Today is Another Good Day to Dye...

I remain seduced by sunpaints and the effects one can achieve.
I don't yet know what I'll do with these - am in bit of a creative lull as far as fabric goes.. but I guess when I get back to it, they'll be there and waiting.

The Jacaranda blooms

Popular wisdom has it that if you have not begun studying by the time the jacaranda blooms, you are not going to pass your exams...

The jacaranda blooms in October/November, when end-of-year exams are written, before the summer holidays. My tree is sometimes a bit late, but was on time this year. My daughter is writing her final high school exams and is ALMOST finished. Soon we shall both be relieved.

The blossoms all fall onto the grass in a gorgeous lilac carpet.

Last year, spring came and went without cheer; this year, at last, I can enjoy its beauty...

A Day of Sharing Words

"Clipper Ship Lightning" - Bruce Von Stetina
Copyright Bruce Von Stetina, reproduced with kind permission

Well, as so often, I missed the boat, but I am going out in my little dinghy to catch up! On 19 November there was a "Day of Sharing Words", a virtual (via blogs) poetry swop, started by LK Ludwig of The Poetic Eye. Read the original post here.

I just now read about this on Robyn's Art Propelled blog in this post. The idea was to post, on your blog, a poem that moves inside you, touches you, reaches you.

I often think of the following poem, when I feel in an "at-sea-in-a-storm" state of mind. Here it is:

INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

-- William Ernest Henley, 1875
(Invictus is Latin for "unconquered")

Swirls

Something about swirls keeps coming back to me, a recurring theme. I've not yet figured out why. Fortunately, I'm doing this art intuitively, not because I have pressure to do so for any reason, so I can follow my instincts. Now if only swirls were easier to manifest in fabric! I quite literally bled from the needles and pins doing this one. Last night I got the urge to paint swirls again (there wasn't enough time to get out the paints and clear enough junk off the table) but this morning at work, I just had to scribble a small picture of swirly shapes.

A previous swirl:
When I close my eyes I can SEE swirls. No, I am not on any hallucinogens, only on meds that are designed to prevent such, ha-ha. Nor am I hallucinating - at least, I don't think I'm hallucinating? Do other people see things - pictures, patterns, colours when they close their eyes? I wonder.

Maybe I'm just very visual when intuitive and only verbal when I'm cognitive. I have study background (from school and varsity) in being verbal, but none in the visual. Perhaps that's part of why shapes, patterns, colours are such a feast for my eyes.

Same swirl in different colours:
More in the planning!

Oh, and the parcel intercepted by customs was indeed a book. A Fibre Art techniques book, I've coveted for a while, but felt was too much of a luxury. I love techniques books, as you use them again and again for reference as well as for that inspiration of "I can just see how I could use this to do X, Y or Z".

In South Africa we have import tax on books. All books, including academic books used for teaching at university. The initial idea possibly arose to discourage "foreign" books and write our own... but in a country where the brain drain is immense, illiteracy abounds and some stuff simply has not been written by anyone here and MUST be imported, the logic escapes me.

But then again, a lot of South African logic escapes me, both past and present. Perhaps all political logic ... ah well I'm getting way too philosophical and most definitely don't want to waste effort on getting frustrated over politics (will save that for when we vote next year) when I could be creating stuff!

Green, green, green, is the colour

I seem to be having a bit of a green obsession at the moment. I just can't get over what beautiful
shades and tints one can find - and above are only the brighter ones, there are still all the olive greens, hunter's greens. Anyway, these were last weeks "crumpled sun-paint method" green dyes, which lay sunning themselves on the grass in my backyard, doing their magic.

Dyed buys

Every cloud has a silver lining. Recently my manic cloud had LOTS of silver linings from a couple of somewhat rash, but very fruitful spending sprees. I got a nice laser printer, some inline skates I've had my eye on for some time, several books and magazines to do with fibre art, several other things which we'll gloss over and the above exquisite hand dyes from the Bathurst fairy lady at a local Saturday farmer's market. The photo doesn't do them justice, they have to be opened as the colours vary all across each piece. To say I got excited is an understatement. Some of them I am going to be unable to cut into, they need to be used in their entirety! Embellishment, beading, embroidering, here I come....

