Category Archives: process of becoming an artist

And The Winner Is

      When I get to a certain point making these improvisational quilts, I ask myself the same question. Who is going to win: the quilt or I? Now, being a fairly determined person, I hate to lose.

     So, the story of this little quilt began when I purchased a group of fat quarters from another hand dyer, Sue Cortese. I usually dye solids so all these luscious little pieces of multicolored fabrics were calling to me. I even dragged them with me to the last class and occasionally petted them thinking of what could be made. They just said the colors of fall to me. And I wanted to make a ribbon quilt so it seemed a perfect thing to make that would be quick.

    My first mistake was making a prediction that anything involving quilting would be quick. Twenty some years later you would think I know that  making a quilt is anything but quick. A month ago I started this very simple piece.

   This was about the 57th revision. I have totally removed another section which had no relevance and wasn’t even the same color. (Just temporary color blindness I have reminded myself. ) A loving child asked me  what kind of chaos was I trying to crate at that point so that portion was removed. She said it was only slightly better after that portion was removed… I asked for no more comments please. ( Ok, she said it was no less ugly is the real truth.)

Falling Leaves
34×36, 2011

   I also ignored the fact that some long strips were looking very skewed. Now, sometimes skewed is good. But obviously some are very straight and one are skewed. So, skewed here is not ok. It should have been randomly skewed.

   But after many re-sews and cuts, I have declared myself the winner and the quilt the winner as well. A tie. The quilt wants to be crooked in spot where I don’t want it to be.  But I finally just let it be what it wanted to be.

    And I win because I actually finished piecing this thing and enjoy some of the fabrics. The top is done where a year ago I would have given up. Crooked but done. I will eventually quilt it. I just need a teensy break from it.

    So, I remind myself not to make predictions of how long it will take to complete a piece. If stuck, move on. And, sometimes, it’s ok to let the quilt win. Or tie. 🙂 I am more than ready to move on to the next thing.

    Be creative, my fiends.

Coffee and Used Bookstores

     Other than fabric, two of my other favorite things are used bookstores and independent coffee shops. First, the cup of coffee and then a trip to the bookstore . There is really nothing better than snooping around a used bookstore pretending as if I have all the time in the world to read many, many books.  I don’t at all mind that kind of dusty smell and messy piles of books on the floor or piled high to the ceiling on shelves.  Thumbing through one of the shelves last week or the week before, I found a wonderful book.

 What a beautiful cover for this hardcover book. I have a particular fondness for hardcover books and I will not sell or pass on any of them. I know many people think I am silly when you can put it on a book reader but I love my books I can hold in my hands.

These color swatches in preparation for dyeing are lovely.

Why wouldn’t I have done this before I dye?  I cut a small piece of fabric (sometimes…) after I dye but what a great resource this would be if I took the time to do it before I dye.

I ordered another book (suggested by Nellie Durand in her blog tutorials) from the huge internet place in the sky. It is a great resource book and maybe will help me in my quest to understand color better.

   

The older books seem to contain more art theory contained in them rather than a specific artist’s technique to approaching color. Feels like I need more of the basics at this point. Both used books were purchased at low prices even with the shipping I had to pay on the last book.

Give an old book new home, my friends and you might learn something new! Don’t forget the coffee when you sit down.

Soaking It All Up and Inspired

     I did. I just soaked up every minute of the Barn last week for the Improvisations class given by Nancy Crow. It was a tough class for me-quick paced and some of the art concepts were obviously things I hadn’t really thought of fully before I design a quilt. Or even knew.

   Nancy divides the class into a series of exercises which need to be completed in a specific amount of time. Some of the exercises are done in black and white and some in color. I was really worried about this class but went into it with this attitude:  each exercise given to us to- was just an exercise. Not a wonderful quilt that I would produce but an exercise I would learn from. I did complete most of the exercises but failed miserably at the middle one. Obviously one I need to re-do here at home. I won’t tell you  more about these specific exercises but I will tell you this:

1. I learn more at my one week workshops at the Barn than I ever did in a semester of college. Ask others and they will say the same.

2. It is absolutely wonderful to share time with others who have the same goals and interests. And laugh with them. Making art is lonely and a sharp contrast to what I did before with people every minute I was working.  I didn’t realize how lonely I was!

3. Nancy, her family and Margaret Wolf work together and give above and beyond to make this a great learning experience. Nancy spent a considerable amount of time with us and for that I am truly grateful.

4. Yes, I did sew spending from 7:30 am -10pm  there working away. Uninterrupted time except for meals. Wonderful meals.

Working on a black and white composition
another  work in process 

5. Carol Soderlund was teaching a surface design class there at the same time. It was a treat to see what that class did and see Carol’s happy face. I think one of Carol’s classes will be next in line for me.

6. Set aside comparing yourself to others and what they are doing. You can’t be at any other place than where you are currently are at in your artmaking.

     I am grateful to have had this opportunity. If you have a chance to go to the Barn, don’t hesitate to go. The experience will exceed your expectations. And that expectation should be about learning as much as you can and not about producing the miracle piece.

