved doorway in that work that might be compatible. If not, it may be a freestanding artwork, one of a couple, since I have other transferred images similar to this one, to work on.
And there may be beading. Watch this space!
So glad to report that my wrist is recovered enough to start thinking about stitching again! and that one reward of organizing the studio was that I found a couple of polaroid image transfers on nylon that I'd made years ago, set aside until I knew what to do next, then sort of forgot.
Here they are.
These are image transfers before they improved polaroid film to where you couldn't do this any more, where I used to soak the developed picture I'd taken, then remove the actual image from the paper! great excitement moving an image through the air to settle on whatever surface I wanted it on, here nylon, because I wanted the transparency of the picture and the fabric working together.
But now I realize these are stitched works waiting to happen. So today I'm hoping to set up and get to work on this.
They may be freestanding, or they may be part of a much bigger work I have under way. We'll see if they're compatible.
The other fabric you see is a piece of Thai silk, given to us all at the holiday party courtesy of Carol P., who visits Thai relatives and gave us the benefit of one of their gifts.
So this is good! new stitching adventures ahead. And I have a Jill Paton Walsh Peter Wimsey on CDs to listen to while I work. Spoken words keep the left brain occupied and the right brain can get on with its job.
The Grow Your Blog 2015 button up there is about an international blog party next week I'm taking part in. For more explanation about it, go here and meanwhile I will be thinking up a giveaway, for anyone who comes in here to comment. If you click on that link, you need to scroll down past the food, to the GYB explanation.
I have two blogs entered, Field and Fen and this one, so there will be two chances of a giveaway aren't you lucky. I have to look through my completed artworks and decide what will be nice to receive.
Or, as wise friend Stefi has been known to say, if you want the pleasure of framing, first you have to go through the boredom and misery of making art...
Anyway, today after framing three pieces, I ran out of strength and patience and all that framing entails, and have not quite finished framing up the rest of my work. One more wilderness piece and a couple of goldwork pieces to go.
Working in 3D i.e. stumpwork and other similar techniques, creates a particularly shall we say challenging situation for framing, since you can't put the work face down in order to mount the fabric on to the backing, the usual procedure.
You have to preserve the surface and work sight unseen at the back pulling and adjusting the tapes and getting the artwork properly centered and taut without crushing the fragile embroidery or shoving it out of place. My nerves were not centered, but definitely taut. Remembering how many hours go into making this work in the first place, you really don't want things to go all pear shaped in the framing.
And I can only keep up this level of tension, meaning the physical kind, for so long before my hands start to whine and complain. So I made the pix, for once remembering, I'm very proud to say, to leave the glass off for the pix, insert it after them, so that only had to be done once. Then I decided that the night wilderness scene and a couple of goldwork pieces had to wait till tomorrow. And now I'm having a cup of tea and gloating over my progress to date.
Here's that wheat design I did, rayon thread, gah, with beads and other things on white linen, 8 x 8 inches -- it's a dark and stormy day, so the white doesn't show well here.
And here's the daytime wilderness pieces, with the glasswing insect now in place, along with the or nue sun and the blue and purple stumpwork butterfly. The second picture is to indicate the frame a bit for you to see the boundaries of the piece. It's 12 x 12.
The reason I want this framing done is that Sunday is the annual holiday bash of the Embroiderers' Guild, with a show and tell of this year's work, so I wanted to put my best stitch forward.
You may remember that I had planned to add all kinds of stuff into the wilderness pieces, but having made the small one, which was quite busy, decided I'd rather be spare with the other two, plenty of air around the insects is better than a crowd. I still promise myself a goldwork bee in stumpwork, though, but he'll have another context.
The silver (it's silver, take my word for it) frame with the schwalm whitework in it amused me hugely because the design on the frame reflects in an updated sort of way the general design of the whitework. Just a little sight gag there. I starched the whitework, too, figuring why not, the original stitchers probably did, too.
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.
Lizard is now all beaded up and I think he's done.
Removed from hoop, and set along with the butterfly wings.
Next I have to figure out my turtle. Or maybe a bee. Or a dragonfly. So many insects so little time so much ambition. And I have two shadow boxes ready for pieces.
I may end up putting the wilderness animals on that black satin with the copper monotype on it. Just wondering. Or possibly redoing some earlier goldwork abstract shapes to mount on it like a series of constellations. I can go back in and change them to stumpwork by applying wire around the perimeter of each shape.
Well, there's time to figure all this out while I make the animals to set in place on one piece or the other.
This is the current state of play of the piece I'm working on. To wit, the wing parts of the luna moth which I'm not doing in natural colors, but I am hewing to the natural forms.
These are wired, stitched down around the drawn design, then buttonhole stitched, some sparkly ribbon cut to fit and stitched in as I go. You'll see the last segment, drawn but no wire yet, and that will approximate the other tail section when all's said and done. You can't quite tell here how sparkly the base ribbon is, catches the light at every move.
