Just found this

Untitled

2008
35cm x 35cm
Fabric
Machine pieced, hand appliqued

I must've finished this some time ago. I don't even remember it. I found it in a pile of fabric I was cleaning up. That's actually quite b-a-d! :)
Ah well, nothing like discovering something you thought you hadn't finished, but in fact, had. There's hope for me yet!

Heritage, completed

Heritage: Viking girl's longings
2009
43cm x 54cm
Fabric, leather, beads, stones
Hand embroidered, -appliqued, -beaded. Machine fastened.

Here is a photo of the completed work. I carelessly didn't take a picture before sending it off. Silly me :)

An easy Sunday

I picked up this work from when I was in hospital in 2007, during what I can now see was a mixed episode. I was very depressed, but did a remarkable amount of quite frenzied art during that time, not exactly typical of my down times. Each square is an individual quiltlet 10x10 cm. I've been pinning them in various combinations onto my polystyrene design board. It's all still very much "in-progress".
I don't know where this is going, but I am thoroughly enjoying the journey! This intuitive working is a bit of a leap of faith. I'm a hard taskmaster, so I must say it's wonderful to just ignore that inner critic and go ahead and PLAY and remember there's no such thing as wrong.

Why is that so hard to learn? Or to remember? Why such guilt associated with FUN?
"I command you to have fun. Now!"

What is "Gel Medium"?

I subscribe to two American magazines: Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Both of them frequently mention an art material called "Gel Medium", used to stick/glue/adhere things together. As I am using more and more "mixed" media, other than fabric, I'm wanting to glue and not just sew.

Can anyone who might read this, tell me what "gel medium" is, so I can find the equivalent here in South Africa??

Here is what we have here, and what I have used:

Wallpaper paste comes as granules, that you mix and whisk with water to the thickness of paste you want. It forms a gelatinous, clear mass, that also dries clear. It's used, not just to hang wallpaper, but to do papier mache. It's my favourite: it works well, it's cheap and has a nice finish, and I'll be so happy if this is the same as the mysterious "gel medium".

"Modge Podge" is a runny substance, used for decoupage (ie paper). It comes milky and dries clear. It also works well to stick things to each other. It's good, but it's expensive.

Clear, water-based varnish. I bought this in a hardware shop once, when I was needing a lot of Modge Podge, but the Modge-Podge just proved too expensive. It worked just as well as Modge Podge. I wonder if "Modge Podge" is just a brand name of water-based varnish?

Wood glue, also known as craft glue or white glue. It is also available in a "Quick-Dry" version. Where does this fit in? It's white and dries clear. You can water it down to whatever consistency you like, it both sticks and "varnishes" to a nice finish. I've also wondered whether Modge Podge is a watery form of wood glue (?)

I can't imagine that "gel medium" is some foreign substance we don't have here. It must surely just be a matter of matching the names! I don't know how the above relate to each other, but they are all water-based.

I'll be grateful for any help. :)

Slow Cloth 1

Slow Cloth 1
93cm x 87 cm
Fabric, yarn, beads, metal castings
Hand applique, -beading, -quilting. Machine finished.

From Wikipedia:
"The Slow Movement is a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace... (It) began with a protest against the opening of aMcDonalds restaurant in Piazza Di Spagna, Rome, that sparked the creation of the Slow Food organization. Over time, this developed into a subculture in other areas, such as Slow Travel, Slow Shopping, and Slow Design."

The Wikipedia entry is worth reading in its entirety. The Slow Movement spread to Slow Life, Slow Parenting and Slow Art. And, of course, it was picked up by fibre artists.
There's been much interesting discourse about Slow Cloth. Read Slow Cloth/Slow Craft: Is This the Birth of a Movement?

Another good article is entitled Defining Slow Cloth: 10 Qualities. Though I only read this AFTER Slow Cloth 1 was finished, my heart is singing with joy at how the process has intuitively incorporated many of these qualities, without my knowing.

I began with the intention to create something meandering that would develop by itself, through whatever took my fancy at each moment. The process was daunting as it ran the constant risk of producing a complete flop, after months of effort. At several stages I thought I had overdone or otherwise ruined it, but I read somewhere that if you think you've overdone it and you can't undo, keep going! Layer over layer also works.

It's been enormously good for me and I know it's the start of a satisfying and therapeutic series of works. :)

I'm sure most of us live the dilemma of how to slow down in a world that moves so fast, that if you stand still, you're going backwards. Since being unemployed (since Jan this year) it's been easier for me to slow down, but I fear employment will force me back to the hectic pace. When I read job advertisements, they inevitably say "Must be able to multi-task and work under pressure" and my heart sinks. I know well that situation where there are 5 things that have to be completed yesterday. I used to do this, and somehow cope, but it took a heavy toll, and I'm sure it contributed to my recent long bout of continued illness.

