I Art therefore I Am

BEFORE my creativity dried up.

2011-01-13T09:22:00.000+02:00

I must admit that it has come as a surprise to me that despite the dysfunctionality (or rather, non-functionality) of this blog, people are still reading it. Wow. Hi *wave* People. :) (I am not in a blog ring anymore, how did you find me?)

Only FIVE posts in all of 2010. That's ... sad. Well, the only way from there is up; I'm now on TWO already. *rolling my eyes and grinning*

It's now been several months that I have had no impetus to create anything and yesterday I decided that I have to do *something* so I started fiddling with bits of fabric. Not inspired, just "moodling" as dedicated blogger Robyn of Art Propelled calls it. ( "So you see, the imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering." - Brenda Euland) Thanks for the advice, Robyn. :)

No I am not going to post photos of it. It is just "priming the pump" and doesn't look like anything. Instead I have a photo of a quilt I am making, well "making" is more like "occasionally working on", for my mom's bed.

I made the top before my creativity dried up. Rather crazily I decided to hand-quilt it. Why O why? There are SO many seams that I am quilting through 5 layers most of the time. It's been a long time since I last worked on something this big and it will be an even longer time till I do it again!

My creativity dried up.

2011-01-09T19:21:00.000+02:00

My creativity has all dried up. After the exhibition - I don't know what happened but it all went out of me. :( Hopefully just a fallow period.

I had an exhibition

2010-11-01T10:29:00.000+02:00

I have given myself a kick in the pants. Following another recent browse through Robyn's blog Art Propelled I was inspired to give my blog another go. Thank you, Robyn! :)

I had an exhibition of my work last month. It went very well. I was dreadfully nervous and the logistics were hairy (oh, for the money to have a manager/agent!) but I managed to get it together with some help from family and friends.

Here are some pictures from the opening. It really happened!

Wine and snacks, including sandwiches and sausage rolls made by my mom and I that afternoon, talk about panic.
I even sold some work!
That's me on the right in the black and white. I only slept one hour after the opening! The exhibition opening Friday 1 Oct and was open Sat/Sun after that. I didn't advertise it enough, but despite that there were quite a few people coming in over the weekend. Had an article in the local paper, to publicise it, so maybe that's where people knew from.

I now know an awful lot of things for next time. What? Next time?????? I'm still saying "never again"!

I don't post :(

2010-09-05T11:39:00.000+02:00

I really have nothing to say but somehow I don't want this blog to die.

Cobwebs!

2010-04-17T06:36:00.000+02:00

Did I have to fight my way through cobwebs to get back in here! {rolling my eyes} This place needs a good scrub. Or maybe a bulldozer? Nah, not a bulldozer. Bring in a herd of cows, let them graze and fertilise and then send them home again. Then a light plough and it should be ready for planting again. :)

Ack! SPAM!

2010-02-01T16:37:00.000+02:00

I'm being spammed :( I'm going to try and find out how I can delete these stupid "comments" and probably set Moderation ON.

Annoying!

It's a sad, sad world we live in

2010-01-10T08:44:00.000+02:00

I've been away on holiday in Denmark where I was born. While I was there, several major events occurred, some of which hit hard:

1. The attempted murder of Kurt Westergaard, he of the Mohammed cartoon fame, in his own home. He was in fact only one of 12 cartoonists, but became the "face" of the issue. I'm a staunch defender of the right to free speech, especially where this is enshrined in one's own country.

2. The shocking attempted bombing of the plane bound for Detroit. It is chilling indeed that a single deranged individual has the power to sow havoc around the whole world and demonstrate how fragile our safety is. We were subjected to intense searching at the airport after this, with random body scans and sniffer dogs. Must say I was grateful for that.

3. COP15, the world climate change conference. There was no room at the inn during the conference, but I made it there the day after it ended. Many exhibitions and writings on the subject were still available and I learned a lot about just how urgent the problem of global warming really is and how much evidence already exists to demonstrate this urgency. We have fouled up our own backyard and our own children will pay the price. One day they will ask us "if you knew it was happening, why didn't you act to stop it?" But too many countries lack the political will to take it seriously. Depressing. It reminds me of what TS Eliot wrote in the poem The Hollow Men:
"This is the way the world ends.
this is the way the world ends.
this is the way the world ends.
not with a bang, but a whimper"

4. The heaviest snow conditions in Britain in the last 30 years. We made it out of Heathrow at midnight on 5 Jan, after a 4 hr delay to deice and redeice the plane. At one stage the captain announced it was "not looking good". It reinforced for me, how the world weather is changing, with more extreme events. Some say we are headed for another Ice Age, and will become extinct like the dinosaurs. We certainly deserve to.

Well, there, I have minced no words about my opinions. (It is my blog after all.) Why am I writing this in a blog about fibre art?

On the plane home, in the middle of a sleepless night, it all got to me. I sat for probably half an hour with tears rolling down my face, silently listening over and over and over to Katie Melua's "Spider's Web" on the headset. My head filled up with images of destructiveness, hate, arrogance, the complexity of protest and convictions, consequences, sorrow and fear. We will succumb to flames that will burn to our own destruction.

I will probably try and use these images in a visual composite of all my impressions. There's a danish 'silver lining' proverb - probably has an equivalent in every language, but I learned the danish one first - "There's nothing so bad that it isn't good for something".

I'm a speck of dust in the universe and cannot change the world. So perhaps I can just make a statement about it, as I see it.

Just found this

2009-11-19T08:14:00.000+02:00

Untitled

2008
35cm x 35cm
Fabric
Machine pieced, hand appliqued

I must've finished this some time ago. I don't even remember it. I found it in a pile of fabric I was cleaning up. That's actually quite b-a-d! :)
Ah well, nothing like discovering something you thought you hadn't finished, but in fact, had. There's hope for me yet!

Heritage, completed

2009-11-18T14:47:00.000+02:00

Heritage: Viking girl's longings
2009
43cm x 54cm
Fabric, leather, beads, stones
Hand embroidered, -appliqued, -beaded. Machine fastened.

Here is a photo of the completed work. I carelessly didn't take a picture before sending it off. Silly me :)

An easy Sunday

2009-11-15T16:15:00.000+02:00

I picked up this work from when I was in hospital in 2007, during what I can now see was a mixed episode. I was very depressed, but did a remarkable amount of quite frenzied art during that time, not exactly typical of my down times. Each square is an individual quiltlet 10x10 cm. I've been pinning them in various combinations onto my polystyrene design board. It's all still very much "in-progress".
I don't know where this is going, but I am thoroughly enjoying the journey! This intuitive working is a bit of a leap of faith. I'm a hard taskmaster, so I must say it's wonderful to just ignore that inner critic and go ahead and PLAY and remember there's no such thing as wrong.

Why is that so hard to learn? Or to remember? Why such guilt associated with FUN?
"I command you to have fun. Now!"

What is "Gel Medium"?

2009-11-11T09:11:00.000+02:00

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

2009-11-10T09:46:00.000+02:00

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

2009-11-08T10:28:00.000+02:00

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.

2009-11-06T17:48:00.000+02:00

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...

2009-11-06T17:25:00.000+02:00

"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

2009-10-22T08:27:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-29T17:35:00.000+02:00

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 :)

2009-09-25T07:38:00.000+02:00

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...

I was accepted!

2009-09-15T15:56:00.000+02:00

BOTH of my works were accepted to the Vuleka competition! :) They are currently hanging in the exhibition in Belville. I can barely believe it. I'm delirious. I get tears in my eyes every time I think of it. I cry at anything these days, my emotions are so heightened. Now, euphoria is an appropriate emotion! There is a review of the opening here. 57 entries were accepted out of 397, and I had TWO accepted, can you believe it? I feel soooo honoured. My head is now so swollen, I'm going to have to go see a shrink, oh, I forgot, I already see one... ;)

I WISH I could actually go and see the exhibition. When you see your work hanging amidst all the others, it really hits home that you are in the illustrious company of REAL artists (yeah, ok, ok, I know, each artist is as real as any other...) and that somebody who knows something about what constitutes 'good' art (whatever that is) judged your work to be arty farty enough to be there. :) I've been able to attend two openings before, both for Innovative Threads and when I saw my work on the same wall as that of (fibre) artists whose talent I am in awe of, whose work I can marvel in front of, for ages, soaking up every detail, and whose work I have followed for years and years...

