Shall we sit under the oak tree...

 

Dear Helen,

I loved your last blog post.  And speaking of rituals, let's sit right here and discuss it. Pull up one of the old white adirondack chairs and we'll sit here under the big oak tree and gaze out at the vineyards and enjoy being at the ranch.  It's very conducive to contemplation, don't you think?  Perhaps I will try to incorporate this as a new ritual.

As you know, I have been at the ranch for quilting retreat over the last few days and, as always, I had a wonderful time.  Setting foot onto the ranch premises just brings on an instant feeling of peace and well-being.  Plus there is the delightful sense of being surrounded by women with creativity and enthusiasm and a love for fabric and quilting -- it is a very nurturing and fun and happy energy.  I spent a lot of happy hours sewing and chatting and laughing until my face hurt. 

My foremost sewing task was completing a quilt for Betty, our chorus director, who at age 92 is retiring after directing the community chorus for the last 25 years.  We'll present it to her on Sunday.  I had the top pieced and sandwiched before I went, so while at the ranch I got it quilted and bound.  It's a soft and gentle quilt, with the pastel palette she favors, and I hope she will like it. The back has a label which includes a picture of the full chorus, as well as everyone's signatures, so it's a sweet addition.

From there, I went to piecing some tops that were in various stages in completion, mainly scrappy things I'd started.  Satisfying but mindless sewing so perfectly appropriate for sewing while talking with friends. 

I tried to take time each day to do some painting in my sketchbook.  On one sunny afternoon, I turned one of the adirondack chairs around, with my back to the vineyard view, and painted the beautiful old ranch house.  I'm not sure that you can tell that that's ivy growing over it.  Ah, well.  Sorting out how to do foliage that looks like foliage is something I'm trying to learn right now.

q

On another afternoon, Pat D and I decided to paint together, so we set off in search of a good site -- every view is a good site, really.  But it was quite windy, so we went into the ranch house and sat inside to paint the view out of the living room window, which looks out at the wisteria arbor.

Here is Pat's take on the same view, by the way.  It was fun to see how each of us interpreted the same view.

 

You might be amused to know that on another afternoon, I spent about an hour drawing and painting my shoe for an assignment in the online class from Jane LaFazio I've been taking.  This might seem as unappealing to you as drawing a lemon (I am saying that with a big smile, because I know you will know I am joking) but it was very enjoyable and a bit of a challenge to paint the reflective surface of those shoes.

 So all in all it was a very fun and productive time.  The most important thing for me this time around was just the sheer enjoyment of being surrounded by those wonderful friends.  I came home feeling very lucky indeed to have found such a collection of women and to have that twice-yearly event as a regular touchstone in my life.

But back to your post.

 I can so relate to your finding yourself in the doldrums, creatively and otherwise, and not liking that unmotivated and listless feeling.  I suspect that listless for you feels different for me, as for you it likely involves Boc boc, tea and cake, a basket full of decorated Filofaxes and pages and pages of lists and journaling, while for me it most likely it involves a cup of coffee, perhaps a bit of journalling, and a whole lot of staring into space.  

(I have just popped away to look up the derivation of "listless," as I suddenly wondered if it had to do with an absence of lists.  Wouldn't that be funny?  But no, it comes from the middle English word "liste" for "pleasure, joy, delight".  So now we know.)

In any event, I think it's not surprising when one has come to the conclusion of various long involved projects. And I don't think of it as a bad thing, actually.  Maybe it's about reframing the lull into a quiet celebration of completion and getting ready for the energy to start something new.

I do not have a ritual to get my creativity going.  Probably the closest I have is sitting in the wicker chair in the corner of my bedroom with a notebook to sketch or write ideas down in a brainstorming sort of process.  Actually, now that I think about it, I don't usually go into my sewing room with the question "what will I create today?" in my mind.  Instead, I go about other chores and activities, thinking about what interests me, what I'd want to make, what images or themes are pulling at me, so that by the time I head into the sewing room I'm already decided.  It's usually a constant thing, one that just happens whether I try to put it in the forefront of my mind or not.  I think perhaps the mulling going on in my head is a continuous sort of background to the things I'm always doing and thinking.  

Hmm.  Maybe it's a right brain/left brain thing, because I often notice that when I have a period of feeling busy with  legal work assignments, I will often have spontaneous creative ideas pop up -- new ideas or solutions to problems I've been pondering if I've been stuck on something.  At any rate, I suppose that might be, in part, why I've been especially lacking in creativity over the past few months.  My head has been so full of all of emotions and decisions and processing involved in making some drastic changes in my life situation, so it's no wonder that there hasn't been energy or brain space for the creative idea marinating that is usually going on. 