     Be inspired, my friends- I am over the top inspired. And a little tired.

What About My Art?

     Yes, I have been spending a lot of time looking at art, but what have I been doing this week as far as my work is concerned?

     I spent the week cataloging or organizing each piece I have made in the past two and a half years. I found a program that is super easy to use called Flick. I struggled for about 6 months trying to learn excel on my own. Oh for pete’s sake-sometimes I wonder what I was wasting so much time on. I re-photographed some of the pieces so they have “real” pictures. Everything that is completed is priced and has been photographed. And a pile has been made of those that are unfinished and deemed worth the time to finish. Others have been let go of-trashed or cut up for other things.. What a great thing to let go of unfinished junk! In the end, I had 46 finished pieces. It was an overwhelming task to tackle before the 30$ purchase of this program. I refuse to think about all the valuable time I wasted before trying to do this on my own.

     My inventory list also served as a way to prepare a short presentation for my class next week. (Where I came from and where I am at right now.) I really hate public speaking-really hate it but want to act like a mature adult and do a good job. Let’s hope I don’t cop out as it is optional.  This whole inventory list really helped me to see a chronological history of my work-what works and what doesn’t work.

    Also, spent time machine quilting. Machine is back in working order and did so well I kept going and didn’t realize  I had a huge wrinkle quilted on the back. I’ll sit and remove it tonight while I watch some baseball. ( Love the Tigers for ripping out bad seams and bad quilting.) I really want to get it done before I leave on Sunday but that feels overly ambitious.

     Then, I have been obsessively cutting stamps out of erasers and stamping black on white with Setacolors paint. And monoprinting. Obsessively. For as much as I hated black and white a few weeks ago, I crave it now. Crisp, truth-telling and beautiful. I am just going with this obsession for now. I’ll let you know where it leads me.

Be creative, my friends.

Looking For The Road

     I really am not looking forward to the next class I am registered for. And I knew, that as my week passed, I really better have an attitude adjustment. It wasn’t the amount of work or the inability to want to stretch a little further. I kept thinking about what my problem was with the class and after quite a bit of time wasted on figuring out my dread really was, I finally figured it out.  Two dreaded words: black and white.

     I know the first exercise will be working in black and white. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. So, the only cure for my dread: get out the black and white fabric and get to work. I wear black all the time. So what is the problem?

     With a black and white piece, you can see all the design flaws up close and personal.

      Keep going. Keep going. Get it out anyway. Make a small piece and move on from there. So, I did.

Looking For The Road
12×20 , 2011

    I even finished it. Just to remind myself that black and white isn’t so scary even though you can see all the design flaws.  I see what I don’t like but I also see what I do like.  It is a start.

    Be creative, my friends.

Friday Finish:Looking Through the Lens :#2

     Well , I guess maybe a finish. I struggled this week to just barely finish piecing this. I am not very excited about this because I felt so RUSTY.

Looking Through The Lens #2 2011 (unquilted)

     I have learned something very important though.  Never stop working. Just keep going with some part of the process. I kept justifying the dyeing as part of the process. It  is. But the designing and actual production of my design is the part that must be done -for me. All the time.  I see many things about this I don’t like but it’s a start and I will finish this one. And I will keep going with this series.

     Just felt good to keep pushing through. In just fifteen minute increments this week, I was able to do it. My oldest is moved back to college and the younger kids go back to school on Monday. I am ready for a regular schedule as much as I have enjoyed my summer.

     Be creative, my friends. I can hardly wait.

On My Summer Reading List

     A few good books from my summer beach bag:

     This is one of my favorite books: The Creative Habit by Twlya Tharp. This explains how hard you need to work and how disciplined you need to be to forge ahead. I wrote in it, marked it up and wrote things in my journal after I read each chapter. Now, I am not really good at being consistent about journal writing so it must have been convincing. If you haven’t  read it, I highly recommend it. ( I really detest self-help books because it just makes me mad I would need soo much help. 🙂 There is a difference between self-help and education, right?)

     Another good book and reasonably priced.  I didn’t move on to fabric with any of the principles in the book but I will.  Black and white paper in my sketchbook worked just fine for some of these exercises. Notan by Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield .

      The next and last book I conquered was Wild Color by Jenny Dean. THE BEST BOOK on natural dyeing.

  
      I found this book in Vermont and it is the new updated edition of 2010. It  has nice step by step directions, great explanations and gives you the ability  to achieve specific colors by adding different mordants.

     As lovely as other books are on natural dyeing, it has always remained a bit of a mystery. This book breaks it down into repeatable steps with the variable being your natural material. A very big variable but it made me want to keep trying small experiments of natural dyeing to add to my toolbox. And with fall coming it will be fun to try more natural dyeing.

      Very specific instructions and great pictures.  I am glad I purchased this as it will be a great reference book.  Even though I didn’t make many pieces this summer , I kept pushing along! Also read many just for fun and my favorite leisure reading book had to be : Unbroken by Laura Hilldenbrand. I read it in less than 48hours.

