Work work working

Some updates on the piece I have been working on for a couple of weeks ... I think maybe the major portion of it is done, and now I have to clean up the threads.

School and a new piece

The kids have started school!  This means I am alone for three hours a day, twice a week.  CRAZY.  I have decided to use this time to focus on art making for the first time since undergrad.

It's actually pretty amazing to work on my own art and not feel guilty about it.  In school, I was like, I'm paying for this studio time!  I better get some work done!  And my teachers were always hanging around, and the other students.  After school I felt like ... it was maybe self-indulgent to do my own art.  My first job out of school was in a completely different field, and that job took many hours of my day outside of time in the office, so it was hard to really work on art.  

Then I went to grad school for art therapy, spending a short amount of time on my work but mostly focusing on other people and their needs.  And then I really didn't make my own art, when maybe I should have...  I remember spending a few days on my first crochet piece and thought, wow, this is amazing, I could be doing this all the time (but never made another piece).

Now that I don't have the time to work as an art therapist, and I spend most of my day focused on the kids and their needs, it still does feel self-indulgent to work on my own work.  But at the same time, being a productive artist makes me feel more like a whole person, and feeling like a whole person is important when you spend so much of your energy on others.

So here is what I have been working on this week.  I made the frame over the last several weeks but the crochet was yesterday and today.  Today I worked for almost an hour and a half, with my music blasting - IN MY OWN HOME.  It felt amazing.

Now it's time to go pick up the kids. :)

Submitted work to a show AHH!

The kids will be going to school starting next week and I have decided to use the time they are in school to work on art.  To I guess make a real commitment to working for the first time since undergrad.

All summer I have been actually doing some work with the crochet mixed media stuff and I am really enjoying it.  I now have two new pieces plus an old piece all in the style of my new work and I submitted to a show this afternoon.

AHHH!

I have only ever one other time submitted work to a show and I was rejected.  I have never shown my work anywhere except for the senior show in undergrad and the final show in grad school, shows where everyone gets to put in a piece.  I am so afraid of judgement I just have never submitted my work anywhere else.  I also don't feel like I ever really had finished work before except for the odd painting or maybe a print here and there.

I don't even have real equipment to take pictures of my work.  I borrowed a camera from a friend and I used free software that came with my computer in order to edit it.  And my computer doesn't have wifi (the air port is broken) so I had to make my phone a personal hotspot, connect via bluetooth, email the images to myself, and fill out the submission form on my ipad (the personal hotspot also wasn't super reliable).

Anyway, without further ado, here are 3 untitlted pieces :P

.

.

Crochet and painting

I'm not sure this is finished, it certainly isn't a professional photo.  I'm challenging myself to finish 3 works by the end of August and apply to a non-traditional fiber works show.  Honestly I think it is a waste of money.  But if I don't apply to shows, I will never hope to be in one.

It's four layers ... the back is a painted piece of particle board, then a layer of crochet (enlarged broomstick lace stitch I just learned), then a painting, then more crochet with white thread.  

I've been incorporating a tapestry needle in some of the work and I kind of love what you can do with it.  You can enlarge sewing stitches just as well as crochet.

I always use so much red and purple!  I started a blue and green piece and it went nowhere. Hm.

More crochet

I got started making a very large piece after buying a big frame that was on clearance about two weeks ago.  The size of the frame was really exciting to me and I got to work.

This is two weeks of work during stolen time, kids' naps or when my husband takes the kids for a little bit so I can work.

Today I was tying the crocheted piece to the frame and reinforcing some of the design, it seemed like it was getting lost in itself.

Sorry the photo isn't great, I am working on my dining room table right now.

I think I'm just going to put a towel over it when the kids wake up so I can keep coming back to it until it is in a state where I can safely store it upright.

I really have no idea where it's going, it just is kind of happening.

Arting Away

This is a sneak peak of the work I'm doing for the show with the November 1 deadline.  I set out to do a mixed media piece using materials/techniques including crochet, shrinky dink, water colors, and maybe embroidery.  I've been working on the crochet elements for the last two weeks because it just takes forever when you use the thin thread instead of yarn.  The picture shows how I incorporated shrinky dink into the chrochet.

