Three Views

Funky C here....coming to you live from the eternally frozen tundra of Michigan. Yikes! It's been cold. But I'm not tired of the snow quite yet. The drugs must be working.

Here's a little project I've been fooling with: the card holder featured in Quilting Arts Magazine, winter 2006, issue 24. The center holder, with the woman's face, was a gift from a dear friend. Using it is a pleasure.

View one:

















Blue, on the left, has fusible craft interfacing. I loves it not....too flimsy. My heart is given instead to the Peltex version on the right. It feels much nicer in my hand...like a fine accesory.

Here's the magic side. A bit of yarn, or string pulls out and cards pop up like magic:

































Voila! Isn't it cool?
I'm admitting to you alone that this is ---Bar None---the best cheap thrill I've had in ages. When I use the holder to access I.D., people think I've worked some kind of magic. They actually exclaim out loud and proclaim me awesome for even owning it. So, evidencing my inner diva (she's not buried too deep), I now have a system:

1. Select items for purchase at retail venue.
2. When checking out, place card holder conspiculously on counter.
3. Strike up conversation, write check slowly, whatever it takes to draw out the suspense.
4. When clerk asks for I.D. or payment option, pull string and present card with nonchalance, as if you've been fabulous all your life.
5. Bask in ensuing glory, completely forgetting about your hum-drum life as director of digestive systems management for 4 humans, 3 guinea pigs, a dog, and cat.
6. Repeat as needed to feed Ego.
   

Whoa, Fiber Jedi! The Syth Lord Vi Ral-ILL Ness has been clawing at the Outer Rim of Immune System Funky C. In a suprise move by rebel White Blood Cell leader Mom, the entire galaxy was shut down for a day of rest. The complete picture is scary beyond all reason, but here are the highlights:

System Funky C exploring new orbital heating unit:



















Note the use of formerly blogged hand spun yarn and her sisters. A kid mohair was thrown in just for kicks. Very Funky. Very C. Matching Wonder Woman cuffs in progress.

Back up heating units brought into battle ready position:


















Scratchy orange sport weight socks knit by the departed, but still much loved Grandma Tanguay. Bless her for these on a day such as today.

The blue thing is my fav' winter nighty. Curse it not, for I loves it. And you'll have to excuse the well scaled, hairy legs. Nobody's shavin' nothin' until the Ides of March at least.

The orbital heating unit appears to work even on Sattelites:

The Blues

I love winter....the beauty of snow, the activity at my bird feeder. But I detest the accompanying blues. I try every day to just not be a loser. It seems my success rate is much lower in winter.

Sigh

Knowing my yarn was feeling the same way, I decided she needed sisters:














Behold the Brown Sheep yarn. Color: true royal. Content: silk, wool, mohair.

In other knitting news, my shawl is off the needles! Hurray!:













But! Before I can block it, I have to take care of this:













Boooo! Down with cleaning! This, my padded dye table, perfect for blocking yarn projects, is not currently padded. It's been unpadded since summer when a dye project went awry and soaked the padding with purple dye. Everything's washed and ready, but I can't seem to bring myself to repad it. I've had it almost clean several times, but doggoneit! it's such a big, open horizontal surface. Everytime I come home, it begs to hold my purse, coat, fast food wrappers.

Why do I do this?!? It's maddening and yet I can't seem to get over it. I need this table to work. There is a truckload of fabric that needs to be made. My shawl wants to be blocked and worn before June. There is some underlying insanity that prevents me from tackling this....fear of success....physical barriers as a symbol of emotional barriers.... Shall I go on? It's madness and I mean to conquer it. Wish me well.

Starting and Finishing

Behold and Marvel!! Finished projects!
I, Funky C, bring you.....The Yarn:









Hand dyed silk/Merino roving by Lisa Souza. Hand spun by MOI...la,la,la over about two weeks. There's 180 yards. I steamed it to set the twist...no good reason, that's just what I do. Then I felted it ...just a wee bit.... in the kitchen sink with a potato masher. It seemed the right thing to do. Does it count as 'done' if it's not knit into anything? I'm thinking of combining it with something deep periwinkle and making a hat.

