Success!

This afternoon I completed a huge part of my project: THAT TAPESTRY! 

I had anticipated it taking another day to finish, but a few hours proved sufficient time. I'M SO RELIEVED! I have made real, measurable progress. The tapestry is woven. There's a second one, but it won't take long. Next comes darning in a few ends and overdyeing, but that's easy stuff. It's a big step toward completing the residency project, and I feel very good about it. 

Here are a few photos of what I was doing before my last sad post, and this week I'll show you what the finished tapestry looks like. 

Scribbly notes for colour planning and dye measurements. The notes are thorough, but you have to keep in mind I adjust colour on the fly, so my notes are somewhat inaccurate. You get the gist of what's happening though.

Dye pots at work! I used combinations of pomegranate, kamala, and madder, to create a gradation of oranges. It smelled so nice while cooking...

Madder with mystery yarn.

The two back burners are fresh dye extractions, and I'm steaming three eucalyptus bundles (silk handkerchiefs!) in the third pot. The hankies were moderately successful. Next time I'll steam for two hours and let the bundles cool for a day or two before I rip them open.

Leftover balls of dyestuff! I'm saving this to overdye the tapestry.

And now for something completely different, warp reelings! Margaret Jane brought in this year's pantone colours in cotton so we could test them out. I'd forgotten just how exciting it is to play with colours. It's a great creative exercise and it gets you out of "your colours". 

The success of today (plus a fun shopping trip with Jennifer), coupled with hard work (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques) over the past week, has shaken off the black dog today. I feel like my regular self, and I want to continue feeling like this. 

Pulse

I'm so pleased by the progress I'm making and the shape of the project so far. I know it looks like a weird blobby-beige thing - don't be so nervous, it's supposed to look like that for now - but the accumulation of hundreds of tiny steps will eventually be coherent and beautiful. 

Living an inspired and strange life is a continuing priority, so I spent Saturday evening building a blanket fort in the living room. In a house like this, full of beautiful rugs and old chairs, the fort seemed more like a Berber tent or a Mongolian yurt. And with Bjork's latest album blaring at nearly full volume (as if the collection of odd furniture and my own strange costume [because you can't be in a blanket fort without a costume] weren't enough...), I made myself at home. 

Q: Why would an adult build a blanket fort, dress up in odd clothes, and dance around like a little kid for an evening? 

A: I like making blanket forts. I don't want to be bored. I want to change my perception of this space and these objects. I want to transport myself to a new land. I want to be my witchy shapeshifter self, and what better way than to do that, what better way to refresh imagination/spirit/body than to build a new home and live there for a while? 

to top it off, we're getting even more snow tonight!

Continuing that train of thought, what will I accomplish this week that will refresh my imagination and uphold my responsibilities?

1. Pull together my artist talk presentation and have it a polished gem by Wednesday

2. Practice 6 days of yoga without skipping a day...

3. Practice painting

4. Curate a collection of animals

5. Turn that coconut hull into something

 

Ashes and Diamonds

Apologies for the lack of posting last week- I worked every day and didn't get studio time until Saturday. Thank the gods this is a 3 studio day week, and oh what a gloriously productive and happy week it's been! 

First up, I need to thank the Guild members yet again for their support and understanding while I've been trying with varying degrees of success to sort my shit out. It's probably been pretty annoying to deal with me, and I've yet to help wash the teacups. Secondly, I need to thank the Burlington Public Library for being awesome in pretty much every way possible. If you ever visit this town, have tea with the Guild at the BAC, and then go to the library and talk to Lauren after you've biked along the waterfront trail. 

I swear nobody paid me to endorse all that. 

If you would like to pay me to endorse all that, shoot me an email! My rates are reasonable. 

