Okay, let's have some fun...

This will be a communal creation.  A collage I started yesterday while visiting a friend.  What I do well is creating backgrounds and I gravitated to the background cloth and I could have added some stitching and metal embellishments and some writing or lettering and I would have been satisfied...But getting satisfaction was not the way to go...pushing myself was the cause for the day.  We did a lot of talking which is why I didn't get any further than this... My first suggestion is to add color on the white geometric shapes surrounding her face.  Gimme some suggestions on where to go next.  As I make changes I'll post the updates.

My friend gave me the coolest gifts yesterday!  When I showed them to my grandsons, the oldest one, age 5 said "cool" and the youngest one, age 3 said "ewwww" and backed way back.  Look for a post over the weekend to find out what they are! 

 

What can I say...I'm just an elliptical kinda woman...

It all started yesterday...I was trying to get the idea out of my head onto a piece of cloth that I was trying to salvage and wondered what would happen if  I wrote with school glue directly on the fabric as the resist and then after it dried, spread a layer of jacquard discharge paste over it.  So today I scurry in to apply the jdp and this is what happened...

before

 after
Discharge paste doesn't discharge metallic fabric markers...a tidbit of info that means nothing at the moment but seems like it could come in handy down the line.

More layers are forthcoming, but I'll not try this again as the dp just bullied the glue and the glue dried overnight.  In the past I applied the glue directly to a silk screen AND for the time involved, because it takes a long while for the blue school glue to dry, (typically a day), I am better off using soy wax which dries immediately.  

And these...(ellipis are my favorite grammatical mark...signifying the long trains of fluid but focused for me thoughts that I edit out to keep readers from suffering through the dips and peaks in my mind.  I've considered trying to refrain from using them as they are in just about every post I write, but at this point, it feels more like my trademark).

are in the washing machine along with a few other pieces.  The one on the bottom is smaller than a fat quarter and I used my new favorite tool (toilet paper insert) as the stamp.  

Oh, oh...another conclusion I reached yesterday...for batching dye painted fabrics, I prefer steaming the fabric versus laying it out in the sun, has less loss of colour/dye.  I've been tracking this for the last 3 months.  BUT, the steaming creates a strong odor when it is immediately unwrapped and rinsed but dissipates very quickly under running water.  So I now put on a mask for gasses when rinsing out.

 

Low Technique Yields High Results

One of the suggestions Claire Benn gave us in May was to push the limits of one single tool...just commit to using one mark making tool everyday for a week in your studio.  A couple of weeks ago I did just this using a plastic card and did these...

But my new awesome favorite tool is this!

 click to enlarge.

The insert from toilet paper is a fantastic stamping tool.  I shape it into a pod, square, rectangle or odd shape  and just stamp with my medium of choice.  I must give a shout out to the fabulous Joanne Weis (toward the bottom on the post) for suggesting this in a LAFTA workshop she gave last year.

For avoiding trains

I go to my studio.  This is what I did yesterday.

2 quarts of print paste, one for hand-painting the other for screening and breakdown printing, 2 different consistencies,

and soy wax resist. the wax is still on the fabric here.

The morning has started out stressful...I was so declaring my mother's move as an emancipation from stress and worry but we're bumping heads over the way she is handling some affairs and I'm torn between sitting back and watching the train wreck or trying to guide the train to another track.   I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to handling business...I like for things to be settled, neat and tidy, to avoid surprises and crisises.  My Mother is stubborn, I mean STUBBORN and is of the mindset that one doesn't discuss details of personal affairs especially with one's children.  I'm of the mindset that too much secrecy and lies causes confusion and chaos in intimate relationships.  I know the past year has been an adjustment for her but she has continued to live like my father's income is still there.  As much as I find him annoying, I think we all need one long Dr. Phil session.  Is 10am too early for bourbon on the rocks?

 

Cleared and ready for take off

Yesterday was spent clearing off surfaces and finding a place for  the rest of the"stuff".   My mother and I have an errand to run today which will take most of the morning but just as soon as it is over, I'm heading to Mellwood.

This is just my ordinary organized mess.

The pink bag on the floor and the white bag next to it will be grab bag items at the next LAFTA meeting.  The dark pink book bag has wheels and was a gift from my daughter for the purpose of transporting "stuff" between the studio and home.  

It doesn't look like it, but...

I made progress...

I have no clear surfaces and nooks and crannies are filled! But hold on, beloved, I have a plan! (Remember the cartoon, Pinky and the Brain?, anyways),  in 9-12 months I will either move into a larger space at Mellwood (cheapest rent in town) or take a second space and move my sewing stuff from storage and have a place for quilt construction.  Well we all know how plans can change, but nevertheless, this is the one I'm working with.  

Dig this...

Stuff!

We, as in all of us generally speaking, have just too much of it! STUFF!  We, as in all of us generally speaking, are a disposable culture.  Capitalism depends on it.  But our saving, hoarding, collecting, keeping, whatever word makes you comfortable, of stuff is leftover from our days when individuals were inventive out of neccessity and some great grandfather made stuff by hand and made it to last through 10 generations and we inherited and utilized items of our dead relatives stuff.  But in this day an age, too much is too much...and how long do we keep hauling around our ancestor's stuff while accumulating our own stuff??  

