Behind this old adage, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, is a literal truth. On art quilt-ralted social media pages I fairly often see comments or pleas for help that have obviously resulted from a maker using a new (to them) technique or a material for the first time, and I suspect that this is one main reason people just give up on a project and move on to the next one. Taking some time to make samples first is a good investment in a project.
In the last few weeks I have made quite a few samples while planning a quilt to be made in wool to enter in Art Quilt Australia. I don’t normally work in wool, but the lovely piece I bought late last year is almost sufficiently delightful to work with to prompt me to totally ditch my stash of cotton fabrics so favoured by art quilters. I’ve been living in Uruguay for some years now, and the almost complete absence of cottons in the market place here has long prompted me to consider the textile art potential of almost every other fabric I encounter, with the guiding priniciple ‘work with what’s around you’. While looking for something else late last year, I stumbled across this fabulous metallic finish polyester, and on impulse bought some. I can’t imagine wearing it as it would be very body-clinging (and mine’s a bit lumpy to appear in public wearing it) and probably would be too sweat making for yoga pants or dance pants… and it’s not nearly robust enough for upholstery. But never mind, my impulsive purchase of this glittery fabric helped the store get rid of a bit of it.
While comparing rayon and wool threads, I was sure the impact would come from the wool being cut back to reveal the metallic – reverse applique.
Two weeks ago I wrote “From handling just this one sample, I now know that (1) I’m open to ditching the metallic and using another fabric to show behind the top wool layer (2) Whatever fabric shows through those holes, it really needs to be a complete layer between the front and the back as in reverse applique, the finest examples of which are the molas of the Kuna people of San Blas Is., off the coasts of Panama and Colombia.“
But I’ve since found that (1) I’m more committed than ever to the metallic fabric, and (2) further sample making showed that the same impact is more elegantly presented by direct applique, not reverse aplique. That’s also good news as less of the fabric will be used up/wasted by being hidden between layers 🙂
Another important phase of experimentation with ideas – the looped and straggling strands I really love…
Blobs of metallic on the surface with cutouts of the same fabric on top of each; hand stitch around each unit. Black machine satin stitch holds both layers in place, but won’t show with looped wool placed on top (LR).
Because I still had some reservations about which threads to use, I continued experimenting :
Fine straight uncluttered stitches appealed most. Threads used -were LH #12perle, RH rayon .
And arrived at this final version, and happy with the result, am now well advanced with making this new work:
And the final version – with radiating stitches in rayon.
Conclusion – simpler is better, and the block of black zigzag is really quick and easy to remove, giving an interesting effect which I’ll exploit further another time.
Every year SAQA calls for applications from art quilters who wish to work with a mentor to guide their development in some aspect of their art quilt practice towards a self identified goal, and a new mentoring year is just underway. For several years now, I’ve volunteered to mentor someone, because it’s one of the several ways that I can contribute to the organisation, and as a mentee progresses towards their goals it gives me satisfaction, too.
I haven’t always found it completely rewarding, though: my first mentee just faded off into the distance around June, without announcing to me, or SAQA, that she was quitting for any reason – suddenly there was just silence, which left me feeling a bit of a failure. The following year my allocated mentee asked for another mentor! which was actually quite a relief, as she was difficult and I think had unrealistic expectations about her committment. The next one, who was really doing very well, suddenly got totally snowed under by an avalanche of adult children’s needs, and though she said ‘I’ll get back to you when things calm down.’, for all I know she is still struggling with all that, because I never heard from her again. Perhaps she had to realign her priorities permanently.
In the past couple of years I’ve had very rewarding mentorships, with women who were articulate and understood their strong motivations; and each consistently worked on their goals during each of our times together. My new mentee and I do not yet know each other beyond the facts on her application form and whatever she read on my volunteer form, the details of which I now don’t remember exactly. I’m sure it will be an interesting year as she sounds articulate, realistic and motivated.
