blue in progress

Experimenting with stitching on top of a piece of linen I dyed last week.  So far, I have only sketched in the compostion, and am beginning the underlayers of stitching.  I think I will work on building up surface with many layers of stitching on the colored ground, mirroring the technique I use in painting.  The patterns from the shibori give me some nice organic shapes to respond to while developing a final composition

Ruminating

I am working on two tapestries right now, and while I am doing that, I am thinking about a third.

What do I need to learn? and how can I explore that through stitch?

First, I am thinking about underpainting.  Stitch an entire surface, and then build up from there.  Dyeing the threads will bring transition and continuity, I think.

And I am still thinking about tangles of roots and leaves and new shoots, earth shifted by rain, and stones, the visual relationships.

Thread

Dyeing threads today.  The weather is sunny and warm, so I worked outside.  I ended up with too many greens and blues, so I will have to have another dyeing session to create a complete palette.

Tidal: 2 works on paper

Water in the desert is the intensity of life. A short rain and all that has been sleeping wakes suddenly and and joins a universal dance.

 The water’s edge is the place of transformation and magic.  The water leaves as quickly as it arrives, and the land is always changed as a result.

collage : stones, roots, water, wind, light

I am fascinated with the exuberance and perfection that are the forms of nature. I never set out to use these forms, because I always work intuitively, with no set direction,  just working and drawing and letting form emerge as the work progresses.  And yet, I am always led to the same place, to the place where things grow or are weathered or shift and change with wind and light and season.  Seeds hold the promise of forever, roots anchor all that would fly, stones register temperature and record the experience of the land.  I must have much to learn about these things, because I am always here.

White Table

Someday I hope to have a studio.  For now, I have a white table.

Hand-dyed threads. Roots tangled around stones, with green shoots, and water.  Visual references for the works in progress.

progress

Worked in different shades of black today, with linen, silk, and cotton to define the internal world of the hibernating seed pod. Made a change from the seven or eight shades of white threads I have been using. 

sketch

Remembering all the twigs and leaves and seeds and grasses I step on each day. I am fascinated by the shapes and how they came to be together on the ground.

I draw during staff meetings at work.  It helps me concentrate on what is being discussed, and gives me a two-hour block to free my mind to draw.  The drawings become the basis for the tapestries.

Ice Storm

Another tapestry!  Work in progress…..interpreting leaves, twigs, seed pods suspended in ice…snow….night.  Stitched on hand-dyed fabric from Mali, using cotton, linen, silk threads, some hand-dyed with tumeric, green tea, and procion dyes…….

chronologically….

sketching on the fabric with thread, and beginning to build up the surface with the first stitches.

meditating on deep winter, living in the desert.  It actually has been quite cold, and there is snow on the mountains.

still stitching……..

still thinking of winter.

Tapestry, unfinished

Embroidery is a simple art.  It asks me to slow down and focus on a very small space for a long while, which is the opposite of much of my life which requires me to focus on lots of large things in a tiny time space. 

Lots of tiny knots with hand-dyed thread.  Maybe a bit obsessive?