The Creative Process is the Point

The Creative Process is the Point

I’ve been busy. With my gifted studio space I am making good use of it. There’s no wi-fi, so I tend to just work and not stop to make videos or write posts, etc.  As a result I’ve been less visible than usual, which has been a good thing to do from time to time. Regroup, rethink, reprioritize, and in general concentrate on what I like, what I want and less on what I think I “should” be doing.

Painting has taken me back to beginner status.  I’m just figuring things out, testing out the materials, seeing what would happen if I try this and then what about that?!  It’s both anxiety producing, scary and fun all at the same time.  The anxiety and fear is rooted in “other”.  What I mean by that is it’s all about comparing or wanting to be farther along in the journey than I actually am.  Learning a new medium takes time and determination and a willingness to make a mess and not have things turn out “well”.  But that’s what learning is all about, process; the process of becoming familiar with the unfamiliar, the process of seeing what will happen if, the process of creating without a net, without expectation of an outcome, without needing things to be a certain way.  Learning isn’t elegant, necessarily, but it can be a lot of fun if I can keep myself from leap frogging to an expectation, an end result.  iSo that’s where I am right now.  I’m learning.

And every now and then, something I was about to rip up and use for collage looks better than I initially thought, and so I keep it and make notes about what I like, what I don’t like, what could be improved upon.  I might even annotate it in my sketch book, play with other ideas or just leave as is and move on to something else.

Right now I have two pieces I’m playing with.  One is devoted to playing around with ink and seeing what I can do using different things and the other is devoted to putting down a collage layer and then painting on top and mark making.  For some reason I’m drawn to charcoal and yet kind of dislike it at the same time.  Not sure what that’s about, but I keep picking it up and using it and then not liking the results, so I’ll explore that a bit more and try to figure out what I like about it.  I already know what I don’t like about it, but why do I keep going to it?  That’s what I want to explore as I think there’s something there that’s worth investigating.

I tried to do some photo imaging and it was somewhat successful, but I’m going to refer to the interview I did with my friend Leslie Fry who showed me this process and I taped it, but need to rewatch to see what I’m doing wrong. I like the idea of photo transferring and have watched a bunch of Youtube videos on it, but I need to practice doing it more. I like what it evokes, I like that I can use images that are meaningful to me and then paint over them with just a little bit still peeking through. I like how personal the piece then becomes. The bigger point though is that I’m trying stuff out and seeing where it takes me, because after all the process is the whole point.

So that’s me. Explorer. Learner. Seeker.

What about you?

A Studio Changes Everything!

A Studio Changes Everything!

I’ve been taking Louise Fletcher’s free Find Your Joy taster class and it’s been SO wonderful. First of all Louise is lovely and humble and very, very talented, but also it’s exactly what I needed to encourage me to try painting again.

My first painting after many, many years…

When I was young I wanted to be a fine artist, but the adults in my life (not just my parents) encouraged me to be more responsible (aka get a REAL job.). So I went into fashion design, hated it, then jewelry design, loved it, but ultimately found it not exactly the right fit for me, then found hand stitching, and finally Improvisational Stitching, which has been so wonderful and freeing. I love improvisational stitching, but I also know this isn’t where everything ends.  All of this I will be talking about in much more detail in my upcoming workshop: Finding Your Voice Through Exploration and Creativity.  I will be sharing my experience with art, design, and evolution as an artist; how I came to improvisational stitching, the things I continue to do, look for and try.  The workshop is all about encouraging and helping people find their unique voice.  What motivates, what awes and inspires and how to take those things and incorporate them into your art.  The workshop is personal and is the culmination of many things that I’ve done over the course of my life. We’re going to have a wonderful, wonderful time of soul searching in a safe environment, cheered on and encouraged to try things we might not otherwise try and we will talk about that inner critic.  The one who is sometimes so loud we have a hard time concentrating. Each day is filled with exercises to help us see what’s blocking us, how to work through and around those blocks (and inner critic) and move towards what we love. There are still spots open!  So sign up.
I’m a seeker, a life long learner.  I got that from my mother.  I love stretching and trying new things.  I get bored pretty quickly, so improv stitching has been fantastic as the options are infinite.  I can incorporate lots of different things into it.
When I was awarded the Artist’s Residency in France this spring, I had a studio and realized how much I needed that so I could work bigger and add paint to my pieces.  My husband early into my 2-week residency said to me, while talking on the phone one evening, “So I guess you’re not going to be able to come back from this…”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Having a studio,” he said.
“Yup.  Definitely going to be needing a real studio when I get home.”
So guess what? I was gifted part of a studio for the summer and painting was the first thing I wanted to do. And this is where Louise’s free class comes in.  It’s all about painting and I figured I’d get some prompts and encouragement to paint again, and that’s exactly what I got and so much more!

2nd attempt at painting again…

I did six of these and had so much fun!