... whewwwww, now that is a trip! No drugs needed. :)

Sanlam Vuleka

2009-08-28T08:13:00.000+02:00

Spurred on a by a friend, I have entered the Sanlam Vuleka Art competition. We sent in our entries together. There are cash prizes, but I am not aiming for any of those, I am simply aiming to be juried into the exhibition, which will run for most of next month in Cape Town. Last year 48 out of 388 entries went on exhibition. Stiff competition. I had to enter in the 'Other' category; - when will Fibre become recognised as more than a Cinderella medium??

The competition aims to showcase "new work... aimed at encouraging creativity, innovation and adventurous art from all cultures". I like to think that every time we can get something fibre accepted into a mainstream art exhibition, that that it will be another step towards changing the mindset that fibre cannot be 'real' fine art. It might not be my home-grown, outsider art, which does this, but I can hope!

Following on from Robyn's comment (thanks Robyn!):
Stupidly, I didn't even take a photo of one of them. I only just completed it and my camera has been out of juice :( (I have to laugh - what a lame excuse!) This means that should it get lost in transit, I have no record of it. Since I was quite proud of it, that will be some loss. But let me not be negative.

A pic of the other entry (I sent two) is here.

Ideas, ideas

2009-08-22T16:06:00.000+02:00

NOW the ideas are flowing again. So many things I want to do. For seven months, while I was not working and had ALL the free time I ever wanted, I didn't do a thing! I could not drag myself to be interested in anything.

Now that is just killing me! When I think what I could have accomplished in this time, the fun I could have had, the techniques I could have played with and learnt about.... boo hoo :(

Mainly the fun I could have had playing! I am doing some of that now - making paper cloth a la Beryl Taylor. Glueing paper to cloth, then painting it with any coloured medium (fabric paint, acrylics, paintstiks etc) and scribbling on it with any kind of pen, pencil, koki, crayon - anything that writes. Then you maybe add some more paper, or tissue or paint and the idea is to get a textured surface with many layers that show through at various depths.

It's great, finally, getting to use my Shiva (Markal here in South Africa) paintstiks. They're awesome! Some gel pens are good on the paint too. It's such a lot of fun. Fun. What? I can't believe I am playing and having fun. When last...?

I'm also getting tons of inspiration from the US magazines I've been subscribing to, Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. They're expensive when you convert our little Rands, but I read them again and again, so I feel justified. During my last manic episode, I must've not felt I had to justify anything to anyone,(!) so I blithely renewed both subscriptions, without a twinge of caution! I remember feeling sure that the universe would provide. When the credit card statement arrived, the universe was conspicuously quiet. What happened to "leap and the net will appear"?

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. This new medication is pretty sedating and does slow me down, but I am confident that between the psychiatrist and I, we can tweak it so I'm alert in the day and sleepy at night. Whatever, however, I am going to make it work; just being myself again, after that long, dark winter, is a gift worth treasuring, and I am going to nurture it. Appreciate what I have.

I have yet to locate my camera. Things are in a slightly messed up state around here. Well, okay, I think a hurricane blew through while I was sleeping. My four-seater couch can narrowly fit one person on it. Both of my tables in my "studio", yeah alright, lounge, are covered with STUFF to the depth of about 20cm. But it's all such nice stuff! As a friend of mine says, my style is very... err... "organic".

You know how, when you're choosing colours, you have to pull out all the fabrics, beads, etc to see how they go together? And you know how you can't do this in one session, they have to lie there, so you can walk past them for a couple of days, and mull them over? And you know when you have about 10 ideas at the same time, and want to get things out for each one of them, so you don't lose the concept or pictures in your head? And you know how the pieces you haven't yet finished, have to lie out, so you can mull over them too, and consider how they want to be finished? Add the internet, a coffee maker, a fistful of pills, (alas, a necessary evil) and you have a little self-contained eco-system. THAT, dear friends... is "organic"...

Ahh, at times like these, 'tis a joy to live alone... :)

"I would not be convicted...

2009-08-13T14:33:00.000+02:00

... by a jury of my peers,
Still crazy after all these years...." - Paul Simon

---- Kleenex moment coming up :) -----

Yes, I'm back, I really am. I'm me again. My wellness is sustained. I can't believe my luck; I'm grateful, tearful, awed, peaceful, jubilant and did I mention grateful?

As I wrote last time, it's phenomenal what the right combination of medications can do. The enormous pharmaceutical industry may be all about the bottom line, with less-than-ethical tricks, corruption, counterfeiting, blatant profiteering and many other dubious practices, but this aside, drug development is also about improving peoples' lives and treating "the heartache and the thousand natural shocks, that flesh is heir to". (Shakespeare) And some may say that psychiatric drugs are heavy-duty, dangerous, harm you more than they heal and are therefore 'bad'; well, all I can say is I'll take this 'bad, dangerous, whatever', over the hell of the last 8 months ANY DAY.

When you're on the receiving end of a drug that works for you, that works in such a way as to enable you to pick yourself up again, that restores you to to yourself and that literally gives you your life back, it's... well... dare I say it, miraculous. Within just a few weeks of starting to take it, I wasn't depressed any more, I could think rationally again, I could think CREATIVELY again. I'm so deeply impressed. Just a little tweaking of some neurotransmitters in my brain! And I'm not high, I'm not a zombie, I'm not crazy, I'm not anything other than just 'me'! -- {laughing}, okay, some may say the 'not crazy' is debatable, but hey, this is a craziness I can live with!

I'm back to my art. I've finished 2 of my UFOs - UnFinished Objects - and had an idea for a new 'object'. I have to find my camera and take pics, so I can show them here. I have an inordinate number of things I have to catch up with again, not least of which is to find a job! Some days I'm daunted and I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day. I just won't be posting as much, that's all.

One thing at a time, I'll get there. I have a fighting chance now... :)

I do believe

2009-07-22T09:55:00.000+02:00

Shhhhhhh. Don't tell a soul (for fear of jinxing this), but I MAY just have finished bottoming out and be slowly on my way up again. I have not yet done any art, but I'm starting to get interested. I've been on a binge of re-reading and looking at all my art books, and bought a new one about Hundertwasser with lots of glossy colour pictures of his work. The fact that I am even able to become interested in something is a good omen. Amazing what a successful med. combination can do...

Creative Block, perhaps loss

2009-06-22T15:43:00.000+02:00

Thank you so much to all the people who have written in support. It's been rough going and has not eased up, except for short Mixed states, where I have both mania and depression symptoms simultaneously. If that sounds confusing, believe me, it feels that way too. It's hard to hang onto who you are and what you know about yourself, when it changes constantly.

But worse has been a complete and utter creative block. I have not done anything since November last year. I have no interest or desire. I've taken out my fabrics and materials and re-read all my inspiration books, but I just look at it all and wonder why I bought it or what any of it has to do with me.

I look at the works I have done and wonder how the person who made them managed to concentrate and persist so much as to complete them. I feel nothing when I look at them, and wonder why I made them. What are they for? I'm completely detached from my own creations.

And sometimes I worry that the creativity will never come back. I feel foreign to myself. Doing trials of each medication in turn, in hopes of finding something that helps, and unemployed since 1 Jan.

If I don't have my art to express myself with, who will I be and what will be the point of being here at all? Heavens, I am gloomy.

I hope everyone out there is doing a lot better than me!

Worser and worser

2009-02-28T15:24:00.002+02:00

I'm not currently blogging because all I would be writing about would be misery and gloom. And I'll spare you all that. My depression continues to deepen, some other big life events which have coincided, aren't helping and the future looks grim indeed. How I ever thought I had even a scrap of creativity in me, is beyond me now. Even my own blog is mocking me.

Another depressive cycle

2009-01-04T07:38:00.002+02:00

It seems that the higher you fly, the harder you fall. And I've plunged down with all the grace of a shot pheasant. I am doing nothing art-wise, in fact doing nothing of anything, but I'll spare you the details. I will be back, when the pendulum swings again. Let's hope that's soon.

The quilt inspector

2008-12-11T09:39:00.001+02:00

... has been hard at work, auditioning fabrics for the next project. He declares this to be suitable, if it's comfy enough to sleep on, I may go ahead.

Falling with grace

2008-12-10T08:58:00.006+02:00

There is something about the metaphor of blossoms falling to the ground, that seems particularly apt at the moment. The blossoms and the wheels may be falling off, but in that, there is awe-inspiring beauty. The growth during spring is laying itself down before us, as if to say "look what I've been busy with" and then moving on with grace, in the natural order of life.
I'm afraid I must admit I have no idea what the name of this tree is, but it competes with the jacaranda for attention at the moment.
... and once the jacaranda moves on to its next task, the flame tree will take centrestage. It's a beautiful drizzly day today, just right to take pictures on the way to work.