What's chased some of the gloom away? Phone calls, movies, meetings, and studio time. I've been talking to dear ML. out East about living inspired lives and staving off boredom/stagnation, and we (the Guild and I) have been working on the info package for the residency program for the coming year, I'm making things in the studio and work's crystallizing, and I watched "Ashes and Diamonds" like... four times (amazing, inspiring, gut-wrenching, gorgeous movie! Find and watch it)! 

Something happened in that conversation with ML. last week that shifted my attitude towards my living space and life here. I need to do more strange and small things, things like building blanket forts in the bathtub, curating exhibitions of glassware, colouring with crayons... Inspiration comes from many sources, and it's too easy to get stuck in a negative headspace when you're far from the people and animals you love and you're constructing your life, post-graduation.  

I'm getting more encouragement and inspiration from the studio stuff. It's magically shaping up. Armed with weird coloured odd yarns, I sat down to start weaving on Tuesday.

various yarns and cloth dyed with avocado, cochineal, walnut, kamala, tea, and a six-pound rusty anchor.

All of the boxes were made (and made possible by the Potter's Guild) on Tuesday too. Look at 'em! They'll be white once fired.

Easy way to spread a warp: throw a few shots of fine thread and beat into place. Repeat a couple of times and TA DAA! So much easier than sticks or rag. The next time I do this for tapestry though, I will add a solid something before weaving to give a firm base. This method's a little flimsy for tapestry and I found my first inch of weaving slid back on the warp. 

plus it's pretty...

Free-form tapestry in progress (note: I'm over-dyeing all of this nonsense):

of course there's weird shit in here! 

Since weaving 12 panels in this fashion would take an insanely long time, I'm changing the construction of the boxes a little, and for the better...

And did I mention I'VE JUST FINISHED KNITTING A SOCK?  

Magic Life

I've slipped into this new year without a fraction of the lusty alcohol-fueled shit-show jubilee of 2011. A sleepy night after a long shower and a quiet countdown with the radio marked the turning point for me, and as with some rare great beginnings, this birth was inauspicious. 


I have made resolutions (1. exercise regularly 2. eat more vegetables 3. live somewhere great) and goals (1. shine up that heart muscle 2. make more small things 3. pay down some debt 4. become more involved in the art community, even if that means travelling 5. get inspired instead of mopey) and I have a great deal of hope for this next year. I feel it's going to be a good one. 


Though it wasn't easy to get there and definitely hard to leave again, the visit home was a godsend. It's difficult to describe just how happy I was to be with my family and pets and friends. 




I've returned to the GTA with fresh eyes (well, sort of. I need new contact lenses or glasses to make that statement completely true) and clearer goals for my remaining two+ months here. The days I spend in the studio will be long days with very regular snack breaks and trips to the greenhouse, and they will be very productive days. I'm setting myself weekly progress goals and will stick to them! 


That should mean more writing too, and not just for this blog. I've got to start putting out applications for exhibitions and scouring the land for good jobs in my field (in Toronto or Newfoundland please!). Admin stuff, stuff I'd rather pay someone to do for me. 


Oh well! Intense Studio Time begins next week. Lots to prepare!

A Lot of Words

I always intend on writing a quick post, but ideas happen and then I've got too many things that I want to say and not enough patience. 


First up: the Burlington Art Centre's Christmas sale and soup bowl fundraiser is happening tomorrow through to Sunday. There's some wicked work being sold, some of which is mine! BUY MY STUFF BECAUSE I NEED TO PAY OFF THE PLANE TICKET HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!


In a roundabout way it connects to my next thought, which is the Improved Mental State I'm experiencing. In the days following my last post (I know, it hasn't been long) I've started to feel better. Better about my relationship with the studio/this town/this program. I'm making an effort to set boundaries in the studio to preserve my time and energy, and I'm reaching out to family, friends, and mentors back home.  


I've also booked my flight home for Christmas. 