I whined often enough to you about this in private emails, but you know that I was feeling sluggish and ambivalent about a deadline for a specific project, but I pushed myself forward and got the thing finished.  I'm so glad I did!  That is where the adirondack chair above comes from, my piece "Serenity":

So even though this didn't come about via a ritual, perhaps having an impending deadline serves a similar purpose!  I was very pleased to learn that this piece (which is big -- 24 by 60 inches) has been accepted into a juried exhibit called "An Exquisite Moment," which will travel to the International Quilt Festivals in Long Beach, California and Houston, Texas later this year.  And I was very touched by the reaction when I showed this at the ranch's show and tell.  I told them about struggling to decide on what would represent my "exquisite moment," and then I unfurled the quilt and several of the quilters actually got teary-eyed.  I don't think I could ask for a better reaction than that.

(Speaking of exhibits, I wanted to say that I love your shack.  Will it just stay there?  Or will it ever come back to you so you can install it in your garden?  It looks FABULOUS set up and in a natural setting.)

Remember when we talked sometime ago about identifying words to define what we wanted in our work?  Your methodical analysis of the work you've made over the past year or so reminds me of that a bit.  Did it surprise you to see the results of your examination of your work like that? I mean, you obviously knew you were incorporating those elements in your work as you chose them consciously -- but did compiling the information that way surprise you? You said that there was more in common in your work than you thought.  That surprised me, as you plan things out so carefully and it has seemed to me that you were well aware of continuing to work with various elements.

I am intrigued by your decision to abandon working with african fabrics.  I'm not criticizing or disagreeing, mind you.  Not at all.  I'm just struck by how differently you and I approach these sorts of things, which is partly why these conversations fascinate me.  May I make a suggestion?  Even while you are recognizing all that you want to do with surface design and creating your own fabric, I know how much the patterns and colors and textures of african fabric call to you and make your heart sing.  My suggestion is that you not decide on an "all or nothing" choice, when that's not at all necessary.  Focus your time and energy on your own surface design stuff.  But recognize that sometimes sewing with the Magie fabric you love gives you pleasure and produces beautiful work, too.  You might find a certain relief in working with it from time to time, too.  Lots of artists have different series of work going at one time, without having all of them going full-tilt at the same pace all of the time.

So that's my suggestion.  Go forward with the surface design and use that beautiful new wet studio!  But don't prohibit yourself from working with the Magie fabric if you feel like it once in a while. If you love it and it makes you happy, it will fit.  And I have seen how you are inspired by those patterns and colors -- they'll inform the surface design work you do, I'm sure of it.

I will go now to put the last bits and bobs away from the retreat, and then feed the dog who is staring at me with great intensity.  Oh, and OF COURSE I want a video tour of the studio!

love, Diane

The three R's

RITUAL....REORGANISATION.... REFINE

Dear Diane,
This week has been hectic at work. Early starts, late finishes, short lunches and difficult decisions. Not excatly conducive to blogging or creativity in the evenings. But I always find that the universe provides just when you need it and the God's have sent me a kind colleague who has helped me out today to allow me time to catch up on paperwork and to leave work intime to visit Boc Boc for some sanity cafe time on the way home.
I have with me a notebook I started specifically to write notes about working in a series. Page two starts with a list of topics my first entry threw up as fodder for this blog. The first on the list was "How important is ritual?"
Well, lets think. I have been aware I am not blogging and have been dithering between thinking," I need to get my act togther, my filofax out and my brain in gear and plans some posts," and thinking, "Oh, sod it. Who cares about blogs? Maybe if I have no passion for it, its something I should just let go of anyway." Then I get this precious free hour or so. I could go home but its noisy there becuase my husband is hoovering ( well, Dysoning to be accurate, but either way I know I am lucky!) so I popped in here and sat at one of my usual tables and ordered my usual snack and suddenly, ideas for blogs came pouring in and I have had to whip out the ipad and get going. It really was remarkable. That always happens in here.
So it got me thinking. I am in similar doldrums with the art making, having just finished off three big projects and being distracted wth studio construction stuff. So is there a similar ritual that I can engage to get me restarted in the studio? I am not sure I do have one and whilst just being in the studio is a good impetus it is not as much like Pavlov's bell as the arrival of toast in Boc Boc for some reason. So I am wondering. Do you have a conscious ritual to get you going? I know your Rituals quilt was all about wine tasting but knowing you I am pretty sure drinking yourself into art is not your style! But that said I used to drink a lot of a 'tea' called Dreamtime ( I think I brought you some last time I visited) until I worked out it had never seen the gate of a tea plantation and was basically delicious flavoured sugar in hot water.. I used to call it Quilting Tea! Maybe I should brew some up when I get in. I have read about people lighting candles or having a moment before an little altar but I wonder whether the 'Boc Boc effect" can be artificially created like that or if it has to be something spontaneous and natural.
In any event the second R is for Re-organisation because, even as I sip tea the fitter is in the second studio putting the lino flooring down. So lots of this week has been spent carrying things up and down from one studio to another reorganising myself into wet and dry and receiving various mail ordered items of equipment. This was just one day's mail. Our postman hates us.