Although I am a former teacher, it is not a teaching position, it’s more one of directing the mentee where to look for the information or technical learning they identify they want/need, of responding with critique when asked, and sharing experience about things like writing artist statements, or some things to do in their studio practice that could help in some way.
Volunteer members contribute by sharing experience, support and advice to fellow members who’ve identified one or several areas of their art practice which they wish to develop, and I’ve found the most frequently expressed goal is wanting to find their own unique ‘voice’. This is more than just developing a particular ‘style’ though. An artist speaks through her work, and developing her own voice involves thinking about personal things, motivations and inspirations, and on developing understanding about whatever it is that the artist holds strong views about, or is deeply interested in. It’s a path of discovery which, once you’re on it, always suggests new steps to take, keeping you moving forward…. and this is a large part of why I write my blog. As my artist’s diary, my posts here record my thinking and that’s part of the documentation of my body of work.
I recently suggested to someone struggling with all this that perhaps it would be a good idea to start a new Word.doc for each new work. I suggested she write in it without any intent to publish anywhere, but to use it to give a frame of reference, a skeleton for more thought about where her work is heading, adding into it any thoughts about why she wants design this work, the technique options, emerging title ideas, lists of relevant words, phrases and possible quotes; research links to facts, a picture or two or work in progress; a sentence on what’s on her mind as she works. From now on this will be one of my key recommendations to anyone who asks for help finding their voice.
My current new work is yet another with a grid layout. I’ve said before that grids really appeal to me, and although I attribute that to enduring influence from my brief immersion in the world of traditional geometric patchwork, and could declare QED, I am currently thinking more deeply about ‘grids’ as in my previous post.
Browsing in Pinterest just now, I came across some really interesting surface design grids in varous media and pinned several. This one instantly reminded me of the wonderful heavily stitched cross hatched lines on layers of fabric by Irish textile artist Patricia Kelly, whose website I visited. Although I wasn’t surprised at all her wonderful portfolio, what stood out to me was that while I’ve been closely following her work there and on Instagram I’ve become very influenced by certain technical characteristics and begun to embrace them in my own, like irregularity of all kinds including hanging threads and rough, unfinished, and torn edges. These are not the sole preserve of Kelly’s work, of course, but seeing it all displayed together made me aware of how close I could get to ‘style copying’ without realising it. However, on reflection, I realised that such characteristics appear in the works of so many of the textile artists whose work I currently admire most, including Anita Romano, Shelley Rhodes, Cas Holmes, Dorothy Caldwell, Roberta Wagner, Rieko Koga and more. Without claiming equal celebrity status with such well known names, it is clear we and many others are part of a strong current trend in contemporary hand stitched art in which all kinds of lines, shapes and textures, frequently unruly or suggesting incompetence, are used to produce our artistic statements, unlike the pursuit of the highst standards of technical excellence most prized in the world of traditional embroideries.
I’m working on a quilt that is laid out in a slightly organic looking grid. Repeated blocks of geometric designs or other kinds of units, laid out in a grid like pattern, are an enduring influence in my art dating from my brief immersion in traditional American patchwork in the late 80s. While I’m still a long way from finishing this quilt, it is the time to be thinking of a title. I’ve used the phrase “rules based disorder” on this blog previously but there may be another possibility. So far my list includes these :
reasonable order
rules based disorder
normal order
regular disorder
unusual disorder – but as I think about more words (below) this list will lengthen.
Exploring the concept of a grid that is so important to my view of the world, I found these interesting words, synonyms for the general word ‘grid’ that is either a physical structure or a linear expression of some kind. ‘Grids’ are all around us as points of reference, communication or guidance. The next few interesting words include some I’d never known existed!
Decussion sounded interesting, but I’m not sure if it is relevant here – it belongs to the world of human anatomy, viewing a cross section of the spinal chord and the medulla oblongata…. but then, perhaps this sample does open a door to using it? Hmmm …
The word Network takes us into the whole area of connection between living things via some means of communication (of which there are now so many, and currently reading a fascinating book Nexus, by Yuval Noah Harari – so a title could well spring off my Kindle page soon!