Part of Slow Cloth 1 is three-dimensional, and design credit for this goes to Jenny Hearn, a South African artist, who incorporates this in her work.)

Enjoying the Nature of Cloth

Robyn, your blog is like having private art lessons in my home! Can't begin to tell you how much food for thought you give me. Not to mention pictures in my head and a need for several clones of me, to make everything I want to!

Your last comment, referring me to your post Neville Trickett of Saint Verde fame
with the link to the Antique kimono set set me thinking, about why I did indeed love it, as you said.

These days I'm enjoying the NATURE of cloth and wanting to let the medium itself have a showing too, in addition to the message that I want to impart.

To use for art that lasts, cloth needs some taming, some imposition on its qualities to make it strong enough to hang and not fall apart. But beyond that, cloth has unruliness, edges which fray unless fastened, pinned down or hidden inside seams. It bends, stretches and unravels. It's not that I'm against seams or binding or straightening or catching down, at all, but rather that I'm enjoying letting the cloth be itself and not trying to control it too much.

The thing that draws me back to fibre every time, when I've played with other media, is that fibre has such ACCESSIBILITY to it. It is held in the hand, taken with me in a bag to work on when waiting to pick girls up from school, held while feeding it through the machine, and thrown over the back of the couch, in between hand-working it. When completed and "released into the world", it begs to be TOUCHED. People don't feel drawn to touch an oil painting (no offense to oil painters!) in the way same way that fibre is inherently something we feel with our skin.

Stark in my memory, is something I once read on Winnowings, Christine Thresh's blog (in her "About Me"):

"We are born to cloth. It is the second thing we touch after our mother."

Such a powerful way of putting it! All fibres (cloth, paper, wood) are archetypal. All of us have always known them; they're integral to our lives.

So, these days I'm enjoying intuitive, ragged, fraying edges, threads hanging down, hand-stitching. We teach best that which we most need to learn, and in a way, perhaps I am trying to say something about letting things be as they are and accepting their, and our, basic nature...?

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Untitled
25cm x 25cm
Fabric, beads
Hand-dyed, - quilted and -beaded.

I'm on a mission to COMPLETE things. Since the pile is insurmountable if viewed as a whole, I began with this small bite.

Detail:

I'm in...

"Dear Karen
Congratulations! Your application to join Fibreworks has been successful."

I should perhaps have waited to blog about this, until I felt more elated about it. Don't get me wrong, I am really, really happy. It's still a bit unreal, but it IS a dream come true and a long-time aspiration.

It's just that I'm in a bit of a down-swing and can't really feel the delirious excitement of it. It will come. It has to, because this is really significant for me.

Fibreworks application

I am now applying for membership of Fibreworks, a group of fibre artists in South Africa. I've been wanting to do this for two years, but their AGM is in October every year and I have been in depressive episodes the last two Octobers and just have not got my act together.

Putting a portfolio together has proved to be a far greater job than I had imagined!. But it's done now, at least of most of the work. Once again, the most embarrassing pile of unfinished works looms its incomplete head, the by-products of great starting enthusiasm followed by great starting enthusiasm, followed by great starting...
... and some loss of focus along the way. Just a little, you understand.

The last sentence, obscured by the flash, reads: "If my work strikes a chord with any other person, I feel heard, and it is my fervent wish that the reality of the viewer is likewise validated."

I'm nervous. The words 'portfolio' and 'artist's statement' feel pretentious, (but looking on the Web, this seems to be how it's presented). The front cover looks a bit pretentious too: Monotype Corsiva makes it look more flashy than it is! Great font, that. :)

It's also the first time I have shown many of my works to anyone else and these are very personal and revealing, so I have that scary "heart-in-my-throat" feeling of disclosure. You know, that fear that others may recoil from the dark stuff in your thoughts and mind. I see it sometimes on people's faces when I've said too much, or said something uncomfortable that we'd all rather not think about, but which stares me in the face so often.

But I suppose the worst that can happen, is that they say it's not suitable for their group. I won't die.

Still walking on sunshine

I found a photo of my other Vuleka entry, which I had taken while still working on it. It's not the finished work, but here is the work-in-progress photo for now:

Heritage (Sept 2009)
Roughly 30cm x 50cm

Fabric, beads, stones, leather, sisal twine
Hand embroidered and beaded, machine stitched

I'm working on cataloguing my works - what a JOB.

In Future I Will Catalogue As I Complete Each Work.
In Future I Will ...

I'm walking on sunshine :)

Protect Me (2008)
Fabric, yarn, beads, stones, cooldrink can metal, hair extension fibre

Detail

Here are pics of one of my entries for Vuleka. As I said previously, I didn't take any pics of the other, so that will have to wait until I get it back in early October.

