Category Archives: Work in Progress

Summer Camp

It feels strange to be spending so much time on a project that isn’t in line with my “work”. I feel like I keep having to defend it to myself, and I’m a little embarrassed to share it. But really, I’m having a great time doing it. And you never know where things will lead.

I was telling Anna and Paul McKee, my studio-mates, that it’s like being at Summer Camp in my studio these days. Only instead of making a basket, I’m making a giant bird that I’m going to set on fire. Kind of freeing, really.

The bird shape is complete for now. I still need to able to remove the wings for travel so am not adding any additional structure around the shoulder girdle. I’m still adding detail on the wings and may add some around the neck. My daughter Vida was at the studio today helping me tie raffia around all the joins. Still plenty of work to be done and I haven’t started on the nest yet.

the work table

now that it's got eyes it needs a name.

wing detail

Building a Bird

Yesterday, having gotten both wings pretty much together, I had to decide whether to keep adding details to them or to go on to figuring out the body. I knew that going on to the overall structure was the right next step but I just didn’t feel like it. I went ahead and started on it by making shapes for the body and the head but got frustrated. It was hard. And it was a beautiful day outside. And I didn’t want to be inside. And I was cranky.

So I gave myself permission to take a day off. I spent a lovely afternoon in my garden reading and smelling the heliotrope. Aaah, just what Dr. Cameron ordered.

This morning I was able to come back and start over with a fresh mind and new perspective. And instead of being frustrating it was a fun and challenging puzzle to figure out.

I started with the basic shapes I had made the day before and joined them together to make the head, neck and body. It took some time because it was all about getting the proportions right. I didn’t want to make a mistake at this point and have to spend a lot of time later going back and fixing it.

Once I got those shapes together I made the base. I made a tripod out of bamboo poles and fixed them into a heavy, round, wooden platter I found at Value Village (along with some fabulous red platform boots!). I drilled out divots for the poles to sit in and tacked them with hot glue. So far, so good. The time spent doing the drawings and the macquette really paid off. It all went together pretty much the way I had planned and the proportions are all working.

At this point I realized I needed to reorganize the space in my studio–this thing was getting big! My big table space is made up of two tables side by side and covered with laminate. So I moved everything to the side and now have a big(ish) space in the middle of the room.

The biggest challenge continues to be making it in a way that it can be taken apart for transport and reassembled once I get to Burning Man. After today, I think the body with tail won’t be fixed onto the base until we get there. Otherwise it will be too hard to get the wings attached. Any way I do it it’s going to be a little tricky but should be much easier with a second (or third) set of hands than it was bracing and tieing it myself today.

I got as far as framing out the legs and adding some form on the legs, chest and bill. Next is working on the tail. It’s looking a little lopsided at the moment. But basically I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out.

Taking Wing

Yesterday, after drawing and reading about bird wings and feathers and tails, I decided it was finally time to stop preparing and just start on this Fire Bird project. There’s only so much planning you can do before it becomes a way to avoid getting started. Not to say that research isn’t valuable, but after a point it can become procrastination. The questions I still had needed to be answered with my hands on the materials.

framework over full size drawing

So I started.

It was a little rough figuring out working with the reed but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it. I started with the wings because they are basically two dimensional. Once I finish them I should know the material well enough to move into the three dimensional body. One of the trickier issues is that I want to make it in parts and do the final assembly once I arrive to make it easier to transport.

But that’s in the future. For now, I’m happy with the way the wings are coming along.

two days work, two wings

Hatching Plans

I’ve been incubating plans for the Fire Bird for Burning Man (and trying out as many bird puns as I can in here in the blog). I’m going to make it using bent reed which is a new material for me. I’ve used it a little bit to make lanterns, which is basically what the Fire Bird will be, minus the skin of paper. I have friends that have worked with it pretty extensively, Sarah Lovett has made some quite large scale kinetic sculptures for the Solstice Parade and my friend Nicole has shown me how she uses it to make luminaries. So I’m not quite flying without a net but definitely figuring it out as I go.

First step was a trip to NW Cane Supply, just North of 80th on 15th NW, where I picked up some #7 and #5 round reed and had an amusing chat with the guy who works there. Next step was to test dyeing the reed. I followed the really simple instructions in the Dharma Trading Co. catalog and it dyed up beautifully.

Yesterday I came up with a drawing I liked but felt I needed a maquette to figure out the scale and determine the amount of materials. I don’t want to start dyeing the reed until I know how about how much I’ll need. So today I made a maquette out of really basic materials: pipe cleaners and bamboo skewers. It helped to get my hands on some three-dimensional materials. I can only go so far with drawing, everything starts to make more sense once I start moving it into three-dimensions.

I’m feeling much more confident about the project now. There’s still a lot to learn and I’m very much flying (!) by the seat of my pants but it seems to be the way I always work. I wouldn’t go buy reed and learn how to use it unless I had a project it was going toward. And it’s pretty low pressure gig, I am going to burn it when it’s finished, after all.

And now . . .

I’ve just gotten confirmation that I’m going to be doing an installation in Center Camp at Burning Man. This year’s theme is Rites of Passage. I’m excited about it because it’s another try for me to find a way to bring my art to Burning Man. The festival is near and dear to me but it’s just not a soft and squishy fiber art kinda place. I’m hoping that the structure of Center Camp will create a more protected space and also a place to focus on smaller installations.

