Designing vulnerability

a white ‘seam’ couched as an inner wall

As I look at this composition, I begin to think about vulnerability… what is transparency, after all, if not the quality of letting oneself be known? (IRS, take note!)  I have been looking at other works-in-progress back lit in this manner for many months, so it’s not clear why THIS one speaks of transparency and the others did not. Perhaps it is due to vigorous conversations (with Grace and others) about boundaries, about where to draw the line (a red line, perhaps?) to maintain the necessary sanctuary to create, care giving and its demands, and the desire to be seen.

rectangle with 2 folds = house

scraps from former quilt – many patches are fabric that I bleached in order to whiten

It began with ‘Ghost House’ leftover scraps, and was a conscious attempt to marry two recently made houses – both of which left me dissatisfied (The Red House quilt and The White House quilt) [links to follow - I don't have much time this morning]. I laid the scraps on white, continuing the exploration of WHITE for my online class with Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth, side bar).

part of the roof is white, with stitch and couching, only, to define

There is white on the base, too, which I might build up all around – picking up on Jude’s idea of moving from white as a ‘background’ to white as a field of interest, with texture, and something to say besides, ‘look at what is on me’. I actually seamed some white fabrics together, to use as building struts in the frame… only one made it into the house – that long vertical to the right of the blue window (and yes, I know the tower has the appearance of a goofy face, a fact I’m going to correct with another window or two).

hanky scrap from Sandy Meegan pinned, center

The red thread is ‘Meditation Thread’ hand-dyed in India. I like the idea of red, with its vigor and visibility standing in as a symbol of a well-maintained boundary (Imagine that! A sanctuary bounded with quiet intent and silent, purposeful endeavor!! Not angry protestations and complaint). I wonder what each compartment holds.

what if the Nine Patch will only be implied and transient?

I see the nine patch and wonder if I have the energy and where with all to enlarge this quilt in order to make the nine patch more than an ephemeral creation of morning sun and minton shadow. I don’t need to decide to continue.

Many more works on the table, pinned to the wall, up against the western glass doors, and laid out on the dining room table for design-viewing.

same thread around White House, unsuccessful, but a spur to new Tower

Have a great couple of days!

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“Steal Like An Artist”

select subject and materials

The book “Steal Like an Artist” is a great and inspiring volume. You can read it in an hour and a half, and should, many times.

Here are a few of artist/author Austin Kleon’s liberating and clarifying concepts:

1. “Nobody is born with a style or a voice… We learn by copying.”
2. Copy your heroes.
3. Copy from more than one source.
4. “You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”

In that vein, today I celebrate a cloth face put together in preparation for an upcoming children’s quilting workshop that I’ll be teaching at the Boston Center for the Arts.*  This exercise served two purposes. One, it acquainted me with the project on the tactile level – obviously important when teaching. Two, it gave me a chance to express something, so there is less chance I will insert myself into my students’ work – always a peril for teachers, particularly of young people.

tacking ear down

So, from whom do I steal here? At least three artists.

One, Jude Hill. Jude is a master quilter whose techniques and philosophy I have been studying (and copying) for quite some time now. Her teaching style is completely geared to Number 4, above — in other words, she isn’t trying to show her students how to make work like hers. Rather, she is openly and consciously trying to get her students to SEE like she does. Philosophy and process instead of recipes. (her blog: Spirit Cloth on sidebar)

How is her influence present? This time, primarily in technique and a quality of attention:

1. The attention to the materials themselves (selecting fabrics with a nice hand, easily penetrable by a needle).
2. The use of invisible basting to adhere the layers.
3. Managing the layers by carefully inserting batting under face only.
4. Hand sewing some components together prior to basting the entire piece – eliminating need for numerous pins or glue.

assembling eye BEFORE all-over basting

Who else?  Susan Carlson – the wonderfully talented pictorial quilter from Maine, whose collage-style technique I learned in 2001.  Her influence:

1. An illustration approach to rendering the subject.
2. Building layers from the bottom up.
3. A liberal combination of patterns.

couching a single strand of satin cord

The third and perhaps most important artist:  the sculptor of the mask. Unknown. Gbi artist, Liberia, early twentieth century.

side by side – eyes not finished

I would like to try this again, because I missed on the proportions – that lovely length to the face and the broad, regal forehead got a little squashed in my version. I needle-sculpted the cheeks a little, but next time I would want to use color to add light around the nose and on one-half of the forehead.