All that to say this...tomorrow is moving day for my 80plus years young mother.  It has been long hard tedious road filled with stress, anger, relief, tears, and tempers...but tomorrow, August 1st is an what I hope will be true emancipation day for all of us.  Her new space is light and airy and I hope she will feel less burdened in it.  My brother managed to come and salvage his cassette tapes from the 80s and his primitive literary journals, my sister managed to salvage her graduation gown, drill team uniform with the go-go boots, and a beloved niece I hope will become firmly grounded as she matures into the new changes and using a 60 year old dresser drawers she is getting from my mother.  All the stuff that didn't get sold, salvaged, or reused, is going into storage.  and me?  well, all my sewing "stuff" is boxed, bagged, and rolled ready to go into storage tomorrow.   Although, I wish I could have come up with a better alternative, surprisingly, at the moment, I'm in a good head space.  

This morning I rose and got out of here before 8 and headed to the solitude of my wet studio.  I spent the time weeding out "stuff" to take to the next grab bag giveaway at the LAFTA meeting and throwing out "stuff".  I also, straightened and cleaned off my print table and just had to snap a pic, because it has never looked like this:

looks inviting, doesn't it?

But after leaving my mother's tonight I dropped off 2 boxes of "stuff" that came out of The Basement Workshop, so it doesn't look like this anymore.  But come Tuesday, I'm going to find places for the relocated "stuff" and get to doing something to some fabric heah!

Stop hitting the repeat button in my mind

I can't believe it is after 1am.  I was in the studio for  3 hours today.  Three hours of bliss.  I applied a second layer to the fabrics shown...the dye colour is brazilnut....looks black, so I'm eager to see what they will look like after the wash out.   My mind bounces between thinking about what comes next for the fabrics and imagining new quilt designs for them.  I try to lay down to sleep and end up wondering about any studio time tomorrow (today) and what will come next.  If I'm not thinking about this, then I'm being consumed with the upcoming garage sale and fielding phone calls and emails about items listed for it.  Its been this way all week so far...over and over and over my mind goes on like nothing else exists...I read/watch the news and it immediately gets pushed back.  The only thing I've given some thought to besides what I've mentioned is an agreement our public hospital has entered to honor the Catholic doctrine of being against tubaligations and will no longer perform them.  The article didn't mention vasectomies, but I'm assuming they will not do them as well.  This is OUR PUBLIC hospital...the one that cannot turn you away for not having insurance.  It is associated with University of Louisville and thus has a stellar reputation for being a public hospital.  I know there is a petition that has started and I will contact the person tomorrow, but this pisses me off, to put it mildly.  I mean couple this with the debate insurance companies are having about paying for birth control and there is nothing subtle about the erosion of human rights.  

I walked into the mother's garage today for the first time in over a year and thought I'm so in over my head because the place is a mess! It is not the mess I can see that bothers me as much as the messes I don't see...you know, the disorganized closets, attics, garages, etc.  But come what may, we're going to do this and get it done somehow, someway!  

overlapping writing in darker value

soy wax resist irregular scrapping stamped dye paint

Not sure how the day will go tomorrow but the one thing I'm really looking forward to is picking up my first crop of veggies and fruits from the organic food co-op I joined!  Woohoo! So I'll let you know what I score!

Okay, it is now almost 2 but writing this helped me to empty my mind...thanks you for stopping by...I believe I'll sleep now. :)

Memory vs. Imagination

My mother is giving up her home of 46 years.  I've been thinking about my attachment to the houses I've know in my 50 years.  There have been four with deep roots and the art of Kristin La Flamme kept creeping in my head today...specifically her Homes and Roots series.  I'm not certain how I will address the sense of rootlessness.  Its hard for me to know when I should push back against the weight of memory or when to relax into imaginings for tomorrows.  I've not been processing too heavily though, just trying to stay focused on what needs to be done.

Much of her household things will be going into the garage sale this weekend and next weekend, plus I've listed items on CL.  My mother's home was her pride and joy.  She appears to be okay and looking forward to her move into a contemporary 2 bedroom apartment for seniors.  

The heat and humidity have slowed my roll but I'm still making it into my studio.  Mo has been dropping me off and Peter picking me up.  Today, I was there about 2.5 hours and washed out my two lastest fabric crushes and painting soy wax on this fabric.  My inspiration is African Kuba cloth.  There are no meanings I've assigned to these symbols but I do keep wondering about how language and meanings transform and are fluid and not set cultural icons over time...again it is that weight of memory/history vs the imaginations into the future thing happening.

Last weekend Peter and I went to shoot pictures at the waterfront.  I just used my Nikon S630 point and shoot.   These are looking over the Ohio River.

 

 

 

I'm engaged...

Mad Crazy Love for this piece of cloth.