February 18, 2024

Working on easy things for a while

For some months, I've been spending a significant amount of my time and mental energy in helping out several people among my friends and family who could use a bit of help for one reason or another. I've done a small amount of thinking/sketching/trial stitching for my projects on standing stones during this period, but haven't been able to put in the time or mental concentration that are needed to move the projects forward. I've decided to just let them stay quietly in the background for a while, and to stop feeling frustrated about not getting to them. They will still be there whenever I feel ready to pick them up again, and I've decided that's fine. I've lined up some small, easy projects that I can do with time in the studio. These will give me a chance to spend quiet time on my own, and will give me the pleasure of working with colors and shapes and of seeing something finished fairly quickly. Eventually this will likely get a bit boring, but for right now, it's working well. 

I've finished up the 4-patch posie quilt shown in this post, piecing a back and then sending it off to Trace Creek Quilting for them to stitch a simple overall pattern on the quilt. I usually quilt my own quilts, but sometimes turn over to a longarmer larger quilts that are going out as gifts (as opposed to art quilts, made for myself, all of which I quilt on my home machine). I was very happy with the process of working with Trace Creek, and with the results. I thought I'd miss the in-person interaction with the person doing the quilting, but it actually worked well to take my time deciding on a few possible quilting designs from their website, and then phoning to get advice from the owner. When I sent in my quilt, I enclosed a sample of the color thread I wanted used, and they came up with a very good match. The cost was reasonable, even taking into account the cost of shipping both ways.

I've recently made several lined tote bags, adapting this "Whitney Sews" pattern. I enlarged the dimensions a bit, and used quilting cotton with medium-weight fusible interfacing. (You can click on the photo below to enlarge.) Drop me a note if you'd like to know how I changed the pattern.
 

I started by making just one for a gift that's coming up, but I liked it so much that I made a few more to have on hand. I made the bag once before a while ago, with just a light-weight fusible, to use as a knitting bag, and I have enjoyed using it, but I think this version with a heavier fusible will be even more usable, as it is stiff enough to stand up on its on, while still flexible enough to be folded up and packed away, if desired.

I also plan to start working on a simple quilt, with straightforward, repetitive piecing, which is what I feel like right now. Here are some possibilities I've lined up. I know the quilt called "Lilla" doesn't quite fit the description, but it's still in the running. I'd be curious to know which of these you find the most appealing.
 

November 13, 2023

Workshop with Jane Davies, Part 2 (work on menhirs)

I last wrote about my second planned piece neolithic menhirs back in August, here.The first thing I did when I turned to this project again during my second week at the Jane Davies workshop was to draw a full scale sketch of a composition, using a roll of newsprint I'd brought with me for this purpose. I knew the facility would have ample wall space available for this, and it's more difficult to do on my design wall at home which is large enough, but is composed of foam core covered with flannel, not too good for drawing. 


This drawing is not in any way final, but I was glad to see an image in something like the size I am want to end up with (about 90" high). This is enough to serve as a placeholder, while I go on to work through the details of the composition. I am still at the very beginning of this process.

From there, I wanted to experiment with color. When I last worked on the project in my home studio several months ago (when I was thinking of four shapes rather than three), I'd cut out the menhir shapes from hand-dyed fabric I had on hand:


But this left me dissatisfied, reminding me of the challenge I'd faced before in making abstract work about stones, which are already such simple shapes. Of course, another possibility would be to move away from abstraction, towards a more realistic approach. But I'm not drawn to that for my own work, even while I much admire the superb work in this vein by quilt artist Denise Labadie.

In my previous work about stones, I got to abstraction by focusing on color only, resulting in the piece "Holiness." So, I started thinking that maybe for this piece, I would focus on shape only, and not use the natural colors of stone. I looked forward to the workshop for the time it would give me to experiment, and the tool of collage for coming up with possible colors and arrangements. I decided to try colors very far away from natural stone colors, thinking this would bring the focus to shape; I used a mottled black for the background. Here are the resulting 11x14" maquettes, with the second one pulling the shapes apart a bit.

And since one of the demos at the workshop was about texture, I decided to test out texture (and shading) on one of the shapes.



While I felt engaged in these experiments as I did them, I didn't feel gripped by the results, and I would now say they were a dead end. Indeed, I'm embarrassed to even include in this post the collage sketches in green-turquoise-magenta. But I know that once the work is finally done, I'll be interested to look back and be reminded of the paths not taken. I may hold onto the possibility of some kind of texture, but the bright colors are definitely out. So the next steps will be more exploration, sketching, and testing. I have accumulated a pile of books about Giorgio Morandi to look at. His quiet, simple, forceful still life paintings are deeply moving; I think I will learn much by looking closely at his compositions.

