You saw something fabulous. And you want to use the idea of it in a piece of work. How do you do that?
I have an obsession with praying mantises. It’s not about their social structure. It’s about how they look and move. I’ve always found them fascinating.
Lady Mantis 2
It’s really true that if you can’t see something, you can’t really draw it. Or design around it. So my first steps is to find a bunch of pictures. I’m not looking for something to copy. I’m looking for how they hold their arms and legs, and what angle the head is at. It’s research.
I love the leaf mantises. Some are green leaf, some are dead leaf. They made me want to scurry over to my leaf collection.
I’ve collected silk leaves for years. They come from craft stores, the Dollar Tree and rummage sales. So, could I make a leaf mantis from silk leaves? It turned out to be a pretty easy trick.
I sat down with my leaves and arranged them into a bug. They stitched down nicely. It was an experiment, but I’m thinking I’m on to something here.
So, more pictures, more research, and maybe several of them dancing in the woods. One of oak leaves, and maple leaves, and who knows what else.
Sometimes I think I should call my blog Studio for Real. I probably make the same bumbles and false starts as anyone else. I do try to show them to you for several reasons. It’s good for you to see that perfect is an abstract that doesn’t exist. That anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And that everything is basically an experiment. It’s Wednesday at the Micky Mouse Club. Anything can happen.
I’ve been working on the purple heron for a while When I put in the white lotuses, I wanted more. More of that white sparkle. So I started some white metallic butterflies.
I had some leftover felt squares and I used them for stabilization. But they weren’t all the same color. I didn’t want to put a layer of hand-dye into the sandwich so I didn’t.
Three quarters through the butterfly I turned it over to photo it. It was ugly. Irredemably ugly. I’d stitched my colors from periwinkle, sage green, silver, to crystaline white. Was it that really pale green that did it? How did it get grungy?
That happens a fair amount. Particularly when a piece is half done. A lot of times it gets better as you go on. Or put the eyes in.
It is better cut out. But compared to the ones on teal or white felt? No contest!
It’s official. I’ve found an officially ugy color. That soft sage green is only good for fish and frog tummies. I won’t use it with something I want sparkly white.
But it’s also deeply affected by the bright green background behind it. My backgrounds make a big difference, particularly if I don’t add in a layer of hand dye. That dark green did me no favors.
Next I decided just to see what the difference would be, to make up some butterflies in Poly Neon with white felt. I thought I might need more brightness.
Surprise! I’ll use these brighter butterflies, but not in this quilt. The metallic ones are more subtle. I wouldn’t have bet on choosing subtle, but this time it’s right.
Do I always thrash around about decisions? No, not unless I do. We all need the time in our art journey to try things out, to take false steps, and to turn, turn again until we come round right.
Whenever you do any kind of representative art, you end up needing to do your research. Does the frog have three toes or two? Does it matter?
Sometimes it really does. Sometimes it really doesn’t. But it’s always more impressive to get your details right.
I do water lilies a lot. Lotus, not so much. And I’m really not sure why. But for this quilt. I want lotus, with their big stand-up pads and their flowers standing proudly on their stems. I need the vertical motion of them.
So I went looking for pictures. When I did, I found lotuses and waterlilies side by side in the search for lotuses. So what is the difference?
I decided it was in the way the petals curved inward, Instead of having a petal shaded differently on each side, I shaded them so that the shadow was in the middle of the curve.
Each quilt gives me an opportunity to explore the shapes, colors, and shadings.. We look as artists for formulas that we can use. But in the end, it’s all observation set in the colors we play with. And a dance of choices, individual but built on all the choices before.
I sat down yesterday and mixed the colors for dyeing. It felt like I was sitting in a circle of old friends. Scarlet, sitting next to Fuschia who had just made friends with a new color Dragonfruit, and was waving across the color wheel to the Lemon/lime.
I’m dyeing fabric today in preparation for surgery. If I’m going to have to go through heart surgery, there better be a really big pony after all the poop. So a pile of fresh fabric waiting for me is sensible. It fills the time while I’m waiting and it leaves me with a lovely pile of fabric to dream about until I can sew again. It’s good preparation I think. And a good way to fill the waiting time.