So far my unemployment has been peppered with holidays so I haven't really had much time to fill.  This is my first full week without a holiday coming up, and it's pretty busy.  Tomorrow I start back up at the pottery studio finally, and I am working on these shows as well as revamping my portfolio and website.  Those projects combined with general erranding and the inexplicable time warping that happens when you're home all day makes for a full-feeling day.  Why is it that time goes by faster when you're at home all day?

Embroidery

I have really been getting into embroidery at one of the studios where I work.  It's fun, it's like painting with thread!  Plus it is incredibly soothing.

Today I did a demo at work with a bunch of different stitches, I don't know what they're all called but I know how to do them mostly from trial and error:

It started with the blue line, then the brown chain stitch, then the other stitch I don't know what it's called, and then combining stitches to make the orange sun and yellow star.

Fun!

Maybe if I get really good at it I can start doing designs on skirts and other clothes... I would love to do things like that to my clothes.  I have some skirts that I barely ever wear that might want to have some decoration on them...

Weaving

Tonight I taught my group about weaving after reading a tutorial about using cardboard to make portable looms on gingerbreadsnowflakes.com.  I didn't quite do it correctly but it came out well enough!  This is my square, it has some stripes, nothing too fancy.

Playing with buttons

Working on a mixed media project, doing some demos for clients, and this is what happened today.  Buttons, beads, embroidery, and some cool b&w fabric.

Crochet Tulips

The last time I broke out the yarn was to make a piece to alleviate anxiety and weave a kind of protective symbol.  And it was about a year ago, too.  Hmm...

Anyway, I was feeling anxiety yesterday and needed something to do with my hands, so I started making these tulips.  I wore the big green one as a ring today, but my favorite is the big white one (at the top).  Today I tried making the pink and white ones, which I don't like as much as the brown and white/blue/green ones.

They also kind of look like barnacles to me.  Which made me think of this amazing installation:

(Image credit and more info at crochetcoralreef.blogspot.com)

Love it!  Maybe I should make a little underwater scene... (Not that I have anything else to do, oh wait, that anxiety is why I was making the tulips in the first place!)



Check out  Crochet Coral Reef, the blog! It is neat!

Bags made from Recycled Denim

These bags are amazing!!!




(Read the original post here)


OKAY, I love bags, I am going to give into that cliche. BUT. ALSO. These bags are made from recycled denim! Would you think that just looking at them? Probably not. At least, I wouldn't. I like the first one but maybe without the cat metal thing on it. But I love the fringes and it just looks so comfortable and slouchy, just the way I like my bags.

I found this post about 7 bags made from recycled denim and was so excited. But then I saw - wait - this is part of a recycled denim challenge? Where lots of people recycled denim into amazing things you wouldn't know were made from recycled fabric?

And the winner of this challenge was this hilariously awesome and relatively practical dining set:



(Read the post here)

Love! Love! Love! It makes me want to cut up my old (aka too small) jeans. Except I am a sad sight with the sewing machine. So instead I will just have hearts for this challenge and those beautiful recycled bags. Ahhh.

Doll with a goiter

1. This is my first attempt at making a stuffed object that's supposed to look like something specific.
2. The placement of the flower on the neck is unfortunate (someone thought it was a growth).
3. The dress is made from hand-dyed fabric - by me!
4. I came up with the way to sew on the yarn as hair after remembering an episode of America's Next Top Model in which several girls get hair weaves.
   

Soooo clearly I need some more practice with the sewing machine. Usually I do my stuffed objects by hand but this time I used a machine due to time constraints. I'm not an expert in any sense of the word. The pattern I made looked very different than this. Sigh.

My neice ("Squeaky" or "MeeMoo") liked it for about 5 seconds. It's okay, I didn't take it personally, she seems particularly attached to a little owl and also she isn't even two years old yet. Maybe, if it survives long enough, it will one day be the object of a hilarious conversation between two twelve-year-old girls, in which one of them (MeeMoo) says "I don't know, some weird doll my aunt made for me."

Ha!

It was fun, though!

Back from Boston, back to a busy three days and another three-day-chag. These marathon holidays are wearing me out!