And I find myself also looking back again at the stitched drawing of two stones that I made back in about 2015:

21" x 11"

And I also keep looking at this pencil sketch that I made during the workshop, in preparation for the large-scale drawing (click to enlarge):

11" x 14"

Who knows, maybe I'll end up with a large-scale black and white drawing of some kind.  

I'm thinking I will continue to work on this piece until I come up with what seems a promising direction, and then put it aside for a while as I go back to "Persistence," the first menhirs piece, for which I prepared the fabric this summer. The earth pigmented fabric has now cured, and is waiting for the stitching to begin. . . Once the stitching plan finalized and the contemplative stitching begun, I'll be able to come back to the second piece. I just can't do hard thinking about two big pieces at once.


November 11, 2023

Workshop with Jane Davies, Part 1

I spent the last two weeks of October in a workshop with Jane Davies at the Crow Barn in Ohio. The workshop was on "The Elements of Visual Language: A Fresh Look at Abstract Composition," working primarily with drawing, acrylic paint, and collage. You can see Jane's own work here; her youtube channel has many tutorials and online workshops. From sampling these before the workshop, I knew that Jane's methods of working as well as her materials are very different from what I'm used to, but I thought a change of approach would be a productive challenge for me, and thinking about composition is always a good thing. I was also eager to do more work with collage, which I've tried out a little bit before, and which I'd like to use more for making cards. I also thought it could be a useful medium for doing small "sketches" for my second menhir project (the one that will focus on three standing stones), making it easier for me to try out different colors, shapes, sizes, placements than using fabric. And all this held true. I made some interesting work while I was there, using media in ways new to me, and I also made some progress on the menhirs project. And when I got home, I cleared off my "project" desk in my study and set up my collage supplies so they are in easy reach.

Jane's approach was to focus on various elements of composition. An early assignment was to use line only. The first mark I made was the heavy line below. I added other lines, trying out other drawing tools/color:

9 x 12" on Bristol paper

That primary line was intriguing to me, so I explored it in another assignment, which was to work with both line and shape. I like both of these compositions, especially the one on the left, with the coral-colored circle.


I had an exchange with Rick Ortner after the first day of the workshop, describing Jane's approach, and wondering how useful it would turn out to be for me. Jane starts with spontaneous/random marks, while I tend to start from a central idea or emotion and then look for marks that will express that idea/emotion. Rick replied, "Starting from random operations is not bad. . . As long as you think formally, you can generate tons of new structures--structures with metaphorical resonances." These early drawings showed me just what Rick was talking about. Something about this looped line is very evocative to me, even though I can't identify a particular meaning in it. It somehow seems to me both menacing and comforting. I can imagine continuing to explore it, even perhaps in a large textile work.

Some technical information about the two drawings:
  • The scribbly line work was done in a new method I learned from Jane. I drew line clusters with a variety of implements (markers, graphite) on regular tissue paper. When the rest of the composition was in place, I auditioned various line clusters over the composition, cut out a rectangle of tissue with the cluster I wanted, and applied it to the collage with matte medium. Voila! One gets a line that traverses other materials with no skips or hesitations, and the tissue paper is transparent, so doesn't show. Another benefit of this method is being able to audition various lines; if I had been drawing directly on the composition, I would have had only one chance.
  • The prominent looped line and the other solid shapes were cut out of hand-painted collage paper. The paper is inexpensive drawing paper (e.g. white sulphite drawing paper from Blick's), and the paint is artist quality acrylic paint (Jane recommended Golden fluid acrylic paint). (Craft-quality paint does not give as solid a coverage.) Here's an array of the paper I painted:

Some other compositions that continue to appeal to me (these five are all 9x12"): 









On the Sunday between the two weeks of the workshop, I brought some materials back to my lodging and made a dozen or so cards. I enjoyed using techniques learned in the workshop on this small scale (4x6"), and look forward to replenishing my stock of hand-made cards with more along these lines. 


The different-looking one in the bottom right is just a rectangle cut out of the piece of newsprint that I had on my work-table to catch the paint where I went off the edges when painting 9x12 pieces of drawing paper. When I finished an extended session of painting papers and went to clear off my table, I noticed how beautiful these lines were. I got a half-dozen cards out of that one piece of newsprint. Another piece of newsprint is show below, but this one did not happen to yield such beautiful lines.  


In the second week of the workshop, we had the option of working on our own projects or continuing to do assignments suggested by Jane. I did one more day of assignments, and then switched over to working on my second menhirs project. I'll write a second post about that work. 


























 

September 14, 2023

Simple Sewing

I like to have simple sewing to do, alongside my work on more challenging projects. The intellectual/creative work involved in big projects (like my current ones about menhirs) has, of course, its own satisfactions, but each of those projects takes a very long time (usually years) to see the finished results of the endeavor. Here are a couple of simple projects that I've worked on recently.