I started dyeing fabric at thirteen. I found a book in the library that blew me out of the water, with it’s papercut illustrations. The Emperor and the Kite, by Jane Yoland used paper in variegated colors that resembled the hand dye I still do. I wanted to work with the technique and it never occured to me to dye or paint paper. I dyed fabric with Rit.
This all happened in the kitchen sink and my father who was the major cook in the house had opinions about it. My father was almost non-verbal, but he looked like I’d kicked his puppy when he saw the kitchen after I was done. He unblocked the sink, scrubbed it down and said nothing. He always understood the passion around projects. He had his own, and he often helped with mine.
But it set something in me. I don’t really want colors that stand apart from each other .I want them to mingle and to dance within the fabric itself. I’ve been dyeing fabric in some form ever since.
Colors are about relationships. They have relationships with each other that depend on how they are formulated. I am not a dye master. Or someone who can responsibly measure dye and mix it reliably. I dump dye into a cup. I buy a bevy of colors and use them knowing how they relate to each other.
“Knowing the definition of a word is a pinpoint on a map. It tells you where you are. It doesn’t tell you how to get where you want to go. It’s the rawest of beginnings.
In the same way, color theory feels like the the dreariest driest subject in the catalog of art education. We look at the wheel and say the canticle, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange…. It feels like a recitation from kindergarten. And sadder still, it’s not always true. We’ve all mixed yellow and blue to get the most grizzly browns. It feels like finding out about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. A nice story for children but not really true.
Part of what we’re missing with that is the reality that it’s a theory. It works, simply when it does work and when it doesn’t, we need to explore why. Color theory doesn’t account for imperfect color. Color me surprised. Another thing that is imperfect in a imperfect world.
The most interesting distinction with mixing color for me is the contrast in thermal energy. Each color in its imperfections leans a bit towards the yellow sunny side, or the greenish shady side. If you mix all sun colors or a shade colors, the combinations are clear and bright. If you mix sun and shade, you get earth colors.
So if I place Lavender and Orchid together, as sun colors they blend into each other. If I add Lilac, a shade color, the combination browns out a bit. Still light purple but with a browned quality. If I add a sun color like Clear yellow, it will stay clear. Lemon yellow with its shade qualities will brown it out.
The real question is not where we are on the map but where can we go. What color theory really describes is the relationships between colors. Within the color wheel, the spots within that wheel define the same kinds of relationships between different colors. Those relationships go back to that primary list of monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color themes that seem so very dull. Because they define the tension between colors.
For dyeing, you have to know the name and know the color. They all lean one direction or another. There are no perfect primaries, secondaries or tertiaries. If you know which way they lean, you can predict the effect. But you never know exactly what the dye on fabric will do. And it’s never the same. Each piece of fabric is unique.
The distance between colors, creates the pull across the wheel. The closer they are to each other, the least pull. The least tension. The least excitement.
The farthest distance any color combination has is directly across from each other, as complements. Those are combinations that tug and pull and electrify us. Colors right on top of each other are smooth and slide into each other.
It’s not one combination. It’s a circle of combinations that create the same feeling. We can move the circle endlessly and get the same energetic result.”
Which is why it’s such a good thing I know these colors as my friends. I know who the mix with and who they fight with and what it will look like after they have a party together.
I’m spending two days dancing with color to pour myself into that joy, instead of the apprehension about the surgery. After all, color is really an antidepressant. And I’ll have a lovely pile of new fabric to play with after I’m back and healed.
Years ago, someone stole seven quilts from me. I was insured. I do know who but there’s no proving it. I’m resigned that I will never see them again.
It happens, sometimes. In 1,107 quilts, it’s not surprising that I don’t know where all those quilts went. Sometimes I remember. Sometimes I kept good records. Sometimes I didn’t.
Which is why I believe in documenting quilts.
I believe in telling the stories behind quilts. They are ours. We grow and change through them as the work grows. And I believe in good photographs and documenting techniques. Those of us who have built this art form. If we document those things, someone later on can take our journeys as a starting point for their own art
When you sell a quilt, you lose touch with the piece. It’s in someone else’s hands. Mostly that’s wonderful. But if something goes wrong, the records you keep can be the only thing that survives. Good documentation gives you information that may help you find the piece, perhaps, or proof that it existed.