Monday night precipitated a massive shift in how I address some of pent-up studio anxiety and I felt good enough to work all day Tuesday and return in the evening. There was a weaving night class, and I was taken aback by how nice it felt to be working near a school-type setting. I chatted with a few students (madame, c'etait une plaisir de vous parler, meme si mon Francais est pitoyable compare a la votre) and settled in to work. It felt a little like being back home :)


I've been dreaming up a new direction for the project, and I'm playing with a couple of ideas. A piece relating to my experiences here feels right, but until last night the details were slippery. I wanted to incorporate dye experiments, some sort of imagery... plants and elephants and other things, weaving, the failed blanket story project, maybe rug hooking, handspun yarn, surface embellishment, some reference to personal growth, etc. Ideally the piece(s) would be easy to ship. 


So... Gifts. That's all I'm going to say for now.  


Now I'm facing the reality of having charges for a plane ticket home for the holidays on my credit card. It's painful to look at, but it doesn't matter because later in December I get to see the most handsome cat in the world, spend much needed time with my kooky and wonderful siblings and parents and friends, and I get to eat a stupid amount of fantastic food that I neither have to make nor pay for. I'm going to need new pants. I do need new pants anyway, but these ones will have to be larger. 


I came across a notion in a book I'm reading, regarding double-lives. The paragraph in question speaks specifically about the tendency of some Witches/pagans/folks of alternative religious leaning/etc. to hide that aspect of their life, whether to ensure job security or avoid being ostracized or ridiculed. The argument was that this fragmentation/segregation of the whole was detrimental and that only by fighting for a whole acceptance of the self could a person truly have a free, strong identity. Or something like that. 


It seemed like an affirmation of the Big Life Lesson I struggle with (speaking about what is important to me). I shouldn't have to stifle my voice for fear of negative confrontation. In the past couple of days I've seen just how much life and general outlook can change when you make your feelings known. 


I can't wait to incorporate this into my work. 


One last thing: I found ingredients in the cupboard and made veggie sushi tonight. It's amazing. 

Obstacles and Elephants

I try to focus on the positive in my blog, but lately it's been damned difficult to do. I feel isolated, I sorely lack the dynamic critical dialogue and creative sharing of my old community, I'm uninterested in this project, and uninspired among other things. 


It came to a head on Thursday or Friday and I just didn't know what to do. I'd spent the last couple of weeks dragging my sorry ass from the studio to work, moping around, working up the energy to get out of bed, and living in a bad state. I knew what was wrong, and I knew there were more things out of place that I couldn't define, but I couldn't see a way out this whole mess. 


Lesson #1: Calm the fuck down and call someone.
I called my dad and cried a lot. Again. This has been happening frequently since I've moved here. My dad put the situation in simple terms: either pack up and leave, or find some way to get what I need from other sources and make it to the end. I also spoke with two other friends in the following days.


Lesson #2: Your friends are there for you. Just call them. 
The day after I skyped with my amazing friend and mentor, WhiteFeather. It had been a while since we spoke. Seeing a friendly face and hearing a friendly voice made me feel so, so much better. Hearing about her own experiences with residencies and creative/emotional/huge life challenges put my experiences in perspective and gave me maybe not courage, but at least a little bit of hope. Hope that I could change my attitude towards this place and get through this residency with some modicum of sanity.


I called another friend today and after we hit disconnect I knew that phone calls, skype, emails, and letters were going to be my salvation in this suburban hermitage. I simply do not have a community here, so I'll just have to maintain long-distance relationships, and visit Toronto whenever finances permit. 


Lesson #3: I can change my mind! 
An ongoing lesson for me has been giving myself permission. Permission to change my mind, to do what I want, to be inspired or uninspired by an idea, to let go of what doesn't work for me, to not hold myself to imaginary obligations. Yesterday evening I was feeling okay with this re-revelation, probably a little more empowered than usual, and began shouting in the kitchen. Not angry shouting, but empowered, soul-affirming, backbone-building mantras at gradually increasing amplitudes.  


