Reentering my studio practice post-Summer fun required some tidying up and putting away. Today I finally put away the puppets and lanterns from Country Fair that had been waiting since July to be stashed away in the back corners of my storage. I also finished ironing and rolling the long piece of silk that I brought to Burning Man.

I washed the silk before putting it away since it was exposed to the alkaline dust of the playa and also smoke from the fire. I figure the ironing took between 6 and 8 hours to iron all 150 feet of it! Quite the meditation. I split it up, doing a little bit each time I was in the studio. Today I was ready for it to be done so that I could open up the space and move forward into new work.

But because I haven’t been in a big hurry to get it done I’ve been able to appreciate the fabric as I went along. I often feel when I work with my fabrics that I’m reading them like maps. Because this piece of fabric is so long and because I did the ironing over days, it felt more like reading a novel. The colors were the characters and the marks were plot developments. Like many a novel, it had parts that were better than others and it did sort of bog down in the middle. But overall, although it’s not for everyone, I can recommend it.

the plot thickens . . .

a happy ending