So the ritual question may be accademic. It would be simply BAD to build not one but two studios and then not make art in them. So in one sense the complete overprovision of space is going to make it a requirement that I simply get out of the doldrums and create. After all, it does not take any inspiration to just dye some fabric a pretty colour does it? ( Although the research as to precisely what type of glove - medical or decorators? Latex or non? Powered or not? - might actually prevent me dying my hands fuscia yet again, can be a convenient delaying tactic.) And of course I mentioned the first world problem of whether paints to be used for design but not production belong in a dry or wet studio! I totally appreciated the enabling response that I required two sets and I will order more once the restraining order the postman has taken out to ban himself from having to come near our house has run out.
The R for Re-organisation is also applying to the sorting out of my mind though. A few months ago I set myself goals to reach by Easter ( including this totally insane plan to make a lifesized African shack which is currently deteriorating in all weathers in a park in Belgium).

So now are three huge quilts all sent off and I need to regroup and decide to do next. As part of that I journalled about what I would like my art life to look like in ten years time and worked back all the steps I neded to take to get there. In all areas I came down to the hardly startling discovery that the first step was to build a body of work. Now I have lots of quilts but I see myself in the process of to defining my voice. So I use body of work not to mean 'stuffed cupboard full of past projects' but 'a coherent consistent collection of pieces that can be recognised as being in my voice.' I was somewhat frustrated that even though I have been thinking of that for a while now I still feel that I am all over the place stylistically. And thats how I come to the third R word: Refine
So I sat down and wrote a list of the quilts I had made over roughly the last twelve months give or take. There were twelve of them ranging in size from 20x 12 inches to 90 x 84. Plus a shack! But I counted the 20/12 as one set rather than individual quilts. I then looked at each one and made a list of what I saw to be their features. I came up with this list

• Paint scraping/ stamping
• Handdyes
• Writing
• Africa theme
• Sense of location
• Socio-political message
• Shacks
• People
• Machine applique
• Hand embroidery
• Machine stitch
• Screen printing
• Use of bought african textiles

So, 13 characteristics. The least any one quilt had was seven ( the shack). The most was 12, which was my Joe Slovo Township quilt

. Of the characteristics almost all had multiple occurrences with the sense of location and the social political message being in every quilt. The weakest featured was the screen printing, which is because I have only just started to learn to use that, and the use of genuine african textiles.

It was easy to see that the list of quilts fell into two categories (a) ones which featured my own surface designed fabric and (b) those with what I call 'Magie Fabric' i.e using my stash from my friend Magie's shop of imported fabrics. What I could see clearly was that the (a) quilts were the ones I had dedicated he most design time to and that I was most invested in. I would say they were my better works. The two (b) quilts I did for fun and to please other people. Indeed I cant show you the african one that was not the shack above because it is a suprise for a friend. Plus the thing is so humungous that I can't photograph it at home!
I got two very important things from this.
1. If I need to focus down and refine more, the african fabrics have to go. Well, snippets may appear as they do on the shacks in Joe Slovo but the quilts completely of african fabric is not where my work is headed. Rather I need to be focusing more in my surface design skills.
I know this in my gut but I am fighting it a bit. I like working with Magie fabric, I like that is a collaboration with african artists who make beautiful cloth. I like suporting the fairtrade commerce that ensues. But I know that the result is my hand and the voice of Esther/ Musa et al. I believe that it is possible to work in two very distinct series, although it takes two lots of marketing if an aim is to get gallery space. Plus I know a gallery where a whole african village of life sized shacks surrounded by walls of african textile quilts would look great. And it wouldfe fun to do that. So its tempting to try to do both.