I am happy that even while my judgement is rather.... suspended, shall we say.... as regards to amounts spent at such times, I am thoroughly delighted afterwards by what I have bought. I got another parcel slip in the post last week. It's something I ordered from the USA, which I can't for the life of me remember. (Customs caught it - arghhh, so it's probably a book - yay! Christmas comes early!)

My pocket now has a rather dull, grey lining.

Rust dyeing!

Inspired by an article in a recent copy of Quilting Arts. What fun!

You soak the PFD fabric in water first, wring it out well and then soak it in vinegar. Then you lay rusty bits and pieces on it and under it and scrunch it all up so the rusty bits are in as close contact with the fabric as possible. Then you lay it there for a while- apparantly the longer it lies, the more diffuse the colour becomes whereas laying it in the sun to fast-dry, will produce more distinct areas of rusty images. Then you soak it in an alkali like baking or washing soda and Bob's you uncle and Sally your aunt.

Now both girls and I scan the ground where-ever we are, for rusty bottle tops, pieces of rusty metal - ANYTHING with rust! The girls come home with rusty nuts and bolts and I ooh and ahh. (Mom's so easy to please these days.) I have a biggish bowl full - was telling a friend about it, and she took me around to a rusty old water tank she is about to have carted off - we broke off several pieces. She laughed at how delighted I was. Probably wise to have an up-to-date tetanus shot, if the pieces are sharp, as these were.

What I do find is that quite a lot washes out, even though it leaves the mustard colour, and only a few areas take the very distinct dark areas. I re-vinegar it and rearrange everything again about 5 times - after all it just lies there so doesn't take much time and each brown splotch is so rewarding! I don't neutralise in-between.

I have an eye on the rusty old braai grid next - can you imagine the griddy pattern? It's only vinegar after all, not any caustic stuff.

I got a blog award...

Bit by bit, piece by piece, I am catching up with neglected parts of my life after the long depression and the ensuing "completely concentration-less" period (to put it euphemistically). So today I would like to accept a blogging meme, I received in MAY this year (I did say catching up bit by bit!) called:

5 Blogs That Make Me Think or The Thinking Blogger Award

I felt very proud to have been awarded this by Jackie K of Blissfully Imperfect (doesn't the blog name alone make you feel good?) who is admirably making her way through art college in adulthood.

Thank you so much Jackie! I can't think of a prouder award!

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.
... and I'd like to add a fourth: let your nominees know of the award.

I nominate:
1. First, and foremost, Robyn's Art Propelled. Robyn is an amazing wood carver whose very archetypal art, extensive collection and reading of art books and art-quotes never fail to inspire me.

2. Ragged Cloth Cafe, a community of artists who comment on art and textile art. Coming from an "outsider art" perspective, as I do, it is very enlightening for me to read thoughtful artistic discourse in the fibre art field.

3. Teesha Moore, whose whimsical pictures alone make me think so much, that I want to get off the computer and run to my studio and image my own thoughts! I've linked to her front page, her blog links from there, but there are several other feasts-for-the-eye links from the front page.

4. Terry Border's Bent Objects, whose most humorous and thoughtful art makes me smile and laugh and admire the thinking he applies to it. It is simply uncategorisable - he uses wire and everyday objects - and has to be seen to be appreciated.

and lastly, only because it's not art-making related:

5. Thought Leader - Roy Jobson, a medical doctor and ... vicarious observer of South African society through his association with the Khulumani Support Group -- his wife is the acting director (who, together with his wife, I feel lucky to call neighbours and friends).

Sick

Ick. I have had a "stomach bug" (euphemistic term) for the last week and have been laid very low. It seems better today, which means I only have nausea left and my diet is up to bland potatoes and rice.

I have nothing to show at all, from this week and couldn't even focus on reading a book. I had also undertaken to proofread an M.Pharm. thesis because I have SUCKER written in neon lights on my forehead (and the glare is hurting my eyes.) I gave up after 4 days and 18 pages. I was considering trying to earn a little money from proofreading (due to my very impending unemployment) but had forgotten how arduous the work is! The general rate is R5 a page, but you're lucky if you can fit four pages into an hour, especially from an English as second-language thesis, making it, at the most, R20/hour. Plus the student inevitably arrives a week or two before their handing-in deadline, and I want to have a life as well. So I'm rapidly ruling that out, other than the occasional occurrence.

Sorry about the moaning. Haven't been feeling great.

Keller

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it" - Helen Keller