Late dinners and a little reading.
As ever, stay hungry and curious.
N. A. Jones |
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I apologize for being late with the sketches. I have been busy with several other endeavors and I lost track of time. However, that will not deter me from working on this into and through the new year. I will pursue more sketches as I come to understand the forms better. I'm looking forward to making the first pass and solving construction issues. Also, I've decided to make the forms small. If and when the day arrives to make larger types of the mock ups, I'll be ready. Meanwhile I am pressing on with the quilt El Gallo on a daily basis. The rhythm of the workflow is easier. I know what to expect and how to budget my time with the needle well. Lastly, quilt sketches have been erupting from my left and right brain. In the early morning I did a few quick sketches of what I was seeing in my mind. All of the results were purely tribal, though thankfully not 100% derivative of the Native American cultures I've been studying. I feel as though I'm expanding and learning. It is coming down to studying shapes in nature; animal, vegetable and mineral. When I settle down a bit I'll approach the point in woodcuts, pen, ink and pencil till I get a good feel for the graphic structure of it all. Strange... I saw it all so clearly in my mind. I am always compelled to replicate exactly what I see. My hands argue differently. Take the process a little slower, perhaps? Meanwhile I just ordered a cache of seed beads for use in wall hangings and quilts. It motivates me to try Ojibwa beading. I've been curious for the longest. Late dinners and a little reading. As ever, stay hungry and curious. So, I pushed a little bit and went beyond my schedule for today. Deep in my somewhere I am happy and I still hear my inner critic resounding about burying knot and the perpetual freying of fabrics old enough to make my grandparent seem like toddlers. Yes, I have learned there are inherent dangers in what I do and I will learn to understand them and use them to my advantage. For a few days I've come to the conclusion that if I ever have enough money to by quilter's cottons fresh from the manufacturer, I just might reject the opportunity. Working with the down, low and cheap as you can go is an adventure, but more importantly a political platform I did not understand the inner emotions of till I started working this way. People call me green sometimes and I'm honored, but I don't feel it is justly earned as of yet. Not that I have to recycle my own waste into gardening and don hemp instead of cotton. I still feel I have a ways to go to be competent in this. I'll get there. Mastery in time and I believe I have a little bit more. Short to tell: I finished prepping the Dallas Quilt Guild Submission and he's ready for delivery. A last today was my tear in time (see below). He'll be one of my submission for another show. I took a chance to post because I've been talking about it for some time dangling promises of photographs like carrots on a pole to a burrow. Either way I'm willing to suffer the consequences if so. Yet, I must remember that I enter these competitions more to show than to win a ribbon, but boy wouldn't that be nice. Meanwhile I'll be hounding the ether to get ready for a State Fair entry. It'll be what I am working on right now. I like my method so far and think it deserves to be seen on a broader level. Out of my comfort zone twice for this year. Thinking forward. I must say though, the quilts never look the same in your hand as when they are pinned up. I'm floored. Addendum: I totally forgot to tell you that the Medicine Quilt is completely hand quilted with embroidery floss and other embroidery threads. The base principle was to use variations of red. That inclination was born from trying to make a deadline for the Dallas Quilt Show's red challenge and I missed horribly, so it sits here till further notice. The stitches are straight like in Kantha-style quilting and then there are the embroidery stitches I created from looking at bird tracks and signs. Upon close examination you will find the Killdeer's and Pileated Woodpecker's tracks making designs all over the quilt. As they are in variations of red over variation of warm tones, you will not see it easily from a distance. I enjoy this quality of the quilting process as it makes you look at the quilt from varying angles and come to know the piece intimately. Maybe the technique is a variation on crazy quilting, I 'm not one well versed enough in quilting history to cite chapter and book. Final thoughts: Building a person style and angle in quilting may be a direction I want to head. Agenda 2014-2016: The Medicine Wars to write and medicine quilts to explore. Medicine Quilt I: Pileated Woodpecker
Breakthroughs do happen in your sleep. I normally make beads and just started making footed tags with Arizona tea cans. The metal thickness is just right and you do not cut yourself too deeply if something happens. It just took a little while to get used to the metal shavings from odd angles. Still I trust my handy pair of airplane shears and I'll keep truckin'. But, I digress. It too three years to find an ornament to make for the Reindeer Craft show that would not insult my intelligence and still meet my insistence on quality and fascination. Yeah, it takes me a while because I shy away from improving/complicating the craft sites and I want something that speaks of me. Still they told me, make it affordable and don't lose your dignity in the process. Now the tea cans had been sitting, this one anyway for about 3 months. I try to build a tidy collection before I start in. It dawned on me one session to make ornaments. However I had no design or concept. Then it hit me last night at midnight practically: how do I integrate embossed metal with a wind catching concept. I briefly though about the movie "Tornado" and how the scientist cut up hundreds of Pepsi can and shaped them into wind catchers to fly in the funnel to catch data. Well, below is the test piece form hammering away at one a.m. this morning. I'm happy and they will be a little smaller. Joy is in its affordability and beauty.
