Fiber Art

AI Ick: How Do We Handle the AI Conundrum

| ellenanneeddy

Let’s start this by saying, it’s just one woman’s opinion. I mean no disrespect to anyone.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Two weeks ago I had to change web hosts. It was an ungodly mess and I did almost nothing except try to fix it. I wrote that the dog had eaten my homework which is why I didn’t have a new blog up.

This week I can almost honestly say that dinosaurs broke into my computer room, pooped in my computer, packaged me up in a box and sent me to California where I kept hearing a cat near by. That bad.

We got it straightened out. It’s three weeks of my life I’ll never get back, so I am deeply grateful for the guy at FixRunner who found me an answer within an hour.

And I don’t have much work to show. So I thought I’d talk about something a lot of us are finding distressing.

I have some problems with AI. I have not, in fairness, tried it. I may never. It offends me in a baseline way. But that’s not the real reason. I think perfectified art really misses the point.

There’s no getting around the fact that it’s theft. I wish that were new. One cave man copied another woman’s art they found in a cave 3 miles up the road. Art has always been derivative. We learn art skills by copying other people’s work. It’s how you learn art in college, largely. You copy the masters, not because your copy has value, but so that you can build your skills for your own work.

We are still always influenced. If I see a quilt with a heron, and I make a heron quilt, it will have a lot of things in common. Like the heron. And the water. I can’t tell you how many heron quilts I’ve seen over years that mimicked Lady Blue. It’s a compliment, I think. Or it may have nothing to do with anything except their interest in beautiful birds. I’ll never know.

That’s the benign kind of theft. We influence eachother with what we do. Art speaks to art. We respond to other people’s work by working with either their imagery or their materials. If we’re good, it’s enough ours that no one notices.

It’s usually hopeless to ask someone why they copied you. They’ll either say they didn’t beause they don’t recognize that they did, or they’ll tell you it’s all completely originally theirs. Either way, it’s not a worthy conversation. Nor is it strictly the truth. But strict truth is a bad fitting shoe. It hurts more than it helps sometime.

The real thieves are the ones who want to use your design commercially. I had someone offer my quilt, Dancing in the Light as a fleecy blanket you could own for $90. When I was over being furious, I realized none of the blankets they offered were produced. It was strict sham. I was torn between being appalled and wanting one. I told them not to do that in an official manner and they stopped listing my piece. I don’t think they stopped. It appears to be a Chinese thing. I found a number of listings on Temu and Etsy.

Part of this is a change in technology. There’s technology out there that we have the ability to use, and no sense about why you shouldn’t. We have the technology to make those blankets. Had they paid me millions of dollars for that blanket’s rights, I might have gone on to join Van Gogh and Degas in the world where people print your work on blankets. We all have our weaknesses.

But technology breaks down all kinds of limits. I can see that cave woman wishing for a world where she didn’t have to paint with her fingers. Imagine her joy when she realized that she could apply paint by blowing through a tube. Or by using a brush.

When I started quilting in the seventies, it was quickly clear that I was wretched at hand quilting. I started to quilt by machine. I would have people come up to my piece, sometimes touch it and say, “Oh, that’s just machined.” It was. Unabashedly. The technology allowed me to do something more than was possible before. Both Harriet Hardgrave and Caryl Bryer Fallert changed the quilt world with magificent machine quilting. It took us a while to accept that different technologies give us different possibilities. I still have people who somehow think what I do is computer generated. I disillusion them when I can. One color at a time, one thread per layer of stitching. Don’t tell me it’s not art.

I somehow hear that when I hear someone say, that’s just AI. It’s an interesting technique that may lead to all kinds of things.

The real reason I dislike the idea of AI is that it tends towards perfection. A perfect picture plucked from someone elses work. At some time, I suspect we’ll have an upstanding collection of AI work set up legally to use, like clip art. I suspect it will look very much like that.

I have a deep fondness for oriental art. I like the aesthetics. This come from the Impressionists who embraced Japanese art. Chinese art tends to be perfect. Japanese art celebrates imperfections. I am much more moved by the imperfections of art, than sleek perfection. People are not perfect. Perfect art doesn’t show the value of of our humanity. I don’t think AI has a way to offer us that.

Creating Color by Underpainting

| ellenanneeddy

I talk alot about color theory, choosing of threads and creating color schemes. The nature of thread painting is no different than any other art. It’s a creating of colors from components. How you arrange those components changes the effect you get.

I usually line up colors light to dark and add in a shocker and a shader. That color scheme gives us a smooth layer of color that builds on itself. It’s pretty. But it hasn’t got a whole lot of depth.

