Surprise/Grid

Surprise, juxtaposition of colour, grids, subtle variations, unexpected patterns... and twin polar bears.

This

or this

and this.

A New Year - 2015

There is a lot of joy in working as a museum curator - story telling - creating exhibits - digging out the interesting details and history in significant and not so significant artifacts - caring for the collection, etc. (New database software arrived Friday! An excellent way to start off the year!) It takes a fair amount of creative energy and most days my energy gets consumed at work. No complaint - just fact. This is why long periods of time can go by when I don't post. The work I've produced in my studio over the past year is often "just for fun"...restorative.

This year I'm seeking more of a balance. Maybe more fun, and maybe more of significance. We'll find out.

Dyeing fabric is always a surprise, and I like surprises. In this case, the little afterthought bundle turned out to be the most interesting. I folded up a scrap and popped it in the leftover dye that ran off into a bowl when I poured the soda ash over it. I'm assuming it fixed more quickly to the fibres than the pieces which I added a dye-only solution to and  poured the soda ash liquid over afterwards.

The result of the braid are the three blue and black strips; the long blackish strip is a simple fold; and the white and black/turquoise grid pattern is the afterthought. I like grids.

  
 

Empty Bowls

This is the finished piece that is going to the House of Blessing "Empty Bowls" fundraiser.

The background is an experiment with the "Bare Branches" pattern of Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting lessons. I think the background suits the bowls - like Raku crackling.

Nine-Patch on Jupiter

A lot can be accomplished in just one day when the planets align. Today is day 3 of a mini vacation at home and I am already somewhat restored. Day one was doing absolutely nothing - really nothing; day two - a trip to see this exhibit by Paul Stankard and Lorne Wagman at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.

Inglis Falls was the icing on the cake - so to speak.

It gave me the energy to spend all of today (day 3) cutting and sewing - from fat quarters to strips to 9-patch squares all in a day. I do love working with a grid and nine-patch blocks - but I like to make the regularity of it disappear - to break the grid. 

It reminds me a bit of Jupiter and the spinning clouds of its atmosphere. Some experimenting still to go - the block are not sewn together yet. Maybe a few more of the muted blocks are needed - it may be to strong... and the photos are a bit too saturated. It's been a while since I've done this much work in a single day.

A New Season

Yesterday the geese were heading south, though they seemed a bit confused by the warm weather.

These images could make beautiful etchings or stitched pieces.

Time & Love... and the past

  I've started a new piece

And gone back to work on an old one

No Go

Just a bit more to do on the backing. I love the outcome - visually very crisp. However, this is the first and last time I will do "quilt as you you go" - too cumbersome, not a very nice flow to the process, and the hand of the quilt is too rigid.

Tic Tac Toe

More
scraps
and
black...

Black and...

Perhaps a series of black and...

... chartreuse and magenta
... red
... turquoise
... ? ?

something from nothing

More and more often I've been making pieces that begin with only the slimmest of ideas... maybe just a texture or a colour. This started with brushing black and turquoise dyes over the top edge of wet linen and working with triangle scraps from another project. It's inadvertently become one of my favorites... sunrise over arctic ice.