What You Need to Document a Quilt
Pictures
Good pictures, full and detail. Take the best pictures you can of just the quilt itself. If you have a photo wall, use it. When I work on a quilt, I photo my progress almost every day. When I’m finished I have a record of what I’ve done. Here is a blog about putting up a design wall/photo wall. Your phone will work if you don’t have a better camera. But take of your work, as you are working and when it’s done.
Measure your work and keep size records. Write down the techniques you use. Note the materials in your piece. It will help to identify your quilt. Keep records in a journal or in some kind or file. This is the file I give my owners about their quilt.
Label
Label your quilt. Your quilt is a non-verbal child on a bus without an accompanying adult. Name, inventory number, and contact information for the studio are all good information to put on the back of the quilt. Or the name of the person you made the quilt for, and their contact information. Or simply that you made it with love. It’s a great place to put that info in there. The Art of Documenting You Work has information about how to make computer-generated labels.
Sales document
What does this piece of paper tell us? This quilt was made in 2011( last 2 numbers on the inventory number). We have the techniques used and the materials in it. We have a picture of the quilt and the name of the owner. We have contact information for the studio in case they need help. And we have care instructions. It’s a lot of information in one place.
Lately, I’ve started making documentation with each quilt I’ve sold. I put in pictures, blog articles about the quilt, process shots, a page about the size of the piece and its inventory number, and the receipt for the sale. All of that is good information that the owner might enjoy. But it’s also information they can use should something happen and they lose their quilt. It’s a record of it’s making and proof of it’s existence.
Why should we document? This quilt is a case in point. The Graveyard Quilt is one of the great mystery quilts. There was one found of it in Kentucky and a copy of it in Oregon. It’s not a common pattern or theme.. We wouldn’t know the story if the people involved hadn’t documented it. The quilt was made to show where their family members were buried after the family left the area. They lost the quilt and made another quilt as a way of documenting their lives. Knowing their story enriches us all. Every quilt has a story of some kind. They need to be told.
Breaking the Ice was in four quilt magazines, including the back cover of Threads Magazine. I have pictures. It was published in Thread Magic. Even if I never get to see it again, I have proof of what it looked like, what techniques were used, and its dimensions. It exists because it’s documented. If it’s ever found, I can prove it was mine. If it isn’t, it still can be seen in the documentation.
So, don’t make a mystery someone needs to solve in a hundred years. Document your work. Keep records. If your critics don’t want to know, your grandkids will.
Yesterday I gave a lecture on the Visual Path at the Peoria Art Guild. The best thing about lectures is that they help you think about what you do without thinking. I know that a major component of my design decisions is largely about making work move. Lectures give you a reason to think it through so you can talk about it.
Every artist has conundrums they are trying to solve within their work. For myself, making movement is one of those. If I’m filling the world with images of birds, bugs, lizards and frogs, I would hope that they would be breathing, living, moving birds, lizards and bugs. So how do I do that?
Here’s a section of my lecture with some of the rules I’ve decided help me.
These rules may seem silly or simple. But I use them every day. If I want to make things move, I can tilt them, change the size dimensions, create the illusion that they’re falling, or put them in a progressively larger or smaller conga line. All of those are cheap tricks. But they work.
That got me thinking, how many artists have rules they’ve made for themselves that help them to do what they want with their art? And what happens when we break those rules? Are we reminded why we thought to do that in the first place? Or are we liberated by realizing that rule isn’t all that ironclad?
The very cool thing about all this is that no one gets to apply those rules to us as artists except ourselves. It’s not so much a box we’re stuck in as a useful gridwork we can choose to use, or not.
My visual path pieces always make me think about how to make my eye travel through my whole quilt, just for fun. So if I were to bend my rules a bit, what would that look like? Each quilt is an answer to a question that I haven’t figured out just yet.
Today we take 16 quilts over to the Peoria Art Guild to hang the show opening next Friday night, Sept. 1st. In the rush to finish a couple more pieces, find all the unlabeled work, and get all the hangings on, the rods cut, and the cat fur off, there’s a final task that has to happen. I need to do my documentation.
There are 1,107 quilts on my price list since the 1980s. There are around 200 quilts in house. I’m not good at keeping track. I regularly find I’ve got a piece at a gallery I thought I’d lost. I don’t even panic anymore. The chances are excellent that the missing piece is safe in a store where I left it, coming home in time.
But I do have some documentation tricks that help.
photos, photos, Photos
Take full and detailed shots of your work, without Fido in the background. It helps to take process shots too.
