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 muntin 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!

Read Full Post »

Simple pleasure / simple need

Today I offer a quote by Wendell Berry from his 1987 book, “Home Economics” –

“Once we grant the possibility of a proper human scale, we see that we have made a radical change of assumptions and values. We realize that we are less interested in technological ‘breakthroughs’ than in technological elegance. Of a new tool or method we will no longer ask: Is it fast? Is it powerful? … We will ask instead: Can we (and our children) afford it? Is it fitting to our real needs? Is it becoming to us?”

Even though in this post-internet age, speed and innovation seem to matter to us more than ever, these strike me as worthwhile questions.

And yes, I am still working with white, though this morning I pressed a mound of brilliant green and indigo blue squares. I nearly swooned after so much tan, beige, linen, oyster and ecru.

Read Full Post »

progress in white

Slowly getting the hang of our updates. There definitely are improvements in the offing.  For now, I am just moments shy of a good, long walk in the spring air, then it will be time to walk to the periodontist for the insertion of an implant (yes, sympathy is welcome!)

In other words, this post will be quick. A report in pictures. WH = “White House”, the very original name for this piece.

WH – scraps laid out

WH – seamed, with some embroidery

WH – pre-whitening close up

WH – same area, both whitened and layered (the silk had color and pattern)

WH – sheers pinned over whitening white running stitch (grey splotchy roof does not stay)

WH – sheers pinned on the other side of the roof

WH – more whitening with the addition of white running stitches (grey roof is gone)

WH – celebrating the shredding orange silk by tacking it down; one sheer had embroidered loops on it, seen here

WH – getting there

WH – hanging

Read Full Post »

Glitches, patience, and white as an attitude

Please notice that I am not ranting.  I am not. Even though the tree and fence above could be a visual for me and our technology problems of late. Think: “Upgrade”.

The Black Screen of Death, which was not the Black Screen of Death really, but more like a Coma Interlude, occurred multiple times yesterday. Eventually the system restored itself each time, but not without freaking me out. “Walk away from the screen, Ma’am!  Walk AWAY from the screen!”  What choice did I have? Days of not posting here or for my online class have me feeling a tad crazed.  And now the taxes are REALLY, really due.

The good news? Scary glitches and slow processing are making learning a few simple tricks on the new Photoshop Elements seem like a piece of cake. And more good news: I managed to finish Schedule C this morning in spite of it all.

Back to quilting.  Less screen time invariably means more sewing, which is also good news, I might add.  Continuing with white, white, white for the Jude Hill class I’m taking over at Spirit Cloth has been productive. Interesting. Lots of white to share. But not now.  I took a small intermission from white to construct the little row of houses below.

The formulaic nature of this design means they are relaxing to make. And yet, each set is different enough from every other to stay interesting.

The tiniest chips of fabric can be employed for this project (“Oh-oh!” you say with dismay. “You mean I can’t throw them out?!!”)

This drawing came after the cloth construction. It gave me this fun idea of a multitude of paths running to and from the doors.

The original impulse for ground and sky fabrics lies just above the drawing, and here is where I want to suggest that this project — though full of pink, blue, rose, lavender, rust, and indigo — bears a relationship to white. If you can stand to — keep reading!

The ground is that wool challis I’ve talked about before. The sky is a piece of a vintage silk from a deconstructed handmade bodice.  The colors worked and they were the very first I chose. They were the INITIAL IMPULSE. The circuitous route back to the original choice got me thinking about white as a process or a state of mind.  Specifically, about white as pure expression.

I fiddled.  A Lonni Rossi broccoli fabric had potential but was rejected for being too literal and for adding visual clutter.

This shibori sky, suggestive of aurora borealis, was also too much.  Stars, also too literal.

This started the return back to the original choice.

Here, I shrunk the scale and added a moon. The moon stayed, but the scale was revised back to original premise.

Here I am back to the original sky, only now with the moon, and a much too busy foreground.  Departing miles from the original feel, it looked like I was trying way too hard and furthermore, the woven-strip foreground would have prevented stitching all those paths, and they intrigue me.

  Now, almost there.

And back.

So, what if “WHITE” is purity? What if ‘white’ is an original impulse? The original set of colors? The original thought? I’m not suggesting that refining ideas and radically departing from an initial idea are not essential and exciting ways to create.  I AM suggesting that there may be times when sticking with that First Thought (in this case a pairing of challis and silk) might be just right.  A way to honor an intuitive and spontaneous creation.

You can find more of these row house quilts here.

Read Full Post »

time to make dinner

For many years I resisted upgrades to our graphics software because learning one’s way around a new-ish program takes time and is frustrating.  Invariably these ‘upgrades’ take perfectly acceptable features and make them more complicated or just switch them up in ways that undermine automaticity.  I’m a big fan of automaticity.  And, yes, that’s a sign of impatience and laziness.

It had gotten to the point, however, where I couldn’t even find answers to simple “help” questions online because no one talked about our antiquated version anymore. It was time to buck up or buckle down or stop bucking the trend, and place myself, happy or not, back onto a learning curve.

That’s why I didn’t post yesterday.  Too busy figuring out how to resize pictures again.

And now, it is time to make dinner (I’m thinking — wilted cukes, shrimp cocktail, and a big salad with bitter greens, including watercress).  So, a little photo story ensues.*

I’ve done a series of thread sketches based on a photo of my younger son skateboarding.  Here it is, pinned to one of the back windows.  Given this current exploration of white, I played with the exposure bar to lighten up the scene.

He’s doing (so I’m told) a ‘hard flip’ and yes, he landed it. The photo is a little bit old –taken sometime AFTER he broke his left arm the first time but BEFORE he broke it the second time.  I study the torso pitch and the folds of denim and the outflung arm angles as an artist – what goes where? and how do I capture that sense of a body flying in a controlled sail off a set of stairs to the pavement below?  As a mother I am using it to remind me of his strengths. Strengths such as — remarkable kinetic gifts, the willingness to land and land hard, and unbelievable persistence when learning something he cares about.

dirty damask – from black walnuts, maybe?

damask-backed sketch on the floor

The above sketch was photographed on the floor.  Shot this way, the charcoal blotches are not very visible at all.  But, below, see how visible they become when the cloth is pinned up onto glass, with light pouring through.

damask on window

black thread on linen, pinned up on glass

‘wrong side’ with pencil marks is my preferred side – here against a window

side-by-side, the mintons forming an ‘implied’ nine patch

and — ah!!! — how freeing it is to paint

and then scribble in that paint with a pencil!

Something Mo said about ‘light coming through’ got me thinking about how each and every needle puncture creatures a teeny avenue for light. Some of the recent things Jude said about clean and dirty whites were rattling around in my mind selecting the blackened damask… but more, actually, I was thinking about something she said less recently about how even when we cover up a section that has been worked and perhaps beautifully so, that section does not go away.  The energy of it remains.  With respect to the blackened blotches sometimes showing, sometimes not — I think about how they are always there even if not visible.

And now it is time for bed!  Dinner did happen in between start and finish. And so did input on a Gatsby paper. And American Idol (Lazaro? Top three?! Are you shitting me?!)

I must stop before I embarrass myself any further.

*  Again, this is a response to and inspired by, the goings on at Spirit Cloth and by one of my boys.

Read Full Post »