What is "Gel Medium"?

I subscribe to two American magazines: Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Both of them frequently mention an art material called "Gel Medium", used to stick/glue/adhere things together. As I am using more and more "mixed" media, other than fabric, I'm wanting to glue and not just sew.

Can anyone who might read this, tell me what "gel medium" is, so I can find the equivalent here in South Africa??

Here is what we have here, and what I have used:

Wallpaper paste comes as granules, that you mix and whisk with water to the thickness of paste you want. It forms a gelatinous, clear mass, that also dries clear. It's used, not just to hang wallpaper, but to do papier mache. It's my favourite: it works well, it's cheap and has a nice finish, and I'll be so happy if this is the same as the mysterious "gel medium".

"Modge Podge" is a runny substance, used for decoupage (ie paper). It comes milky and dries clear. It also works well to stick things to each other. It's good, but it's expensive.

Clear, water-based varnish. I bought this in a hardware shop once, when I was needing a lot of Modge Podge, but the Modge-Podge just proved too expensive. It worked just as well as Modge Podge. I wonder if "Modge Podge" is just a brand name of water-based varnish?

Wood glue, also known as craft glue or white glue. It is also available in a "Quick-Dry" version. Where does this fit in? It's white and dries clear. You can water it down to whatever consistency you like, it both sticks and "varnishes" to a nice finish. I've also wondered whether Modge Podge is a watery form of wood glue (?)

I can't imagine that "gel medium" is some foreign substance we don't have here. It must surely just be a matter of matching the names! I don't know how the above relate to each other, but they are all water-based.

I'll be grateful for any help. :)

Slow Cloth 1

Slow Cloth 1
93cm x 87 cm
Fabric, yarn, beads, metal castings
Hand applique, -beading, -quilting. Machine finished.

From Wikipedia:
"The Slow Movement is a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace... (It) began with a protest against the opening of aMcDonalds restaurant in Piazza Di Spagna, Rome, that sparked the creation of the Slow Food organization. Over time, this developed into a subculture in other areas, such as Slow Travel, Slow Shopping, and Slow Design."

The Wikipedia entry is worth reading in its entirety. The Slow Movement spread to Slow Life, Slow Parenting and Slow Art. And, of course, it was picked up by fibre artists.
There's been much interesting discourse about Slow Cloth. Read Slow Cloth/Slow Craft: Is This the Birth of a Movement?

Another good article is entitled Defining Slow Cloth: 10 Qualities. Though I only read this AFTER Slow Cloth 1 was finished, my heart is singing with joy at how the process has intuitively incorporated many of these qualities, without my knowing.

I began with the intention to create something meandering that would develop by itself, through whatever took my fancy at each moment. The process was daunting as it ran the constant risk of producing a complete flop, after months of effort. At several stages I thought I had overdone or otherwise ruined it, but I read somewhere that if you think you've overdone it and you can't undo, keep going! Layer over layer also works.

It's been enormously good for me and I know it's the start of a satisfying and therapeutic series of works. :)

I'm sure most of us live the dilemma of how to slow down in a world that moves so fast, that if you stand still, you're going backwards. Since being unemployed (since Jan this year) it's been easier for me to slow down, but I fear employment will force me back to the hectic pace. When I read job advertisements, they inevitably say "Must be able to multi-task and work under pressure" and my heart sinks. I know well that situation where there are 5 things that have to be completed yesterday. I used to do this, and somehow cope, but it took a heavy toll, and I'm sure it contributed to my recent long bout of continued illness.

Part of Slow Cloth 1 is three-dimensional, and design credit for this goes to Jenny Hearn, a South African artist, who incorporates this in her work.)

Enjoying the Nature of Cloth

Robyn, your blog is like having private art lessons in my home! Can't begin to tell you how much food for thought you give me. Not to mention pictures in my head and a need for several clones of me, to make everything I want to!

Your last comment, referring me to your post Neville Trickett of Saint Verde fame
with the link to the Antique kimono set set me thinking, about why I did indeed love it, as you said.

These days I'm enjoying the NATURE of cloth and wanting to let the medium itself have a showing too, in addition to the message that I want to impart.

To use for art that lasts, cloth needs some taming, some imposition on its qualities to make it strong enough to hang and not fall apart. But beyond that, cloth has unruliness, edges which fray unless fastened, pinned down or hidden inside seams. It bends, stretches and unravels. It's not that I'm against seams or binding or straightening or catching down, at all, but rather that I'm enjoying letting the cloth be itself and not trying to control it too much.