Development of the Will and Voice is liberating and important.


Dropping a dead idea is too.


Lesson #4: Ganesha.
I took it as a sign of easy times to come when I found a little statue of Ganesha in the house I'm living in. I knew him then solely as the Remover of Obstacles. I vividly remember finding the statue and thinking that I'd come to the end all the SHIT I had to push through in the past year. "Fuck yeah! Finally caught a break!" Now I know that there is still healing to be done, confidence and vision to hone, and my current situation is simply an intense and finite space in which to fix that shit. 

That being said, I anticipate the next three and a half months to be no less difficult than the past two and a half. I expect to feel isolated here, lonely, angry (occasionally without warrant), depressed, uninspired, and frustrated. 

Knowing when to shift gears, changing my project parameters, and talking more often to good artists and friends back home and in Toronto is what's going to make the aforementioned suffering worthwhile for me. 

You May Address Me As "Colour Wizard"

Will you look at that? The Bird of Paradise is blooming in the solarium, right in front of my loom! 

With such lush and beautiful plants growing on the other side of the glass, I don't think the winter blues will hit as hard this year. 

Today's been a wonderful and productive dye day. I realized this afternoon that all of this play is developing the palette for the entire residency project! I feel good about mucking around in the kitchen and taking my time. 

The quest for colour continues on hand in hand with plant dye education. One sweet lady took me out to the back yard last week to collect maple (acer saccharum) leaves "to make red dye". Sometimes it's easier (and kinder) to show people why their assumptions don't work rather than shoot down their good intentions, so I dashed around the yard like an idiot, bundled up the leaves in some tannin-mordanted muslin, and steamed the hell out of it. 

Ta Da! Not red, but still interesting. The black marks on the right are from where the bundle rested on a bent wire for steaming.

I haven't used the steam technique extensively until now, and it's very exciting. I dyed this plain weave cotton scarf with a mix of peony (Paeonia sp.), rose (Rosa sp.), pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), and purple laceleaf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum dis. atrop) leaves and a quick tannin mordant and I wrapped it around a rusty anchor for a post-mordant. I thought it was quite hideous at first. It wasn't until I pressed it and stood back to get a good look did I start to notice the depth, subtle colour shifts, and all those good things you hope for in a one-off dye experiment. 

Magic! Weird, weird plant magic!

I've been saving leaves from the Japanese maple in my front yard (acer palmatum var. atropurpureum) and fallen flowers from a Bougainvillea (sp.) living in the solarium for some sort of wacky experiment. This morning I hammered some into tannin-mordanted muslin a la India Flint. 

And the experiment turned out MARVELOUSLY! To the left is a garlic chive seed head, centre is the maple, and on the right are delicate Bougainvillea bracts. 

I tried steam setting the Bougainvillea with a few other things in a pot, and the colour diffused. It looks more like a dreamy watercolour rendition of the flower, so perhaps a quick steam set with an iron would work better. 


In any case, it's all very exciting! Tomorrow I'm going to plaster the town with posters for my story collection event, and if this rain ever lets up, I'll go out and collect plant matter for the eventual production of big dyebaths. 

Walking on Four Legs

Happy Thanksgiving! I feel energized and content after a weekend with my extended family, so I've started job hunting in earnest today. I really, really want a job at Starbucks or another coffee shop. Less stress than a waitress gig and you still get tips! Keep your fingers crossed for me. 


The big thing on my mind lately has been identity. How do I define myself as an artist, as a woman, in a new town, in a stranger's home, away from friends, without school? 


During the weekend I talked with my family and I listened to their stories. Speech is so powerful, and I'm beginning to believe that being able to speak (up, out, or quietly yourself) can only propel your growth forward. What I heard this weekend were stories of healing, of growth, understanding, happiness, and strife. In turn, I felt safe enough to speak frankly about the changes I've been experiencing and it FELT AWESOME to be surrounded by people who connected with those words and emotions.  