The Dye Project:

















This sat half done for...oh...half the year. I finally got it all glued down and into page protectors. For the record, the mx dyes this time around were turquoise mx-g, yellow mx 8-G, and red mx-5B. In the next picture, a comparison view with the previous dye sample project, you can see the difference in mottling and color intensity. I learned a ton this time about how to get rich, consistant colors:

















It feels good to finish. But the REAL work is just beginning. As some of you know, I've been struggling with an image for my local library:

















It was suggested to me that this looks like a giant floral arrangement...meaning it's pretty, but that's about it. Where's the meaning? I took this to heart, agreed, and in a flash of inspiration while sitting in the libarary came up with this:










It's raw, but it's a good concept. The idea is to show a leaf and a page slowly merging together and through each other over six panels....three per wall. I may throw in the added idea of the leaf going through seasonal changes across the panels. My thought process involves leaves marking the passage of time and the written word transcending time....not too concrete yet, but that will come with the making of the image. I need to sketch more, flesh out the image fully. And, oy, the fabric that needs to be made! I may have to give up sleep for a few months. That'll be pretty.

Wa's Up?

So, I've been busy. First, the yarn:



















Here, I'm attempting to spin a silk/merino roving into a kind of thick-n-thin wackiness. You'd think wacky would be easy for me. Turns out, with spinning, it's hard to not spin 'normal' once you get 'normal' down. Who knew? The roving is from Lisa Souza, color Mardi Gras. Waaay too yummy. I'll be buying more.

Next, my current lace knit:
















This is the Swallowtail Shawl from fall '06 Interweave Knits The yarn: my finest handspun to date! Once again, Lisa Souza roving: Blue Faced Leicester. Not sure which colorway.

So much for knitting. That's my hobby, you know. Everything else is my 'job'.

I've been fooling around with this image:






















This is a sketch I scratched into a flour paste silk screen. Somehow, she keeps asking to be more than just a screen. Having scanned the image onto my computer, she was just waiting for the magic touches of Lucienne (my pen tablet pen, whom I love with fierce devotion).























Where does this stuff come from?!? Somewhere in the twilight of my mind, these images lurk and I'm always amazed by them. I've been talking online with a friend about what medium she wants to be. I'm so afraid of the amount of time she will require in fiber. The thought of even beginning overwhelms me. But begin I must (at the prompting of said friend).

Lucienne helped me boil the image down to the most basic terms:






















I'm doing all this drawing in Photoshop Elements. The red lines were added as a seperate layer. Before I met technology, this was all done with tracing paper and Sharpies. In Photoshop, I was able to convert the red lines to black and then print them seperately. This will become my fabric 'background'. The rest of the image will be built on top of it, though I'm not sure how.

Here you can see the background pattern, the drawing, and a bunch of pattern pieces traced on tracing paper. The background remains intact to use as a reference. All the drawn segments are numbered so I can fit this back together like a puzzle.

















I really have no idea what will happen next. Maybe some fabric auditions. Intuition tells me that I'll be dying fabrics for this project. There's so much about making art that terrifies me...I can't put it all into words. Trying to break it down into baby steps keeps some of the fear at bay. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Wild Friday Night!

Oh, yeah, baby...I'm walking on the wild side, living in the fast lane....that's me. MM--mm. I've been wearing my nightgown since 8 o'clock, letting my kids watch tv, and...uh...embroidering grapes. That's right....clubs have got nothin' on me, man. I'm cutting edge.

Yeah, and my husband and I used to go to Sportmart on Friday nights....try on the rollerblades with the plastic thingy still attaching the pair. That was painting the town, I'm tellin' ya'. Closing down dance halls and rough bars? Noooo, too tame for us. Passing footballs down the aisles without getting thrown out of Sportmart? That' s living large for you.

About those grapes:


That sideways squiggle was begging to be machine embroidered. How could I not oblige? In the comments, Debra suggested tackling this with hand embroidery. That would be an issue for my attention span, which is abbreviated at best. I'm really digging the way built up stitches form a raised surface, even though there's not much done yet. A little hand stitching (certainly nothing approaching gratuitous use *snort*) might be the finishing touch.