I’ll be using the 150-foot-long piece of silk I dyed for BM a few years ago. I’m going to drape it like a valance across a 12 foot pole that spans the entrance to an alcove formed where the shade cloth comes down to the ground. I’ll be making a Fire Bird, or Phoenix, effigy out of rattan, paper, and perhaps some fabric. People will be able to add remembrances and stories of transformation to the effigy over the course of the week. Saturday night after the Man burns, we will take down the fabric, unwind it from its pole, and process with the fabric and effigy to the remains of the Man fire. There we will cast it into the flames and the Phoenix will be consumed by the fire.

Or something like that.

Washed Up

It’s at this time, when faced with 18 yards of waxy silk, that I wonder “What was I thinking?”

The wash out is always a chore. The soy wax washes out completely in hot water and soap which is much better than the old days of ironing out wax between newspaper and never getting the residue out without dry cleaning. But it takes a lot of work, a lot of hot water, and makes a mess.

And I was very unhappy to find that the biggest panels didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. I was looking for spirals of warm yellows and orange on a background of rich reds. It turns out my waxed spiral designs with their expressive brush strokes didn’t hold up to the dye and all I got were yellow splotches. Bummer.

So I redid the spirals with much bolder wax lines and overdyed with darker reds. The fabric actually turned out really well, but I hadn’t budgeted time for that extra step. So I have been humping the last few days to get it done. Sewing my little fingers off while my hubbie did all the gathering, packing, and errand running for the rest of the installation. And tonight we got them done in time to finish the rest of the packing before we hit the road for Oregon tomorrow.

I think they turned out pretty well.

I’m Dyeing, Already!

Next layer is dyeing. I used the dyes in a thin solution and, because I’m doing a direct application, I used urea in the chemical water along with my fix mix of soda ash buffered with baking soda. I used two different blues on the Water fabric but three dyes each on the Sun and the Earth. I used big brushes and it goes pretty fast but it’s a workout moving all that fabric around. This is where it would be nice to have a bigger studio where I could lay out three yards of fabric at a time. Oh well, I’ve figured out ways to do it over the years and I make it work.

Wax On

The next step is waxing designs onto the silks. This is the fun part. It’s like drawing with wax. It’s also a little nerve wracking because it’s pretty final. You can wash out the wax but it takes a lot of work and, in this case, there’s no time. So spirals, leaves, and waves then on to the next layer of dye.

New Lanterns

I’ve been working on a new project for my installation at the Oregon County Fair. Each year we take our hippie selves out of the closet and go down to Veneta, Oregon to take part in the Fair. This will be the fourth year that we’ve created a “Living Room” called Yew Are Here. It’s a non-commercial open space where people can rest and regroup before hitting the next show, getting some food, or checking out the next craft booth. For me, it’s a chance to show my art in an environment I really love.

002 The Tower Lanterns I’ve been using as the centerpiece of the space have been getting a bit worn and frayed, especially after the big rainstorm of 2009. I either needed to spend some time rehabbing them or make something new of this year. So, of course, I decided to make something new! The old lanterns were pictoral and showed the Sun/Earth, the Moon/Mountains, and the Sea. I decided to keep these basic themes but work in a more graphic style using overall patterning, color and texture which is more closely related to the fine art work I do.

The patterns and colorways are as follows:

Largest/Sun: spiral patterns with colorway of yellow and orange with overdye of reds

Medium/Water: waves patterns with colorway of greens and light blue with overdye of darker blues

Smallest/Earth: vines and leaf pattern with colorway of greens with overdye of darker greens and brown

First things first, though. I made a bunch of test swatches (top) to test out layering colors and then determined which combos worked well. Of course, since I can’t seem to help myself I ended up using thirteen different base colors, thirteen different overdyes, and doing it on both silk and cotton. I didn’t do all the combinations (it was tempting but that would have been 338 samples) but I still did one hundred fourteen.

At the bottom are the silks with the first layer of dye and dyed cotton muslins for linings. They need linings because otherwise the lights shine right through the silk.Next step, wax.

Finding My Faith

Cotyledon 5 in progress

I’m not a religious person so when I’m talking about faith, it’s faith in my creativity and ability. Sometimes faith requires taking big steps at the edge of a cliff and sometimes it’s only baby steps along a stitched line. Sometimes taking even those baby steps can require a giant amount of bravery. I have to trust my intuition, have faith in that undefinable place where the ideas come from when I’m making all those big and small decisions that lead up to a finished piece of art.

These last few weeks have required more than the usual amount of bravery. My daughter has been my studio companion lately as she has been recovering from a really difficult period of persistent headaches. She is finally feeling better and at school for the first time in two weeks. It’s been difficult to watch my little one deal with chronic pain and not be able to fix it.

I guess that’s where we have to lean on faith. And sometimes I wish I was a religious person because it seems it would give a focus to that feeling of giving up one’s trust to something or someone that is invisible and undefinable. It would be reassuring that while I’m doing my part here, there is a higher power looking out; to have faith be Faith.

If you haven’t seen Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, Nurturing Creativity, it’s really worth watching. She posits that there is a creative energy, a “genius” that comes from outside of ourselves when we are in the act of creating. That our job as artists, is to show up and consistently do our work, so that we are available to funnel this genius when it comes through us.

This idea of the “genius” is the closest thing I can think of to describing the way it feels when I work. That if I keep doing my part, the showing up and putting in the hours, I can trust that all of those decisions are leading somewhere. Somewhere in my head there is a vision of the finished piece and all I have to do is find the path to its completion.

Sometimes that faith is harder to find than others and I have to remember, baby steps.

Cotyledon 5 detail