Category Archives: Work in Progress

Little Bits of Paper

patterns on the cutting board

I’ve been getting a lot done at the studio. Patterns for all eighteen panels for my show are roughed out and I’ve finalized twelve of them. The studio is filling up. Progress is being made.

And the studio is driving me crazy!

There are little bits of paper and tape everywhere. Not just all over the floor and table but stuck to my clothes. I found one in my bed last night! I’m running out of space to put all this work and it’s making me claustrophobic. I’m going to have to figure out some storage options soon so that I can find room to work.

panels painted and ready to go

I was hoping to have all the panels finalized by tomorrow because I’m “presenting” to my studio critique group. I always knew it was an optimistic goal but I’m not actually that far off. Plenty to show, plenty to talk about. It will be good to put it all up and stand back a bit to get it in perspective.

And next week: Color!

check marks!

frames for the pattern pieces

Making Paper Patterns

I’ve just finished roughing out paper patterns for 18 new wall mounted works for my March show at Foster/White. It’s hard to show what I’m doing in this phase because it’s just white on white. It’s a little crazy-making working on these day after day but I am definitely feeling a sense of satisfaction in seeing them pile up around the studio.

Mia, my intern, has started prepping the wood panels for them to be mounted on. She sealed them yesterday and will start painting the edges tomorrow.

For this series I’m working more directly from photographs than I have before. The following are the patterns for Madrone 17 and 18 and the photos that inspired them.

Madrone 17

Madrone 18

I’m approaching the work in a different order, too. Usually I pick a color palette and do a bunch of dyeing before I design the patterns. Then, once I have the patterns done, I play mix and match with the fabrics. This time I made the patterns first. It should streamline the process and save me some time.

The problem is I’m kind of sick of white on white and little bits of paper. I haven’t decided whether to keep at it and refine the patterns while I’m in the groove or to take a week off from patterns and play with color.

It may depend on the weather. If we go into another rainy spell I may just need to get out the dyes to get some color therapy.

Thrashing About

I’m working on a new series for my solo show in March at Foster/White Gallery. The work is inspired by Madrone trees and is actually going well. It’s just that I’m both developing patterns and writing an artist statement (due tomorrow). Hence the aforementioned thrashing.

After a couple of days of writing I think I’m getting close to my statement. It seems that I have to spiral in to it. I start with some research and then begin writing.

My first draft reads like a middle school science report. So I write some more and then I edit,

and edit,

and edit,

and then edit some more until I finally get to the kernel of what I’m trying to say. My hubbie, who is an excellent writer, copy edits it for verb tenses, etc and then it’s done!

Having done this many times before there just don’t seem to be any short cut in this process for me.

Above is a pretty picture of the Smoke Bush leaves from my garden and below are some sketches of the new work. They are a little hard to see in these photos but they are full size drawings of designs for three-dimensional works that will be on panels.

I’m going back to thrashing about.

Fall Color In and Out of the Studio

The Fall color has been lovely this year. The rain intensifies the color. The brilliant yellows contrast against the dark wet bark of the trees.

This shrub in my neighbor’s yard took my breath away. Even though I was running late I had to pull my camera out of my bag and document the rich oranges, yellows, reds, purples and greens of the leaves.

Those same colors have been warming up my studio on these rainy afternoons. And I can pull them out again in drab February and reminisce about Fall color.

 

New Colors/New Marks

I’ve started on the new work for my show in March. I’m drawing, working on samples, and dyeing. The color way I’m using for the dyeing is based on the warms browns, oranges, and greens of Madrone trees. Today I painted with dye in an attempt to capture some of the essence of the marks in the book I made a few weeks ago. Tomorrow I’ll wash it out, see where I am, and dye some more.

Color Tests

Chino on organza and silk chiffon

This week I’ve been filling in some missing pages in my dye book. Somehow, in all the colors I have used and tested over the years there are no blues! Not really surprising when I look back at my work. About the only time I use blue is when I’m teaching. My intern, Mia, has done a terrific job doing tests on small pieces of fabrics so that I can see the colors hidden in the jars of dry dye.