Sometimes I separate the the scales into a dark and light zone. That creates a deep separation on the scales without any shading. That’s pretty too.

I wanted something different for this fish. I wanted the scales deeply separated and clear. So I underpainted my fish first in blues, purples and greens, and then over painting with yellows and oranges.

Is it extra work? Yep. Would I do it all the time? Probably not.

But one of the wonders of doing Koi is their textures. The textures of fins and scales and their sense of motion is all of that.

So I started underpainting with the complements of the piece. Since the fish is yellow orange, the underpainting should be blue. green and purple.

He’d be pretty if I just continued in that range. Instead, after establishing the darker underpainting, I painted over with yellow and orange threads.

After that, I added a light layer of turquoise metallic thread for flash and black outline for definition.

This is where I think I’m going with this. The underpainting separates and lifts each scale and the outlining nd flash stitching punches it visually.

If you are keeping score of colors on the color wheel, you’ll notice it has a full range of analogous colors from Yellow, green, purple to blue.

Is one method better. Heavens, no! It’s a matter of having choices and knowing what those choises offer you. Now I’m off to stitch rocks and hostas.

component Quilting: Planning Ahead for the Small Stuff

| ellenanneeddy

What do these two quilts have in common? Not that much. They’re a different shape. They’re a different color space. They’re a different time of day. They’re clearly both heavily embroidered and oil paint rubbed. But other than that?

They both needed small elements to guide the visual path within. I made all the bugs for White Garden. But I didn’t need them all. The others went into Fire Flies.

Large embroideries take time. I draw them, look at them with some scruteny and eventually embroider them after I’m sure they’re right. It takes time. And effort. Usually a larger embroidery takes about a week to a month. They are a long term investment in time and energy.

If I’ve drawn them well, they should have energy and movement within them. But a good moving image needs to be placed in motion. One easy way to create movement is by the stepping stones of smaller elements. I often use rocks, bugs, butterflies, frogs, flowers and other natural images to help direct that path.

So it stands to reason, I need a lot of those. I do make batches of them for specific projects. But I always make way more than that one project needs. I used to stitch them directly into the quilt. I’ve changed to stitching them separately because it allows me much more flexability.

Why? It’s time effective. I don’t need to set up the thread, redraw the cartoons, and go through just enough flowers or bugs. A batch of them, with leftovers is as good as extra waffles the day after you made them. It’s just smart.

It’s also fun to sit down to a sheet full of little fish or flowers. It’s a lovely 2 day project, usually.

Do I have a collection of these things? You betcha. But they go away fast. There’s always another quilt that needs a trail of bugs.

building a Background

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve spent the last week working on this lizard. He’s ready now for a home.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. Ive done a series of these lizard pieces. They’re based on stone floors and wild things growing through the cracks.

I have a collection of ceiling tiles I use for larger rubbing plates. But I felt a need for something new. So I headed to Lowes in search of texture.

I’m very excited by this rock panel. It’s on a mesh, and perfect for oil paint stick rubbing. But I tried some other things as well

I’m not sure I’m there yet. But I’m working on building the right home.

Tiny: Embroidered miniature Bugs

| ellenanneeddy

I’m worn out after doing a bunch of big pieces. Big is of course, relative. I consider anything past 33″ x 43″ largish. I like workin that size. But the last ones have stretched larger, and I’m tired of shoving large wads of fabric through the machine.

I’ve been working on a white garden piece. The idea came fromThe White Garden, a speculative fiction about Virginia Wolf. She was thinking about an all white garden for the blackout, so that the moon would show on the white petals. I found some embossing plates that were wonderful prarie grasses. I put them on dark blue hand dye in shades of white and blue.

I’ve never had the dicipline to plant only white flowers. Too much of a color junkie. But I love the idea.

This is a visual path piece. It’s about 12″ x 45″ So everything has to be tiny.

So I made a strip of white and pale flowers. But then it needed moonlight and bugs. No one said the bugs had to be white.

How is tiny embroidery different than large pieces. Several things work differently. First off, I want to avoid a thick outline. So instead of embroidering on a sandwich of hand-dye, felt, stitch and tear, and totally stable, I left out the hand dye, and embroidered on the felt instead. Since I wqs using black outlines, I used black felt. Using felt reduces the bulk, but I found it could not be ripped out or sewn over. This is partially why I made a lot more bugs than I would need.

I could have embroidered tiny pieces within the piece. But I chose not to this time. It still makes for a lot of distortion. So I did a batch of moths, fireflies, snails and rocks.

Embroidering tiny pieces insists upon simplification. The usual shocker-shader colors are too much. A simple range works better: gold and green, white and blue, green and blue.

