What’s Stopping You? What Gets in the Way of Your Art?

| ellenanneeddy

A couple of weeks ago, I had an old friend and his wife come to visit the studio. We don’t exactly clean for those events, but it’s nice if there are enough empty chairs to go around. In our effort to find the chairs, the large cutting table got ladened with quilts.

It was a delightful visit. Even for Don. But exhausting. We still have a table piled with quilts and nowhere to work.

What do I use that table for? Laying out. Cutting out. Squaring off. Backing. There’s a list that’s longer than my arm with what happens with that table. All of which can’t happen when it’s full.

So you can’t get on to the next step until you have it cleared away.

Why is that table full? Because I really don’t know how to store those quilts.

I used to just work around my chaos. Now I really find it stops me. I can’t make the cookies until I clean out the stand mixer. There’s a direct connection between what wasn’t done and what I need to do before I can start anything else.

So what did I do instead? I made curlews.

I could do that on a smaller table. I’m at the point where I need the full table to put it in place.

We’re cleaning the table. Today. No matter what.

I recognise that I need a system that leaves everything in place for the next step. I also think it may take 2 Pepsies and a lot of vitamin B12 to get there.

Maybe I need to add a Pepsie at the end of each project, just to get it put away. Wish me luck.

So what stops you? What derails your work? Is it situational, or systemic? Worth knowing. Mine is systemic, and I need to name it, claim it, and find a safe place to put it away. I think it may be my way of instituting a rest in the studio. I could, you know, just plan to do something less stressful, without the pile on the table.

Would anyone like to rescue a nice large quilt that’s not being kept archivally safe? We have a pile.

This week I’m buying shelves that fit in the closet, and we’re going for it.

The Differences that Just Are: Normal Is a Setting on the Dryer

| ellenanneeddy

A friend I knew well recently asked me if I knew I was odd. It was said as a pejorative. Well. Yes. Actually, the hardest thing for me has been to connect with ordinary people. Most friendships are task-related. My life has not followed ordinary patterns or currents. So I don’t always have the same tasks. Sorry about that. I get to most places other people go, but I’m not on the same schedule. I’m not particularly ordinary. She told me I could at least pretend.
I know, even past her irritation with me, that it would only matter if there were any ordinary people. Normal is a setting on the dryer. They’re just different in different ways.
How much of this defines us as artists? Are we really separated by our art? There are people who say they aren’t artists. I don’t buy that. We are not artists by what we do. We are by our genome. We are artists because we are human, and that’s part of our humanity. We may not choose to make art or need to make art, but our humanity makes us artists. It’s common to us, but it’s not ordinary. What isn’t ordinary is the need to focus on that art.

There are always artists who we see as better than we are. More ability. More output. More glory. Sorry about that. They’re not ordinary either. But it’s not a competition. They can’t do what you do, either.
So that well-vaulted, much-desired normal is not in any way normal. That may be just as well.


Perhaps the only thing we have to offer as artists is our viewpoint. That really isn’t ordinary. It’s the unique viewpoint we bring to the world, and it is precious.
Skill is something we learn over time. We develop all kinds of abilities, and they change our lives. They are a wheel that runs smooth or rough against the road of time. We gather skills, we drop what disinterests us, lose them as we age, change them as we grow. They change with technology and time. Skill doesn’t make you an artist. It just improves your vocabulary.
Our vision is who we are. What we see, the images we must work with, those sometimes change, but they are personal. They are all we really have to offer. Talk about different! None of us are much like other people. Vision usually is more permanent. It can change, but it represents a huge change in who we are.
I tend to see people as animals. It’s not a comment on their humanity. It’s just my vision. All those bugs and frogs and birds, they’re people I know. That especially includes myself.
I am not like other people. I don’t think anyone really is. Our uniqueness is a sign and a symbol of that unique spark. I can’t help but wonder if ordinary is a sign of exhaustion. Of giving up. Of giving in. Of course it could always simply be that I’m not trying hard enough to blend. But if you see yourself as a large frog, well, there you are. And no one can say your not working hard enough at it.

