I’m putting in long hours and counting down the days until I deliver this big piece to Bellevue Arts Museum. I got the front panels of all the pieces glued up and ready for stitching by Tuesday afternoon and faced the next set of decisions. What does the stitching look like?

The stitching often is what impresses people. I think it’s because most people don’t sew anymore and there is a lot it in my work. Don’t tell anybody, but it’s actually the fastest part of the whole process. It is integral and adds strength to the piece but it is mainly embellishment. It’s the icing on the cake, and like the icing, it’s the part most people notice so it better look good. And it’s also pretty hard to fix if I f— it up.

Okay, so what is this stitching going to look like? I went back to my source photos of sea fans. The branching patterns are intricate and delicate. Wow, not only would that be a tremendous amount of stitching but how would I relate that to the patterns on the fabrics? I went back to Google and typed in soft coral, the new title for the piece.

I finally decided on the title, Soft Coral, last week. I’ve been working on the project under the working title, Venus Fan. It’s a common name of a type of sea fan, the original inspiration for the piece. I knew from the beginning I had to change the title. My pieces all look like vaginas anyway and naming them Venus wasn’t going to help any. The latin name is Gorgonia, which wasn’t any better, really. Gorgons? Medusa? Soft Coral works as a title because it references the inspiration and the environmental concerns but broadens the reference.  It feels right because it also speaks to the media.

So by opening up the research with the new title I found inspiration for the stitching. There are so many beautiful soft corals of so many different kinds. Seeing the variety has allowed me to loosen up and work with the patterns on the cloth and the way the panel fits within the individual piece and in the piece as a whole. I’m vrooming along. Which is good because I have to deliver this piece in eleven days.

I’m making progress. I’ve got almost all the fabrics cut, most of the panels glued up and it’s starting to come together. I’ve been holding these images in my head while looking at white forms for so long it’s a real relief to see them start to come manifest. Fourteen days until I deliver the work. Eek!

Sometimes it seems that the process of making art is a series of making decisions. You start out with the really big decisions: what am I trying to say? what will it look like? what is the form? how many pieces in a series? And move on through a long series of smaller and smaller decisions until the piece or series is finished.

These pictures show a big day in decision making. I picked all the fabrics for my piece for Bellevue Arts Museum. Since then I have finished cutting out the peltex forms, basted them together, then taken them apart again and painted the edges of each panel. Today I began cutting out the fabrics for the fronts of the actual panels. Finally, something that the viewer will actually see when they look at the final piece!

I have 19 days until I’m scheduled to deliver and install this piece and a whole lot of work to do.

the final fabrics!

mid-tones

I’ve been struggling with the new work I’m making for the Bellevue Arts Museum. Every step has been challenging, actually. It may be because I’m getting in my own way because it’s a high profile show but it’s also a new twist on what I’ve done before. I’m making a series of pieces that work together as a whole. It’s difficult to find the balance that makes them all work together. Each individual change affects the whole.

I finished the paper patterns last week and have moved on to fabric choices. I quickly determined that I did not have enough big pieces of fabrics. I went back to my stash of fabrics and over-dyed 18 pieces of fabric. I also dyed 9 yards of muslin for the interiors and 7 yards of cotton for the backs. This has given me a lot of choices, perhaps too many.

lights

I’ve been struggling with how to make the piece visually cohesive. I decided early on to use the same fabric (more or less) for the center panels of all the pieces. It’s a pole-wrapped rayon/silk velvet dyed in dark red violets. I’m going to use a dark yarn in a matching color to edge all the pieces so that when they are sewn together it will read like veins. But beyond that one unifying element, it felt very chaotic.

organizing chaos

While I was out of town I began to think about using a gradation of value from dark at the bottom to lighter at the top, much like the coral would appear under water. Yesterday I arranged all the fabrics in order of darkest value to lightest and then Vivian (my fabulous intern) and I took them downstairs to where the paper patterns were hung of the wall. The “aha” moment came when I realized I could use the same darkest value fabric on all four of the lowest panels and lighten up the value from there. Darks would move to mid-tones, mid-tones would move to lights. I used a print of a photo to outline the shapes of the pieces and labeled them by the value of the fabric that I’ll use. When I looked at the photo again I realized that the answer had been there all along in the way the pieces are naturally shaded by being light from above.