When shopping with my sister in July at a quilting store in Phoenix, I saw a Kaffe Fassett fabric called "Twig" that I really liked (reminds me of Matisse cut-outs), but couldn't imagine how I would use it in a quilt.

Cookie said, "Why don't you make an apron with it?"  Good idea, especially as I already had a pattern at home that I'd been wanting to make. Although it looks like a dress, this Indygo Junction pattern is open in back, and the apron is put on over one's head.

I made the apron while on an annual quilting retreat with friends, in Plainfield, IL.  I also worked on another four-patch posie quilt that has been in the works for a while. Here's a length of the fabric that I cut up to make all the blocks,

Grafic by Latifah Saafir

And here are the 48 different blocks that came out of the fabric, framed in red or charcoal, and sashed in blueish-green. I haven't made the back of the quilt yet; it will incorporate the length of fabric above, so that the recipient can see where all the design elements came from. I'll probably use the charcoal fabric for the binding of the quilt.



And on the menhirs front, I've been reading a collection of essays on Soils, Stones, and Symbols: Cultural Perceptions of the Mineral World.


August 30, 2023

Progress on "Persistence"

In my earlier post on "Persistence," I mentioned that Sheryl St. Germain would be coloring the background cloth for the project in late August. Last weekend, she travelled from Georgia to come work with me in my basement studio. We chose my studio because I have a very large print table (about 60 x 95"), large enough for the piece of fabric I wanted to work on. I know the piece will be about 90" in length. I'm not sure of the width yet, so we colored the full 57" of the natural linen I'm using. Here's Sheryl at the print table, after we'd put one coat of earth pigment on the cloth.


Here it is drying on my concrete driveway. The warm weather helped it dry quickly, giving us time for a second application later that day.


Here it is back on the print table, after another coat of pigment, done at double the strength of the first coat, to insure we got to the dark value I was aiming for. I've turned over part of the fabric so that you can see the back as well (click on the image to see details). The pigment penetrates to the back, but doesn't cover uniformly as it does on the front, and the patterns can be quite lovely. In fact, many people who use earth pigments use the back side for their art work. I'm going for a solid background, so I'll be using the front. Although I do find myself looking also at the back. . . The fabric has to cure for four weeks before I can stitch into it, so no need to decide now.


Sheryl and me in front of the cloth:



The cloth will be the base for extensive hand stitching. You'll find more about the stitching in this earlier post, and an explanation of how the piece is connected to my experience of neolithic standing stones, in this post. And for a look at the range and beauty of work that can be done with earth pigments, take a look at this collection of images of student pieces--including one by Sheryl--from a recent online class taught by Claire Benn.

Looking with Sheryl at my preliminary pencil sketch for the piece, we decided that a vertical orientation will be best. (I oriented the image horizontally in my earlier post.) Much work remains to be done to figure out details of the stitching and layout, but having prepared the base cloth is a very significant step forward.



August 13, 2023

My second project about menhirs


My second project based on the menhirs (standing stones) of the Carnac alignments is taking shape.  I'm thinking of a very large piece centered on four stones. Here's a small sketch of the configuration that is my starting point.


When I first started thinking about art work based on the menhirs, my focus was on the variety in the shapes of the stones and the relationships between them as one looked at them from a bit of a distance.

I put this photo into Photoshop Elements and then traced the outlines of the stones to get a simple drawing:

Then I isolated parts of the drawings and did some small monoprints.


Then I made stamps in the shapes of some of the stones and stamped other small pieces.


I took this direction because a few years ago, I had enjoyed making stamps in bowl-shapes, stamping them individually and in relationship to each other (see images here), and I thought that might work for the menhir shapes also. I made several small pieces, but could see that this was not a fruitful direction, and the idea was put aside for some time.

More recently, after some months of extensive reading about the alignments, and about Neolithic stone monuments generally, I decided to turn back to the shapes, but to make something very large.  I cropped out four stones that are about 1/3 of the way in on the photo above, just to the left of the tallest stone:


I played around with flipping the shapes, and decided I preferred this movement of direction:

So, I am now in the midst of working with these shapes. I have enlarged the drawing so that the whole piece will be about 7 feet high. I've pulled some hand-dyed fabric in stone colors to see how these large shapes might look in fabric. I am making progress, but don't yet have anything to show. Perhaps in another couple of weeks.

As I looked at, thought about, and read about these stones, I came to think of them as embodiments of the dead. So I was very glad to come across this statement by Chris Scarre, author of Landscapes of Neolithic Brittany, speaking about the possible meaning of some short alignments (from 3 to 7 stones) at Avrillé: "If these are commemorative or mortuary monuments, they may represent select groups of the deceased, perhaps family or related kin, lined up in rows to face the rising sun." Yes, that's what this new piece is about. 

