April 5, 2007
Breath...
This week the turkeys have been getting me down. Tuesday I identified that nothing was going my way because I really haven't made anything for months. I swear it sorta feels like perhaps I lost my edge.
I admit, I have been working in my journals, drawing, painting, collage. But that does not carry the same sort of satisfaction as working with cloth. Dyeing cloth, creating transparent layers with silks and cottons, sewing the layers together and working through creative problems? That soothes me.
My studio is just about functional. The work is going more slowly than I had hoped, but the the quality of the work is good. As soon as the closet doors are installed I will be cooking with gas! Then I will be able to truely unpack, store my dress making fabrics, find some lost items.
But while that is happening, I at least have the ability to play with dye. So here is some cloth, drip drying from its soda ash soak. Here in Arizona it dries in about 20 minutes, it's so dry. I wonder how it will affect the batching of painted cloth.
I don't know if this piece will work out. I had to paint something while the other cloth was soaking. I think I packed some PFD cloth, but I also know I washed out some other cloth that had been sitting in my damp basement studio back east. So while painting with thickened dye on this piece, I mixed some soda ash into the dye; hopefully it will work out because I like it so far.
I have a full day of dyeing ahead of me tomorrow. I think I will paint the bird realistically and create some organza overlay to play with. I think the Mountain Bluebird should be surrounded by thistle silhouettes. And I want to play with working the organza in a different manner. We'll see. I will post more photos.
I have been getting great feedback on my magazine article! Thank you all!
Deborah B said, "I just finished reading your article in QA -- studying it actually. I was constantly flipping back and forth between the pages to compare the different stages of the project. Most excellent."
And boy did I need these kind words just when they arrived!
Plain Jane LaFazio said, "I LOVED your article in the recent quilting arts and I was so inspired by it."
Again! I really needed these words too!
I am amazed that I was able to write this article! I made the three step outs prior to moving and wrote the article afterward. I bet I already stated this.