Connections

Connections

Saturday, December 11, 2010

India Flints book came!!!




.. i did something that I rarely do ...I bought something that I really wanted. Yeah it was India Flints book Eco Colour. As soon as I went to the post office to pick it up I ripped open the box and sat there in the car, heater blowing keeping me warm and read flipped through the pages. Wow ..couldn't help but read a little of each section to see what I could start on when I got home ..... and gradually what I'm discovering is that I'm going to have to have more patience. haha... cause all her really beautiful things take time. I am hoping to start with some of her methods of dyeing soon so that I can have a bunch of bundles going. I have some milk and water outside in a bucket to mordant some white cotton just to see what happens after I've done that. The weather here is so cold though that the milk water concoction will probably freeze tonight. Now I'm thinking I really have to learn about the plants that typically grow here. So I'm going to the library to see what I can find about native plants to here. In the mean time .. I have more tree paintings and some owls.



Saturday Sayings, Stitches and Sketches

 Ok here is my attempt at slow stitches. Here are a variety of fabric pieces. An embroidered napkin that was dyed with blue dye and folded so that the edges would be on one side and both seen so it wasn't folded evenly on purpose and then there is two pieces of discharged black fabric, I like these because the discharged images remind me of fire. So I'm kind of thinking this has an earth, wind and fire feeling to it. The center is a scrap of blue denim that is discharged and behind that is a wool sweater that had pearls stitched to it and behind that is a piece of beige that was dyed in walnut ink. To the right of the beige is a weave of threads that took a while but I enjoyed the way that it worked. I just had to try it. Then there are some eyes below that that I just tried so .. not sure it works but it is what it is. There are also a few beads I stitched in also. Kind of feels like my life today for I am feeling a slight bit busy but thats just in my head not reality. I have a mood of sadness today and find that I am not doing the things I need to do for myself. The cold is all around me just as the blue surrounds the black in these stitches. I think some days that I have what it takes to just get by and make art. I have a belief that if I just go after the things that I dream then all that I need will find me but that seems like a dreamer mentality and then doubts creep in and the reality of no way to pay the bills just seems rather overwhelming. So .. I then just become less movable. I feel stuck in my misery and all I can do that is consistent is paint pictures of trees and stitch here and there and look for more ways to just put the feelings into drawings and paintings. Then I want to find bigger paper to paint bigger ideas ... and i don't want to leave but I'm freezing. I hate the cold. I hate that I don't have the basic necessities of life during the winter. So I just want time to pass ... or I chide myself for trying to stay doing what I want instead of what I need. Which is more important? Its just a cycle of emotion weaving my brain and thoughts into knots. And thank God I have the trees to paint and then to see .. and i write words that I think the world needs to know. Love yourself .. love you and you will have love to give, love others and you will have more love. Maybe I need to love others more. Maybe that's a piece I'm missing. Hard to love others in a room typing or making art in isolation. Who knows. ? Just a saturday of sadness and ranting..
 I love the purple and blue of these trees and there is something that makes me want to keep looking. The above tree is walnut ink and gesso on a page of book text and glued to a book cover. Something satisfying about it. Alone it stands .. kind of lonely feeling. Maybe thats why I'm so drawn to the naked trees because I identify with the feeling of being so exposed. Sometimes my writing makes me feel exposed. I have been thinking about listing the trees on my etsy shop just as they are and see what happens. I guess if I don't try I'll never know.
Too much thinking for now .. I will eat and see if I can think clearer. Anyway .. .. I hope you enjoy the peek into my insanity. haha. and maybe the trees.