albedo

I admire Jacky Cardy's work immensely--her colour sense, her use of texture, the almost archaeological respect she has for motif and her sense of humour. You have to visit her blog! These are my favouritest boots in the whole world. I can see a lovely Grunge Mermaid, piercings in every fin, tats on her gills, chunky anemone and sea urchin spine jewellry clanking, as she struts in her DOCK Martins :}

Do you think about what you are doing in your art, in the sense that you sit down and say, "Okay today we are going to do an a la poupee mixed with some Dada-ist leanings, heightening the dynamic tension with a little radial imbalance, hoping to precipitate a Stendhal's Syndrome in my audience? Oh and i'd like to use chartreuse with chocolate." How about thinking about your diagonals in a field of wheat? Your juxtaposition of hard against soft? Do you?

I don't. Usually. Unless it's maybe on a subconscious level, i rarely think about preplanning that much. Do most artists? Am i out in the cold on this one, with the bad girls behind the barn? Light up, my dears, light up. I'm going and blowing my own way.

I'm NOT an expert, and the only reason i'm thinking and wondering about terminologies is because someone asked me to "define" tension in a fiber art sense. Am i less "serious" about my art because i don't know (all) the "correct" words, their definitions and how to apply them? Do i HAVE to apply them? 

My first Opinion:

"Tension: a balance maintained in an artistic work (such as a poem, painting,
 or musical composition), and i'm adding: Textile arts between opposing forces or elements;
 a controlled dramatic or dynamic quality. "

HMMMM. i'd say personally, this is a subjective term. If i slash a calm blue sky with a jag of blood red, that would be tension. The red against the blue is tension. The slash of the line across or down or diagonally (classic!) is tension. If i think tiny black dots in  circled spirals are corruscating against a field of cream, is that tension? Who says i'm wrong?

To me "tension" can be juxtaposition as well. A lacy fine thread against stone work or a menacing rock in the middle of a spiderweb piece of lace. It's also a balance element, not taking over or hiding either. Obvious but not always in your face.

Tension can be a personal or well known icon out of place as well. I think if you are wanting to apply the premise to your own design/work, you need to do it intuitively. Think big, even if the piece is small, kind of a "one of these things does not belong, one of these things is not the same" I don't mean big in a scale sense but a pow sense--and pow can be soft colours/elements too if it jars against the rest.

And what is "controlled"??????? I deliberately dripped the paint a certain way? I measured the points the lines should meet? I suppose if it becomes a mess of tension, then it's a snarl and ya can't see the stitch  for the stitiching.

This is all my PERSONAL interpretation of Tension. I could find little on-line myself that served to illustrate clearly! If anyone would like to "correct" me or "educate", go ahead: i'm open to it! Visual examples would be appreciated as well, right Sarah???? 

FINISHED FINISHED FINISHED!!!

Cast paper, Xpanda, paper quilting,knotting, textile scraps, rusty bits, hand painting, hand embroidery, found objects, heat treated lutrador, beading, stencilling and machine stitching---a culmination of some newly learned and some well loved techniques.

"How Does Your Garden Compute?"

(clickable---and F11-able)

how does your garden compute
how does your garden compute detail 

Somewhere in a box in a closet in her mother's home, there is a reel of home movie, the kind with no sound. Amidst the flickering of the camera and the dappled light coming through the leaves, there is a three year old girl wandering in a forest and with puzzlement asking "Where are all the flowers?" You can't actually hear the words, but you can see her lips moving and the look of consternation on her face, as another fairy tale idea is broken.

I think of that little girl when i find all these in a kilometre square section of forest, mountain and riverbank.

 Violets, daisies, lilies, pusitilla, sunflowers, roses, clematis, and a ton of others i don't recognize, these all renewed my faith in fairy tales that showed a little girl in a thicket of knee deep flowers in a green green safe forest. It's cool and peaceful here, fresh and pure.

My sixteen year old self would have reveled here.

Paths to wander uninterrupted, no other soul around, vistas to explore and rocks to climb, all leading up and out, but safe in going back down as well. Dry and still, silent and open.

And in the arid soil, some hope:

And growth for the future:

HAving problems posting, so hope this gets where it's supposed to! I *am* still around, just having probs again with computer related stuff............

 Time for a change:

 These little spice cabinets are a dime a dozen in both "new" stores and thrift shops. They're perfect not only for paints,  bead bottles and dinky bits, but would be great fodder for shrine work as well. I painted and glittered this one 6 years ago, and it's been everywhere from bathrooms to studio to kitchen. Time for a change though--needs a little zazzin up. The doors and drawer pulls are buttons with shanks that i just wood glued into the old knob spaces.

Today's project :} 

Mary Anne's corpse has arrived in her hands! It's amazing how many interpretations can be made with her theme "Escape". Go see on her blog! Well done, my CorpseMistresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My personally set challenge right now is to work bigger. Easier said than done! Scaling up doesn't necessarily mean making things bigger but i find myself grabbing pieces and not wondering how to make a rusty piece smaller, or a pod miniscule, so *something* must be working :} 

I like little details. I love spending an hour on a small area so that the viewer has to look in. If i don't want to make myself crazy (er), i can't lavish that time on a lot of handwork. NOT that i am NOT using small textural details: they just have to be a bit more apparent, less fussy and less "in", if that makes sense. I'm trying to let the materials do that talking, not adding myriad fine stitches or beads. 

This still isn't the big size i had envisioned in my dreams, but it's getting there. This canvas is 16 x 20", and i'm thinking of extending the idea by doing others that will butt up against it. Really what i want to do is stretch my arms to reach side to side!!!!!!!!!!

 Details:     (all clickable)

Mixed media included the canvas with gesso, pods, rusty bits, metal bars, embroidery floss, plastic bug, gold faux mica flakes, grommets, eyelets, acrylic paint, Xpanda, clear coarse glitter flakes, mesh, an unfinished textile UFO (centre) with painted cheesecloth and rusted lutrador, and 9 hours of totally focused arlee!!!!!

I have no idea what to title this one though!!! 

(clickable) 

This is FINALLY on its way to me!

I don't know yet if both sides of my page were used or only one--regardless i can't wait to actually see it!!! I've still been working on other pages for this journal, incorporating a lot of things along the way. Themed with Sci-Fi images, it celebrates my first passion when i was a child---reading and writing and illustrating futuristic poetry and stories. 

Today i will also be ripping and grommetting, burning and raw stitching and burning again, and slathering gesso and paint, stuffing figures and lacing things.