And then I hit a snag.  I had one of those days where the voice in my head told me everything I was doing was awful.  So I did what I’ve learned to do over decades of dealing with this voice.  I kept going anyway, though I must admit there was little pleasure to be had…  and when the voice became too insistent I went back to doing some hand stitching on La Bête, which is soothing and lovely.

Gimp French Knots, Added Wool with Ribbon Roses, Feather Stitch

And the next morning I woke up and went into the studio and began working on the piece that had me down and feeling like this whole painting idea was a bad one.  And do you know what happened? I decided I rather liked it after all.
And then I decided that I wanted to try doing something I’d never attempted before.  Doing an abstract piece using a photograph as inspiration.

I tested this idea out in my sketch book first.

And then I tried to recreate this on proper paper, but the size is off and I actually like the one in my sketch book best, so that was interesting!

It became too elongated. I like the square shape that I did in my sketch book. I may try this again with a square piece of paper.

I also played with some black paper using only black, white and red paint.
Anyway, the whole experience has been nothing short of amazing and so, so informative and just beyond wonderful. I’m loving my time in the studio where I go from painting to stitching and then back to painting and now can incorporate both in my work, which feels even more amazing.  I love that as I learn new things my work changes.  I love that just because I enjoy something I don’t have to stick with just that and do nothing else.  I love that I continue to explore and grow and the work shows that as well.  
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Obsessive About Dyeing

Obsessive About Dyeing

Dyeing fabrics is an obsession.  I began with cottons as directed in the Elizabeth Barton class, Dyeing to Design, that I took over at Academy of Quilting.  I had little interest in dyeing or so I thought, and only took the class because Elizabeth was teaching it and I wanted to take a class with her and it was the first class closest to the date when I started researching her classes.  I had no idea I’d fall so completely in love with dyeing.  But I did.  After her class ended, I took her other dyeing Class – Basic Dyeing for Quiltmakers where we learned to over dye and dye just about any color we wanted.  It was thrilling to see a color, figure out what primary colors went into it and then create it!  But as is my way, I wasn’t content to dye just cottons.

I decided I had to learn how to dye wool, which is a different process entirely, so I could finish my block of the month designs (more on that in another post). So I went over to Dharma Trading, a great company that sells dyes and everything related to dyeing.  I sourced wool fabric, also not as easy as one might think, and then purchased a small amount of wools, silks, raw silks and silk/wools from a couple of different places.  I even found some lovely silk velvet at Dharma, perfect to use on my wool appliqué pieces that I began designing a few months ago.  And I began dyeing.

Fabrics

Aren’t they beautiful?

Here are all the cotton fabrics I dyed in Elizabeth’s class, including some of my silk screens and shibori dyed cottons…hand-dyed fabrics

Now I’m back to designing so I can use all of these lovely fabrics.  This is the beginning of Mr. Pig.  He still needs to be embellished and is one of twelve blocks for my Block Of the Month project featuring cookie jars that I’m in the midst of creating patterns and, hopefully, kits for, that will come with many of my hand-dyed fabrics as well as everything you’ll need to make each block.

Notice the cotton fabric to the far left?  That is one of my shibori dyed cottons and the green wools and pink wool and velvet are all my hand-dyed fabrics too!  Mr. Pig

PigSketch

Obsessive About Dyeing

An “Ode To Matisse” Quilt

Last fall I decided to design my own bed-sized quilt.  I wanted a quilt that would remind me of spring and summer, that was colorful and had big organic shapes that inspired cheerfulness.  This was before the election and though there were many things being said that were ominous  – calls for great walls to be built, mass deportations being touted as campaign “promises”, comments about bringing back the “good old days”, leading many of us to wonder to whom those “good old days” applied, (obviously not women, minorities, and anyone who didn’t conform to traditional gender roles and relationships) all this from a man dogged by bankruptcy, lawsuits, accusations of fraud and sexual misconduct, a man who bragged about assaulting women, not paying his taxes, and encouraged his supporters to physically assault those who voiced opposition to him – still, it seemed there was room for optimism, and, if nothing else, the elections hadn’t taken place yet.  Those months and weeks before the election now feel like the “good old days”.

So in the midst of all that, I decided to design my own quilt and was inspired by the shapes in a fabric covering a chair and couch my husband used to have in his office at his advertising agency, that now occupies the western portion of our bedroom.

couch

Couch in our bedroom

I wrote about this quilt, that I began designing and intended to make, just after I’d chosen all the fabrics for it.  I discussed the process of taking a sketch and translating it into an actual quilt.  That post is ‘here‘.

Matisse reminds me of the playfulness that can be a part of life if we allow it in and the shapes he created make me smile.  The colors he frequently used tended toward bright, primary colors, and I decided to stay close to those as well.  It took ages to figure out where everything would go, what fabrics to use, how to fit everything in to the size quilt I knew I wanted.  The quilt kept getting bigger, and even though it is intended for a twin bed, I wanted it to be long enough that I could tuck it under and over pillows. I really wanted it to be the size of a bedspread.