Looking at the pics above evokes a curious reaction in me: "Did I make that? Where did I get that idea from?" Perhaps because it was made a couple of mood cycles ago, by a different me(?) Well, no matter, I'm intrigued with the possibilities of the new media and this is the first in a series. Never done series before, so that should be interesting.

I was standing in front of the hair extension fibres in Clicks, choosing colours, when a school friend of my daughter's came up to buy some as well. I could SEE her puzzled brain trying to process what on earth I could possibly be doing there.

I didn't explain. It just causes more bewilderment...

I think hair extensions are just too beautiful. Why don't they make the fibre in blond? But I've been told by a hairdresser that my hair is too straight and too fine, and they'd just slip out; you need curl to hold them in place and as soon as my hair reaches 5cm in length, it succumbs to gravity and falls over. :( Perhaps if I had a tight perm first(?) And people use hot irons to flatten their hair...? Hey, let's swop! :)

Gosh, we're a strange species...

I was accepted!

BOTH of my works were accepted to the Vuleka competition! :) They are currently hanging in the exhibition in Belville. I can barely believe it. I'm delirious. I get tears in my eyes every time I think of it. I cry at anything these days, my emotions are so heightened. Now, euphoria is an appropriate emotion! There is a review of the opening here. 57 entries were accepted out of 397, and I had TWO accepted, can you believe it? I feel soooo honoured. My head is now so swollen, I'm going to have to go see a shrink, oh, I forgot, I already see one... ;)

I WISH I could actually go and see the exhibition. When you see your work hanging amidst all the others, it really hits home that you are in the illustrious company of REAL artists (yeah, ok, ok, I know, each artist is as real as any other...) and that somebody who knows something about what constitutes 'good' art (whatever that is) judged your work to be arty farty enough to be there. :) I've been able to attend two openings before, both for Innovative Threads and when I saw my work on the same wall as that of (fibre) artists whose talent I am in awe of, whose work I can marvel in front of, for ages, soaking up every detail, and whose work I have followed for years and years...

... whewwwww, now that is a trip! No drugs needed. :)

Sanlam Vuleka

Spurred on a by a friend, I have entered the Sanlam Vuleka Art competition. We sent in our entries together. There are cash prizes, but I am not aiming for any of those, I am simply aiming to be juried into the exhibition, which will run for most of next month in Cape Town. Last year 48 out of 388 entries went on exhibition. Stiff competition. I had to enter in the 'Other' category; - when will Fibre become recognised as more than a Cinderella medium??

The competition aims to showcase "new work... aimed at encouraging creativity, innovation and adventurous art from all cultures". I like to think that every time we can get something fibre accepted into a mainstream art exhibition, that that it will be another step towards changing the mindset that fibre cannot be 'real' fine art. It might not be my home-grown, outsider art, which does this, but I can hope!

Following on from Robyn's comment (thanks Robyn!):
Stupidly, I didn't even take a photo of one of them. I only just completed it and my camera has been out of juice :( (I have to laugh - what a lame excuse!) This means that should it get lost in transit, I have no record of it. Since I was quite proud of it, that will be some loss. But let me not be negative.

A pic of the other entry (I sent two) is here.

Ideas, ideas

NOW the ideas are flowing again. So many things I want to do. For seven months, while I was not working and had ALL the free time I ever wanted, I didn't do a thing! I could not drag myself to be interested in anything.

Now that is just killing me! When I think what I could have accomplished in this time, the fun I could have had, the techniques I could have played with and learnt about.... boo hoo :(

Mainly the fun I could have had playing! I am doing some of that now - making paper cloth a la Beryl Taylor. Glueing paper to cloth, then painting it with any coloured medium (fabric paint, acrylics, paintstiks etc) and scribbling on it with any kind of pen, pencil, koki, crayon - anything that writes. Then you maybe add some more paper, or tissue or paint and the idea is to get a textured surface with many layers that show through at various depths.

It's great, finally, getting to use my Shiva (Markal here in South Africa) paintstiks. They're awesome! Some gel pens are good on the paint too. It's such a lot of fun. Fun. What? I can't believe I am playing and having fun. When last...?

I'm also getting tons of inspiration from the US magazines I've been subscribing to, Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors. They're expensive when you convert our little Rands, but I read them again and again, so I feel justified. During my last manic episode, I must've not felt I had to justify anything to anyone,(!) so I blithely renewed both subscriptions, without a twinge of caution! I remember feeling sure that the universe would provide. When the credit card statement arrived, the universe was conspicuously quiet. What happened to "leap and the net will appear"?

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. This new medication is pretty sedating and does slow me down, but I am confident that between the psychiatrist and I, we can tweak it so I'm alert in the day and sleepy at night. Whatever, however, I am going to make it work; just being myself again, after that long, dark winter, is a gift worth treasuring, and I am going to nurture it. Appreciate what I have.

