Spirit Cloth

doodle wednesday- what if we can?

somewhere in the real world a doodle dream is becoming reality.
peace by peace.

studio sunday 3

last weekend, while visiting mom and doing a few fall chores my brother removed  the now abandoned nest from the birdhouse (and took another great photo).  what a surprise i thought, not just the making of a home from scrap but how the boundary helped define its beauty so.
 i got to thinking about making things and how we gather bits and pieces from the chaos around us. how little is actually within our reach and how we work within the challenge of our own limitations...how the ultimate shape of all that process defines us.
there was a pile of scraps on the studio floor this morning. i was stressing to get organized all week. and so....realizing the pretense of such control, i gave in and simply made it into a nest.

... believe me... making the nest was easier than getting this picture. but i needed to catch that thought. i rested there for a while dreaming and wondering what shape my process will ultimately reveal.

studio sunday

....no plans for posting today but some thoughts got caught and here they are.
....this is where i stitch. especially in the morning, when it is raining and the light is low. it is too dark at the table so i bring the table to me.
.....an old wooden checkerboard has turned into what i call my lapboard. .....it helps me to keep work flat and portable. the inlaid grid is also handy for lining things up.
.....i like to think of my studio of a self portrait as well as a workspace. it contains me. my quiet reflection, my favorite things, my attempt to keep order and at the same time my freedom. it changes a lot. i surround myself with the tools i need to stay sane. i try to maintain a low tech environment that supports growth.
yesterday i spent the day with mom. we spent time hanging up old photos on the walls and planning new furniture arrangements. during dinner she turned to me and said "i really stopped living when daddy died..."
after a pause she continued..."actually i am not living now. that is why i surround myself with memories. sometimes i wake up in the morning and think to myself why the hell am i still here?" as i was leaving she smiled and said..." i am glad i have you to talk to..."
mom's life is her studio. she is just doing a bit of redecorating. (photo by jeff)

planning a crazy new order

....i woke up this morning in better spirits yet confusion seems to hang over me like i constant cloud. it has to do with many changes looming on the horizon. not necessarily bad things, just things that require rearranging and refocusing and re-viewing.  things in the back of my mind seem to have shifted position. i have layers of things that are hard to see. maybe i need 3D glasses.(remember those?)
.....i continue to work on the shadow idea. i often layer as a process but now i am experimenting with partial view and silhouette. the september TIF, (the list as a WIP) which i consider finished for the challenge....has morphed into the second in the transition series.
the new discharge using that tree motif is done on hand dyed linen gauze. the same gauze that i used to display and reveal some of the moons at the beginning,
the spiral cutouts placed under the gauze allow some change to the movement..... what i imagine might happen if a strange wind blew in and transformed the dancing of the branches into a more organized motion.

some changes i am planning include leaving flickr on some level, setting up my categories by project, and posting a bit less often for now. i think these will be the first of many in my own transition series.

and a new plan for giving....i have joined tonya in  this effort. how about you?

(this project is continued here)

putting things in order

....i will be off and away from home for a while, visiting mom, getting some things done. and since i am trying to get organized, i am bringing the ever growing thread/scrap nest with me, trying to make use of all those thread ends. here is the first list of what was in there. a list of leftovers.

( TIF September study)

harvesting thoughts

.....so that harvest moon was impressive this time around, and i got to thinking of moons and how they are a series. which somehow got me to thinking about things and how we are always trying to put them in order. probably because it is less confusing.
of course then i thought about lists because of sharon's challenge. because thoughts are always jumbled up in my head and then they just sort of sort themselves out.

while asking myself what is a list i considered it to be:

a series, a kind of math, an alignment of things, a path or direction, a diagram of chaos,  a way to remember. a form of communication that makes things easier to share.

sometimes lists are vertical or they can be horizontal like a timeline or round like a clock. i began to imagine a list as something more dimensional, something layered, like shifted slices of time. so a Work In Progess is like a list. a list of steps and temporary points of view, a form of shape shifting transformation that as a whole has a crazy order. i am hoping to harvest that crazy order here. a small journey, yet a larger one if you take it further.

stitching a trail mix

what is it to be at the half way mark? that's what sharon asked for the July TIF. (yes, i am completing most of these on my own terms) ...and well somewhere in the middle of my needle chant it ocurred to me that question is quite difficult to answer. and i decided to use this piece to express my answer to that question. i am thinking that you can leave a trail of things, marks, behind you and you can keep going,sometimes following the trails of others. the journey is real enough. but i am not sure about the existence of the destination (at least i am not sure where i'm going)  and therefore measuring the half way mark, well, i don't think there is one. i think though that the intersections of paths can be marked. that is my thought process here.

quilting renewal on doodle wednesday

.......in the spirit of getting to things, i have picked up that easter project meant for mom  and i have recycled it with the intention of using it for a mother's day gift as well as my april tif, renewing my contract with that  exercise on a more personal level.
the sleeping baby carrots are almost done and it seemed to me that they were dreaming there among the green. resting yes, but dreaming. keepers of the awareness of their own potential perhaps. i thought about change. change is really a matter of perception. it is somehow always wrapped up in a renewal process though, which is growth in a bigger picture.

making things, is about potential, like having children, it is a renewal process. you can initiate and nurture it. and at the same time it grows on its own. and things change.

so this piece has been renamed renewal. it has changed but it is still for mom. she and i are still growing and i am happy about it.

and so as a change of pace, doodles on paper have changed to doodles on fabric. i am happy about that too!

for as long as it takes

....it is a shame how selfish we can be. especially with time....i am very busy lately, but how did i fail to notice the most important detail of this piece? it was humming to me and i was too busy with MY song. these fabrics have come together, and they want to be stitched and stitched and stitched. they have been asking for more time. the gift of new life for old worn fabrics that when stitched slowly and properly melt together to form a cloth so thin it is hard to believe it is composed of so many layers.  i have met the challenge, as i see it, by noticing the details and now, like with all things i love, i will continue to give it all i got. 

quilting shelter OR no time left

i have said enough about this one. i dropped the writing idea and had in mind to slice it and shift it somewhat. something shocking... but in the end it just got a bit larger. like the beast that turned from a lion into a tiger (did you notice that?) while i was focusing on tiny stitches, the big picture has changed and this seems to be growing into something else. i'll stitch a bit more tonite and that's it. with this complete, i am through with the challenge. i have enough of my own for the moment.