I am thankful for this wacky family, for the chance to discover myself in this strange town, for dry humour, for wine and women. 

And here is a gorgeous green room courtesy of the internet. 

Updates and Life Lessons

A lot has happened since my last post about migraines and red bugs. I:


- Went to Toronto for a day. It feels so much more like home than Burlington. I drank great coffee, toured through the textile museum, bought fine paper, and had fun picking out goatskin for a little side project. 


- Learned that food colouring is food-grade aniline dye. That's coal tar, baby. Coal tar in your food. That chat was actually the second-most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. Forced into, like when your grandmother made you talk to her friends at the supermarket when all you wanted to do was buy jam.


- Realized that a lot of people here don't take me seriously, probably because I am young. We'll come back to this in a minute.


- Made beautiful, beautiful grey from walnuts. 


- Went on a hectic one day road trip to Montreal to see the Gaultier retrospective. High fashion and chocolate mousse were well worth 14 hours in a car.    


- Got a bike! It's an old 5-speed cruiser. Heavy and gorgeous as any cruiser can be. Handles like a dream. 


- Organized a natural dye demo for this Wednesday and was subsequently embroiled in the most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. It was actually an email exchange that I had to step away from, even though that meant letting someone else win...




I've been feeling for a while now that I'm treated differently because of my age. To be specific, I'm treated like a kid instead of a fully capable, educated adult. It's a weird thing to think about and maddening to experience, and in almost every iteration of defining it to others I sound like an unappreciative jackass. I do value the help and guidance I'm receiving! I DO! But there's a difference between support and hand-holding, and these hands do not want or need to be held.    


I was very much looking forward to being creatively challenged during this residency, but I didn't foresee every other punch thrown my way. Being an AIR here is trying my patience, my emotional strength, my grace, my ability to adapt, my common sense, my ideas of what I want to do with my life and whom I want to do it with, my budgeting skills, my faith in the universe, my bonds with the people I love, and so much more. 


I imagine, after six months of being irked and goaded and babied, there will be nothing left to bother me. I will be as tranquil as the moon. Direct as an arrow. More resilient than stone. Slower to anger than a glacier. 

Camilla Valley Dream

Yesterday Nancy and I took a day trip to Collingwood and the surrounding area. I popped into a tiny bookstore called the Crow's Nest and chatted up the ladies who run it (there's an art gallery on the second floor, a delightful children's section in the basement, and two beautiful afghan hounds snoozing behind the counter), and grabbed a fantastic americano from a cafe down the street. 

Don't let looks fool you, the decrepit Crow's Nest is a hidden gem.

And then we drove to Camilla Valley Farm, a famous yarn supplier and picturesque farm. It's gorgeous. We spent over two hours perusing their stock and fondling yarn. I had to put down so many lovely things. Sigh. 

This little grey building houses all your dreams. 

The most adventurous hen making sure everything's okay. 

Between my family (over the weekend I traipsed all over London and St. Thomas, saw Elton John live, ate at an incredible Italian place (Spagos. GO THERE.), and was surrounded by hectic love for three days) and the Guild members, I will see all of Ontario before Christmas. 

Hm.

The elderly women of the Burlington Art Centre are hilarious. They are masters of dry humour, thinly-veiled dirty jokes, thinly-veiled contempt, and a barely perceptible code of winks and nods that can switch the direction of conversation in a flash. They've had a lifetime to hone the perfect piercing glare and cackling laugh. They are fascinating women. 


A very high percentage of the members of both the spinning and weaving, and rug hooking guilds are elderly women. I'm the youngest in the former by at least 45 years, the latter by about 15, but the majority are in their mid 70's to late 80's. That doesn't really matter, I just thought you'd like to hear about these firecrackers. This article is actually about my first Rug Hooking Guild meeting, and some of the ideas it generated.  


