Spirit Cloth

another kind of story

 

you might  see me jumping all over the place this month. the end of the year is a mix of old and new, a time to tidy up and close some doors, a time to reorganize and open (or re-open) others. and so it seems something like a tornado here. i am spinning around , a bit dizzy, sucking up everything in my path, but knowing generally which direction i am going in.

i am finishing up a few pieces that i started a while back. i see them as a bit different than a lot of my work this year. the story behind them is based more on design. they are less illustrative and their story has more to do with the elements, the shapes and the fabrics and how they speak to each other. i might call them more "arty" probably only because they are meant to hang on a wall. perhaps they even might appeal to a different audience.

anyway, i am quilting them. this one is from the nature of dots series, #1, ( there are 3) . i like to put space between start and finish of things, just to clear my head from intention and then to go back and see if the same thought emerges... if i am communicating with myself.  i am not linking backwards on these because i want a fresh start.  this one coincidentally contains the smallest square i ever patched into a cloth. and i used a sewing machine and it is a dot.

building a bigger square

...i spent the day surrounding this bunch of little squares (324 5/8" squares to be exact) with more cloth. because i am also thinking about squares as frames.

and i forgot to mention that i really like this.

square diaries 1

if you have been reading here for a while you know i have an obsession with squares.  they are my escape. the first quilt i ever made was a postage stamp quilt.  i have no pictures.  i think one of the main reasons that i like the square is because it can be divided up into many smaller squares.  it has an easy logic.

and i like how those little squares can be used to build bigger squares. i like that they are building blocks.

this is an old hand pieced patchwork sample. many squares coming together. something to build on. a personal game board.  the first square is a place to begin.

new eyes

new eyes, new story. it's raining, i'm playing. i am intrigued once again with the images we present to children. and redefining cute.

i also really like this.

longer cloth

i will be off to mom's today and working on coma. and thinking about what i have been thinking about and working into for a while now. longer cloth. longer cloth has to do with weaving. and what if.

...and a few undoings of plans and purpose.

have a good weekend.

( pictured here: a handwoven strip that used to be the edge of something, evolving into something else)

in between

i spent the morning practicing getting outside myself, with the aid of 2 mirrors. the time of year requires some self analysis. to see yourself from a different angle.  today i only see that my hair is much greyer than this time last year. i guess that's a start.

i finished and sold a lot of work this year. and now i am rummaging through the next batch, wondering what the fragments will become.  last evening i pulled out the 'edge'  from way back when.... and thought about how we are on the edge of winter.  NOT.

this morning it is close to 70 degrees, the rosemary is blooming and i am still harvesting from the garden. something is seriously shifting.  this transition season seems to be a just hanging. nice actually.

december dots

a dot could be edgeless if it is glowing.

a dot could be a memory, weightless and far away in the past, but awfully heavy when brought back into the present. this is a paper mache  christmas ornament, one of the first things i remember making. too heavy for the tree, but mom saved it anyway.

recalculating time

when i started this long cloth i was in a different place. this past year held a big scare for us. the details are not that important. it was just scary. i got stuck there for a while and i made this piece to express the timelessness that i experienced. i was trapped somewhere very unfamiliar.and there was no end, no way out.

the idea for the long cloth came from a protracted sense of time. a time line representing an unfamiliar landscape or an endless day. a sense of the real-ness of shadow, the un-real-ness of order, the lack of orientation. tunnel vision.

i included the many eyes that appeared and seemed to be staring back at me. at first i felt them as a threat. but i realized they were all my eyes, and i needed to use them to get outside myself, to see things from a distance. to make fear smaller and easier to handle. a dot in a familiar landscape

this piece took a million years to stitch. i mended the open edge of the coming storm with fragments of my husband's old shirt and braided the tangled old fringe and now it is done. it can change shape, it can be rolled up and put away keeping secrets safe and then unrolled and remembered. and shared. it is a story, and nowhere as long as first expected. looking back...just another small journey.

soft spots revisited

...all i have to show today is one soft patch.  a soft spot of pink silk velvet once again but it has taken on my new shape for the coming year.

and i must say that i have already developed a soft spot for this new magazine, Needle ,  put out by the hand embroidery network. (HEN).  it is way more than i expected.  way to go!  i am happy to see so much attention being given to hand work these days.  maybe there is hope for the human race after all.

seeing

i have been focused on eyes lately (ha! that sounds so funny) and i caught sight of this eye in my work table this morning.  it is marred from all the pinning and cutting but it is still there, beautiful, looking back at me as always. it made me think of mom, how her eyes have slowly become clouded with cataracts, but how just the other day (thanksgiving it was) she looked me right in the eye and said, "you know, the best thing about getting older is that you can finally see clearly, see things for what they are..."

...so i am still thinking about eyes, about seeing, about the evolution of vision. and that it might be a different kind of evolution. a kind that can happen within a lifetime. 

i have in my head that it is related to storytelling, this vision thing. like making out patterns in the darkness as your eyes adjust to your surroundings. it is about seeing and also being seen. there are many new symbols in this one. i am paying more attention to that lately. the personal aspect of representation. i will finish this one today. it is a small cloth but it is a keeper of many eyes.