And things will work out.

In the blink of an eye

2008-12-10T00:03:00.003+02:00

... 11 days go by and you realise you have not posted. But since this blog is about fibre art and I have done no fibre art recently ... I am out of words on that topic.

I'm in that space where getting through days consumes all my energy. My job is ending at the end of the month, thankfully not because I was fired, but because the clinical side of the research unit I work for, is closing down. We're not getting new work and no work = no money = no job.

Sometimes this information flattens me and sometimes I feel it may be the start of a new life. Mostly the former. This year has been a rough one, with two hospitalisations and a rapid and prolific series of medications. Some days I'm buoyant and confident, some days I am as competent as the next person and some days I feel useless and worthless. Trying to plan a new life in the face of this inconsistency is a challenge, which I am sometimes up to, and sometimes not.

Add to this mix a number of rejections recently, some of which are perhaps only misperceptions (my judgment in that regard is not always to be trusted) and there are days when I'm somewhat adrift in a sea of uncertainty and personal unreliability.

One must persevere and be positive, say the gurus.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" says Henley.

Today is Another Good Day to Dye...

2008-11-28T11:30:00.000+02:00

I remain seduced by sunpaints and the effects one can achieve.
I don't yet know what I'll do with these - am in bit of a creative lull as far as fabric goes.. but I guess when I get back to it, they'll be there and waiting.

The Jacaranda blooms

2008-11-25T09:48:00.006+02:00

Popular wisdom has it that if you have not begun studying by the time the jacaranda blooms, you are not going to pass your exams...

The jacaranda blooms in October/November, when end-of-year exams are written, before the summer holidays. My tree is sometimes a bit late, but was on time this year. My daughter is writing her final high school exams and is ALMOST finished. Soon we shall both be relieved.

The blossoms all fall onto the grass in a gorgeous lilac carpet.

Last year, spring came and went without cheer; this year, at last, I can enjoy its beauty...

A Day of Sharing Words

2008-11-23T13:08:00.012+02:00

"Clipper Ship Lightning" - Bruce Von Stetina
Copyright Bruce Von Stetina, reproduced with kind permission

Well, as so often, I missed the boat, but I am going out in my little dinghy to catch up! On 19 November there was a "Day of Sharing Words", a virtual (via blogs) poetry swop, started by LK Ludwig of The Poetic Eye. Read the original post here.

I just now read about this on Robyn's Art Propelled blog in this pos t. The idea was to post, on your blog, a poem that moves inside you, touches you, reaches you.

I often think of the following poem, when I feel in an "at-sea-in-a-storm" state of mind. Here it is:

INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

-- William Ernest Henley, 1875
(Invictus is Latin for "unconquered")

Swirls

2008-11-19T13:08:00.005+02:00

Something about swirls keeps coming back to me, a recurring theme. I've not yet figured out why. Fortunately, I'm doing this art intuitively, not because I have pressure to do so for any reason, so I can follow my instincts. Now if only swirls were easier to manifest in fabric! I quite literally bled from the needles and pins doing this one. Last night I got the urge to paint swirls again (there wasn't enough time to get out the paints and clear enough junk off the table) but this morning at work, I just had to scribble a small picture of swirly shapes.

A previous swirl:
When I close my eyes I can SEE swirls. No, I am not on any hallucinogens, only on meds that are designed to prevent such, ha-ha. Nor am I hallucinating - at least, I don't think I'm hallucinating? Do other people see things - pictures, patterns, colours when they close their eyes? I wonder.

Maybe I'm just very visual when intuitive and only verbal when I'm cognitive. I have study background (from school and varsity) in being verbal, but none in the visual. Perhaps that's part of why shapes, patterns, colours are such a feast for my eyes.

Same swirl in different colours:
More in the planning!

Oh, and the parcel intercepted by customs was indeed a book. A Fibre Art techniques book, I've coveted for a while, but felt was too much of a luxury. I love techniques books, as you use them again and again for reference as well as for that inspiration of "I can just see how I could use this to do X, Y or Z".

In South Africa we have import tax on books. All books, including academic books used for teaching at university. The initial idea possibly arose to discourage "foreign" books and write our own... but in a country where the brain drain is immense, illiteracy abounds and some stuff simply has not been written by anyone here and MUST be imported, the logic escapes me.

But then again, a lot of South African logic escapes me, both past and present. Perhaps all political logic ... ah well I'm getting way too philosophical and most definitely don't want to waste effort on getting frustrated over politics (will save that for when we vote next year) when I could be creating stuff!

Green, green, green, is the colour

2008-11-17T02:50:00.001+02:00

I seem to be having a bit of a green obsession at the moment. I just can't get over what beautiful
shades and tints one can find - and above are only the brighter ones, there are still all the olive greens, hunter's greens. Anyway, these were last weeks "crumpled sun-paint method" green dyes, which lay sunning themselves on the grass in my backyard, doing their magic.

Dyed buys

2008-11-16T03:45:00.000+02:00

Every cloud has a silver lining. Recently my manic cloud had LOTS of silver linings from a couple of somewhat rash, but very fruitful spending sprees. I got a nice laser printer, some inline skates I've had my eye on for some time, several books and magazines to do with fibre art, several other things which we'll gloss over and the above exquisite hand dyes from the Bathurst fairy lady at a local Saturday farmer's market. The photo doesn't do them justice, they have to be opened as the colours vary all across each piece. To say I got excited is an understatement. Some of them I am going to be unable to cut into, they need to be used in their entirety! Embellishment, beading, embroidering, here I come....

I am happy that even while my judgement is rather.... suspended, shall we say.... as regards to amounts spent at such times, I am thoroughly delighted afterwards by what I have bought. I got another parcel slip in the post last week. It's something I ordered from the USA, which I can't for the life of me remember. (Customs caught it - arghhh, so it's probably a book - yay! Christmas comes early!)

My pocket now has a rather dull, grey lining.

Rust dyeing!

2008-11-11T11:35:00.001+02:00

Inspired by an article in a recent copy of Quilting Arts. What fun!

You soak the PFD fabric in water first, wring it out well and then soak it in vinegar. Then you lay rusty bits and pieces on it and under it and scrunch it all up so the rusty bits are in as close contact with the fabric as possible. Then you lay it there for a while- apparantly the longer it lies, the more diffuse the colour becomes whereas laying it in the sun to fast-dry, will produce more distinct areas of rusty images. Then you soak it in an alkali like baking or washing soda and Bob's you uncle and Sally your aunt.

Now both girls and I scan the ground where-ever we are, for rusty bottle tops, pieces of rusty metal - ANYTHING with rust! The girls come home with rusty nuts and bolts and I ooh and ahh. (Mom's so easy to please these days.) I have a biggish bowl full - was telling a friend about it, and she took me around to a rusty old water tank she is about to have carted off - we broke off several pieces. She laughed at how delighted I was. Probably wise to have an up-to-date tetanus shot, if the pieces are sharp, as these were.

What I do find is that quite a lot washes out, even though it leaves the mustard colour, and only a few areas take the very distinct dark areas. I re-vinegar it and rearrange everything again about 5 times - after all it just lies there so doesn't take much time and each brown splotch is so rewarding! I don't neutralise in-between.

I have an eye on the rusty old braai grid next - can you imagine the griddy pattern? It's only vinegar after all, not any caustic stuff.

I got a blog award...

2008-11-04T11:30:00.011+02:00

Bit by bit, piece by piece, I am catching up with neglected parts of my life after the long depression and the ensuing "completely concentration-less" period (to put it euphemistically). So today I would like to accept a blogging meme, I received in MAY this year (I did say catching up bit by bit!) called:

5 Blogs That Make Me Think or The Thinking Blogger Award

I felt very proud to have been awarded this by Jackie K of Blissfully Imperfect (doesn't the blog name alone make you feel good?) who is admirably making her way through art college in adulthood.

Thank you so much Jackie! I can't think of a prouder award!

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.
... and I'd like to add a fourth: let your nominees know of the award.

I nominate:
1. First, and foremost, Robyn's Art Propelled. Robyn is an amazing wood carver whose very archetypal art, extensive collection and reading of art books and art-quotes never fail to inspire me.

2. Ragged Cloth Cafe, a community of artists who comment on art and textile art. Coming from an "outsider art" perspective, as I do, it is very enlightening for me to read thoughtful artistic discourse in the fibre art field.

3. Teesha Moore, whose whimsical pictures alone make me think so much, that I want to get off the computer and run to my studio and image my own thoughts! I've linked to her front page, her blog links from there, but there are several other feasts-for-the-eye links from the front page.