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Visual Path Quilts, Video
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The Mattress Pad: Dealing with Public Perception

| ellenanneeddy

When I started to use my own dyed fabric, it changed my work forever. I began with pieced gradations, but my piecing was never my strong suit. I soon discovered that a dyed background that offered a light source and a world within it was a lot less work and a lot more effective.

That doesn’t mean everybody got that. I was at some show where a well-meaning fellow asked me where I found a mattress pad in all those colors.

Yes, it was dyed in many colors. Yes. it had bugs embroidered all over it. It was very early in my career. I explained it carefully to him. He left, shaking his head, presumably looking for the store that carried hand-dyed mattress pads.

We can’t control public perception. No artist can. We can document, do videos, demonstrate, and teach. Some fool will still want to know where you got the mattress pad.

Lately, I find people asking me what computer program I use for my embroidered images. I don’t. Everything is hand drawn and the thread is added one color at a time, layer after layer. Hand guided.

There’s the issue of their perceptions, and then there’s how you respond to them.

I’ve discovered both are worthless endeavors if they’re drunk or inherently mean, I remind them that the bar/gallery/party has the refreshment table over there. Not in a mean way. Just, “Have you tried those yummy shrimp things over there.” No one wants to listen to that.

Crowds of people create a crowd atmosphere, which is usually not as smart, as perceptive, or as kind as they would be as individuals. I tell them what they can hear, and I let them tell me what it means to them. If the large raven in the setting sun is a raven swallowing the moon for them, I usually don’t correct their assumptions. The piece will tell them what they can hear. The meaning they bring to it is real for them. I don’t need to adjust that.

What matters is what I take to heart from the experience.

This can be how you define situations you never want to be in again. I pray God I never have to do a craft show again.

They may give you a lift of confidence that is fabulous. Take that home, put it on your emotional shelf, and dust it off when needed.

But at your heart you need to hear that each piece you did, whether perfect or not, whether salable or not, whether pretty or not is a part of your journey. You couldn’t get where you need to go without walking over this ground. Your art is the byproduct of your becoming an artist. It’s perfect this time if only different next time. They don’t get a say.

So what was the best thing anyone said about your work? The worst? And how has it changed your work?

As an aside, I have come back to the idea of a mattress pad. Now that I do component quilting, I find it’s easiest to complete the background and then add the subject and components. So it is kind of like a mattress pad, if you ignore the fact that it’s been dyed, stitched, had sheers appliquéd to it, and been texturized with oil paint stick.

Just because the person is an arse doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a point.

Take the good stuff. Leave the rest. Be true to you.

Business stuff. The saga with Facebook goes on. It’s tiresome, but they want big bucks for me to add links to my article. I’ll post information about the current posts. If you write Fiberwild, in the comments, I’ll send you a link for my sites.

In my mind, they have condemned Facebook to be more commercial, more out of touch, and much less interesting by shutting out small artists and industries. I’ll still post on the different pages I’m involved in. Usually, googling Ellen Anne Eddy will get you to my sites. My apologies for the chaos this causes.

You really should check out the Patreon Page. It’s free to join, We have a Show and Share Chat. And I’m doing multiple art attack and technical talk articles each week.

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Bored of the Lawn

| ellenanneeddy

Don had his birthday last week. He and first wife exchanged cards with lots of sentiment. That seems not to be our style. I’m not so much a card girl. And he really doesn’t want anything. It’s kind of grim, and I can’t talk him out of it.

But he does like it when I make him a card.

I don’t work in paper. I’m not tidy enough to work in paper. Paper stains, it crumples, it gets old and foxed.

But I do work in fabric. And for certain special days, I make him a small quilt card.

These are not like my body of work. They’re silly. I used other people’s fabric. And I write silly sappy things on them. One of us ought to be romantic.

Years ago, I was ironing fabric in the garage where I had the mangle. To be companionable, he sat on his tractor to keep me company. What a guy!