Graticule is another nice sounding word, a cartographic term which you can google and re-google for the rest of the day and possibly still make it home in time for dinner.
Plexus anatomically refers to the interconnecting and branching networks of nerves and vessels in the body, but in international affairs it means an interconnecting network. Now I know.
Matrix has wide ranging applications in physics, biology, geology, and essentially refers to an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure. Interesting…
Reticulum the simplest difinition I could find is that it’s a natural structure that resembles a net or web, like the veins in a leaf or the network of fibers in a cell. Everywhere I looked I saw references to the second stomach of ruminant animals including cows and sheep – think tripe – and as I don’t care for tripe much, I’ll leave it right there.
After quite a bit of experimentation, these last few samples of the day were the most interesting, in which I achieved the goal of messier stitching, an important element in my overall theme.
Making these samples helped me think about the order of making, too:
stitch in whatever grid lines I finally decide on
place the pewter metallic blob with a black wool blob on top of that onto each point in the grid layout I finally decide on 🙂
and baste them into place
add the textures and stitches detail to each blobs unit
add the wool back
quilt – decide between contrasting thread, or in black, by hand or machine…. and I’m sure by the time I’m at that point, I will know what the quilt needs.
edge finish – bound or raw/unfinished? Again, I’ll know when I get to that point.
Now all I have to do is decide on the grid. It will be irregular, whatever I choose –
vertical/horizontal
mesh-like lines
so I think I’ll make another cup of tea and toss a coin – best of 3.
So many ideas, so little time! With several important calls for entry in mind, plus visitors and possibly some travel looming in the middle months of the year, I’m starting some new works. It’s really quiet in the neighbourhood, and many of our friends are along the coast or out of the country – with regular activities in summer recess. In a recent post I wrote a goal in my current planning: “These new works need to reflect my current focus on texture and grids of a kind…” and yesterday I spent quite a bit of time reviewing recent and early works plus those all important samples that I never throw away. In the last few years I’ve photographed them as I went along and often posted them on FB or Instagram. But there are others – and I’ll go through the large tote-bag of samples to make sure I didn’t forget one snippet of an idea to consider.
Another important part of my process is to look through my Pinterest pins.I have a board labelled ‘Grids!’, and from those 200+ images I’ve saved several in a Word document labelled “Grid Ideas” The images are cropped to capture just the essence of that particular grid idea, which also saves printer ink!
Why grids? A grid layout is perhaps the most prominent infuence in my art from the brief time I spent making traditional patchwork quilts. Next comes my love of pieced fabrics in basic geometric shapes, aka patchwork, and the use of hand stitched textures that I’ve loved since I was very young. Somewhere I reached understanding that a grid pattern represents order and stability. Ancient mapmakers and surveyors understood the importance of a grid as a framework of reference on direction and distance. Laws and social customs provide important written and spoken frames of reference for groups of people. In today’s turbulent world long-accepted frames of reference, those international agreements and laws plus rule of law in various countries, collectively known as rules based order, have begun disintegrating in some regions. Perhaps I heard someone say it… or maybe my mind started thinking of a wonky, crooked grid as a sign of ‘rules based disorder’ … as recently I’ve made several small pieces with this title. There will be more off-kilter grids, and I’m aiming for lines and stitched textures to be messy, too – because as I wrote on October 24th last: “A life can be long or short, and it can be a smooth continuum, but it is more likely to be untidy in places, occasionally punctuated by upheavals or mistakes at some points along the way. Fabric marked by stitches is a statement or an exploration of something on the artist’s mind, and, just like a life, a stitchery can have messy stops, starts and changes of directions, stitches or threads along the way.”
Selecting, auditioning and deleting got the word document down to 3 pages which I printed off to take up to my workroom. Those pages look like this one –
The above examples uses only images of my own works, but the 3 sheets compiled from my research contains these and several more examples of how others have used the concept of ‘grid’ as a layout. It’s then up to me to work out how I’m going to use techniques I know and/or love to combine them into cohesive works.
English