I have yet to locate my camera. Things are in a slightly messed up state around here. Well, okay, I think a hurricane blew through while I was sleeping. My four-seater couch can narrowly fit one person on it. Both of my tables in my "studio", yeah alright, lounge, are covered with STUFF to the depth of about 20cm. But it's all such nice stuff! As a friend of mine says, my style is very... err... "organic".

You know how, when you're choosing colours, you have to pull out all the fabrics, beads, etc to see how they go together? And you know how you can't do this in one session, they have to lie there, so you can walk past them for a couple of days, and mull them over? And you know when you have about 10 ideas at the same time, and want to get things out for each one of them, so you don't lose the concept or pictures in your head? And you know how the pieces you haven't yet finished, have to lie out, so you can mull over them too, and consider how they want to be finished? Add the internet, a coffee maker, a fistful of pills, (alas, a necessary evil) and you have a little self-contained eco-system. THAT, dear friends... is "organic"...

Ahh, at times like these, 'tis a joy to live alone... :)

"I would not be convicted...

... by a jury of my peers,
Still crazy after all these years...." - Paul Simon

---- Kleenex moment coming up :) -----

Yes, I'm back, I really am. I'm me again. My wellness is sustained. I can't believe my luck; I'm grateful, tearful, awed, peaceful, jubilant and did I mention grateful?

As I wrote last time, it's phenomenal what the right combination of medications can do. The enormous pharmaceutical industry may be all about the bottom line, with less-than-ethical tricks, corruption, counterfeiting, blatant profiteering and many other dubious practices, but this aside, drug development is also about improving peoples' lives and treating "the heartache and the thousand natural shocks, that flesh is heir to". (Shakespeare) And some may say that psychiatric drugs are heavy-duty, dangerous, harm you more than they heal and are therefore 'bad'; well, all I can say is I'll take this 'bad, dangerous, whatever', over the hell of the last 8 months ANY DAY.

When you're on the receiving end of a drug that works for you, that works in such a way as to enable you to pick yourself up again, that restores you to to yourself and that literally gives you your life back, it's... well... dare I say it, miraculous. Within just a few weeks of starting to take it, I wasn't depressed any more, I could think rationally again, I could think CREATIVELY again. I'm so deeply impressed. Just a little tweaking of some neurotransmitters in my brain! And I'm not high, I'm not a zombie, I'm not crazy, I'm not anything other than just 'me'! -- {laughing}, okay, some may say the 'not crazy' is debatable, but hey, this is a craziness I can live with!

I'm back to my art. I've finished 2 of my UFOs - UnFinished Objects - and had an idea for a new 'object'. I have to find my camera and take pics, so I can show them here. I have an inordinate number of things I have to catch up with again, not least of which is to find a job! Some days I'm daunted and I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day. I just won't be posting as much, that's all.

One thing at a time, I'll get there. I have a fighting chance now... :)

I do believe

Shhhhhhh. Don't tell a soul (for fear of jinxing this), but I MAY just have finished bottoming out and be slowly on my way up again. I have not yet done any art, but I'm starting to get interested. I've been on a binge of re-reading and looking at all my art books, and bought a new one about Hundertwasser with lots of glossy colour pictures of his work. The fact that I am even able to become interested in something is a good omen. Amazing what a successful med. combination can do...

Creative Block, perhaps loss

Thank you so much to all the people who have written in support. It's been rough going and has not eased up, except for short Mixed states, where I have both mania and depression symptoms simultaneously. If that sounds confusing, believe me, it feels that way too. It's hard to hang onto who you are and what you know about yourself, when it changes constantly.

But worse has been a complete and utter creative block. I have not done anything since November last year. I have no interest or desire. I've taken out my fabrics and materials and re-read all my inspiration books, but I just look at it all and wonder why I bought it or what any of it has to do with me.

I look at the works I have done and wonder how the person who made them managed to concentrate and persist so much as to complete them. I feel nothing when I look at them, and wonder why I made them. What are they for? I'm completely detached from my own creations.

And sometimes I worry that the creativity will never come back. I feel foreign to myself. Doing trials of each medication in turn, in hopes of finding something that helps, and unemployed since 1 Jan.

If I don't have my art to express myself with, who will I be and what will be the point of being here at all? Heavens, I am gloomy.

I hope everyone out there is doing a lot better than me!

Worser and worser

I'm not currently blogging because all I would be writing about would be misery and gloom. And I'll spare you all that. My depression continues to deepen, some other big life events which have coincided, aren't helping and the future looks grim indeed. How I ever thought I had even a scrap of creativity in me, is beyond me now. Even my own blog is mocking me.

Another depressive cycle

It seems that the higher you fly, the harder you fall. And I've plunged down with all the grace of a shot pheasant. I am doing nothing art-wise, in fact doing nothing of anything, but I'll spare you the details. I will be back, when the pendulum swings again. Let's hope that's soon.