Don does not like the outside. There are bugs out there. And noxious weeds. And too much sun, too much rain, too much of much. But he is meticulous about the lawn. Basically, he’s trying to make sure our dandelions aren’t much higher than the neighbors’. He has many lawn tools, but the tractor is his favorite. By this time of year, the thrill has worn a bit thin. He goes from Lord of the Lawn to Bored of the Lawn. Finally, the frost comes in, and that’s the end of that.

So I took my picture, put grass behind it, and ran it through the printer. Epic Fail. The ink was almost out, and we got this stripey odd image. But it only took up half of the paper. So we tried it with another printer and got a good print, meeting the bad print in the middle, upside down, kind of like a playing card.

Some mistakes are just too good not to use.

The other factor in mowing the lawn is the impediments. Like cats and their toys. And flowers. I left out the worst of these: a dog coat that got caught in the lawnmower. Much gnashing of teeth and sorrow over that. So they’re in the quilt.

We also have an owl in the neighborhood. We never see her, but she sings to us nightly.

Here he is in all his glory. He may be bored of the lawn, but he’s still at it.

If you still haven’t checked out my Patreon Page, please do. It’s a lot more articles and videos of technique and work lessons about art that blend seamlessly into fiber art, and it’s free to join.

If you are able, would you consider joining at a higher tier? It helps me keep my studio going so I can share what I do with you. I have a sale of special small quilts for paying patrons right now.

Courage and Confidence

| ellenanneeddy

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I teach machine embroidery for quilters. What I mean is that I teach them to draw upside down with a sewing machine.

The  classes I teach have a syllabus, but there is always another curriculum beneath that. While I’m teaching people to drop their feed dogs, draw with their sewing machine, and clean out the dust bunnies inside, something else is happening.

After years of teaching, my students tell me the same thing over and over. First they tell me they’re not an artist. I tell them they are. Art is not a special gift for one person or another. It’s a part of our humanity. The whole range of human ability sits within our genetics. It’s not a matter of whether we are artists. It’s a matter of whether we choose at this moment to focus on art. Sometimes our lives focus on art, and sometimes our art becomes living our lives. But the raw material is always there.

Once I’ve got them through that spot, they spend a day working on things that I suspect sometimes frighten them. But at the end of class they often say, “I don’t do what you do, but I feel free/fearless/able to do what I need to do for my own work”. That feels right. What am I teaching? Fabric skills are easy. Most people get what I do with a sewing machine within a day or two of class. But the heart of art is harder to examine. I’m teaching machine embroidery, but I’m also teaching courage and confidence.

Courage is not a feeling. It’s not about how we feel about our world, our actions, our art, and ourselves. Instead, it’s how we act towards those things. Feelings are basically fluid.  They come and go in waves. How we respond to, with, and in spite of those feelings is courage.  It’s a series of responses that we can learn.

Confidence is also learned but in a different way. Again, it’s not a feeling. It is a history of successes we hold up as a shield against new dragons and quests we take up. Again, we learn confidence. Sometimes we unlearn doubt and relearn confidence. We restructure our world in such a way that we know.

So, what scares you? Which piece have you put off doing because you think you can’t?

Many years ago, I saw a fountain with a cat head in it. I was delighted. I imagined all kinds of birds fluttering around it, as their personal bird bath.

I tried this fountain quilt 15 years ago. I’m not good with buildings. They have straight lines. It’s quite hard for me.

But I’d seen a cat head fountain. I tried it with owls. Epic fail. It’s still in a bundle in the back of the studio.

I had two stumbling blocks: the fountain itself, and the streams of water.

Time brings us skills. The oil paint stick rubbing I’ve been working on makes pretty good stone.

I’ve also been working on waterfalls. The same shape works with fountain spray.

Is it done? No. I have one more hurdle. I already know it’s not going to lie perfectly flat. It’s sat in the corner unfinished for a year.

The need for things to be perfect is a lack of both courage and confidence. Nothing is perfect. Perhaps it’s more interesting that way. And it’s not like everyone doesn’t know that perfect happens somewhere else. Other people don’t get to demand perfection. Excellence, yes. Perfection? Not so much.