The problem is time. IF I was full time I could do that. I am not. I have worked out and tested that going full pelt with high motivation I can do about 55-60 hours most months including design and blogging and 'business time' ( like entering shows and packing quilts). That's about 35% time. On top of the early start/ late finish full time job. And I like to do other things in life too.
So the choice is: spread thin and take longer to get where I am going or give something up and build up a body of work that is narrower in scope but wider in competence and cohesion?
I know the answer ( jeez, the building of a whole surface design studio might have been a sort of a clue where my subconsious was leading me! ) but you will forgive me if I take a little time to grieve the relinquishing ( gosh there are more R words than I planned in this post!) of the easy and quick option in favour of more work, more vulnerabilty and more risk. And maybe more reward. I know that I will still use Magie fabric or other commercial fabrics, because I will allow myself some R&R time ( oh, they are just rolling forth now!) to make lap quilts and/ or kits just for fun. For example, I am booked on a retreat in a few months time where surface design work is not possible so I could use my African fabrics for fun there. And maybe the shacks will come back in surfaced designed way. Who knows. After all the reason I love those fabric IS the beautiful suface design. And Magie actually has the stamps used to make some of those wax print fabrics anyway. Plus, (she says trying to stop herself crying) quilts still need backings, and no harm will come to my refinement plan if I just sit and cuddle the african fabric from time to time...no-one ever said that not working with a certain kind of fabric meant you should not buy the stuff. Well, maybe my husband did but I am sure he didn't mean it.
2. The second thing I got from this is that finding time to to looking back and to think is a good thing to do. I saw that actually there was far more in common in my works than I thought and that was encouraging to see my progress which I coud not see as I was on the path itself. And I can see where I can place more emphasis on certain characteristics in the future and to what topics I need to dedicate my learning time.
So I am going to need some support in actually making this choice and not waking up tomorrow convinced that it is utterley wrong. Or, more likley, reaching a difficult time learning surface design and being tempted to slide into the easier route again. Or seeing something exciting at Festival of Quilts and wanting to g off ona tangent.
Right, now my life is sorted I am going to go home and finish up sorting out the studio, mix up some dyes and get going this weekend. Would you like a video tour of the studio, inside cupboards and all for the next post?
Love,
Helen.

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New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year to you!

Isn't it amazing how the turn of a new year can bring such a feeling of a new start? There's nothing to prevent one approaching every day as its own fresh beginning, of course, but there is something about the start of a new year, and new calendars, that creates a feeling of new possibility.  There are some big new things ahead for me, so I am setting some new goals, restating and refining some existing ones, and generally trying to get myself a bit more organized so I'm moving forward with the things I want to, in the ways I want to.  Hah.  Look at how many times I used the word "new" in that paragraph.  You can tell I'm ready to embrace some changes!

We were talking about sketchbooks.  You know, you complained that I didn't show you messy sketchbook pages after I'd talked about feeling free to be messy -- and I suppose messiness is in the eye of the beholder. (Now, there's a slogan to print up for a poster!) But you are right, it's the freedom to be messy and not worry about what the outcome looks like that has defined the shift in my attitude about keeping sketchbooks.  I used to worry about keeping things looking pretty and artful, and then I'd get panicky and pressured about whether what I was about to do would be GOOD ENOUGH and it'd stall me before I'd even start.  Now I try not to worry about it.

But truthfully, I've not touched the sketchbooks much in the weeks since I posted my entry.  Holiday events have intervened, which have cut into my sketching time by a fair amount.  And I had to switch over from painting to work on the last 12x12 challenge quilt, which meant putting the paints and sketchbooks away to make room for fabric on my worktable.  You'll remember my response to the theme "Sweet" inspired by millefiori candy:

I don't think I made any sketches at all for this -- it went from my head to drawing a grid out on newsprint to figure out how it all would fit into the required 12x20 size, and then I started playing with fabric and wonder-under to assemble each of these little candies.  I think that for this project, I had that same reaction you described of having the image in my head, and not wanting to take the time to work it out in sketch form because that would take away the fun of doing it in fabric.

But as we head into this new year, I know that both of us have shifted away from art sketchbooks for the moment and are instead sitting with our respective Filofax journals to focus on goals and year-end assessment and planning for the new year.  As is evident from your Plan Create Succeed blog, you are far more advanced than I am at goal setting and planning and organizing what you want to achieve into lists and checklists and such.  You continue to inspire me, and I continue to learn from you as you talk about how you approach your planning.