Apropos of ‘missing’ (I don’t really like the final product all that much, in fact) – I’d like to add how critical being able to screw up and try again is for creative endeavor. My most favorite spokesman on this is Ken Robinson, the English education specialist. Clearly other people find him worth listening to as well — the last time I posted this link, it had been viewed 7MM times. It is up to 16MM views now!

All layers together, with some embellishment

*  I will be teaching “Patchwork Faces” – a workshop for children, on May 18, 2013 from 10:30 to 12:00. You can register here:

http://bcaonline.org/public-programs/families-connect.html

Then, on June 1, from 10:30 until 1:00, I will teach a class for adults called, “Sew What? Improv Quilting”

http://www.bcaonline.org/visualarts/mills-gallery/now-showing.html

Both class are offered through the Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
617-426-5000

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Trust Disequilibrium

“Trust disequilibrium” was the best parenting advice I ever came across.  It invites us to believe that the inevitable breakdowns, regressions, and topsy-turvy times that occur while caring for children are useful, normal, and valuable.   It supports the notion that things might be going well even when all external evidence suggests otherwise.  It is advice formulated around the concept of ACCEPTANCE, rather than around the concept of CONTROL.

It is good advice all on its own, but it also stands (in my universe, anyway) as a somewhat stunning contrast to that OTHER more commonly dispensed piece of parenting wisdom (you know the one I mean):  “Be consistent”.

Be consistent.  Be consistent.  If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, why, I could buy myself a pair of UGGs (not that I WANT a pair, mind).

Excellent advice — it’s true — but it is advice often dispensed (by teachers, grandparents – and well, let’s be honest, by complete strangers in the grocery store) as a gentle or stern corrective.  I often felt that it was dispensed to me, in particular, because everyone in the world could see that I was too adaptable, too willing to make concessions, too willing to revise the contract.

All of this is on my mind again because of the little fella pictured above – eight week old Atticus.  I am reading the books on training (be firm! be consistent!) and have just finished the marvelous dog-centric novel, “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle“, a story that prominently features the benefits (and indeed, wonders) of the well-trained (i.e. consistently treated) dog.

This weekend, I had to step back from my doubts about whether I am up to the task of training long enough to remember my strengths.  I am fine with the house being a wreck (for awhile, anyway).  Poop and pee don’t do me in.  Punishment is not my first instinct.  As for the rest – can I learn it?  The hand signals?  The repeated phrase?  The sternness required to show who’s boss?  Holding ground and refusing to reward the half-performed task?

More to this morning’s point, can I trust that the pack WILL sort itself out, or do I need to take a stand on what seems, at this point (five days in), hopeless?

Of course, here I refer to the cranky, the crotchety, the beloved Jack – our 9 year old Corgi who likes nothing better than to sleep at my feet and walk to the corner to sniff the yew bush where other neighborhood dogs have left their mark — and, truly, not a whole lot else.  He has his routines.  He is used to having us to himself.  And, apparently, he is viciously opposed to having a new member in our pack.  I am presented with the question – is THIS the level of disequilibrium I need to trust as the ‘pack settles itself out’?  Or is this not a viable arrangement?

Quilts go through periods of disequilibrium all the time.  I hate it, I love it, it’s almost done, it’s miles from being done, can be heard in my mind in the space of days regarding a single rectangle of cloth.  Detaching from the opinions is a good practice, as is learning to love the process.  The wisdom that spills from Jude Hill in her online classes (SpiritCloth, sidebar) has supported and challenged me to let go of so many of the less useful approaches to creative product, and to adopt a broader spirit of inquiry.