4. Terry Border's Bent Objects, whose most humorous and thoughtful art makes me smile and laugh and admire the thinking he applies to it. It is simply uncategorisable - he uses wire and everyday objects - and has to be seen to be appreciated.

and lastly, only because it's not art-making related:

5. Thought Leader - Roy Jobson, a medical doctor and ... vicarious observer of South African society through his association with the Khulumani Support Group -- his wife is the acting director (who, together with his wife, I feel lucky to call neighbours and friends).

Sick

2008-11-04T09:48:00.003+02:00

Ick. I have had a "stomach bug" (euphemistic term) for the last week and have been laid very low. It seems better today, which means I only have nausea left and my diet is up to bland potatoes and rice.

I have nothing to show at all, from this week and couldn't even focus on reading a book. I had also undertaken to proofread an M.Pharm. thesis because I have SUCKER written in neon lights on my forehead (and the glare is hurting my eyes.) I gave up after 4 days and 18 pages. I was considering trying to earn a little money from proofreading (due to my very impending unemployment) but had forgotten how arduous the work is! The general rate is R5 a page, but you're lucky if you can fit four pages into an hour, especially from an English as second-language thesis, making it, at the most, R20/hour. Plus the student inevitably arrives a week or two before their handing-in deadline, and I want to have a life as well. So I'm rapidly ruling that out, other than the occasional occurrence.

Sorry about the moaning. Haven't been feeling great.

Keller

2008-11-02T15:06:00.000+02:00

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it" - Helen Keller

Die Here het geskommel

2008-10-28T09:37:00.006+02:00

"Die Here het geskommel
en die dice het verkeerd geval vi' ons,
daai's maar al" -Adam Small (1936 - )

Translated into English (help! I will not to be able to do this justice, and if by any remote chance you ever read this, Prof Small, please forgive me!)

"The Lord rolled,
and the dice fell badly for us,
that's all"

Adam Small wrote this about the "bruin mense" (mixed race folks, of whom he was one) who, despite their unique and distinct culture and beingness , got sidelined in the big black/white struggle, as they were never quite "black enough" and never quite "white enough".

I was feeling particularly bitter and "bummed" about having become unwittingly and unwillingly, wedded to this illness called bipolar, which I've likely had most of my life, just misdiagnosed over all these years (it's life-long, can be managed but not cured) that these words came to mind, and I relate so strongly to them right now - as they might apply to those of us afflicted with a mental illness, for whom the dice also just landed badly. I have to keep reminding myself that it's "not about what cards you were dealt, but how you played the hand you were given", but sometimes even that isn't quite enough, either.

We studied several of Adam Small poems at school and I was captivated by them. He is now retired from his job as a sociology lecturer. Many of his poems were written in the distinct Afrikaans dialect of his people, so that the text begged to be read out loud and came alive and very evocative when spoken. I think they played a large role in conscientising me(yes, that is a real South African word now!) back in the late 1970's, when I was in high school.

It grows!

2008-10-27T09:06:00.010+02:00

It's green and it's growing...! I have set a deadline of 6 Nov (and seem to be steadying as far as concentration goes - each pattern piece is different, so I have to figure out how to join each piece anew) as I like to take along my most recent art to my psychologist appointments in the next big town (PE). I go only about once a month, and want this completed by then. (That little trip now costs about R300 in petrol there and back, btw, apart from the actual cost, part of the reason it's only once a month or sometimes every 6 weeks) But I find the art useful for showing what's on my mind at the time.

This was originally inspired by Windows Media Player (believe it or not, since it's ended up being quite organic) - WMP has a swirling pattern as the music plays, called "smoke or water", which competely captivated me. When I started drawing it, it evolved (a lot!) and now looks very unlike how it began, but that's fine. It's also similar to the swirling patterns I often see in my head and in dreams (you could call it artistic inspiration, or you could just say it's the cocktail of medicines firing all sorts of neurons in my brain! Either way, I am going to use it!!)

Detail shots:
I've hand-pieced this with (almost) an English paper piecing method except that I only pin around the pieces of one of each ajoining seam and don't baste. Basting is just... like stuffing a tomato - life's too short! My fingers are pricked to shreds, ouch, ouch and ouch again. Now that's suffering for your art. I'm now at work and hitting keys on the keyboard hurts (and it would be one of those silly admin data-capture days today, of all times). The next one like this WILL be sewn together by machine, if only to have some intact skin left on my fingertips...

What a challenge it has been to keep this piece flat! Ironing will help at the end and fortunately the quilting process, hides mountains and valleys of unflat flaws!

A "principle" or tip I leaned in a workshop with Sally Scott on Afro-American patchwork is to put just tiny bits of an unexpected colour in a piece, which somehow gives it a bit of "zing" and unexpectedness, that adds that "look-again-and-find-something-new-each-time-you-look" quality. I LOVE this when looking at art - that you don't just look and go "okay, I've seen it", but that you're drawn back several times.

And now I'd better get some work done.... {skulks off}

"Some say I'm a visionary, others say I'm, just seeing things..."

Words and drawing

2008-10-26T15:39:00.004+02:00

I've been wanting to put more words on my art for quite a while now. Sometimes, when ideas are more cognitive and can be expressed in words, I like to write. At other times, words can't do the job - and shapes, colours, symbols and 3-D forms that are wordless, but communicate on a deeper level, are needed. The latter tend to be more abstract than pictorial for me. I was going to insert some writing I did recently, here, which I want to, somehow, incorporate into some work, but this post seems to want to go elsewhere, so I'll just take it where it wants to go.

To my great surprise, I learnt in hospital that I can draw! A wonderful occupational therapist brought me a pencil and paper in High Care. My first few days there went by in a drugged haze, but once I was saturated with anti-manic drug, it was decreased quite a bit and I was still very, very cheerful and bursting with energy, and this is when she brought me the paper, out of the blue, one day. I fell over it and just drew and drew. Mostly, I drew leaves I found outside, all deformed, skew or shrivelled in some way. They resonated with me - well, the symbolism was clear. They were far more interesting than the perfect ones. They were still "working" on the bushes or trees, capturing sunlight and making food, just like all the other leaves, despite their quirks. They were more challenging to draw, but they were also more dimensional and meaningful to me. (I'm hoping to buy a scanner soon, and will be able to scan in some drawings.)

I hope I can translate this recent fire into something artful, that is beautiful for its own sake, just like the leaves.

Small picture

2008-10-23T12:11:00.003+02:00

Pic of just a small section of what I'm working on for FOUR days now!! When not at work, of course. Blast this having to earn a living, what a waste of time!

Just as I thought I was OK

2008-10-22T08:55:00.000+02:00

... I went back to hospital. This time I was manic, which by the way, despite the romanticism and glamour that somehow seems associated with it, is *anything but that*. Just a touch is fine - you get very creative, energetic and can conceive of and see projects through, but anything more and it's horrible. I was in High Care for 7 of the 8 days, doing a few strange things, of which I will spare you the details! I haven't posted for so long as I've simply been too disorganised, completely distracted and have the concentration ability of a fruit fly. I've started I don't know how many works, but two days max and I am onto the next. I've basically been very, very busy and have accomplished nothing in the past month.
{sad face} I don't want this illness!

Embellishing Mania {grin}

2008-10-01T11:51:00.006+02:00

I am still having loads of fun sewing all sorts of things onto backgrounds. It must be the influence of the last few issues of Quilting Arts magazine, which seem to be embellishing a lot these days! It suits me, because of all the million crazy little things that I have hoarded for years, many of which have some personal meaning for me, that I can now use. However, some of those things do not have holes in them, so today I invested in 5 titanium drill bits for this latest passion! They were only about R8 each, and I got small sizes, from 1.2mm to 3.5mm. I'm at work, but can hardly wait to get home to try them out! Some drilling going to be done today!

Even with my battered old drill that has seen distinctly better days! :

Mood cycles

2008-09-29T06:36:00.000+02:00

I'm looking back over my life and seeing all the cycles which I now have words for, that explain to me why they were so hard and why I was never able to just be stable. It's not new; I've always just known reality to be that way for me - ever changing, depending on which part of the cycle I was in. A bit like the Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, that I read so avidly when I was a child; when different lands would be at the top of the tree and then blow away to be replaced by the next! :) That is how my thoughts and my reality have been. It didn't occur to me that it isn't like that for everyone.