Next, Funky C brings you a list of aimless thoughts brought to light during the embroidery process:

-Is this really art? It's pretty realistic...not much hidden meaning or personal imagery in drawing green grapes that look like...uh...green grapes.

-Maybe a big, fat, vocabulicious title coupled with an eye glazingly wordy artist statement will hide the fact that these are just...green grapes.

-Do I really want to thread paint the entire, endless background the rich dark brown I'm envisioning?

-Maybe I'll just call this a 'study'. Studies don't have hidden meanings, do they?

-Do I really want to cut it out and just stick it on a background? Maybe a better way would be to print some grapes on my Epson and fuse them right in the middle of some brown fake batik. Now there's a look.

-Gee...that dark brown background thing kind of looks like some stuff out of the Andrew Wyeth book I've been reading at bed time.

-Oh, crap. Now it's not only 'not art', it's freakin' derivative. Party over. I quit. Think I'll blog instead.

And here we are. There isn't a scene in L.A. that can compete with that kind of mental trip. And I can do it all for free in my nightie.

Sketchbook

If you give me a piece of blank paper and the right black felt tipped marker, I can play quietly by myself for hours. The problem is, I don't often have hours. And it's got to be just the right pen. All pens in this household must pass audition. I am a stringent critic. If they make the cut, they are quietly hidden in a bag pocket, near my desk, by my bedside.

Lately, the sketchbook has been my friend. I took it with me to Jeckyll Island last month and did some quickies here and there. There were only moments to capture poses, etc... before the person moved. I find the act of drawing live and fast forces me to use my eyes instinctively....forces me to capture the essential information in a scene.

Here are two of my traveling companions partaking of our nightly 'oysters, shrimp, and beer at sunset' ritual:


I think this guy is saying, "Hey, Baby..." I also think they realized they were models, got wierded out, and moved to the other side of the dock:

Notice they all have short legs and big heads. Draw whatcha' know, baby.

My dear friend Melissa watching the ocean:


So much for Jeckyll. It was a fabulous trip...ocean, seafood & beer, old friends. What's not to love?

Back in my real world, Eye for Fiber, my critique group, met last night. Barb Dinneweth, the resident art teacher, led us through an excercise about line. She asked us to draw fruit, just capture it's shape:

In stead of drawing circles for grapes, I wanted to capture their edges with a horizontal squiggle. And unlike the Jeckyll sketches, there was time to use a little more control. This morning, I realized that I've made this mark before:

This is a silk screen image I made using flour paste. I scratched the image right into the flour paste coated screen. The idea that shape is defined by edges and light fascinates me. I wanted to use edges, not straight lines to reveal the contours of her face.

In fact, I've been using this same kind of mark since childhood. I clearly remember defining clouds with these horizontal squiggles. Hmmm...

In the back of the stew I call 'brain', this idea has been brewing. How do I translate it into fiber? The obvious answer is thread painting. But somehow that's not satisfying me. The question of medium is flaring brightly in my mind. Is fiber the best medium simply because it's what I know? Or is it time to explore something new? I know watercolor's not it. And I'm not completely ruling out fiber. But I am thinking. And Horace, I warned you about thinking.

Not much time today....Friday is the kids' homeschool co-op day, a huge event at a nearby community college. I'm whipped by the end.

Here's yesterday:


Here's today:


Lucienne and I? We make zee beeautiful mooseek, oui?
It's still not right, though. May have to go back to the original image and take this down a slightly different path. Plus I'm learning more about how to use the color tools in photoshop. And working with layers...love the layers. I hadn't found all the color mixing options when I started this. Each leaf is in a separate layer. I need to have each leaf coloring in it's own layer too.

This whole 'taking a picture and designing in place' is really groovy! It' s like being able to design right in the library. That's just cool!

Okay, the ankle biters are eating breakfast. Duty calls....

The Groove

It's baaa-aaaack! After months of nothing, I feel a groove coming on. And it could be a serious one....one worth pushing into a body of work. It's almost as if this project had to wait until the right time to find fruition. I met Carol Bryer Fallert when she won the AQS Best of Show for her quilt, 'Birds of a Different Color'. She said that the idea for her quilt came 12 years before she had the skills to make it. Composers have been known to write music that they can't play.

