Spirit Cloth

Stones keep coming

Thank you Jan,  Sally Jo, Pema and  Willemien.

Today, I really like this.  Really. 

You can read about the Magic Feather project by clicking the tab up top .

Overlapping space

This page is currently under (re) construction, please bear with me.

Room to see

So now I am focused on looking around,  at all the beginnings, well , middles really...,  things in process that I chose to live with, out in the open.   All of them.  At the end of Magic Diaries, I decided they should all be out there.    Visible.    To get a feel for the volume of thought.   To understand context a bit more.     And this piece has grown from that.   What was once separate has begun to touch.   And  now it seems to be a little story of a bigger picture.    I renamed it room to see,  because it is about vision and space and  my sense of that.....  Of course this has required  the clearing of wall space.   Everything else needed to go. 

There was a sense of freedom in that (as well as a lot of holes in the walls).   And then, before the Vat became exhausted,  the butterfly was born.   I am trying to use  my new knowledge of shibori to create some other simple components, consistencies,  for my work, in addition to the moons.   Some symbols created in dyeing rather than stitch.   I like the sense of space that resist dyeing gives.   The simple  definition through  negative space.  To me I find it to be another way to divide space.   And in this way I think I have found a way to increase its usefulness in my story.   So far there is  the  moonflower and the butterfly.  I have a few other ideas,   but the Vat needs work.    Maybe I can manage some fresh leaf brews for some quick experiments.

I learned to dye with indigo from Glennis.   She also introduced me to shibori.   I put her link back in the side bar and now I have taken  it off again. I am rebuilding my links in a new space.   Things get cluttered so easily, we lose sight of them.

And now a little space here with posting as well,   as I ease  back into Diaries.  Not to mention it is a holiday weekend,  and My Son's birthday is mixed in there somewhere as well.

Spirit Cloth Diaries is my new long term continuous multi media teaching format Thoughts, notes, design development, techniques, etc. Teaching by example, story style. You can read more about it HERE. 

Restoring sanity

 

It was probably back in 2007,  that the idea struck me.  Not named, but  increasingly ever present.   And around that time,  I was recording  my  idea stream  in a blog called What if(?), which I turned into a private place of record keeping for a while.   All of this was way back, before there was  such a large community here.  Some of you remember.

What ifs were clips of process.  More like questions and answers.   Just the very beginnings.  Seeds.  Well anyway, this one just kept going.  Growing quietly,  slowly, like things with good roots do.  I used the technique here and there in other work,  but I made many small  singular and focused samples.  100 to be exact.  Studies  and components for a body of larger works which are in process.  I never talked about them here.  This project has been part of a personal space I cleared for myself for a while.  A place less cluttered with words and such.  These cloths, I feel,  have their own art and cloth voice, and I don't need to say a lot about them.  One of the ways I like to define sanity is simply clarity of being. 

So anyway, the one above is Sanity 101.

Because I am not anywhere near sane.

I will be bringing What if  back in a new form at year's end.

As a separate learning space.

Green

    

Zing.

juice

Beet, cucumber ( from the garden) , kiwi, apple.  A ring of juice.

Before I put the pulp and peelings in the compost, I spread it all out on some silk broadcloth and rolled it up, twisted it up like a sausage,  and steamed it for a bit.  An amazing result actually. I did it so quickly, without expectation, I am not sure exactly what happened.  But there is orange, green and pink.  I should be more systematic if I want to learn.  The silk was previously rust  dyed.  I think the kiwi skin produced the green.  Hard to tell though, maybe a combination of things.  Juicing is like that. Things get all mixed up.

(all my natural dye experiments have been influenced by

the innovative dye techniques  of  India Flint)

So, the mending...

I often take pictures of what I need to mend.   Before I mend.  To document the wear, it is so lovely.  I looked at the photo yesterday while musing over the fix.  But when I got back to the cloth, I realized the photo was cropped, and  it was a  6" square,   a 36 patch,   and I still saw nine in there. ( Actually the math of that has great possibility, having more to do with 3, but anyway...)

.........

.........

To make a long story less complicated I have replaced  the worn patched ground with solid cloth,  a piece of my old linen shirt that finally gave out at the seams.   So now I can play again with dividing space.  Because I am doing that lately.  A lot.   Dividing space.  More about how that has to do with everything .  Maybe  Tomorrow.

.........

Meanwhile, this is  lookin' better than new !

A little wear left in there for good measure.

A square of wear.

.........

Getting organized

There's gonna be a whole lotta 1" squares going on here.  They keep me sane.  For this reason,  I will call my next little series of pieces (featuring these little squares) Sanity.   What is pleasing me here is that they don't exactly match up and I planned it that way. But if I hadn't planned it, it probably would have happened anyway.   A natural order  is  contained and emphasized here.  And this is good.   The mending got way out of hand today,  I  will get to that tomorrow.  Goodnight. 

If you are signed up for Spirit Cloth Diaries, please note that I sent out a test email today.  If you didn't get it, check your paypal email and your spam folder and email me if you don't see it.   If you already responded, thank you.

Note:   The one month trial will be on sale for  a few more days. Once the series begins, the trial option will no longer be available. 

I am reorganizing my links and stuff.  Be patient with me. 

Lost and found in mending

8:58 AM...

Part of the same quilt, the cat quilt,  from a time when I was still using batting.  Very thin cotton, reused from another quilt from grandma.  I had to place it in pieces.  The linen wore out more quickly here because it was an old, and I mean old, towel.   It was kind enough to hang on another 15 years or so.  It is nice to see the bare bones of the patchwork.  To see through it.  And to look at the grid all twisted up like this.   To remember where the scraps came from.  And to notice the 25 patch and how it has a nine patch in the middle.   I think I will repair it to make that more obvious.  And make some more notes to self.  

Such heavy dreams last night.

I am left somewhere in between this and that.  Just stitching. 

11:07 AM...

Today is a diary kind of day.  Back on paper with  a note to self.  

3.11 PM...

1" squares,  gosh I love them.

 

 

Yesterday, moons became eggs.

Just so you know, I deleted some stuff here about an artists statement after finding my words published (without permission) on a site that was selling a book  about how to write an artist statement.  Which I do not want to be associated with.  Now I will probably get a polite note saying it wasn't realized that this would be a problem.  

When you put something on the web, it is publishing folks, and if you are selling a book, or a magazine  you certainly know the rules involved in that.

When you click publish, consider that.