Embroidery progress

Embroidery

Like I mentioned a previous post, sometimes using string is a really helpful way for me to de-stress. I've tried crocheting and making those friendship bracelets, now I am trying embroidery. I made this last night while I was trying to de-stress before bed (was looking forward a potentially difficult conversation this morning).

This is just using a simple chain stitch... I will have to experiment with more stitches later.

Problem/Challenge out of String

When I feel like things are particularly out of control and I am really agitated, what is most calming for me is to work with string. I had forgotten about this but I really think working with string is what got me through 7th grade (probably the hardest year of my life so far, with a bully who posed as my "best friend" and was both emotionally and occasionally physically abusive). In 7th grade, once I started making bracelets every night, spending hours tying knots, I soon was able to separate myself from this bully and asked to transfer schools for the next year.

I used colorful embroidery floss and started a little business that was perhaps surprisingly organized: 25c for a standard 3 string bracelet, 10c for every string after that - for custom orders it was 50c + the regular charges. I was a little entrepreneur. I made a lot of money in quarters that year, which partially went to buying more string (and eventually expanding to making beaded rings or including beads in the bracelets, also at extra cost). I'm still pretty proud of how organized it was. I used to display my inventory on my backpack (I hung the bracelets off of the back using safety pins) so people could see my wares as I walked the hallways. I did accept trades, as many girls were making elastic bracelets with big plastic beads - only a few years ago did I realize the colors of the beads on those bracelets apparently stood for various sexual acts the person wearing them was willing to perform. I just liked the colors.

My former bully was my biggest competitor in the market, but she priced her bracelets too high and her workmanship was shoddy. Everyone went to me, especially since I did custom orders, but especially because I wasn't an ass. So through the bracelet making I learned that nobody really liked this person who had isolated me and made me feel terrible about myself. I also had conversations with people who formerly hadn't spoken to me. I also spent a lot of time in a semi-meditative state, tying knots for hours at night, not thinking but allowing myself to relax. It didn't reverse the damage she had done to me, but it made me feel better in some way - is that wrong?

Anyway, I've tried crocheting at various points in my life and it is coming up again in grad school as an alternative medium for art therapy. However, I am sadly inept at crocheting. This is probably due to my inability to follow directions and keep track of what I'm doing.

Tonight I was feeling really agitated and angry (as you can read in my previous post about the craft fair). It wasn't only the craft fair that was making me angry, but I won't go into the rest here. I have a project due on Thursday where we are supposed to make an art piece about a problem or challenge at our internship. So instead of doing my standard watercolor painting, I dragged out the yarn and decided to crochet with no purpose and no design, letting whatever formed form, and not be disappointed in the results.

This is what happened:


I started with the circle, which was originally intended to be flat, but like I said I can't follow directions and now it is a mountain. The hand really grew organically, first I had a weird outgrowth of the circle, then a finger, then two fingers, then I realized it was a hand and finished the hand. I went back and reinforced the rest of the piece, including adding a handle, when I realized it looked a lot like a chamsa. I added the blue to the evil eye part to give it an extra protective element.


I think at first it was supposed to be about figuring out how to make all of the different elements work together. I started off with white, brown, and orange yarns, trying to use three pieces of yarn at a time. Then the orange ran out, so I added another yarn, which is kind of gray with multi-colored flecks in it. When I realized what was happening I was able to create a recognizable shape, but not just any shape, a protective shape.

I think one of the biggest challenges of my internship is figuring out how to be myself there. I feel so protective over people that I work with, but I think I don't take good enough care of myself. I have to see the bigger picture, and think of everyone involved and not just the particular client I am closest to at the moment.

I think the chamsa appeared as a wish to be more protected, because maybe I still feel very insecure there, even when I feel like I do a good job I don't feel secure.

Shirobi

All right, I think I managed to come up with an okay photo (not a very good one) of the shirobi I did last week during my bad dyeing experience. It came out okay.


I am showing it like this because it's on a raggedy piece of cloth that isn't very attractive in and of itself.

(Shirobi is a Japanese form of tie-dyeing) :)

I really like this method, which is to tie the cloth around a pole to get a really cool zebra stripe type look.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this cloth now...

Not a Good Day to Dye (pun!)