Everything Has a Number
Each piece has a number of its own. Its number is the next sequence, plus the year it was made. That gets documented in an Excel file that has the size, and price of each quilt.
The price list is the listing for each quilt by number.
Everything has a Signature
I always sign my work. Right in the stippling. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not. But it’s always there. Yes, I can sign it backwards in case I have the cool thread in the bobbin.
Everything Has a Label
I’ve done everything for labels at one time or another: written in pen on the back, or stitched on a computerized machine. Now I run them through the computer. I use June Tailor’s Iron on Quick Fuse Fabric, an ink jet printer, and Avery’s free label printing site. I can print a sheet full of any kind of label I want and cut it out with a rotary cutter.
Labels are a safety feature. How does anyone know it’s your quilt if you don’t label it? I have a recognizable style, but it’s hubris to pretend everyone would know. Telling one quilt from another on a price list can be harder than it looks. And it has my contact information so someone can send it back to me or contact me if they should find it. I don’t send quilts out without a label.
So how do I manage to lose quilts? I’m so tired at the end of this I don’t always mark off when something sells or when it goes somewhere. The best system is subject to human error, and boy, am I human.
These are some quilts that just came home. They’re on my Etsy site on sale.
I’ve just finished two pieces I started earlier this year. It’s a good thing because the show at the Peoria Art Guild hangs next Saturday. I’m fighting off a summer cold and feeling drained. Except that I wish my nose would drain.
Endings are hard for me. It’s hard for me to finish a quilt. All that passion, all that energy stopped. It feels wrong in some ways. I’m a bit like the artist who is done when someone takes the piece away from them.
Except that at some point, you really are done.
So this is why I almost always have a number of pieces in process. I still need to work through the last of Great Blue. I’m lost after I finish a major piece. I’m hunting for the next passion. And it needs to be a passion. To go through the drawing, the stitching, the dyeing, the quilting, and the embellishment is an immense amount of work. That takes endless energy, which is fueled by passion.
What am I looking for? What is it that I need?
color
Amazing color is always a draw! It can come through the dyed background or from my subject, but I can’t work without color. The images have their own color, but the light of the piece is the fabric background itself. Like a colored lense it sets the tone of the art. Everything is seen through that lense.
Form
The shape of things is incredibly exciting! Bird wings, frogs jumping, the intricacy bugs, the Fibonnacci progression numbers in space and time leave me breatheless.
Movement
The way those forms move. To see them in flight, in water, in repose, in play. I want to play with them.
Memory
Some moments change your life. Watching a heron land on a friend’s pond. Standing eye to eye with a Komodo dragon at the National Zoo. Standing in a training pond with dolphins. Watching the sun rise over a little waterfall at Spring Lake, through a fringe of wildflowers. I am imprinted with memories that always call me back to that point of wonder.
A Male Cassowari watching me …
So what do I do, when a piece finishes? I wander through books looking for the color, the form and the movement for the passion for the next piece. Do I know what’s next? I’m finding Cassowaries interesting. It’s like a thug dressed up for the ball. How dare you be that blue, that red with that yellow? Maybe.
I’ve been working on this pair of herons for a while. The working title is Little Blues. When I put it up on Facebook someone asked me, what happens to the frog?
Usually, I talk with you about how I do things. But that’s a why question. Why did I put a frog in that kind of peril?
Why questions are troublesome. Sometimes we’re happier not knowing. Sometimes it just needs to be asked.
And it would be easier to answer if I actually did know why. Sometimes I just don’t. I’m compelled to work with certain images. I’ve learned to follow that down because my nature quilts aren’t strictly just nature quilts. Most of the time it’s people I know in situations. Before they actually happen. Most often, it’s me in some regard. The tricky part is that the part of me that makes art knows things long before the rest of me does.
But in answer to the question: the frog lives! He may be in a perilous state, but he thrives in spite of it. You may notice the butterfly over his head that he has not yet seen. His hunch is here too.
I think most of us live almost unconsciously in a state of peril. It’s a dangerous world out there. But we find our safety and thrive despite it. Art is a part of that. How we build our own stories changes our place in those stories. We make your safe space: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It may be right next door to uncertainty, but we build our own safety and joy within it.
Is it true? How would I know? I just get images, and they eventually tell me where they should go.