Just like that, the organization of the piece came clear and the chaos fell away. No final decisions have been made beyond a few clear choices but I feel so much more at peace with the project. I have a plan and I know how to go forward. I’m sure there will be more challenges along the way but, for now at least, the path is clear.

lots of little bits of paper

I’ve been working very hard. Weekends, evenings, etc. My interns, Vivian and Mia, have been fabulous. And still it feels as if there is a mountain of work to do. Fun work, I’m not digging ditches, but work none-the-less. Which is why I’m behind in my blog.

Mainly I’ve been working on the patterns for the Bellevue Arts Museum piece. What I thought would take a week to 10 days took three full weeks. I was so, so sick of little snips of white paper. They are still everywhere. I’m finally finished now and ready to move on to the next step which will taking the paper patterns apart and cutting them out in peltex. Vivian and I started looking at fabric last week and I confirmed that I don’t have enough dyed fabric for the pieces. Luckily I have a bunch of fabrics that I can overdye rather than starting over.

the finished patterns--finally!

But first, I needed to work on the new work for Foster/White for September. I picked fabrics, cut them out, glued them up, and machine stitched them since I last posted here. All that’s left now is to hand-stitch them together and glue them up to the boards.

selecting and cutting out fabrics

trimming the edges

all ready for stitching

finished with machine stitching

I’m off to our annual trip to Seabeck for family camp tomorrow and plan on doing the stitching while I’m there. On my vacation. Along with coordinating crafts for the camp. And doing some fun low-water-immersion and shibori. And discharge. With the camp.

Should be fun!

I’m working on new work for a September group show at Foster/White Gallery. I’m making nine new 12-inch-square panels. I’m intentionally working in the same color palette for both the work going to Foster/White and to the Bellevue Arts Museum. It’s all variations on red-violet. It ties the pieces together visually should anyone make the connection between the work. Hopefully they’ll be up at the same time.

I went through last week and did initial choices for the fabrics for the squares. They have a different feeling than the ones I did this Spring. The color palette for those was greens and browns. When the panels were finished they felt very much like aerial photographs of geologic structures. These feel more like geological images from under the earth. Strata of ore and gemstones peep out as if from slices of the Earth. At least, that’s what I’m thinking for now.

I’m working on a wall installation for the Forum at the Bellevue Arts Museum. It will be installed sometime in September or October and will coincide with the Fiber Biennial at the Museum. The following is the text from my initial proposal, above is my revised drawing, and below is a shot of the drawings at full size. The working title is Venus Fan, although I’m pretty sure I’m going to change that.

Venus Fan Proposal

I recently returned from a trip to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where my family enjoyed amazing snorkeling just steps from our condo. The beginning of our stay was calm with blue skies and clear water, and we snorkeled through an underwater garden of corals and sea fans. Toward the end of our trip a storm blew in, strong winds lashing our windows and keeping me up with thoughts of hurricanes. The storm churned up the water and reduced visibility. Snorkeling in these choppy waters I saw these same sea fans, called Venus Fans, undulating dramatically with the waves. These fragile structures were much more flexible than I had imagined and stronger than they appeared. Later I found a sea fan washed up on the sand. What had been swaying under the water had hardened, its  delicate tracery of branching pattern brittle outside its natural environment.

Like all corals, sea fans are made up of tiny polyps that form colonies, one building upon another to create forms over time. Their ecosystems are fragile and are threatened by factors including climate change, ocean acidification, and agricultural runoff. We observe their beauty by becoming the alien in their world, floating above with snorkel and mask or diving deep while carrying our oxygen on our backs.

My proposal for the Forum at BAM is inspired by the Venus Fan. I will abstract the branching patterns, delicate tracery and graceful movement into a wall installation of seven sculptural forms. Using multiple surface design techniques I will create visual texture on rich fabrics including silks, velvets, rayons, and cottons. Reds, red-violets, and splashes of orange will reference the colors of the sea fan. Stitch will be used as both a structural element and for embellishment on the sculptural forms.