I’m spending a lot of time these days drawing and cogitating on my solo show coming up in March at Foster/White. I’m planning to do an installation with big panels of dyed organza. I thought I’d do some tests while the dyes were mixed and ready. I sewed the panels into sleeves that fit on to my pvc pipes then smooshed them down rather than wrapping each with cord. It’s a bit of cheat but you can still get really beautiful results. Since I’m looking at doing 50 yards, I need to do it in a way that’s achievable in the time frame.

Wow! What an interesting set of results! I dyed both organza and a silk chiffon and got really different colors and effects. I used New Black 300 from Dharma, Chino from ProChem and Chocolate Brown from Dharma. Black and browns on silk are really hard to get using procion dyes and an alkaline fixative because of the way the dye chemistry works. Reds strike first and can dominate the color before the blues come along to shift it.

The chiffon compressed quite a bit and gave a tight and regular pattern and really dramatic color because of the way the dyes split. The marks on the organza were much more irregular and organic and I got a surprisingly good black. I wonder if this is because the seracin is still in the organza while it is stripped out of most silks. Always more research to do.

Although the color effects on the chiffon are very seductive, I’m still planning on using the organza. I like the transparency, the body, and the organic nature of the marks. I’ll have to file away that chiffon for another time and another project. I’m sure I can dream up something.

new black on chiffon and organza

Stitch on Paper

For the last few weeks I’ve been working on a book. I started it in my workshop with Larry Calkins and it’s what I focused on during my Orcas Island retreat. It’s a repository of marks. It’s a place to make without engaging my inner critic. It’s a place to play and experiment. I’ve been obsessed with it, working both at the studio and at home after everyone’s fed and the kitchen is cleaned up.

In the book I’ve experimented with a lot of different techniques but with a very limited palette: black, white, and brown. I used sumi and walnut inks, white acrylic paint, black and brown water-based printing ink, toner transfers, black and white thread, charcoal, graphite, and conte crayon. I painted, printed, drew, cut, tore, collaged, and stitched. I worked back and forth through the book, adding layers until each page felt complete.

Over the years, my studio-mates and I have critiqued each others’ work both formally and informally. It’s been pretty informal for the last 18 months or so because of transitions in all of our lives. But now that the Fall is upon us we are back to planning and scheduling our sessions. I went first today with my book.

I was excited to show it to them. The book feels big to me, like a dictionary of my personal language of imagery. But I was also nervous. Would they flip through idly? Say, “hmm, that’s nice.” It is, after all, not a finished piece or something I would show in a gallery, but a record of being in the moment. It is an attempt to reset my brain and my hand after a long slog through production before I jump back into the process of making.

sumi and walnut inks, toner transfer

walnut ink, brush pen, stitched paper

monoprint, walnut ink, stamped acrylic paint

 

I didn’t need to worry. Paul, Anna, and Pam pored over every page. They asked questions, oohed and aahed, got into my process. They really saw the book as the big step that I feel it is. They made suggestions of ways to build on what I’ve started. Ideas of developing some of my visual ideas into drawings or prints. Ideas that make me nervous because I don’t know how to do that yet. Ideas to push me out of my comfort zone. But isn’t that what I’ve been after?

So what have I learned about myself, my process, and my language of mark making? I’ve learned that, at least for now, stitch is integral to my work. By making the choices I did with my media, from stitching on paper to drawing lines of dots to transferring copies of my dyed fabrics, thread and stitch are what I’m drawn to over and over. Color, form, and texture are all important, but stitch is constant.