But, actually, nothing has changed from getting the new diagnosis, I'm just more accepting of how things have been, and more compassionate with myself. I like being seasonal and want to be philosophical about that, since that is just how it is. I want to feel my emotions, as intense as they are - living them is very real and in touch. I'm not keen on the extreme poles, which are not constructive or helpful to my life and in addition, those poles are also not good for my daughters, to whom I owe it, to be less erratic. So I'll just be a good girl and take the pills. For now!

Now if I could only solve the "having to make a living" issue - how boring! - I'll be all set!

This season of the mind

2008-09-27T10:13:00.001+02:00

Some fun experimenting with free motion embroidery on velvet with fancy yarns and bits of plastic orange bags added later to mitigate against the pink (I dislike pink so it's a challenge to work with it.) This is such fun and so satisfying that I started a green version, having learnt a few things from the one above - green being my favorite colour :)
Having done the background, I am now embellishing with lots of bits and pieces that I have collected and/or made over the years, and have just been squirrelled away. It's a nice feeling of consolidation - and little things are emerging from long-forgotten boxes of STUFF, which are just right for this.

I'm flitting like a butterfly on speed, from project to project, as I keep getting new ideas and want to get to capturing the idea fast. I'm accepting this phase as part of a bipolar high, which has calmed a little (with the medication) from a way-too-fast, very unfocused stage. It will subdue at some time when the pendulum swings back, so I'm making the most of it now. Then ideas will come slower and I will get to finishing.

Working fast is very hard with a medium that demands Slow! - but I remain completely seduced by fibre and what I can do with it. I am including other media more and more, and am having the most fun finding things and thinking of how to transform them into art - a lemons to lemonade thing which is also very appropriate right now.

I am also doing a mindfulness course with a friend of mine. It is proving to be very difficult, with my mind being so flighty, but ahhh, one cannot time the seasons and the course was running now, so I had to grab the opportunity. What a profound concept mindfulness is, in all its simplicity and stripped-down, honest reality. A real refuge from calamity and worry and brooding! When I get into the zone of just dispassionately watching thoughts go by without having to compulsively grasp them, just accepting them and allowing them to exist, without preference, it's just so peaceful and simple. We do make life and our thoughts much more complicated than they actually are!

Professional photographs :)

2008-09-24T05:42:00.003+02:00

I took a bundle of quilts and other work in to have professional studio photographs taken, as I want to apply for membership into Fibreworks. So when I get them, I plan to post them to my Picasa web album, so things can get a little spruced up around here. There are cobwebs in the corners; spring has sprung, and I feel a need for renewal and some good ol' cleaning up!

There, I said it, now I have to do it! :)

A word of thanks to fellow art bloggers for their supportive comments and emails: most especially Robyn from Art Propelled, whose work and blog never fails to inspire and also Jackie from Blissfully Imperfect and Kate from Kate's Quilting.

Thank you, gentleladies. I'm getting to a sustained feeling of having regained myself, and am having a creative spurt :) so it's time to focus outwards and not inwards as I've had a long time doing. My massive oak tree has burst out in fresh green, new leaves and my grapevine is also coming back to life after the winter pruning. Isn't nature just so beautiful and inspiring? Last spring I remember posting "Spring is so beautiful, I wish I felt better" so it's been a long 16-month year of winter. I'm just so relieved and thankful for a time of rejuvenation.

More runes

2008-09-22T10:38:00.002+02:00

This is another work I've begun (yes, I usually have about 10 on the go at one time, plus a heap of "Never-Got-Any-Furthers" - My attention wanders easily and new ideas keep coming up, that I just have to follow (and now I understand much better why it is so!) ) So, this work continues the theme of runes, this time as spells or charms such as "For balanced Joy", "For good luck in finding a new job" etc, etc. I'm continuing my theme of symbols holding buried meanings

These spells and charms are used today in neo-Paganism.

This idea for this work was conceived in front of the TV, on SABC 2! (Who says TV is only bubble gum for the mind? LOL) They were promoting an upcoming programme on San Rock Art, because Heritage Day is coming up on Wednesday. So I was thinking, hey, what about MY heritage? - which isn't the San, but the Vikings. They did some nasty things we're not proud of, (the cartoon "Hagar" refers!) but they also did a lot of art and poetry. I think I might call this "Longings". I took a close-up, but it's blurred, so as this develops, I'll take another and post it.

It's made from scraps of fabric cut off from the Melancholia work. The scraps were too good to throw away, so I began playing with them... The work is fairly small, I'll measure it and put that in here, when I get home.

Art springs eternal

2008-09-22T10:25:00.001+02:00

Here is the next step of this work, 'melancholia' its working title - (doubt it will remain.) Yes, those really ARE holes!
I've developed a fascination with runes! I was looking for symbols to put in each square, as I didn't just want to go with ordinary letters. So I was looking for something that would symbolise what I wanted to say - of course, old alphabets! I immediately jumped to runes, as they would be my ancestry (born in Denmark) and I've seen runestones in Dk, enscribed with the runes.

It's fascinating! Sometimes the runes are used as letters, spelling out words; and sometimes they are used in charms or spells, where several runes are combined in a form that conveys the meaning of the spell.

So of course I wanted to embed a secret message into the work. Depression is deep and dark and holds secrets long buried. Hopefully if decoded they will bring some understanding.

No, I'm not going to say what it says... sorry....!

{evil grin}

On with Creating

2008-09-20T19:01:00.003+02:00

New pictures soon. I promise! I'm feeling great, since I've been on bipolar meds and I'm working away at things I'll show soon. Struggling just a little to focus and concentrate on one thing - I flit from one to the other, then to a new idea. I can feel I'm still pretty high. I managed to flood the bathroom yesterday, as I turned on the basin tap and then got distracted and wandered out of the bathroom! I also forgot the iron on. Not Good. Quite a creative surge though, which is wonderful.

A friend of mine is having an exhibition of her quilts next week, so I'm going to ask her if I can take some pics there and post them to my blog.

Edit 1 Oct 2008: I forgot to take my camera, and I forgot to ask her. Eeks, I guess I am still VERY distractible. The exhibition was great and I left feeling very inspired!

So, there it is.

2008-09-17T09:24:00.008+02:00

I'm bipolar. Thus spake the psychiatrist. And verily, medication was prescribed, as aforesaith psychiatrist pronouneth that I was manic and he needeth to 'cap' it, so it did not spinneth out of control. And so it came to pass, that amongst other changes, an increase of Lamictin was warranteth, aforesaith medication being the best thing since sliced bread (and much, much nicer than lithium, saith I !)

And thus, was I addeth to the company of illustrious forerunners, such as Kurt Cobain, Richard Dreyfuss, Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Gascoigne, Sylvia Plath, Sir Isaac Newton, Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh. ...... Ha ha, I wish !!! - instead I joineth the modest ranks of The Common (Wo)Man, since :

"I, being poor have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
tread gently, because you tread on my dreams..."
(WB Yeats)

September?

2008-09-07T10:23:00.002+02:00

So August came and went without a single post. I'm sad and sorry about that. I AM making stuff, but taking photographs feels like an Everest. I'm better than I was, but still not well. I ought to be well, I feel, but something is still not quite right.

Oh, maybe it's me!

How weird is it when you have a hundred and one ideas for art and yet you sit and wonder why we bother at all? I'm working on about 5 things because I can't keep my concentration on one for long. My mind flits like a butterfly yet I'm very tired and not sleeping well. I see the Pdoc on Thursday in PE, so maybe he can re-evaluate this madness...

Ahhh.... weekends

2008-07-28T09:23:00.004+02:00

I'm slowly and steadily on the mend. One of my daughters once commented that she loved waking up to the sound of the sewing machine as it meant that Mom was well and happy and things were right with the world. Alas, these days not even the sewing machine does that, as she's in her final school year and they are PILED HIGH with pressure. Apart from the academic work she has far too many other school duties to manage and is constantly exhausted. Just 6 more months to go!

I'm very ambivalent about having chosen to sew on all these roads by machine - it will hold better but trying to manoevre it under the sewing machine with all those pins is a prickly business. Yeah, I could baste.... but, really, life's too short for basting! Or at least my sewing time is too short! I also get some very cute and cuddly companions joining me, who make manoevreing the quilt even more difficult... :)

Melancholia 2

2008-07-22T09:11:00.004+02:00

I had the next bit of inspiration for this piece, so spent the last weekend laboriously cutting out 'roads' to go around all the blue blocks, and pinning it all down. (The bottom half is a leftover piece of release paper from fusible, that I used for the pattern. I didn't fuse it (although I like to fuse stuff, I also sometimes find that it makes the fabric quite stiff and all of this stuff is raw-edge and torn, so fusible wouldn't have worked with it.)
Detail shot. I'm now busy sewing it all down, which will also constitute the quilting. Will embellish afterwards, as I want to quilt by machine.