Life's full of opportunities and some are annual. So missing the deadline for the Quilt Guild Entry may not make me suffer to greatly. At least until I get to the show and view what people sent in. The third is the deadline and if I jumped to it and drove to the guild meeting, I might make the cut. Still I was hoping the USPS would do the trick and even if, its two day mail and I'm not that eager to get it in with next day mail. Too many other opportunities and obligations balance it all out. I just got to reassure myself with them all. I'll plan on next year for an submission and try to remember that December is when I want to get it in. I had fun the year I participated. This year I switched to a different piece to post instead of the one I had been working on for two years. It is still not finished with the hand quilting. I got disillusioned I guess. And the projects are piling up that I have gotten bored with. I have noticed that I return after three to six months to give it another try or to finish. I seem to work in cycles, go figure. I learned the Catholic Church does and now I think it might be a good approach to the studio. After the Arts Market, I put everything down. I mean everything. There have been a few days I thought about cabin fever and stir crazy notions, but I nurse the frustration with baking and Netflicks. Even watching movies with family helps. I hit a wall again and timed it right with sewing. I stopped the week before Market and haven't done much. Not even hand sewing. My neighbors warn me to rest and I try to heed, but my mind swells in anger and fascination. Eventually my hands start again. I've started painting and finishing up the little essences of beading and knotting on glass and fabric. I have a wall hanging to further explore. I thought it was done, and I nibbled at a new thing and discovered it need companions. I pinch the tin cans and glass bottles after we're done with the container for whatever was in them. I use to keep a stash in my bedroom, then became inundated with feelings of being a pack rat and tossed the tin and funny shaped glass containers. I'm not selling them back, by using the forms and material in art work. The glass bottle double for specimen jars when I'm out in the woods searching for the unseen. Such as I have about two yellow swallowtails and three monarchs thanks to a storm that came through here about three years ago. Bees, tree roots, imprints, tree galls, oddly shaped or colored stones, and more. The tall bottles, pending approval will go into the trees to hang and bend light. The tree is still alive, so it will not be a bottle tree like in African-American spirit lore, but if I find the right stoppers and pipes will be hummingbird feeders and if drilled right, contained waterfalls. I still have to buy the right bit for that. The metal I cut for length and make beads. You can see it in the picture with the wall hanging I worked on. Pairing the forms with other bead substitutions can be intricate trying to piece a tight piece. Namely I use buttons and shells to further sculpt a hanging shape. The pieces are in my budget. Compared to bone and lamp work beads I can buy a hundred on a dollar that one pays for a forth of their value. Painting. The series I started last year: I finally finished the collages for. I have not moved on to painting. I had planned on starting the 12 by 48 series, but got talked into smaller approaches for the sake of space. So I can keep working and not have to by storage. Also for the sake of the economy. Smaller paintings may sell better than large. If I am commissioned to do larger. then so. Also I have been encouraged to stick to painting on paper and never leave collage. Speaking of which I'm on a mission this week to find more for my collection to use. Dumpster diving is not yet back into my life. I would like it to be, but there is not where to clean and store safely. I long for a trip to the Scrap metal yard, but even then it may be too bulky. I know I'll be tempted. I've gotta think. Quick find on Christian symbolism and plants. Three articles. unfortunately no pictures. Then again I'm resourceful and have a library card. The work is to go into woodcut herbals for Easter. I'll have to find pics of the herbs/plants and create sketches. I'll name the plants and one word to describe the symbolism. Maybe eve worth carving in the scripture reference. Planning on at least one to edition. I have wood to size and cut down by the New Year. It is a change in direction, but I can integrate the prints form it into the artwork like I did with Firethorn Oak. It also follows in line with studies and I'm itching to return to it and a forest walk or two. Still haven't harvested what I think is thistle. I'm hoping it can wait till January. The right kind of container is out of the realms of budgetary constraints and I still would have to build a lid for the back up glass container I saw.