Inquiry opens up the gate – and you never know what is on the other side.  “Is this the shape I want?”  “Does this block of color signal loss or remembrance?” “Have I considered the edges?”  Maybe the stakes are so much lower with the process of creating a quilt that I can go easy and go wide … But then again, maybe I need to convince myself that this spirit of inquiry is transferrable to the business at hand – that is, formulating a new pack, gaining new skills, and asking the hard questions.

Next post, it will be back to quilts, all quilts, I promise!  Here is a sneak peak at Barn II – which is VERY nearly finished (the applique and quilting, that is – not the truing, binding, sleeving, signing, and photographing).  It is roughly 33″ across.

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repetition

It is possible that I am making the same quilt over and over again.
Oh look, there’s another blue moon! And — surprise! — another hut, with its two-toned roof angled skyward.
And, my goodness — two in a week!! –  ANOTHER two-toned roof and ANOTHER moon — stitched together!
Leave it to a Buddhist to address the matter of repetition with eloquence.  Gary Snyder:

Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms.  Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick — don’t let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits.  Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our ‘practice’ – which will put us on a ‘path’ – it IS our path… The truly experienced person, the refined person, DELIGHTS IN THE ORDINARY.  Such a person will find the tedious work around the house or office as full of challenge and play as any metaphor of mountaineering might suggest…. One goes out onto the ‘trail that cannot be followed’ which leads everywhere and nowhere, a limitless fabric of possibilities, elegant variations a millionfold on the same themes, yet each point unique.

From, The Practice of the Wild.

Here is a peak at what I really think about this latest Moon Hut quilt (depicted with my feet above).

I make the sky out of a linen so soft it begs to be touched.  The swirls on it suggest wind to me, and are a green I struggle to name – sea foam?  Moss?  The dragging of thread along some of the swirls pleases me, accentuating their drama and direction, providing a welcome counterpoint to yammering, televised heads debating Medicare’s future.  The orange leaves and red leaves play off of each other, and provide a feathery sense of movement, and a nod to the incomparable work of Jude Hill, who explores feathers and wings this season.  The moons of the foreground place sky into the ground – a kind of reversal that also pleases me.  There’s even a little redemption here – for I am making use of a fragment from a barn quilt that couldn’t find a place until it landed here.  How can all of this not be (to quote another icon) a ‘good thing’?!!

Today I will practice thinking about these hut and moon quilts as “elegant variations” – which I already know to be true, if I am honest, if I stay away from over-thinking, if I flick doubt away like a pesky gnat, denying it purchase.  That’s a practice, too – flicking doubt away like a pesky gnat, denying it purchase.

Where pleasure resides, repetition is no effort at all.

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“Peace Fleece”

Last week, I got stuck in the studio.  It really felt like I was banging my head on the wall and it was clear that continued effort in that state was not going to yield results.  So!  I did what many people do when they get stuck – I changed media and let myself play.

Felting fit the bill. Making a globe is a lot like making meatballs!  All you need to do is stand at the sink and pat and rub and rinse under running water, and pat and rub some more.  And, more importantly, since I am not a felter, there’s no real striving involved.

I used Peace Fleece rovings to cover two beach stones and to make a globe.  Peace Fleece has an interesting story:

The Peace Fleece offices are in a barn on a sheep and horse farm in the small, rural town of Porter in the foothills of southwestern Maine. Peter Hagerty and his wife Marty Tracy started buying wool from the Soviet Union back in 1985 in hopes that through trade they could help diffuse the threat of nuclear war. Since then Peter has journeyed through eastern Europe, central Asia and the Middle East in search of farmers and shepherds who are willing to set aside historic enmities in exchange for opportunities leading to mutual understanding and economic interdependence.

This wool was  ordered many years ago for some children’s classes that I was running, so I don’t remember its provenance.  But – I remember that I intentionally selected wool from areas of the world that have been in conflict with each other for generations so that when felted together, the object would be ornamental AND a prayer for peace.

What do YOU do to express a desire for peace?  Or, what do you do when you get stuck in the studio (which, if you think about it, would be a prayer for peace!)

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