So, as you can see, I'm working again, which feels like a good sign. I really don't want to jinx it, but I 'think' (whispering: ...the medications are working. I think maybe I'm getting better! Shhhhh.)

I bought art!

2008-07-15T06:00:00.001+02:00

I don't usually feel I can justify buying Art, as I need the money for more mundane things. But I fell in love with this at the recent National Arts Fest. I went and looked about 5 times, and eventually I was worried that someone else would buy it! It cost R600 for both canvases. I look at it everyday and feel buoyed up - don't regret it for an instant! Isn't it beautiful? It's done by an artist in Port Alfred, Barbara Langley and I bought it directly from her.

Melancholia

2008-07-14T12:23:00.003+02:00

Here's what I'm working on (amongst others). All the torn squares have now been sewed onto the background. I'm a little bit stuck over what to do next, so it's hanging here until I get some more inspiration. Although the concept of "things all arranged nicely moving towards disarray" is a little cliched, since everyone else got to do it, I want a turn too.

suddenly, a year older

2008-07-07T08:18:00.000+02:00

I'm 47 today. I don't want to think about where I have been or where I am going. I'm trying just to be mindful of each moment as it is here, one moment at a time...

I switched from Cymbalta (no success) to Efexor 4 days ago. Maybe...

Latest

2008-07-06T14:14:00.000+02:00

... and here is what I am currently laying out, without any real idea of the end product in mind. I just feel empty, flat and numb - just trying to put one foot in front of the other and plod on - so who knows what will emerge here...?

Therapy art

2008-07-05T13:00:00.000+02:00

A painting I did, as part of my psychotherapy.
The psychologist that I'm seeing also does some art (how great is that!) so in between each session (I see him only about every third week, due to cost and distance) he gives me an art task to do for the next session.

My Place

2008-07-04T10:02:00.001+02:00

This piece was started as my entry for the Tri-Nations challenge (South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), but it quickly became apparent that 1 ) I wasn't going to finish in time for the deadline and 2) I thought the subject matter rather too dark for the occasion.

I apologise for the poor quality of these photos. I wrote the verse that is embroidered onto it. The theme for the challenge was My Place.
"My place is cast in shadow, my destiny alone,
With darkened eyes and heavy feet, my likeness is as stone.
My cloak is cut from sorrow, the stitches worn and trite,
such is my place, since I am one, acquainted with the night."

The last 4 words "Acquainted with the night" are taken from the Robert Frost poem with this title.
The quilting is a spiral, representing spiralling down into despair, and the other three embroidered images are of death.

Pretty dark. I didn't think it would go down all that well amongst, most likely, exquisitely colourful other entries, so I withdrew from the challenge.

Endless Night

2008-07-02T11:19:00.000+02:00

You can't read the words - but they are an extract from the poem Auguries of Innocence by William Blake:
"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."

The colours are not true, the flash has illuminated them much more than they are.

My burden

2008-07-01T11:19:00.006+02:00

I did this in papier mache several years ago (in another depressive episode) but hauled it out and dusted it off the other day.

Enough Silence

2008-06-22T07:00:00.002+02:00

I'm not really any better, but I had better learn to deal with it, because it's going to take a while to get my medication right and for therapy to "sink in".
It's been a bit of a dilemma over what to do with my blog over this time, becasue I was so determined to keep my depression out of it.. But it is something that happens periodically; I was free of it for several years, but the black dog has returned. It's part of my experience and as such, appears in my art...
I'll post a few pics of what I've done recently - as soon as I can take some decent ones. I didn't realise how difficult it is to photograph mostly black or very dark pieces. I'll keep trying.

Meanwhile...back in my head:
Apart from fibre art, I also love the art of words, of being able to put them together so they express exactly what you want to express. The next bit is dark and sad and.. well, yes... depressing, so feel free to skip it, if you want. I've tried to express how the last couple of months have been...

Melancholia

Depression, or as I prefer to call it, Melancholia, since the name 'Depression' is wholly inadequate to explain the dark despair, is an exceedingly ugly state of affairs.

It is a desolate, barren landscape, unbroken by any features or living things, save for stones that keep getting lodged in your shoes. Time becomes an endless stretch of bland emptiness crawling by, torturously slowly, provoking persecutory taunts of uselessness, time-wasting and oxygen theft. Judgment is twisted, perception distorted, every overheard comment at best a slight, more often an accusation, always finding something wanting in you.

Getting out of bed, getting dressed, making food, any movement at all, is an exercise in swimming through syrup, hardly worth the effort. Emotions swing from a numb detachment of complete indifference and meaninglessness, punctuated by falls into valleys of varying depth of cruel and torturous despair. Despair, all-consuming and overwhelming, that demands relief by whichever means possible, whether by copious tears, dependent clinging to any possible hope, sedatives or oblivion by one's own hand.

Sleep is a blissful escape, but frequently withheld as if some form of punishment for unstated crimes. When occasionally granted, it is often restless and filled with exhausting, incomprehensible dreams. Decisions are unsurmountable, thinking is slowed to that of a frame-by-frame action replay. Memory is a sieve with large holes; everything that must be accomplished must be written down, listed, or it is gone forever.

Concentration lapses mid-conversation, when the pervasive inertia takes over and staring blankly into space, as if in trance, comes naturally. Falling comes naturally, too, the feeling of involuntary free-fall into a pit of darkness, footfalls of hope whizzing by, out of reach.

Fatigue, physical, mental, emotional, accompanies every action, as the futility of all effort becomes clearer and clearer, the meaninglessness of existence more obvious, hope more elusive and obliteration more and more compelling, if only to escape the searing pain of the despair...

I'm sorry

2008-06-08T14:43:00.002+02:00

I'm sorry if you came in here, hoping to find something. I feel like a shell of what I used to be. Just numb and blank, with the occasional tears, but I don't even know why I bother with the tears anymore.

"My life is just...

2008-06-04T18:17:00.000+02:00

... a slow train, crawling up a hill...." - K. Melua

I've been absent

2008-05-25T05:16:00.002+02:00

... or should I say my mind has been absent. I'm struggling, withdrawing from everyone, going through medication trials and just dragging through a day at a time. I'm sorry, but my enthusiasm seems to have gone AWOL...

Trying to paint happy pics

2008-05-22T12:12:00.005+02:00

Fabric paints on cotton. They will all be combined into a fabric journal. I'm still tearful and very dejected, so just pics for now.

Nothing new

2008-05-17T16:05:00.003+02:00

I'm not even doing much fibre art. But my Viral Load piece arrived safely in Cape Town and Inno 2008 opens Monday.

The hospital's beautiful gardens

2008-05-14T17:46:00.006+02:00

Currently doing (on fabric)

2008-05-14T13:09:00.003+02:00

Pics from hospital

2008-05-14T13:05:00.004+02:00

Thank you Kate!

2008-05-13T18:29:00.004+02:00

I had to start work again today - fortunately my boss is letting me do half-days until I feel more on my feet.

So I came home at lunch-time, to find a fabric postcard in my mailbox from Kate who blogs here. I burst into tears.

Kate, I don't know how to thank you... it's gorgeous, just the sort of thing I love and the gesture touched me so deeply.

Thanks to the other people who have emailed me - I am going to reply, but the ole brain is just a bit slow these days...

Nothing today

2008-05-11T06:04:00.001+02:00

Too much despair.

Please, Universe

2008-05-09T11:28:00.004+02:00

I NEED a new job. I am so tired, so unfulfilled, so stressed when we are busy, so resentful of all the time and energy my current job robs from me every day. I can't just resign, I'm the breadwinner and have to earn.
I am worth it. I am a hard and thinking worker. I am intelligent. I am worth a decent salary. I am tired of being in a profession (nursing) that is viewed like glorified waitresses and paid pathetically, expected to work ridiculous hours and accorded very little respect. I feel robbed of the future that I thought I would have once I finished my hard-earned degree. Ok, I was naive then and it was my choice. But now I want to make a new choice.

Artmaking alone is not a realistic money-earning job for me. It may become an add-on and will always be a passion, but I need something that will dependably earn me enough to manage on, or the anxiety over money alone will completely paralyse me.

So please, Universe, I'm putting it out there. I need a new job.

Have to tell you something funny...