My approach to planning and goal-setting has evolved a fair amount over the past year, so I feel good about applying what has worked to the coming year, and continuing to work on using planning tools to help me.  Today, I pulled out my list of goals for 2012, and spent some time journaling about how they went, what I achieved, and what I discovered that will affect how I move forward in my progress.  I've never done that sort of assessment before but I can see its benefits already.

For one thing, stopping to assess what I HAVE done is a good way to get a handle on the amorphous feeling I often have that I haven't done ENOUGH.  I wonder if that's a chronic feeling for people like us who have so many things we want to do -- we feel the things we haven't done (or haven't had time to even try) more keenly than we feel the awareness of what we've accomplished.  So, for me, pausing to list what I've done -- even just counting books read, workshops taken, paintings done, quilts made, etc -- made me realize that I've actually done quite a lot.  That's encouraging and satisfying.

I had the same surprised pleasure when I sat down early last year to make a list of the unfinished quilts I have in my closet, and discovered that the list wasn't as long as I thought it was.  And having them all listed out helped me as I determined which were worthy of finishing and which needed to be abandoned.

My birthday falls on January 31, and although the start of a new calendar year is a significant marker, I've found that using the month of January as a time for reflection and planning and organization has worked well for me.  Plus, this year some big life changes are taking place during January, so by the time my birthday comes my living situation will have changed and things in my daily life will feel significantly different.  So over the coming weeks, I have lots of planning to do.  I'm looking forward to sitting down with my Filofaxes to adjust them for particular purposes, and decorating them to make them more pretty and fun to use, and sorting out goals and projects and task lists.  Many of my goals have to do with changing things around my house -- I want to make some changes to use the space differently and more effectively (so, for example, I can have paint stuff set up in one place and still have a free worktable for sewing and art quilting!)  So I'm not just setting general goals -- I've launched into envisioning changes around the house, and shopping for the things to make those changes possible.   I have a lot I want to accomplish in the coming year!

One of the apps on the Ipad I quite like is called Moodboards, which allows you to create boards combining images and text and graphics for a digital collage.  Here's the one I assembled for 1/1/13:  

You can see it's about being happy and celebrating cheery, cozy comfort at home.

Now, tell me -- what are your goals for the coming year?  And do show me how you've changed your Filofaxes to accomodate them...

By the way, in my email today was an ad for upcoming Potfest pottery festivals -- which brought back a lovely memory of the one we went to together in 2011.  What a lovely day that was! 

love Diane

Where did that creative spark go?

Dear Helen,

I could ignore the fact that our conversation seems to have lapsed, but the struggle to return to creative expression is what I'm going to talk about today, and the silence here is a reflection of that same struggle. But before I go forward talking my own creative life (or lack thereof) I wanted to respond to what you talked about last: the working in a series class you did and how it has affected you.

Now, I happen to know that you are a highly motivated person, and when you are intent on doing something, you do it full tilt. So I have come to know that even without classes to schedule a pace for you or give you assignments, you will charge ahead and make things. It is one of the many things I admire about you, how you set yourself a task and head toward it with great purpose.

But I know, from our non TT4T conversations and from seeing your work, that the series courses you did have helped you grow. I see you doing things differently in your work, even approaching your work differently. It seems to me that you have an attitude that each piece is a learning opportunity and a step in your journey. Is that true? I've told you, as well, that I really like the pieces you did in your course, and looking over the blog I like them even more. I hope you'll write here soon about where they have led you since you posted.

So. Here is the topic I bring up for discussion today: How to find creative energy when you're just not feeling any. You know that matters in my personal life have been absorbing and draining me over the past few months. Ordinarily, doing something creative would have been my mental refuge. In this phase, though, I've not had the energy to even putter. I've done a lot of beating myself up over being lazy and undisciplined and self-indulgent, and I can tell you now that THAT sort of self-talk isn't helpful in the creative motivation department. And of course, if someone asked me about this issue, I'd say what I've heard and read all over: you have to just get in and DO something. Put yourself in your studio and make yourself do something, however dull or uninspired it feels. But somehow that simply didn't take me anywhere.

I must say that I've found that the issues that have affected my personal life have translated into a twitchy, dissatisfied feeling in my creative world. I can't seem to get comfortable in my tiny office/studio. I chafe at the lack of space and have gotten very cranky about not being able to spread out. I've grumbled at not being able to find the supplies I need and know I have, somewhere. I don't like anything I make. It's as if the things I'm struggling with in real life are carrying over to my creative self. Something's not fitting right, and trying to make it work just makes me irritable and frustrated.