The fireflies are also mostly unshaded. There’s no room for anything except the primary colors of red and green.

So my white garden is full of wild color, very tiny bugs. I think I could find my way in it.

You Have To Blame Someone: Dammit Dolls

| ellenanneeddy

Dammit Dolls

It’s been a tough week. I’m a machine down and my right knee isn’t working. So I’ve been working on that small blue and white moonlight piece with moths and fireflies. Which means lots of fireflies and tiny moths.

Sewing the body

But my week didn’t really top the charts. I have a friend having a triple bypass next week. I know she’s scared out of her mind. I also know I’m too far away to do very much. So I’m making her a Dammit Doll.

Her friend suggested I make clothes for her. It’s a nice thought, but I’m not really a sewer. And it will cost more than buying clothes. I told her friend that I had gone to the Omar the Tentmaker school of fashion design. My speciallty at moments like this is something silly.

Embroidering the face

I don’t care how much your doctors care, and how kind the staff is. Surgery sucks. Seriously. So there will inevitably be alot to be upset about. All that energy has to go somewhere. So you can take your Dammit Doll, wack it on any surface near by and speak the time honored chant: “Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.” Those of us with a more Shakesperian eduction may be able to elaborate on that.

Pearl cotton hair

It’s true. The feelings need to go somewhere. There’re not a lot of ways to express that in the hospital. It’s adrenaline from being surgically attacked and the inabilty to move for the same reason. It shakes down badly without a way to express it all.

I’d say I could use one myself, but it’s enough to make them. And they need silly hair which is half the fun. I’ve made two so that her caretaker can have one as well.

In the end you have to blame someone and there’s no one to blame. So it’s San Andrea’s fault and a place to dump all the anger, fear, and pain that goes with surgery. An act of serious silliness.

Finding New Tools: Whose Tool Box do you Take Things From?

| ellenanneeddy

As quilters, we are excellent borrowers. Quilting as an art form is relatively new. Art quilting really didn’t exist until the 1970s. Rotary cutters were originally used by fashion semstresses. Surgical seam rippers and hemostats are medical tool that tranformed instantly into quilt tools. Men’s fishing bags, now designed in woman’s colors are the package of choice for sewing kits. We know a good thing when we see it. And we’re not too proud to use it. It doesn’t even need to be pink.

Those tools were life-changing for me. I will never work the same way I did without them. I didn’t personally develop them. Most of them were handed to me by a quilter who knew how life changing they would be.

My dad had a saying about horrible projects. “If it’s too hard, takes too long, or is just too awful, you have the wrong tool.” His other saying was, “You can use a hammer for a saw, but it’s hard on the hammer and what ever you are sawing.”

So this week, I found a new tool box to raid. I’ve been playing for some time with rubbing plates and oil paint sticks. This is another borrowed technique, and I love the textures and colors it adds in my work. But I’ve run out of rubbing plates. I’ve kind of bought all the ones that weren’t Christmas, sentiments, and animal prints. I’ve used them to a lather. I’m working on routing my own patterns. But I’m still looking for anything else that will serve.

So I found metal embossing dies on Amazon.

They are a bit deceptive. They are not in pretty colors. They’re all metal dies used for embossing. They work just fine for oil paint stick rubbing. They are smaller than I expected. But I was most excited that there were weeds and grass flowers in them. I’ve wanted some wild weed rubbing plates forever!

Plain silver, celedon, sand, and metallic white against blue.

I have a brand new set of tools for my tool kit! And a new tool box to raid.

Where does this go?

Version 1.0.0

I read a fabulous book called “The White Garden”. It’s speculative fiction about Virginia Woof. It sugguested planting a white garden in WW2 that you could see in the blackout. I was charmed by it. But my self control is not good enough for me to do that in a garden of my own. I always choose color. It’s a character flaw. The concept still makes a great image. I love these glowing weeds at night. All it needs moths and/or fireflies.

So who’s tool kit do we borrow from? If we’re smart, we’ll grab anything that works. Most of the time you get a look at something being used in a way you’ve never thought of before. Like cutting chiffon with a sodering iron. Yep. That’s a thing. I can’t wait to try it.

Where’s the best place to learn about the unauthorized tools? Other quilters of course!

Tech and Art:Passing On How-To

| ellenanneeddy

I was a teacher before I became a quilter. So I’ve never stopped being a teacher. It’s one thing to work out solutions as an artist. But it’s always seemed wrong to me that those solutions should be secret.

It’s back to what defines your art. If technique is what defines you, then you might want to hold on to your technical secrets. A special way to do applique, or bind a quilt or dye fabric will define your work.