The muslin it's stitched on, natural unbleached, is only the support for these pieces. When they're stitched, I'll cut around the wires -- this is stumpwork -- and remove them to attach them to their permanent support, using the wires at the back to help secure them. Then I'll stitch a body for the moth.
There's an element of faith that enters in at this point, where this is one fragment of many fragments of a piece full of ideas that I hope will come together as hoped and even work. So this is where we are. Just as an index of size, the hoop is about 4" diameter.
Wired with fine wire taken out of the ribbon, didn't have the necessary beading wire, wire stitched down with silk and gold threads, the inner parts couched with silk, then floss split stitched on the tail section. All the raw materials, muslin, silk thread, couching thread, floss, hoop, even needles, are donated by kind people wanting to see work like this happen.
Fortunate, really since I'm constitutionally incapable of deliberately buying items for any artform. It's all recycling to me.
Two parts going on at once: in the kitchen, mulberry paper over tiles, molded with water, drying and ready to be installed somewhere on the crocheted foliage.
And in the living room, while I listen to an audiobook, the beginnings of a luna moth, with help from Jane Nicholas' wonderful new embroidery book about stumpwork butterflies and moths.
It arrived yesterday and I whipped through it in search of a luna moth.
What you see here are the forewings, wired and to be stitched much more, around the edges, and the "eyes" to be stitched. This is a wired ribbon, wire removed, which I used to cut out the forewings, and will use for the hind wings, too, needed to do the forewings in order to see if it worked.
I secured them in place on the muslin with gold silk thread, then applied the wire, taken from the edge of the ribbon, just right for the purpose, stitched down again. This is the engineering part of it.
The decorative stitching will hide all these underpinnings. Then once the hind wings are done, too, all will be cut out and transferred to a different backing, to be part of the artwork. Along with other butterflies and moths, I think. I plan on a lot of goldwork for these insects, rather than the natural colors.
And, for a little example of how life imitates art, go here
So this is what's afoot.
The freeform crochet, color is a pale sage green, on natural colored muslin pinned on a big hoop, probably a quilting hoop, just to see it, will probably come off and a painted, frizzled, technical term, Tyvek will be on the bottom layer, the crochet replaced, and meandering about over the top of the Tyvek, and various insects and wee beasties in the foliage. At least that's the plan.
Here's how the Tyvek painting looked with the acrylic paint, metallic gold, applied with sponge brush, my fave tool.
I had a fun time frizzling the Tyvek, and even more fun getting the acrylic back off the footplate, having forgotten the correct temp at which to frizzle. Note to self: cooler than you thought. But the acrylic came off obligingly onto the paper I was ironing through, so that was fine.
Here it is all frizzled nicely, and after I trimmed down the frizzled painting, here it is in relation to the crocheted work stretched on the hoop
Then this habitat will need inhabitants, drawings of which you see here, along with the threads I have in mind to create them separately, using the tiny hoop.
I'll create the little bees and lizards and their friends, seen here in drawings, in goldwork with beading, for later affixing in their crocheted and Tyvek habitat. Handmade paper will also feature in this work. I already have some I embossed with a little honeycomb design. And I molded little animals in handmade paper, which you saw earlier.
It's shaping up to be a kind of fourth dimensional piece, where time is the fourth dimension, ghostly bees and lizards molded in pure white paper, along with lively ones in goldwork and beading.
A sort of update of Peaceable Kingdom, if Douanier Rousseau had known how to crochet, or to bead and stitch, or to do goldwork, or if Tyvek had been invented, or if he knew about even the third dimension, let alone the fourth, he being a flat, decorative sort of painter..cue Matisse.. Well, come to think of it, nothing like Peaceable Kingdom, more like Stitched Wilderness...
But exactly how this will all come about, don't ask me, I only work here! this is one of those works I'm not in charge of. It just has been coming over me in bits for several months.
And today, after reading a great history of Eliz. First, by Alison Weir, a great read, my right brain, evidently tired of being quiet while I studied peace treaties and dates and political strategies, suddenly presented me with this possibility. Who am I to argue?
Anyway, that's where we are. Speaking of helpful, I hope, dear blogistas, you realize how helpful it is to the process to have this blog where I can think aloud and bang on about what I'm doing, knowing I'm being read with interest and curiosity.
I did one other small Tyvek work, you saw it in my exhibit earlier this year, and I think I need to do more, once I get this piece properly under way. The nice part is that it uses the studio, haven't been doing that much lately, and it also gives me portable bits to carry in to my embroiderers' guild meetings, always a nice thing. So often my work isn't portable and I sort of chat and drink tea!
If anyone wants to know more about the Tyvek thing, just ask in the comments, and I'll be sure and say more next time. I hesitate to bore you with endless technical stuff, but I'm glad to talk about it if useful to you. Also to point out the precautions you need to take if you do it.