So I've turned to a lethargic, listless browsing of blogs and Pinterest and websites in an effort to just soak up things that feel good. Pinterest is an amazing wealth of visual inspiration, and I've let myself get lost in collecting images that please and inspire me. I figure that I'm in a resting, soaking phase. Building an internal foundation, as it were. Hah. Sounds good, huh? But there is something hopeful about looking at the Pinterest images and other creative sources. I'm starting to get a glimmer of a feeling of "I can see using that pattern in something like ..." and I've even pulled out my sketchbook a time or two to make sketches. It's a little step forward, and that's good.

Our recent Twelve by Twelve "maverick" deadline also cornered me into doing something. Deadlines are good that way. I'd mentioned to you that I was playing with a maverick idea for weeks, trying different things, adding bits ... it was feeling horrid and unpleasant and, at the end, it was a big, horrid mess. (I wrote about it here and you can confirm that I am right.) Coming up to the deadline with nothing presentable forced me to retreat to the basics: very simple drawing and then emphasizing it with stitching.

Meanwhile, a group of friends (most of whom I met in an online sketching and painting class) and I decided to give ourself a weekly drawing task, simply to get us drawing. The first "weeklie" topic was Bird, and out of fear of painting a real bird, I resorted to drawing a china figurine that sits in my office.

And oh my, did that feel good! Drawing and painting is very meditative. Especially the drawing part -- which is not so much about making creative decisions but just LOOKING and SEEING and translating that to moving the pencil on the page. It is hand-eye coordination, not deciding what something SHOULD look like, it's trying to see what it actually is.

I'm glad to report that a little logjam of sorts has been broken, and I'm finding myself drawn (ha, pun intended) to my sketchbook to give myself the mental peace of just looking at something and drawing it. I even ventured a try at a real bird:

I'm feeling a sense of relief and pleasure and finding a corner of creativity that's alive in me right now. Phew.

It's not grand. But it feels good.

This afternoon I will head out to Bishop's Ranch for an abbreviated time at the fall retreat. I can only stay for two days before I head off for other commitments (more on that soon) but I know it will feel so good to be here. And I'm hoping that the energy of so many creative women will fan my tiny, re-awakened creative spark. I wish you could be there!

So, tell me -- have you had a period where you just felt devoid of all creative impulses? If so, what did you do? If that hit you, what would you do?

love, Diane

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Drawing on nature

I recently went into a Starbucks in the area (not my most local one) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that they had refurnished it and there are very comfortable lingering spots, it's hardly Cedar Farm, mind you, but I like the ambience. Today, my Practical Design workshop was cancelled (due to too many conflicts and illnesses) so instead I am treating myself to an art afternoon out. What this means is that I've loaded up my basket with the usual assortment of books and journals and IPad and now my watercolor travel kit comes along too.

I had a lovely time browsing around a wonderful used bookstore, it's one of those places where books are wedged in at every angle and the cashier's desk is surrounded by more piles. I have found wonderful treasures there. Today, the Great Find was a beautiful book on animal anatomy for artists which will be under the tree for Caroline at Christmas. Shhh, don't tell her.

You haven posted here in a bit but I know you've been traveling and then returned to work and home and studio renovation ... So, knowing full well how life sometimes gets in the way of blogging, I am forging ahead. I do hope at some point that you'll reply to the post I did last time, about creative process. I'm interested to hear what you think.

But I should get back to the subject of creativity and show you what I have been doing.

This is the 12-inch quilt I made as my entry to Midsomer Quilting's fruit challenge. I've not used this technique for a long time (since my Labikeet portrait of Gemma for Twelve by Twelve, I think.). I enjoyed it tremendously and infound myself thinking of the fabric as paints. That is something fiber people say at times and I've understood the analogy, but I've never really had that specific sense while I was working. Maybe the connection felt more immediate because I am doing a bot of drawing and painting each day.

And speaking of that, I am still surprised by how very much I am loving the process of drawing and painting, I'm reminded of how much I liked playing with watercolors when I took some classes years ago. This past week, our assignment was to choose something from nature, draw and paint it, and then develop some stylized designs inspired by our work with the subject. It was very fun -- and you know, I felt immediately gratified because my usual sketchbook style is drawing lots of stylized designs, one leading to the next to see how many design ideas one inspiration can spawn. I had a brand time with this and here are some of the pages I did:

In fact, I liked this assignment so much I had a hard time moving on to this week's assignment which is to paint backgrounds for new pages using various media. I find the process of just making a background, without making it in the context of what is is for, to be rather boring. But in the interests of learning and trusting the course process, I have been good and done a bunch of different backgrounds. We'll see where they go.