The thing that draws me back to fibre every time, when I've played with other media, is that fibre has such ACCESSIBILITY to it. It is held in the hand, taken with me in a bag to work on when waiting to pick girls up from school, held while feeding it through the machine, and thrown over the back of the couch, in between hand-working it. When completed and "released into the world", it begs to be TOUCHED. People don't feel drawn to touch an oil painting (no offense to oil painters!) in the way same way that fibre is inherently something we feel with our skin.

Stark in my memory, is something I once read on Winnowings, Christine Thresh's blog (in her "About Me"):

"We are born to cloth. It is the second thing we touch after our mother."

Such a powerful way of putting it! All fibres (cloth, paper, wood) are archetypal. All of us have always known them; they're integral to our lives.

So, these days I'm enjoying intuitive, ragged, fraying edges, threads hanging down, hand-stitching. We teach best that which we most need to learn, and in a way, perhaps I am trying to say something about letting things be as they are and accepting their, and our, basic nature...?

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Untitled
25cm x 25cm
Fabric, beads
Hand-dyed, - quilted and -beaded.

I'm on a mission to COMPLETE things. Since the pile is insurmountable if viewed as a whole, I began with this small bite.

Detail:

I'm in...

"Dear Karen
Congratulations! Your application to join Fibreworks has been successful."

I should perhaps have waited to blog about this, until I felt more elated about it. Don't get me wrong, I am really, really happy. It's still a bit unreal, but it IS a dream come true and a long-time aspiration.

It's just that I'm in a bit of a down-swing and can't really feel the delirious excitement of it. It will come. It has to, because this is really significant for me.

Fibreworks application

I am now applying for membership of Fibreworks, a group of fibre artists in South Africa. I've been wanting to do this for two years, but their AGM is in October every year and I have been in depressive episodes the last two Octobers and just have not got my act together.

Putting a portfolio together has proved to be a far greater job than I had imagined!. But it's done now, at least of most of the work. Once again, the most embarrassing pile of unfinished works looms its incomplete head, the by-products of great starting enthusiasm followed by great starting enthusiasm, followed by great starting...
... and some loss of focus along the way. Just a little, you understand.

The last sentence, obscured by the flash, reads: "If my work strikes a chord with any other person, I feel heard, and it is my fervent wish that the reality of the viewer is likewise validated."

I'm nervous. The words 'portfolio' and 'artist's statement' feel pretentious, (but looking on the Web, this seems to be how it's presented). The front cover looks a bit pretentious too: Monotype Corsiva makes it look more flashy than it is! Great font, that. :)

It's also the first time I have shown many of my works to anyone else and these are very personal and revealing, so I have that scary "heart-in-my-throat" feeling of disclosure. You know, that fear that others may recoil from the dark stuff in your thoughts and mind. I see it sometimes on people's faces when I've said too much, or said something uncomfortable that we'd all rather not think about, but which stares me in the face so often.

But I suppose the worst that can happen, is that they say it's not suitable for their group. I won't die.

Still walking on sunshine

I found a photo of my other Vuleka entry, which I had taken while still working on it. It's not the finished work, but here is the work-in-progress photo for now:

Heritage (Sept 2009)
Roughly 30cm x 50cm

Fabric, beads, stones, leather, sisal twine
Hand embroidered and beaded, machine stitched

I'm working on cataloguing my works - what a JOB.

In Future I Will Catalogue As I Complete Each Work.
In Future I Will ...

I'm walking on sunshine :)

Protect Me (2008)
Fabric, yarn, beads, stones, cooldrink can metal, hair extension fibre

Detail

Here are pics of one of my entries for Vuleka. As I said previously, I didn't take any pics of the other, so that will have to wait until I get it back in early October.

Looking at the pics above evokes a curious reaction in me: "Did I make that? Where did I get that idea from?" Perhaps because it was made a couple of mood cycles ago, by a different me(?) Well, no matter, I'm intrigued with the possibilities of the new media and this is the first in a series. Never done series before, so that should be interesting.

I was standing in front of the hair extension fibres in Clicks, choosing colours, when a school friend of my daughter's came up to buy some as well. I could SEE her puzzled brain trying to process what on earth I could possibly be doing there.

I didn't explain. It just causes more bewilderment...

I think hair extensions are just too beautiful. Why don't they make the fibre in blond? But I've been told by a hairdresser that my hair is too straight and too fine, and they'd just slip out; you need curl to hold them in place and as soon as my hair reaches 5cm in length, it succumbs to gravity and falls over. :( Perhaps if I had a tight perm first(?) And people use hot irons to flatten their hair...? Hey, let's swop! :)

Gosh, we're a strange species...