2008-05-09T09:25:00.013+02:00

I knew it would make a good story afterwards. The hospital I was in, also does a lot of rehab of alcoholics and addicts, so they search all your stuff when you come in. I had packed my usual array of scissors (those for paper, those for fabric, those little ones for threads, you know what I mean), my needle book with thick needles, thin needles, the ones for beading etc etc, and a box of pins, and some works-in-progress(WIPs), threads etc. (Oh and a few clothes, shampoo, soap, toothbrush.)

Contraband! Dangerous sharp objects! A depressive with sharp objects is a huge red flag. Scissors, needles and pins were all confiscated and locked away in the office. Imagine my chagrin! In one swift move most of the equipment that constitutes my identity was locked up. I MEAN, who am I without needles, pins and scissors??? (Just as well I didn't bring my iron!). The scissors I understood, but what were they thinking: Suicide by acupuncture??? I had never realised us fibre art types lived so close to the edge!

The following morning, I began to wonder how on earth I was going to work on anything. Luckily I found a NEEDLE parked in one of my WIPs. Oooooo! I looked left. I looked right. Feeling like a naughty girl I sat quietly and sewed. They didn't seemed perturbed by the fairly normal sight of someone sitting sewing. (Even WITH a needle!) So far, so good. Now all I needed was a sharp edge on which I could cut the next piece of thread...

Sharp edges are hard to come by in psychiatric institutions. You can rub the thread against various edges, but you get a horrible fuzzy end that is impossible to thread through the eye of a fine needle (most certainly not aided by the tremors caused by a new anti-depressant...)

Then I scratched again amongst the belonging they had let me keep. I'd also packed some drawing/painting materials and among them a PENCIL SHARPENER! Spread the word! This innocent little gadget is the answer for those long airplane trips where they won't let you have scissors. The little blade on a pencil sharpener, while not lethal enough to hijack planes, hold hostages, inflict suicidal damage to oneself or homicidal damage to anyone else, actually works pretty well to cut a thread!!

I was up and running. After a while I realised they weren't planning to give me back my weapons of mass destruction until I left (I guess other people might try to steal them with more evil intentions than sewing....) so I just gave up and soldiered on with my one needle and my pencil sharpener. And it worked just fine. That, of course, did a great deal for my sanity, and a pencil sharpener is a lot cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist or a psychologist, I can assure you... 'cause I did that too.

So now you know. Run off quickly to the stationers and make sure you have a little pencil sharpener just in case one of your little eccentricities turns into a raging psychosis in the night and the men in white coats come to escort you away. Or even if you just develop what they call "the common cold of psychiatry": depression.

But!
Fuzzy brain an' all, I did discover the pencil sharpener scissors! :)

Slowly, slowly

2008-05-09T09:15:00.004+02:00

I am dreading going back to work on Tuesday. I've been doing various psychological exercises, some art, (will post photos as soon as I can locate camera borrowed by daughter) and a heck of a lot of wondering why on earth I am here. Found out yesterday I had reached the limits of various funds on my medical aid from my little jaunt to the loony bin. (It's true what they say: money can't buy happiness but you sure can get to be miserable in comfort!) Had I known how much it would all cost I might have opted... um... some other option, but let's not go there.

Now follows a round of motivation letters from doctors, treatment plans, progress reports, "ex gratia" submissions - man, I've gone from being an eccentric but fairly normal person to being a 'case' about whom various reports are being written, faxed and emailed around. (What are they saying about me? Is it time to develop paranoia too?) ;)

One day at a time is the order of the day.

Construction - please be patient

2008-05-07T11:49:00.005+02:00

I solemnly swear that it is not only the neural networks of my own brain that are FUBAR. I am trying to interface these with Blogger and Picasa to try to set up a gallery of sorts on my blog. Please be patient as various unintended and strange things happen, until I get it right. (They really shouldn't let computer-illiterates like us loose on the Web now, should they???)

Edit (later): It works! I figured it out! I have a new toy! It is very incomplete, unorganised, in random order, uncaptioned etc etc, but I can do a bit at a time and eventually there will be a way people can see the sort of work I do without having to wade through tons of old posts. (I always go to the galleries first if there is such a link, and have always wanted my own.)

Note to self: Yesterday I was accepted for Inno 2008. Today I got my long-desired gallery slideshow started up. Good things are happening to me. I WILL work on focusing on the positive.

Meanwhile, has anyone seen my marbles anywhere?

Inno 2008 - I'm in!

2008-05-06T09:20:00.003+02:00

I'm sobbing as I write this, but these are very, very happy tears. I just heard that I have been juried into Innovative Threads 2008. I've entered three times and been accepted all three times. Could I interpret this as a sign that I absolutely must keep going through each day, not only for the sake of my children, but also for my art?

Bloody, bowed, but still the captain of my soul

2008-05-04T16:59:00.012+02:00

I'm back from hospital. The medical aid only covered 14 days. But I'm not sure any more time there would have made much difference - it was basically to figure out what path to put me on. I'm still feeling dreadful so won't be blogging much until I feel I can say something positive. There is enough gloom in the world without me adding more negativity.

When I started this blog I was so determined to keep any mention of my recurrent depression to a strict and casual minimum, but recently the depth of the despair has just engulfed me. I'm sorry.

Maybe later I'll have the courage to post pics of the art I did in hospital and in the lead-up to it, but it's gloomy and I don't want to bring anyone down. Like my psychotherapist showed me, you get what you focus on, and your thoughts have such a major influence on how you feel, that I've decided I need to deliberately work on beautiful, uplifting works to balance the gloom a little...

... because I do want to contribute beauty and happiness to this world. I'm leaving the unfinished depressive works aside for now (I do want to finish them at some stage, because I feel they are authentic and also deserve to be heard) but I am now starting on a fabric art journal with uplifting images, bright colours and maybe even prettiness {{gasp!}}

Depression is a very lonely kind of hell, so thanks once again for the support received in emails, comments, sms'es, personally etc ... so often, kind words are all you have left to cling to and I have clung to many of yours. And that includes all the kind staff and other patients, several of whom became friends, in hospital. And especially my psychotherapist who has the ability to cut to the chase and challenge me, in such a kind way.

Gratefully,
Karen

Going to hospital again

2008-04-17T22:02:00.003+02:00

I had an appointment with a psychologist in our nearest town (1.5hrs away) today. I'll be going into hospital (again) from tomorrow for a week or two. I feel a bit stunned at the sudden decision, but actually relieved to not have to fight this darkness on my own. I was barely hanging on.

Happy artmaking, everyone; see you when I get back.

New vessel done

2008-04-09T10:54:00.002+02:00

"Bind Me Together"
April 2008
Fabric vessel. Fabric scraps, threads, beads.

See this post for the process of making this. On top is a row of fabric beads made by wrapping and stitching scraps together into a sphere about 2-3cm in diameter and then attaching seed beads individually.
I feel as if my life is in tatters. My depression is worse than before I went into hospital last year and I'm struggling to cope with things I KNOW I have found very easy before. I feel like I want to keep excusing myself and saying "but I'm not usually like this, I'm usually more together..."

The "observer consciousness" part of me finds it very apt that this bowl has arisen from this desperate time of trying to hold everything together. Many tears fell onto this work. I followed some (very tattered) instincts and several times along the way I wanted to give up as I thought the result would be too ugly, but I can't sit and do nothing, so I just kept on - and now that it is done, I really like it, because... it speaks for me. It witnesses. It's proof. It's tatty and organic and raw and rich and chaotic and a lot like me. And I like it.

And that ought to make me feel good, so why, I wonder, do I still feel as though I am stumbling around in a very long, dark night....?

Burning Man and creativity

2008-04-08T15:15:00.004+02:00

In a recent issue of FiberArts magazine, there was an article about the Burning Man festival held in the Nevada desert, USA every year. I just finished reading a fascinating article about the Art of Burning Man by Darryl van Rhey. Some very, very interesting thinking and quite affirming to read as someone (an 'outsider') who is unschooled in art but has a "burning"(excuse pun) desire to make art all the time...

My Inno 2008 entry

2008-04-08T11:29:00.011+02:00

I didn't think I was going to be able to get it together this year, but I felt so sad to let the chance slip by, that I managed to make an effort after all - I've entered Innovative Threads 2008. It's a wonderful annual South African Fibre Art exhibition (when I first heard of it and saw some of the works I would never in my wildest dreams have thought I could ever be part of it) and this year Tonya has taken it back to Cape Town to Margie Garratt's gorgeous exhibition space, Nova Constantia Cellars. Here is a review from the 2006 exhibition (I wasn't in it) held there.