This leads me to a new question: when you take a class, what can a teacher do that inspires you or helps you? What makes a good teacher for creative pursuits, I guess is what I'm asking. I have various thoughts and this online workshop has got me thinking because I'm somewhat disappointed at the instruction that is not happening. But I'm wondering whether some people most like to be left alone with no feedback but lots of "yay! Keep going" sorts of encouragement. Maybe I'm unusual in wanting to be told what isn't right and could be better?

I'll go now and look forward to your update.

Retreating

Dear Helen,

I am taking a break from sorting through the unfinished projects in my closet to write this.  Tomorrow, I'll head off to my twice-yearly quilting retreat at the Bishop's Ranch where I'll be hanging out with many of the ladies pictured above. (And I'll be thinking of you and last October when you came with me!)  Because of all of the chatter and social activity, I tend to use the retreat as a place for piecing things I can do without much concentration.  I might machine quilt a project too. 

I think we are mostly agreed on the quilt title issue.  We both agree that the title can richly enhance one's understanding of the quilt.  I've been thinking of your shock upon learning that at some art quilt competitions, the judges didn't know the title of the quilt when they judged it.  My first reaction was that I thought it reasonable to judge the artwork on the imagery alone.  The artist has chosen a visual medium, after all.  Still, I also agree that  the title conveys or at least adds to what the artist was communicating with the piece, and someone assessing the artwork should know that to assess it. I wonder what non-fiber art competitions do?  It's probably handled differently at different venues, as in the quilt world.

 I like your story of finding the Marrakech postcard in your 2007 journal.  That sounds like what journals SHOULD do, in whatever form they're kept -- provide sparks of inspiration by allowing you to stumbled onto things that you kept or jotted or sketched at another time.  Like you, I'm bowled over by the beauty of some artist's journals ... but I know that putting that much work into a beautiful journal takes time and effort and of course looking at the journal itself as an artful process.  I'm more like you, I think -- my journals are full of sketches and jottings but flipping through them does give me new ideas.

One thing I started doing a while back -- if I sketched something that caught my eye or made a diagram of something that seemed noteworthy, I'd try to then make 4 or 5 more small thumbnail sketches morphing the design into something else.  Distorting it.  Changing shapes,  Using an element differently.  That sort of thing.  And while I've not yet produced quilts from them, I like what's there and I get excited when I see them.  Plus I think the practice at making 5 quick variations from one inspiration is bound to be good for my creative brain.

My tea theme.  I've been working this week on digital embroidery, stitching out the little sketch I digitized last week, then shifting it a bit to improve it, then trying a stitch-out again.  I'm not sure why I now have a stitch-sketch of a tea bag ... other than I just am fascinated by teabags right now and I'm not sure where it will take me.

 Here is my first stitched out image -- which I posted on my individual blog, and got various reactions from folks saying everything from "obviously a teabag" to someone seeing a headless person wearing a sweater which I still can't find for the life of me.  So perhaps it's not the best stitchy sketch but I'm learning and I must say that the process of taking my own image and turning it into automated stitches is rather fascinating.

I have no photos but I also made a first experiment attaching teabag papers (beautifully stained with tea stains) to fabric with matte medium.  Judy Coates Perez has done this to great effect in fiber art collages and I thought I'd give it a try.  So far, I find the matte medium has darkened the fabric where it's been brushed, and looks sort of ... well... like wet parchment on fabric, maybe?  I am trying to channel my inner Kemshall and remember that adding layers can change things dramatically.  So once again I am struggling with the adventure/frustration of not knowing at all where I am going, experimenting with different materials and techniques, and seeing where it takes me.

I figure at some point I will have these little weird experimental bits and the accumulated knowledge will blend and result in the production of a gorgeous piece.  I guess it's like the City and Guilds sampling process.  Well, I'm doing great in the samples department, not so great in the resulting gorgeous work result. Yet.  :-)

The drawing exercises continue and really, I'm finding that at this beginning stage it's still about learning what the pencil will do, how much value and texture you can get with a pencil.  So that's fun.