So I need to find my big girl panties. They may be in the same pile as the quilt.

What I really need is the courage and confidence for the next step.

Finding Joy in Color: An Artist’s Journey

| ellenanneeddy

It might just be a change of scenery. Darker mornings. I’m finding I’m just a bit low lately.

I spent the year doing pretty much one project: The Octopus’ Garden. I have 2 more to go, but we’re on the downhill stretch. I’m proud of them, but I haven’t formalized a show for them yet. I don’t do well when projects are winding down. And it’s darker in the morning. Time for a little self-care.

I’m also reworking my social media. Facebook has decided they would like to charge ungodly amounts of money for the privilege of using more than 2 links per month on an account.

I’m sure some companies can do that without blinking. This small artist’s studio can’t. I need to find a better way to reach out to you.

Why is that so important to me? Most of you have been on this journey with me for a long time. We walk towards our experience, towards new skills, towards an expression of the world we live in. I’ve used Facebook a lot for that. I’m not going to disappear from Facebook. But I won’t be able to direct you to my work as easily. Or to connect as easily with yours.

If you are reading this, and it’s of value to you, please do two things. Subscribe, because I won’t be able to direct this to you with a Facebook link. And consider joining me on Patreon. Both are free. And we’ll still be able to reach each other.

I also have a Patreon promotion happening over the next two weeks starting next Saturday. I have 10 tiny quilts I’m offering to paying Patreon members for $60 plus shipping and tax.

So I’ve been low. Time for antidepressants. And the best one I know is COLOR.

I drew what I think will be my last octopus for a while. I love her. I’m planning on her juggling star fish.

When I went over to the thread drawers, I pulled out all my orange, yellow and purple. Just looking in the bag was like smelling coffee or baking cookies in the kitchen. So much better.

I love this part of the process. Filling in, creating the texture, melding the colors, all that is a joy zone for me.

It costs in supplies, but it’s not pills.

I intend to reach out in several new ways over the next couple weeks. Let me know what works for you.

Adding Elementals: Building Depth

| ellenanneeddy

What is that weird fabric in your sash?

For years now, I’ve kept a stash of sheers and lace. It’s essential for my work. It’s one of the reasons I’m really mourning the loss of Joann’s. I use several techniques to create elementals in my work.

What’s an elemental?

An elemental is something see-through or transparent in a piece: water, air, sunlight, fire, and mist are elements you can see. They usually don’t have a hard edge. Layers of sheers make a translucent element that creates that effect. It shifts the background either in color or texture.

Lately I’ve been using oil paint stick rubbing as well. It’s a very different process, but it serves the same purpose. The background shines through, but the rubbing gives a soft edge of paint, defining the details.

I’ve been using both to stretch my ability to show something that’s essentially ephemeral. I can overstitch them if I want them more defined.

How do you build in layers?

My first layer is always hand-dye cotton. It has its own story in the dyeing. Light source hand-dye gives the best background with the story already written in. But where I want to build something not solid, I turn to layers.

The paint stick layers almost have to go first. That’s somewhat scary for a large piece because there’s no way to remove them. You need to get it right at the first pass or you need another background. Choose your rubbing plate, and anchor it to the table. Use spray glue to anchor your fabric. Remove the edge film on your oil paint stick and rub away. Let it dry for several days and iron it to make it permanent. I could do the waves just in stitchery. But the oil paint stick rubbing pops it off the surface.

In contrast, you can plan sheers and rearrange them indefinitely. I use Steam-a-Seam 2 as my fusible. It has two pieces of release paper and a glue layer in the center. It pats onto my fabric. I cut my shapes and then peel off the release paper. I can place and replace them anywhere until I iron them down.

What does that buy me?

Elements that still allow me to see the background but shift color and texture. I have water, waves and weeds, all of which are very visible without overwhelming or hiding the background.

Elementals are a big part of my work. So much of nature is in layers, peeking out from each other.