In my mind, this all boils down to my self-view not as an artist, but as a problem solver. For me, the art comes through the 'aha' moment---the point of solution. Everything after that is so ordinary, it's almost boring. And I find that when work is truly complete, I'm sometimes disappointed. Seeing finished work doesn't have the thrill that comes with realizing the answer to a problem.

Case in point:


Here we have an unadorned library wall, complete with hideously distracting light fixtures. Even the head librarian agrees that the lights need to go, but libraries run on budgets. You know the rest.


Here is my first sketch, right out of the box. There followed a second, more intentional sketch. And then there was a survey, a poll. The poll indicates that artists around the world prefer the giant leaf collage. Lucky for me, 'cause I agree!

Then came a night of anxst, not over this, but over several situations in my life. At 4 am, I gave in to the insomnia, do a little office work, then broke out the pen tablet. **Suddenly, as I type, I feel the urge to christen said pen tablet, I love it so!** I hereby dub her Lucienne Fauré, Crafter of Illumination!! You may kiss her ring...

Anyway, serious design work ensued. Lucienne and I have arrived at this:



It's a good start, but there's more to be done. The colors haven't quite arrived yet. Seeing the photo so small makes me realize that I need to push the glowing highlights on the edges if this thing is going to show on the paneling. I'm ready to audition fabric and will probably oscilate between Lucienne and the fabric pile until it all feels right.



And I think there needs to be a greater sense of movement, spontenaity, like the original sketch. I want this whole arrangement to have more arch. But Lucienne is getting some beauty rest and laundry is calling with an annoying harshness. This'll have to sit for the afternoon.

What's left in my head is that this will be 3-D work. Copper mesh is in da' house! I've worked with window screening---fun to free-motion, but very pokey, and 1/2" wire grid--- with a sewing machine?...not so much. The needles were most unhappy about it. The copper seems promising. Then I'll need to come up with a way to mount the pieces on a hidden wooden frame---enter stage right---Very Handy Husband.

See what I mean? The hard part---the concept---is over. The rest is a snap.

Procrastination in Spades

Finally, my moment of quiet has arrived! I'd say 'daily', but the fact is, solitude doesn't visit Chez Funky on a daily basis.

For most of you today is Halloween. Here it is my Sweetie's birthday. He likes man food on his birthday, so there was roast beef with flavorful gravy, yukon gold mashed potatoes, steamed fresh broccoli. And a pumpkin desert (cheesecake)....he loves all things pumpkin. Now the dishwasher is humming (don't make it too perfect in your head, there's still a full batch of dishes waiting to be washed), and the kids are in bed. I'm whupped!

Fiber content:
Procrastination seems to be biting me in the butt! As previously posted, the shirt fronts are done after some delay. Today I got an email from the director of my local library. Ruh-Roh! This is never good. Not because she's evil, but because it means she's reminding me about the quilt installation I promised to do years ago. That's right....YEARS. Last post, we were at weeks. Now we're up to years. Lordy, is it possible I've put something off for decades? Let's not find out. My husband can probably come up with a decent list of things.....I don't want to know. The really pathetic part is that I have several projects for others that have been delayed for years. Why do I do this? Only drugs and therapy will tell.

So, about the library....my biggest block, the only thing that I can voice....is the location for the art:

It's up toward the ceiling and between two giant light fixtures. The fixtures make me crazy. They're so distracting! And I'll have to work hard to achieve impact from such a distance.

This evening, I put this photo into Photoshop and broke out my beloved pen tablet. Now, over the years, I've contemplated a bazillion different designs: landscapes, stacks of books, a tree branch hanging from the ceiling, etc... Tonight, two design roads came to me immediately:




I'm leaning toward the giant collaged leaves. It has potential for some dimensional quality. Given my color choices, it will have impact and stand up to those light fixtures. And I think it's just cool. The other design enhances the rectilinear quality of the architecture and I don't find it unique. But then, my view is a bit myopic tonight and I could be persuaded to change my mind.

By all means, render an opinion in the comments.