And, just to keep things exciting, I've signed up for Jane LaFazio's online Sketching and Watercolor class (via Joggles) which starts next week.  I'm hoping that that will nicely complement the drawing lessons and inspire me to use watercolors and colored pencils a bit more regularly.

And speaking of colored pencils, this week I was in an art/craft store and came upon a whole rack of Derwent drawing pencils.  I felt like I'd stumbled onto old friends -- "I just visited your ancestors in your native land," I wanted to say.

I am not doing the SAQA visioning thing.  I can see how it might be useful for some and I can see how it's exactly the sort of goal-oriented thing you love.  

But for this week, I will be basking in the peaceful ranch atmosphere, chattering away with lively friends, and keeping my machine humming.  It is supposed to be a drizzly week so that will make for a nice cozy retreat indeed. 

I will picture you and Dennis happily holed up in Bath, exploring Mr. B's Emporium and having a lovely afternoon tea!  Have a scone (with jam and clotted cream please) for me, and I'll eat an extra corn-lime cookie in your honor!

Hot day, cold tea

Dear Helen,
I am writing this from a Starbucks in Sacramento, where I am spending some air-conditioned contemplation time between a meeting and dinner with a friend. It is hardly Bocboc or Cedar Farm but it is pleasant nonetheless. I have been sipping iced tea and doodling in my journal and looking at a Sandra Meech book (Creative Quilts: Inspiration, Texture and Stitch) for visual stimulation. It is a lovely break on this weirdly hot day.

First, here is the end result of the dyed fabric experiment in texture I was working on last time I posted.

You can see that I did a lot of machine quilting and some coloring with pencil to more strongly define shapes. I'm content to stop here with it. I've called it "Azalea Encore" as it reminds me of a big drift of blooming azaleas. I had a fair amount of discomfort working without a visual destination in mind -- part of this experiment involved just beginning to play with the fabric to see where it took me. And maybe the vaguely dissatisfied feeling I had throughout was because I didn't know where I was going. I think I kept waiting for something exciting to result without actually aiming for it, if you know what I mean. We both know people who work this way -- playing with placing fabric and designing as they go, making decisions about what to add or subtract as they proceed -- and while it was fun, with this at least I felt sort of directionless. I am not sure whether that is because I am used to having some result in mind.

But it brings me to your thoughts about wanting the work to tell, or at least suggest, a story to you. I do not look at work that way, at least not consciously, and I don't think of my own work in that way. But upon thinking about this issue, I realize that I look for a piece to raise a question for me, or invoke a curiosity that makes me want to keep looking at it.
You and I have discussed several times whether an art quilt's title is a necessary component to the piece. I know that you want to know the name of a piece, and you give titles to your art quilts that define or round out the story you are telling. This makes perfect sense to me in light of your interest in finding the story in a piece of art. I think I'm different about this though and the story issue highlights why for me. I want the art piece, on its own, to be the communication -- if the title or description explains or clarifies, that's a bonus. But to me, if you need to know the title for the piece to succeed, then to me the piece needs work. Maybe we are saying the same thing, really --we both think a piece needs to succeed visually first and foremost, but the added meaning (or story, if you will) from the title or other information adds something deeper. What do you think?

I have followed a few creative detours this week. You know that I homeschool my teenaged daughter, and this term she wanted some formal drawing instruction. After looking at various books and online materials, and keeping in mind that my daughter learns well from being shown things visually, I have signed up with a website called Drawing Tutorials Online. For a monthly fee, you get access to video drawing lessons from a NYC art school instructor, and they work on basic art school drawing technique. I have been doing the lessons along with her, which has been fun. These lessons focus on pencil drawing, and so far we have been working on achieving light, medium, and dark values in line and tone drawings. Some of the lessons involve figure drawing, which is especially interesting as I have had a bit of a block about drawing people. When I am home I will have to post one of my figure drawings.  Okay, here's one from this past week...

Also, I have detoured into learning a bit about digitizing my own images for machine embroidery. I was so taken with seeing how Laura Kemshall incorporated machine embroidery into her art quilts to add texture, or stitch repeated elements, and I was encouraged by how accessible she made it sound. I have downloaded digitizing software and I've been working through tutorials to learn how it works, and this week I took a stab at digitizing a line drawing I'd done. I have thoughts of stitching a sketch repeatedly to use it in a quilt or series of quilts so I've been taking baby steps in that direction. When I get home I will make my first attempt at stitching out a design onto fabric to see how it goes.

My tea is gone and it's time to head outside now, so that's all for now. I look forward to hearing what you have been up to!