For your information, if you’ve been enjoying this blog and finding it through Facebook, I may not be able to supply a link on Facebook anymore. Their rules have changed. Please subscribe to the blog and/or join my Patreon page so you won’t miss a post. Both are free. I post the blog every Sunday, and post 3 times a week on Patreon: Show Off Saturday, Technical Tuesday, and Art Attack Thursday. I’ll continue to post in Facebook, but I may not be able to supply links to those other pages. See you there.

Visual Structural Language: The Decisions Before We Take A Stitch

| ellenanneeddy

Recently, I was working on the rocket octopus’s background when I made a pretty large boo-boo. I was putting shell rubbings along the bottom. I got turned around and put them down the side rather than at the bottom. This was my best original pin-up

As boo-boos go, it was pretty bad. I can turn the quilt on the side as if my rubbings weren’t a mistake.

None of the answers for that were great. I could turn the quilt over and use the other side. There’s no backside to hand-dye, so I could do that. I’d lose the darker right corner, and I knew I’d miss it.

But that made me realize. This is one of the decisions we make before we take a stitch. It changes how the whole quilt works.

A vertical layout pulls the eye up, just by its nature. It removes the subject from us a bit. It creates a distance.

A horizontal layout gives a more expansive and inclusive view. It welcomes us in. There’s space for us in the imagery.

Is either of these things wrong? Of course not. But it’s worth knowing what that tells us within the piece.

These are the decisions we make before we take a stitch in a piece. I suspect that unless we’re forced, either by error or design, to change it, our original idea is probably the right one. The eye knows long before you can explain it to anyone. We make the right decisions, even before we know the question. It’s a serious visual clue at the heart of the design.

We are talking about a visual structural language: communication through images, shaped by how they’re ordered within the piece. It’s not verbal. The positioning itself communicates something we need to know about that piece. Another orientation wouldn’t be wrong. It would tell us something different.

At this point, I think I have the right orientation. If I swap my red and blue octs, it may even work.

What do you think?

What’s In A Name? Naming Your Art

| ellenanneeddy
Creeper?

It’s always a question. Sometimes we have better answers than others.

There is the mechanical approach: Study 225, Floral Composition or Noir 393. I do number my tapestries just to keep the confusion down. I have 1,219 documented quilts. I have to keep track somehow. I number them with their place in line, and add the year. This quilt is 1219-26.

It’s helpful. But that’s an awful name.

The name is something else. Your relationship with your piece starts sometimes before you start. An image that grabs you. Notes from a song. Colors in the garden. It gets inside you and swirls with your imagination. Sometimes that sugguests the name.

As you bring the piece into the world, step by step, you know a bit better what it is, what it means. Maybe. Sometimes I don’t for years. But you have to call the piece something other than “Hey you!”

Pretty Bird

If it’s a bespoke piece, I let the owners tell me. Their relationship with the piece is much more important. They tell me what it’s called.

Pinkie

Sometimes I do an art joke. The name should let people into the joke. Pinkie is an art joke. She was made as the spoonbill version of Reynold’s Pinkie.

Sometimes it’s a quilt in a series. I have a number of Floral Arrangements, because I’m fascinated with the idea of bugs as gardeners.

Fish Rising

The fish in the stream series echos that. The names aren’t all the same, but it’s such a strong image for me that I am compelled to come back to it again and again.

Royal Rails

Sometimes the creatures themselves name the quilt.

Rose Owl

Sometimes the components around the piece tell you what is going on. The roses and the moths display a warm spring night, scented by roses, and attended by moths.

You gather the pieces and you tell yourself stories about it. I find the background tells me the most. And it changes the story entirely. It tells you where and when this is happening.

This quilt started from some research where the octopus looked like they were creeping across the ocean floor. Even while swimming. I started to call him creeper.

He’s not that sinister. But he’s definitely hunting.

Sometimes, the title sticks. And you use it. Or you search for something else.

I can’t call this guy creeper. I’ve got to do better than that.

So how do you name your quilts?

Can you help me give Creeper a better name?