And then the elections took place and I threw myself furiously into escaping what was now to become our collective reality learning how to dye my own fabrics.  I took several classes at the Academy of Quilting taught by the extremely,  talented, artist Elizabeth Barton.  Between learning to dye, which I love, love, LOVE, playing with colors, and sporadically working on my “Ode to Matisse” quilt I managed to avoid getting too depressed by the events and endless drama that has now become commonplace with this new administration.  Still, I knew I’d have to make a concerted effort to concentrate on my Matisse quilt if I was ever going to finish it.  So about a month ago I began working on it daily.  The free motion quilting, which I’m very new to, was challenging and I ran into lots of tension issues, but then went back to one of the dozens of Craftsy classes I have enrolled in and was reminded not to be afraid to turn the tension down as far as needed in order to get the threads to behave with each other, no matter how imbalanced that relationship might seem.  Read whatever you like into THAT statement, but it did seem ironic given who now occupies our White House.

There are many wonderful free motion quilting classes on Craftsy, but the two I particularly love are Free Motion Quilting Essentials taught by Christina Carneli, her blog is A Few Scraps and Divide and Conquer: Creative Quilting for any Space taught by Lori Kennedy, who also has a blog, Inbox Jaunt.  They are both wonderful.  Christina also teaches several other free motion quilting classes for those who are more experienced.  But for me, starting out with her class was perfect and just what I needed to attempt this:  img_0102

and this:img_0093 and this…img_0100 And this…img_0099

From Lori’s class I began with doodles of things I saw others doing and then took it to the quilt.  Patterns like this…img_0097and this…img_0089and this…img_0090With each block, I tried a different free motion quilting pattern that I thought complimented the shape in the block.  I know many feel the shapes themselves should also be quilted and I may have to go back and quilt the larger shapes, but I wanted them to pop, so decided to leave them alone.  Once all the blocks were quilted I agonized over the binding.  Eventually I opted for the darkest background beige fabric I had used.  I cut it on the bias, pieced it together and then following the instructions in Mimi Dietrich’s book, Happy Endings   I bound the whole quilt with mitered corners.  I added a label and voila!ode-to-matisse

And here’s a shot of the labelLabel.jpgOTM_Back.jpg

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as finishing such a mammoth project, except of course writing about it while it is draped over your lap!

I forgot to include the contents of this quilt on the label.  They are:  100% cotton fabric, Wool Batting, Cotton thread.

Next up – my Block of the Month quilt that I’m currently designing and working on, inspired by the fabulous Sue Spargo, who is to blame for my current obsession with all things fabric, quilted, embroidered, embellished, etc.

Obsessive About Dyeing

Fabric Painting & the Fun Begins!

Fabric painting was something I knew nothing about before taking Elizabeth Barton‘s online class Dyeing to Design at the Academy of Quilting.  Fabric painting is the process of combining fabric dye with a thickener so it can be used to paint fabric, just as one would paint on a canvas.  Think about that.  The possibilities are endless!!  As we had been silk screening the week before, I used a couple of my silk screened fabrics and painted on them and then decided to branch out and paint on a blank white piece of cloth.  Here are some of my doodles.

As you can see I had fun!  I also painted the fabric in the photograph below, but I didn’t have a clear idea of what to do with any of it.  While painting the fabric in this photo below I was thinking about how we are all moving along in our lives, sometimes following, at other times leading, sometimes crossing paths with others, but can often feel we are alone even though we live in a world populated by so many.  Still, if we can just remember to reach out to others, we find our experiences are shared by many.  Should I have just written all that in the first person singular?  But then I might have felt that alone feeling again… Anyway, I sat with these various fabrics and did nothing for several days.

a-rippleThen, having given up on the idea that I was going to be miraculously hit with a blast of inspiration, I cut up the fabric (just a little, nothing radical) and sewed it back together (photo below.)  And then I sent it off to my class for feedback, that’s the whole reaching out thing that I mentioned above…  Elizabeth is an excellent teacher and can be depended upon to make terrific suggestions. 5abstractWhich led to this…5abstract1And this…5abstract2And this…5abstract4

And finally, finally, finally… this…5abstract6Which became this…  traveling along our various paths…5togetherAnd finally, this…  reaching out to others and no longer feeling so alone…lesson5front-copyHere are a few close ups of the machine and hand stitching…

upperleft
upperrightlowerrightlowerleftdetail2detail

And this is the back.lesson5back-copy

Traveling Together measures 21.75″ x 21.75″  All the fabric was hand painted and hand dyed. Then quilted using a cotton batting and kona cotton back.  I did the hand stitching using a perle cotton thread as well as a wool thread. The binding was hand dyed and sewn on, as was the label.

I still have not figured out what to do with my various silk screens, but I just finished painting over a few of them and plan to over dye a couple of others, so will see what the results are after that.  In the meantime I painted a few more half yard pieces of fabric and am eager to see how they turn out.

Elizabeth’s Dyeing to Design class is over, but she’ll be teaching it again in the spring, I believe.  I cannot recommend it more highly.