They have a theme this year: "The only journey worth taking is the journey within" which I feel ambivalent about, but I really would love the opportunity to be juried in again and if I don't enter, I have NO chance...
My entry is called "Viral Load". It is a free-hanging work and represents a model of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The little dolls inside are (hopefully!) recognisable as derived from Edvard Munch's "Scream".
There is a mirror inside at the back, so you see your own reflection when you peer inside.
I am very reluctant to explain this work as I really want each person to make their own interpretation. It can be interpreted in several ways and I don't want to impose anything and risk stunting how you see it. The HIV/AIDS topic is a hot and highly relevant one in South Africa and I just want to contribute to the debate...

Marking time

2008-04-05T22:40:00.002+02:00

... waiting for medication to work. Sorry, no pics today, but I have completed the scrap wors basket and slow progress is being made on a few other projects. I'll be back.

Scrap wors

2008-03-29T15:29:00.006+02:00

I was looking at my bag of scrap-scraps (bits of fabric and thread that are too small to do anything with, such as the 5cm ends of threads you cut off when piecing or teeny bits of fabric cut off when squaring off etc - I keep everything) and I've figured out another way to use them.

Ingredients: Aforementioned scraps and some spools of thread (do not use your nice threads - the very cheap ones are fine.) You can use any threads.
Pick up some scraps and start winding the thread around them to make a sausage. Keep going, wrapping the thread around the scraps as much as is needed to hold them together. Do this until the sausage is about a half to one metre long (longer than that becomes really unwieldy to handle.) And you'll have a handful of sausage, or "wors" as it's called here in SA.

I thought I'd make another bowl, so I began coiling the wors and have just finished the base below and am about to start going up the sides. It's good for the state my brain is in at the moment (still not better) and goes well with mindless TV - and at the end I will (hopefully) have a fairly solid, useable bowl.

Rosalie has a website!

2008-03-29T03:57:00.004+02:00

... where you can see some of her quilts. Exquisite. I'm very taken by her work and up close it is even more beautiful. She is teaching quite a bit in the USA these days. She has a wealth of skill, insight and experience - take a class with her if you ever get the chance! www.rosaliedace.co.za

Emmy Schoonbeek

2008-03-28T04:46:00.003+02:00

I've blogged about her before, but she's worth another mention :) I love going over to her blog, Cramzy to see what she has been doing; I find it all very inspiring. She does a lot of embroidery and embellishing and has one of those needlepunching machines and puts it to great use.
Highly recommended! Emmy is from Holland.
-and I was very, very honoured to see that I am listed in her sidebar: thanks Emmy!

(and, yes, the timestamp is correct, I've been waking at about 2am every morning and unable to get back to sleep...)

Easy weekend

2008-03-25T08:47:00.004+02:00

'Twas a slow weekend by us....

But some of us did find enjoyment in the fabric stashes:

Soft drink cans

2008-03-19T12:47:00.003+02:00

I'm quite enthralled by the number of colours you can find on soft drink cans. This is a *small* selection! I could get sucked into trying to make something with the fronts instead of the backs...
(This is not fibre art. Sorry.)

(Aside: Began Cymbalta today. Black hole here, please, please a bit of respite?)

In the Meantime

2008-03-18T03:57:00.000+02:00

I'm still churning out fabric beads, collecting tin cans and cutting them up for my second piece in the Armour series and painting some cloth to make a background for my Tri-Nations Challenge entry. I have decided on the poastcard I'm sending to Cyber Fyber so just need to get that parcelled up and taken to the post office.

Otherwise I'm not doing so great. So let's keep the focus on the fibre, shall we?

Padfolio

2008-03-15T20:35:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, I made this padfolio, from the Free Projects on Fibre and Stitch, by Sue Bleiweiss. It has an exam pad inside, with some pockets for pens etc. The biggest compliment came from my younger daughter who asked if she could borrow it and take it to school with her! High praise indeed.
Of course I didn't follow the instructions exactly, as I always think I can see another way. All I can say is that next time I WILL be doing it just as she says, as I now understand WHY. But I always have to pick the hard path to learning.

More block printing

2008-03-13T04:55:00.001+02:00

After printing with the last block of polystyrene from a vegetable tray, I found a larger piece of polystyrene and wanted to cut deeper so there'd be less smudging of the print. What to cut polystyrene with? I took the problem to my nightly mind-wanderings where I determined that the ideal would be a heat tool - now what did I already have that could serve this purpose. A soldering iron! It worked really nicely and I burnt (melted) out a pattern, rolled fabric paint onto it with my little craft foam roller and printed. Hey presto! Much easier than screenprinting. Now, with the next pattern I want to draw a design that matches up along the edges and try to print seamlessly
I didn't much like the result of the green flour resist I did earlier, so it proved to be the ideal cloth to overprint, and I think it looks much better now.
Fun, fun.
One of my daughter's blood test's came back very low, so we now have a further test on Friday to see if this could the problem (being deliberately vague here to protect her privacy.) Dare I hope for an answer, at last?

Flour resist - 2 takes

2008-03-12T03:45:00.001+02:00

Two takes on the flour resist technique I mentioned earlier, after washing and ironing. The first is brown on white fabric and the one below is blue and brown on a previously dyed purple fabric. I really, really like this effect. It's batik-like without all the fuss with melting wax and then trying to get it out again.
Today we venture south-west to our closest town to see my daughter's endocrinologist - hopefully he has some explanation for why she is feeling so rotten all the time. He is going to give us the results of the gazillion blood tests he did last time. I woke up at 2am. My depression has headed south again.

Fabric printing

2008-03-11T06:35:00.000+02:00

Bought this wonderful book a few weeks ago. It shows several techniques, and I've been trying them out. I did a screenprinting course many years ago and loved what I could do with it, but I'm too impatient now to sit and paint the screen with shellac, and I don't have the equipment and emulsion to use the photographic technique. So when I saw this, I was delighted!
You cut out the bottom of a polystyrene tray (such as veges are sometimes packed in)
(I taped some "handles" to the underside, so I could hold them.)
... and then you scribble patterns into the styrofoam with a pen or whatever. Roll on paint and print away.
It prints imperfectly, but I like the charm of it. And you get better as you do it more.

Embossing cooldrink can metal

2008-03-10T09:03:00.001+02:00

When I can't fall asleep (which is often) I lie in bed and think "what if" sort of things and try to let my mind free-wheel in a kind of brainstorming mode where no ideas are silly or unfeasible. Often in this frame of mind, solutions come to mind. I was lying trying to think of all the possible ways I could make impressions in the cooldrink can metal I've been working with - and it suddenly occured to me: an engraver! Of course! Luckily our local library has an engraver, that one can borrow on one's library card, so here it is and it works just fine. I do have to set it on the highest setting to get it to make a decent imprint, but it is way better than having to press hard with your hands, which I can't do at this stage anyway.

So I've been fishing cooldrink cans out of bins, especially on campus, where there are always rich pickings. If you spot me looking in a bin and reaching a hand inside, it's not that I've fallen on hard times and am looking for food, I'm just scavenging for art materials!!

18 today!

2008-03-08T08:22:00.003+02:00

Today my firstborn turns 18. (Of course I'm not a day older.)
Happy Birthday Love!
- from your mom who clearly wasn't thinking at all when she said "yes, of course you can invite 42 people over for supper and a party..."

Like they say.. It's irresistable

2008-03-07T08:59:00.007+02:00

The article on flour resist dyeing in the latest Quilting Arts is called "It's irresistable!" I had intended to leave the paint to cure for longer (since it's covered in flour, you can't really heat-set it, so you have to let time do the work) but yesterday my curiosity got the better of me and I couldn't resist throwing caution to the winds and washing out some of the flour, at the risk of losing the paint. (I didn't lose the paint.)
Now I wish I hadn't done it on a white background! I think I'll overpaint it with a transparent lighter colour, to colour the background, without losing the etching-like scratches. I have another piece drying at the moment, which I had previously dyed and have now overdyed.

What a lot of fun. Love it when the Quilting Arts inspires me to try something like this out.

The above makes me feel as though the old way I used to use flour resist is now quite boring!

Flour Resist

2008-03-05T05:53:00.000+02:00

After the article in the latest Quilting Arts about Flour Resist, I just couldn't "resist" trying it again.
It is going to be hard to wait for this to cure, before I can wash off the flour - I want to see the results NOW.

Metalwork - more pics

2008-03-04T15:01:00.004+02:00

At last I have managed to take some half-decent pictures of the metalwork hanging. (I only posted detail shots in my previous post as the full shots were blurred.) Here's the full view.
I've cut up several more cans and am planning more in this vein. Must try and find a way of doing the embossing, that isn't so hard on the hands.