Today I tried my luck with printing the dyes. I had put it off too long. First I had to make the sodium alginate thickener, then I had to mix all the dye concentrates, then I had to make some thickened dye to print with. Okay all this prep is done. And yesterday I painted some screen and put the screen filler in and washed off the screen so I had a nice stencil.

Then I finally was able to print. And something terrible happened.


Somehow the dye reacted to the screen filler and it totally degraded the filler until it was gone. GONE. This was thickened PRO MX dyes with Speedball Screen Filler. (I hope somebody googles that combination and comes to my post so we can chat about previous experiences because so far I can't find anything on the internet about it).

So I scrapped my screens and just painted on the fabric with the rest of the thickened dye. The above picture was taken after I painted over it. And the below picture is just another piece of fabric that I painted on since I didn't want to waste dye.


I used a tape resist and it made some interesting patterns in my dyes. I will wash them out later to see what happens.

So then I was pretty disheartened. I decided to do some shirobi so the night wouldn't be a loss. I tied some fabric to some pvc I bought and stuck it in a bucket in the basement and it will stay there until JewishGuy and I get back from the movies tonight. Maybe some pictures tomorrow if the fabric turns out okay.


Here's hoping...

UPDATE

I have been talking about it with JewishGuy when it dawned on him that the isopropyl alcohol I added to the sodium alginate could be the reason for my dye disintegrating the screen filler. I tested it out and it does seem to pull the filler off. Also I googled this particular combination of words and came up with other people who (joyously) discovered the ease of using isopropyl alcohol to clean screens as opposed to harsher chemicals.

BOO!

I mean, yay, that is interesting. But boo, I have a whole tub of sodium alginate that has alcohol in it that I now can only use if I use contact paper on my screens. The directions for the alginate say to use alcohol if you plan to keep the alginate for a long time because it will prevent it from smelling (it already smells but it gets to smell really, really bad if you let it sit for a while). So this method proved my undoing. I feel like I wasted a lot of time and kind of a lot of urea pellets.

Oh well.

Travels in art land

I haven't made any art since last week since I have spent much of my time mentally and physically preparing for the fabric painting. By mentally I mean I sleep in late, then eat breakfast slowly while watching the comedy central and checking my email before finally leaving the house to pick up supplies. By physically I mean I have been to many different stores on the hunt for the supplies that I need.

Also I emailed my fabric printing teacher for some tips. Basically, I will have to work in the basement and keep the chemicals away from the apt (except the sodium alginate, which isn't toxic and I hear some people use it in vegan toothpaste). This makes me sad in a way because I don't know what this means for future fabric painting in an apartment that might not have such basement access.

So now I have all my supplies except the dye and dye-related chemicals, which have been ordered and hopefully will arrive soon.

Today I had two exciting shopping experiences.

#1: Apparently Mondays the thrift store puts everything at 50% off. This meant there was a ridiculous number of people at the thrift store. It was a nut house. But I couldn't find exactly what I needed, but what I did find only ended up costing a total of $2.50, so if it doesn't work it's okay.

#2: I LOVE the fabric store. It is a candy land. It is the remnants of four different stores, you can tell it used to be four stores because the entrance to each of the four sections of the one big fabric store is just a doorway... so there are four separate areas of the store. I went to the upholstery section to get my foam, a 2x2' piece ended up costing the same as a large cheap mattress pad from Target (about $17). I am a little upset about that. But I bought it anyway because it is good quality and if I am going to do it I want to do it right and not get some cheap mattress pad foam and try to make it work.

Tomorrow I am going to put my fabric stretching station together and see what I can do while I wait for my dyeing stuff to arrive.

Pomegranate Piece #5

I will post the pomegranate pieces in their separate entries and then reference them in one entry when I explain them.

Processes:
- purchased cotton fabric
- shibori tied and partial immersion dyed (let the dye creep up the shirobi overnight)
- dye printed purple pomegranate seed repeat
- monoprint with dye pomegranates

Pomegranate Piece #4

I will post the pomegranate pieces in their separate entries and then reference them in one entry when I explain them.

Processes:
- purchased white wrinkly/gauzy cotton
- monoprint with dye three large pomegranates
- dye printed yellow pomegranate seed repeat
- dye printed purple pomegranate repeat
- dye printed second color for pomegranate repeat