We will never know what was intended by the people who raised these stones, but I have come to accept that it's OK to go with the resonance that the stones have for me, hoping only that my meaning is at least in some consonance with the original practice.

* * * * * * * * * *

As I was putting together this post, I looked back at some earlier works of mine that take on new meaning in the context of my thinking about Neolithic stone monuments.  Here's a small work I made in 2018, cutting out and piecing together fabric that I had stamped with bowl shapes.  Looking at it now, I see a dolmen, a kind of monumental tomb found at some Neolithic sites.


And this one from 2010, made by playing around with cutting up stone shapes that I had appliquéd, has an echo of the same kind of shape: 

Stones (Trapezoid) 2010, Hand-painted and commercial cotton and linen, hand-appliqué, machine pieced, hand-quilted, 14.5"x13"

And even closer to my current thinking, here's a stitched sketch from 2016, made to see what I could do with simplified large shapes. So it turns out that in this new work, I'm coming back to something I did eight years ago, long before the menhirs drew me into thinking about stones once again: 

Two Stones (2016) Hand-dyed linen, couched silk-wrapped paper thread, 22"x11"


Finally, to leave you with an image that speaks deeply to me, and that shows the power of a simple shape, done very large: Sheila Hicks' Moroccan Prayer Rug:


This photo is from this website, where you can also click through to other photos of the piece. And there's a very moving photo of the work in a blogpost by Judith Martin, here.

July 31, 2023

Persistence

Here's what I'm thinking about for my work about "persistence"--a large piece of cloth (about 90" in longest dimension), on which I stitch thousands of marks in linear configurations.  I've made a full-size sketch that roughly replicates the layout of the three major alignments in Carnac. This is just a very early starting point and the final piece may bear little resemblance to this, but it's enough to serve as a kind of placeholder. Right now, it is hanging vertically on my design wall, but it may end up horizontal.


This rough sketch in place, I went on to do stitching trials, trying out the kinds of marks I might make, with what kind of thread, and in what colors.  I started out with the heavy natural linen I enjoy working with (4C22 from Fabrics-Store), and a black silk-wrapped linen thread that I had on hand from Habu Textiles


Then more sampling with different threads, this time stitching on linen that has been colored with different hues/values of earth pigments (more on earth pigments below):


This helped me decide that I prefer a light or medium-light color for the stitches, on a dark background. 

In order to try out a range of colors/values for the thread, I purchased a few different flat threads from Habu, which I can dye myself. (I like how a flat thread yields unexpected shapes in the stitches.)


Here's one of the threads, dyed with 2 different light grays, though it is difficult to tell the difference in hue at this light value.


And here are trials with three different threads from Habu, all dyed very light gray:


Now to explain the earth pigmented fabric. From an early stage, I've been talking with my friend Sheryl St. Germain about this project. Sheryl and I both attended a 2022 workshop by Susan Brandeis that centered on hand-stitching. I focused on stitching that I might use for my work about menhirs, and Sheryl was working with cloth that she had painted with earth pigments, a method of coloring cloth that she had recently learned from Claire Benn. We continued to e-mail back and forth about our work after the workshop. When I wrote about my decision to not use the natural linen, along with some thoughts about dyeing the background fabric, Sheryl suggested using earth pigments instead of chemical dyes. I liked the idea of this--because of the close association of earth and stone in these neolithic monuments--but I knew from hearing about Sheryl's experience that the process of using earth pigments was very different from anything I had done before, and I just didn't have it in me to learn a whole new process that I might not use again after this one project. Sheryl then offered to color the cloth for me. This was such a deeply generous offer that I hesitated to accept, but her offer came from the heart, and I opened my heart to accept. (It happens that this was one thing that has led me to think about how hard it can be to accept help, and I'm learning that accepting help is as important to a life well lived as is giving help.) 

Here are the samples that Sheryl worked up for me early in the design process, before I had decided whether I wanted the background to be light or dark. Sheryl tested three different earth pigments (all in the grayish/brown range that I wanted), in 2 or 3 different values.


I've picked the color in the lower right corner. My cloth will have the earth pigment applied late in August, and then it will need another four weeks to cure before I can work with it. This gives me the additional time I need to do some further thread trials, both of dyeing and stitching.

This is the first time that one of my personal works has become a collaborative project, and that scared me at first--how could I give over a central, physical part of the project to someone else? All of my work has been shaped significantly by extended discussion with friends and teachers, but I've always done all the actual work myself. But giving up control can be a good thing, and having Sheryl move forward with the cloth experiments has helped keep me moving forward on my part of the project. And of course our discussions all along the way have helped me find my way to the composition this will become.

THANK YOU SHERYL!!