So where does this lead? What is next? How do I incorporate this into my existing work? I don’t know. I think I just have to start and it will seep in to the new work. It’s already there.

sumi and walnut inks

walnut ink stamped on to stitched paper

walnut and sumi inks, brush marker, toner transfer

collage, printed cheesecloth, stamped and painted walnut and sumi ink

collage, monoprint, walnut and sumi ink

monoprint

monoprinting with stitched paper

 

 

 

 

Making Marks

I’m taking a little break from making art before I launch in to the next body of work. I have a show scheduled for March at Foster/White. I’ve been a feeling a little dry with my ideas and tight in my process. I’ve known it was time to rediscover pleasure in my work so I’m taking a few weeks to play.

I’m a big fan of Larry Calkin’s work. He’s a local artist who also teaches at Pratt. I feel there is a similarity in our work, more in our process than in any visual style, and we co-taught a class a few years ago. I like that he isn’t constrained by any particular medium but his work is still distinctively his own. He does encaustic, sculpture, jewelry, and sketchbooks. His work is rustic and I’ve actually seen him throw a piece on the ground and walk on it before picking it up and continuing to work on it. I admire him as a teacher and thought he’d be a good resource in my goal of loosening up. So I took a trip out to his studio in Issaquah this week for a sketchbook day. He teaches a sketchbook workshop but the dates didn’t work with my schedule so I arranged a semi-private lesson for me and my studio-mate, Pam.

toner transfer, sumi ink and walnut ink

It was another one of the beautiful Fall days we’ve been having and there were four of us there set up under the trees working in our sketchbooks. Larry’s two dogs, Lizzie and Archie, and his chickens were wandering around as we worked. I made a lot of marks and some mud, literally. Larry uses many rustic tools and techniques including using native clays as pigments. It reminded me of working in the Solstice Parade workshop as I only had to look around on the ground for some bit to incorporate into my work.

Larry uses a toner copier for doing transfers. I brought some copies I had made of my fabrics and used acetone to transfer them into the sketchbook. Then I used walnut ink, conte crayon, charcoal, and collage over the top of them. I also used some sumi ink. It’s a pleasure just to move the brush across the page. It’s good to make marks freely and not be attached to the outcome. It’s good to just give myself permission.

It’s good preparation because I’m going on an artist mini-retreat to Orcas Island next week. Really looking forward to taking this open feeling up there and seeing what happens.

 

collage, walnut ink, conte crayon

 

A Well Deserved Break

In the last four months I’ve made 19 new pieces, 10 of which went together to form one piece that’s now hanging in the Forum at the Bellevue Arts Museum. In the last weeks leading up to my delivery date I was pushing hard to get it all done. I did not find time to post here in the blog but I did keep a countdown of sorts on Facebook. It’s so easy to snap a photo with my phone and post it there. It’s immediate and a nice way to keep my friends in the loop. Here are some of the photos and captions I posted there. The photos were taken with my phone so not as good a quality as usual, but you can get the idea.

Hmmm . . . 20 days to get 10 of these done . . .

 

Thirteen days

 

Twelve days and counting

 

I'll have a Manhatten with that.

 

Eleven days

 

10 days

 

10 days

 

As you sew so shall you rip. One week to go.

 

Just five more panels to stitch, then the backs, then the edging, then I can sew them together. Six days.

 

my palette

 

Finished machine embroidery! Five and a half days left.

 

Five days counting today.

 

Starting to take shape.

 

signed and dated

 

progress

 

coming together

 

Sewing in the garden on a Sunday afternoon

 

 

One more day and one more to finish

 

 

DONE!!!

 

Voices at The Orchard Room

Saturday was another beautiful day in this Indian Summer we are enjoying in Seattle. Another beautiful, sunny day in The Orchard Room observing how it has changed over time. The theme of this one was a celebration of the voice. Arni Adler, of Uncle Bonsai fame, led us in a song about love and apple trees, Ian Bage read a few related poems, and John Boylan led a Conversation about installing art in nature that was attending by some of the artists who created work for Heaven and Earth: Rootbound. It was sweet and sustaining. Here are some photos.