      So what are you reading ?

     Be creative, my friends. No word on Mom yet-thanks for all your kind words and prayers!

One

     If one would be thinking too much about how nice it would be to have one’s own style or voice and not yet have it, one might be discouraged and create no art.

    If one would be thinking too much about what one read recently about one’s work looking too much like another’s work or in a specific style that too recognizable , one might not make any work because it didn’t feel like what they were making was very original.

     If one felt they weren’t making any progress, then one might not make time to work or make it a priority.

    If one thought that dyeing alot of fabric to work with was plenty of work, one would not make any art. She already did enough for the day.

    If it was too hot and there was too much company last week, so what a perfect excuse to make no art.

    Just excuses, aren’t they?  Being much more honest with myself, I find it hard to return to making things after I have had a break. Much easier to keep something going. I don’t care who my work looks like right now because I just need to keep going and keep creating. I looked back at some famous ones earlier works and they all look the same. I hope never to criticize others who are working through it in the early phases of their work-no matter who they work with, how they work with and what they work with.

    I did stitch last night. I am back in my own barn today making my own marks on fabric.

    Be creative, my friends and keep moving ahead. And don’t think too much while  you do it because you might end up being your own worst enemy !

Finding Out More About Myself

     I signed up and took part in two workshops at the Vermont Quilt Festival: Small Silk  works by Sonya Lee Barrington and Introduction to Long arm Quilting by Debbie Brown. Both are excellent teachers with an eye for detail and great skill in making you feel at ease in a workshop and getting the information to you in a clear manner.

   The first class was a day long workshop and I took it primarily to see how to work with silks. I had dyed a bunch this past winter and before I cut into the silks , I wanted to know what I was doing.  Sonya makes beautiful pieces large and small, purses and many of her pieces are framed very nicely. The packet of dupioni silks were gorgeous that we used for the class kit and the instructions well written.

     I was a diligent student opening the packet and piecing things together as the pattern indicated but by about 1 pm, I could do no more. I am now officially an improvisational piecer.  I can’t use a pattern anymore. I don’t want to use a pattern is more accurate.  There was not a scrap of my brain that wanted to use a pattern.  I think she thought I was crazy when I spent the last hour just piecing randomly as everyone was dealing with tiny one inch pieces which fit so nicely together. 

It doesn’t look a thing like the pattern above, does it? I couldn’t do it. 
I do appreciate and admire people who can use a pattern. I am too far gone I guess !  I learned how to do a Y seam, how to fuse pellon 880 f to make the silk easier to handle while sewing but most importantly I learned something about myself as a studio artist : I don’t want to -use a pattern and I am not at all about precision anymore. A sketch- yes, a pattern- no.  I am not sure why this was such a revelation to me but it was.

    Then on Saturday, I took an intro to long arm quilting workshop . I had it in the back of my mind that maybe this was a route I wanted to take. 
      Buy a long arm machine( money is a slight issue- 😉 and be a quicker worker producing oodles of artwork. Oh where do I dream these things up? Now, I tried a big machine for about ten minutes. I knew right then and there, it is not what I want to do either. Too big for me. I don’t want to have to add another tool  to learn to use, maintain or justify. It just wasn’t me-right now. 

     I spent I think about 100 dollars to learn these things about myself.  I could feel really guilty about that. But I figure it was much less than a semester at a local art college taking a 4 credit class that would have cost a lot more and been more painful to finish. Or a huge expensive sewing machine…

     Oh the things I am learning about myself thorough this whole process!!!

     Thanks for listening to this very long post .  Slow down and enjoy the journey. I think I need to. It was a relief to eliminate some things and not wonder if I was missing something. 🙂

      Slow down and enjoy the journey, my friends.

Making Marks and Processing

     I spent some time visiting this week with art friends. On Tuesday , I met a friend Elizabeth for coffee and shared what I had learned at the Barn workshop. She is so enthusiastic and it’s nice to be able to share with her. And sharing with her helped me to clarify what I had learned and what techniques I really didn’t want to focus on. I came home and looked through my box of supplies and you know what tools I liked the best?

Simple things: a credit card for scraping thickened dyes on, foam rollers I cut into, a dishpan scrubber, the cheapo one dollar paintbrush with some bristles chopped off…..

 A spreader with great edges

A piece of plexi-glass with duct tape on it. I used it for mono-printing.

a piece of a plastic doormat
foam rollers

 

a needle nose bottle with a plastic tip
     I found I liked the simple things you can find at your local hardware store or scrounge from a workbench. 
     I spent some more time sorting fabric and completing my inventory for fabric dyeing this week. And beginning to pack for Vermont. I leave next Wednesday and I am trying to be reasonable with what I really want to accomplish this summer. Also, I do this after every workshop. Just kind of stop and ramble around until I might process what I have learned. Maybe it’s being overstimulated. Don’t know but I am not fighting it this time. Some hand stitching usually moves me on. 
     Talk about being overstimulated-had lunch with the wonderful Nellie and her niece Diane. More about that later.
     Be creative, my friends!