Thinking fondly of collage, but caught up in the sewing room determined to have a larger selection for customers who bite at the presentation and work. I need to calm down and regroup, I want to prevent becoming frazzeled and the earlier the better.Rest and looking up from the hammock. yeah. outside. Dream catcher large-ish. I foraged twine in the next town to build more. That was about a year and a half ago. I still have the vine in the backyard buried beneath branch and leaves behind the compost pile. I haven't tried getting at it in a while. May be if I go on the other side I'll have a better chance of winding and tying off in bundles what I brought home. The artificial sinew is the only problem. I've lost my bolt somewhere in my several stashes of tools. I remember a commission I had a while back that no one came for. I gave it to the police department. Lord knows if it did not meet the fate of the garbage can. Anyway I tied and weaved on stones and crystals. NO glue. I was proud of myself. I started saying a while back, after learning about shaker furniture, that glue was a sign of a weak craftsman. Joining is the business to be in I guess.
After being told they expected it of me, I decided to go for it; Covering the large tree and live oak in the front of the house with dream catchers and prayer runner flags. Which brings me to the bottom photograph. The new project started is a tree runner. Braving the elements is part of the cycle of leaving them up. Some for indoor installations, some for outside to brave the heat and cold. I have other things I did when I lived in Fort Worth by my self with tin cans and discard wine bottles. Not a bottle tree or a top for a running fence though. Something else. I'll have to build quietly and store neatly till I begin hanging. Unless I hang after each piece is finished. Not everything will be archival. And I still have not asked the house owner yet. I may have to check with city hall. Although one woman in Dallas , if I remember correctly, made Christmas ornaments for every fallen soldier in the Iraqi War. She kept making them till it was over and the troops came home. I'm not bucking to be on television. But I'm romancing an Art Brut article on a early 20th century garden in France pretty hard. Antoni Gaudi, I think. From the article he used workers from the inpatients at a local psychiatric institution to do the work putting together his designs. I'm not going after Watts Towers like installations, something more ephemeral and easy to carry. I had someone look at one of the plant studies, She preferred the weakest most representational stuff. I should have known better. The study was incomplete, but may have has too much local coloration. I was showing it in dim light. I was shocked she could not see how much color was in the piece in value range. Maybe that's it. Glazing. I'm taking the best shot possible at maturing my oil paint techniques. So I am letting them dry. I'll work into them again before the week is over. I've got to be able to do these things for myself in evaluating. I can, but I think I needed to show of an accomplishment in oil painting. New techniques for me,
The young collard green are initially boring. Well, I was wrong about that. The layer of what seem film over the leaf, is the leaf. Its a grey color that is intensively blended in crayola crayon with the grey and green. I can't remember what painter said grey and green are basically the same thing when painting trees and fauna. Grey is usually used to convey distance in a painting. Unique to use a atmospheric device for as a device for a specific object. I've figured out a new service to one of my DBAs called Herban. Herban's focus is herbalism, food, harvesting, gardening, and of course ecological, environmental and economical. The new service is recycling clothing. I should say refurbishing. The focus is taking in old clothing and redesigning them with an upscale and/or ethic detail. I'm learning more about tailoring and I've got support for the endeavor. Now its a matter of getting supplies and remembering designs. A camera will come in hand for that.
I've never had formal sewing lessons like my soon to be business partner, but from what she tells me, I'm ahead of the game because I make patterns and sew them. The final products have been coming out very well. I have sold. I feel odd that I'm declining a festival, but I do not have enough for sale. But there are other opportunities coming up. Thinking positive. Finding sales venues will come when I understand the market better. The cycles of when to work and when to sale will play out well. |
N.A. JonesVisual Artist; Independent Researcher; Librarian; Cook; Amateur Astronomer; Gardener - the hard way, Writer; Explorer Archives
November 2015
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