Dacning in the Light

But that’s never happened between myself and my students. I’ve always tried to pour out information for them to use in any way that helps. For all of the thousands of women I’ve taught, no one has tried to take my style as their own. Instead, they’ve taken technique and used it for their own vision. That’s inevitable. And excellent. Who else would make a series of 6 foot praying mantises? It could be arguable that no one else needed to. They’ve had their own visions. What I’ve taught was nothing more or less than a tool kit.

Because that’s what art really is: vision made visable. What matters most, is can you manifest the things you see in your head. And how you do that. Tech is a tool kit. Usable, valuable but no end in itself.

The how changes regularly without warning. They stop making your favorite stabilizer. Or fusible. Almost everything needs to be reworked at this point.

But sometimes you just outgrow tech. I started on a quilt where the rocks I made looked stupid and childish and I had to change it. They needed shading and distinction, and that prompted me to change my technique.

The rocks I’ve been working on for two weeks just needed more than that approach. I suppose it was making a rock face for a waterfall. I put up simple rock shapes and was appalled.

For some while I’ve made rocks with simple hand dye, fused directly to the top, and stiched with freemotion stitchery with smoke monofilament. It kept the rock edge from being one solid color and the hand dye does echo the variations within rock surfaces. If you look up Sun, Clouds, Water and Rock: Making Elements with Soft Edge Applique, you can see my original thinking on it.

Why talk about it? Because I hate giving a recipe for a cake that won’t rise. Perhaps you might have learned to make rocks from me and are frustrated too. Perhaps you’re trying to resolve how to make rocks for your own work. Perhaps it might make better lizard skin. My point is we never know how other people use our techniques, but I beleive it to be unholy not to share.

So I worked on two kinds of stitching with the rock: zigzag stitcing to creaate shadow and shading, and straight stitching to define the grain of the rock and the top edge. Because it takes that extra amount of stitching, I made them on a layer of felt and tear away, so that any gathering gets cut off when I’m finished.

Stitching down those two kinds of edges takes two different kinds of thread. The bottom edge needs a tight zigzag stitch in black polyester. A straight stitch line defines the top of the rock edge. But the top edge needs soft edge zigzag stitch with monofilament, to maintain the grain edge of the rocks and stitch it solidly down.

It’s different thqn whqt I taught before, so I’m updating for you. If you ask me, I always will. I look forward to the rocks you might make in your journeys. And your vision which is your’s alone.

Rethinking Rocks

| ellenanneeddy

Just like I’m not a desert girl, I’m not a rock girl either. I don’t think in terms of dry. As an artist it’s always good to stretch past what you know how to do.

The post, Good Bones:Rocks from Water, covers how I’ve usually done rocks.

For the longest time, I’ve cut rocks out of hand dye, and been satisfied with them. But I really wanted to do a waterfall with carp. And you can’t have a waterfall without somewhere from the water to fall from. That would be rocks.

I put up some cut grey and brown rocks and looked at them. They looked hopelessly childish and wrong.

It’s a bad moment. It’s also a great invitation. You dig deep, you look at it in different ways, and try to morph what you already know into what you need to do next.

That sent me spinning off to my library to look at how other people handle rocks. I have a book of Elizabeth Doolittle that’s full of great mountain imagery. And a great book on Glacier National Park with some fabulous waterfalls.

The real treasure was my Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, the classic sumi painting text. It said that trees were all about the veins in the leaves, but that rocks were about the grain in the rocks.

I thought about that for a while. Then I realized, the occlusions in the hand dye are the grains in the rock.

I replanned the rocks for the waterfall. Instead of making strips of rocks, I cut chunks. I filled in areas with smaller rocks and gravel.

Then I texturized the rocks, putting on a dark under edge and shading at the bottom third, and followed the patterns of the hand dye as grain. I used black thread and a zigzag stitch to establish the bottom of the rock and then shaded with a long-short stitch. Finally I followed the grain of the rock using the elements of the hand dye. Since I did a lot of stitching, I made them separate from the piece on stitch and tear and felt as stabilizers.

I’m still unsure. But I’m closer. I need to make the rocks that define the pond underneath and sort out the waterfall, but I think it’s on its way.

These rocks need to be less regular. I tried to use perspective to determine the shading, but simple shading seemed to work better.

It’s a slower process. I’m stymied on the desert quilt while I’m waiting for the books I ordered to figure out sand textures. It’s not just sewing, it’s thinking.

What do you think? Are these rocks over-fussy, or do they add the right amount of texture.?

Next week, adding the waterfalls and koi.