Buckram

Close to finished, the rolled edge needs to be secured at the top. Considered putting a fat cord through it but… not this time. The silk gauze with tea-stained edges & center stripe is ready for something(s), all 4 yds of it.

Begin w/ Mistake

Leaking ink bottle, 6' of white silk organza, sad little dribble and dot, one way to begin–with a mistake. The rest curiously natural. Like Saturday morning. A squirrel raiding the new bird feeder. Rush out, stomping, making a general frightening racket, the squirrel flees, but not far. Reaching out to take down the feeder, see a tail hanging over the edge of the porch roof. First thought, "I could touch it; I could touch a squirrel's tail." Reach up. First contact like touching a cloud, a wonder of softness. Second thought not really even words. A little pinch, feel the tail bony under the fluff, a little tug, let go before even thinking to, tail vanishes. Did I really touch it?

Squirrels here have grey coats with beautiful burnt sienna trim, quite fetching, especially when the sun turns it coppery. Like the tea-stained tails of this piece.

New skill

Sometimes it takes looking at something in a dream to figure it out in real time, like this rolled hem on a piece of silk chiffon. It's the first go and a little rough, nonetheless, a serviceable hem. It is also an example of loving to have a moment of formality in a chaotic piece such as this (unhemmed below–Jan 18th post). Something about how a simple hem kindly holds a piece so it can be viewed, particularly. One detail can reveal the artist's attention and signal the viewer that, even amidst improvisation and accident, the piece is not casual.

Piece in Progress

A piece of tea-stained buckram with sumi ink, another experimental piece finding it's way to being finished. Pleating sewn with waxed linen thread, doubled, in a running stitch. Other end of the fabric rolled loosely around cotton cording, probably will be stitched in place. Process provokes again thinking about letting things work and making them work, bit of a koan. Letting, the way I'm thinking of it, seems to require continually opening to the piece and wondering, without a fixed goal, but with some result toward which to aim. I'm speculating, theorizing a divide (as in continental, say) between letting and making, recognizable to me as similar to the subtle boundary line between painting and designing, between a result and a goal. They can be very close and yet each flows toward a different ocean.

Worry

A six-foot piece of silk organza (beautiful word to see and say) that is getting its edges rolled, tiny stitches hold the cotton cording in place. The original idea is to have two of these panels with padded edges and then do "vector" marks on them. When one of the other calligraphers said it would make her anxious to put all that work into sewing and preparing the silk (beautiful, and not polyester) and then make the marks on it, it surprised me to realize I don't worry that way anymore. Now pondering the difference between letting a piece happen and making it happen. I'm for letting it happen. (The sewing is finished and the ends are in a tea bath.) Perhaps there will be progress (so called) photos.
Reading Robert Bringhurst's Tree of Meaning.

Vector Experiment

This is an experimental piece, silk chiffon over paper, for a show, VECTOR, opening March 3rd at Naropa University's Nalanda Gallery. Working with 5 artists from a class I taught last fall (Calligraphy for Painters). Our warm-up each class: walk out into the parking lot and find trash to use as a writing instrument. Practicing experimental marks made the force & pathway, the vector, of energy visible; and the possibility, or necessity, of translating that capacity for vitality into the formal italic letters. The results were so unusual and strong the practice became the seed syllable for the spring show.