During the meeting there was a brief discussion about whether or not work should be judged before being allowed into... something. Craft show or the like. A portion of the guild said yea, the other, nay. Before that though was a lengthy slide show of rugs featured at some large exhibition or tradeshow. 


The slideshow was a mix of all types of hooked delights: exquisite oriental-inspired area rugs, smaller wall hangings, and everything from kitchy Santa Clauses to the lady and the unicorn. There was a lot that made me cringe, and there was some that left me with mouth agape. The ladies of the room were all commenting on which ones they liked and didn't, and talked about technique to the newcomers (I wasn't the only one!).


In this guild, participation and community trumps aesthetic perfection. They're all perfectly great hookers, but the range in taste and ability to design is staggering. I'm torn: obviously I'm not going to say a generic row of cottages is great (unless we're talking technique, or colour choice, or something other than subject matter), but how can I bitch someone out for making a ghastly homage to their beloved golden lab when I know that rug hooking is this person's creative outlet? 


There's something very honest about the way craftspeople treat each other, here at least. They are people, getting together and sharing technique and ideas and support, who do not judge harshly what doesn't need to be judged. I struggle with that, forgetting all too often that not everyone studied colour theory or design or art history or even took a drawing class in school. I definitely grimaced at most of the rugs I saw tonight. Some people just have profoundly terrible taste. But as a fellow craftswoman and guild member, I need to support their endeavours and be happy that they've found something they love to do. 


Humbling oneself and shushing the internal design critic is tough. It actually makes me feel like I'm going crazy and I hate doing it. Certainly there are situations where thoughtful criticism is appropriate, but it can't be let loose all of the time, not in a guild where intense workshopping isn't the mandate, not when you're coming to a guild and asking for guidance and support. 


A friend of mine said something along the lines of, "I don't care what the hell they're making. They're doing something new and expressive and that's great." and it seems those words are true. 

First Day on the Job

In a couple of hours I'll have been a resident of Ontario for one whole week, and today was my first real (short) day as the Artist In Residence. Here's a little tour of the facilities:

The textiles studio and its army of 4 shaft counterbalance looms. To the left is the bank of windows looking out into the solarium, and off camera to the right is a 120" loom. Behind the camera is a large work table and a pantry. 

Some spinning wheels and a tapestry in progress. Also, the octado dobby. 

The dye kitchen! It's an oddly shaped room with tons of counter space and glass jars, and about 100 tea cups. I don't like the idea of tea cups being in a dye kitchen, but the rug hookers upstairs have a dye kitchen too and I'm hoping that's where they all go to mix their acid dyes.

The sink! Those buckets and bric-a-brac to the left need to be tidied up. 

It's a lovely space, but a wee bit lonely when there's nobody there and nothing to do. Today was a strange mix of boredom and paranoia that comes from sleep deprivation, mostly due to the fact that I have no materials and I stay up late thinking about that. I have a shuttle, some bobbins, a very small stack of silk hankies, and that's about it. You can't weave anything with that! And I forgot my notebook.


So I did what I usually do when left alone: I cleaned. Emptying the loom benches, returning the contents to their proper places, making new places for homeless items, and putting most of the harnesses back on the 16 shaft Macomber took up a good three hours. The supply room is still a wreck, but it's looking better. Another couple of hours and it'll be a pleasant thing to encounter. 

The supply room before I arrived...

That kept my hands busy for a short time, but not my mind. People keep telling me it'll take time to adjust to the new space and new people, and I hope it comes quickly. Feeling uprooted and naked (lack of supplies, folks, not clothing) is really, really uncomfortable, especially when there is no fluffy cat to greet you at the end of the day. 


The effects of last year too are resonating in this place and I feel slightly anxious about digging into the project. Not that it'll stop me, but the fear is something that simply must be worked through. 


Regardless of emotional state, there IS a rug hooking guild meeting tonight, which should mean tea, cake, new things to learn and a greatly needed project to dig into.