Extremes

Here is the opposite of the big backhoe featured in this post. This past week my water line was dug up by this diminutive backhoe.


Whereas the big one would move a lot of dirt with every scoop of the bucket, this one is more of a precision instrument. The operator was carefully following the old line, avoiding a gas line, but not so fortunate with a second water line running up to the landlord's house (it being pvc, it didn't show up on the finder). It almost looked like a toy, kind of comical in comparison to the big boy toy.. But it sure beats digging by hand.

Voices

“…gradually you come under the right influences, picking and choosing, and being selective, and then maybe your voice is the combination of 6 or 8 other voices that you have managed to blend in such a way that nobody can recognize your sources. You can learn intimacy from Whitman, you can learn the dash from Emily Dickinson…you can pick a little bit from every writer and you combine them. This allows you to be authentic. That’s one of the paradoxes of the writing life: that the way to originality is through imitation.”

- Billy Collins, at the White House’s Poetry Workshop

I've heard this put so many ways, this thing about how you find your own style and voice, and have suffered through many a discussion about copying and stealing from other artists. Collins, however, puts it in such a gentle way, this reality of being human and how it forms you into the unique person that inquiry and thought leads you to be. We do not live in a bubble; we cannot help but take on the bits and pieces we encounter daily.


I've also read so many interviews with artists espousing who their greatest influences were. I wonder if there's something wrong with me because I can't narrow my own field of influence to a couple of famous artists Or perhaps it's just because I have no formal art training. Because I come out of a traditional quilting background, my influences, when I think about it, can be found there - the precision borne of an innovative technique learned from Judy Mathieson, classic and restrained (yet also exuberant at times) quilting designs from my machine quilting mentor Diane Gaudynski, the quiet sophistication of Erika Carter's timeless designs. The rest of what influences my voice comes straight from nature, I think. The colors I use, the designs I choose, the texture I try to emulate...I think I bypass artists and go directly to the source.


That is not to say I don't study the great artists (and even the not so great) - I do. And so there may be dozens of voices subconsciously whispering in my head and being synthesized into my own without my being aware. I've often said that I am a sponge, absorbing information, some quite esoteric, and moving on to the next. Occasionally I'll make a connection between two seemingly unrelated bits and find that the best. Often I'll have an aha moment when information gathered over a long period of time suddenly makes sense, comes together to do more than just rattle around in my hazy memory. That too is exciting.


Perhaps that's why I've been picking up things on my walks and bring them home rather than just observe, absorb and move on. Things like feathers. I wouldn't say that I collect feathers, but my studio might tell a different story. My bulletin board has half a dozen feathers adorning it, from the one found on vacation that exhibited iridescence I had just learned about, to the red-spined one resting on my windshield after a walk along the city beach, to this rather large and ruffly one I spotted near the barn the other day. I rarely ever know what I will do with these things that catch my eye, intrigue me and beg to be brought home, but I've learned to trust that eventually I will. A veritable chorus of voices and influences continually at my beck and call.

Nothing much to see here...

...that is, hard to see in that I have started quilting my stack n whack quilt, following the stripes and stitching in the ditch with invisible thread. Did I say I was going to baste this up and set it aside for higher priority projects? I believe I did, but I just can't - I love it too much and the quilting will be simple and relatively quick to finish. I may be resisting putting off finishing it partly because it has been in progress for so very long, plus I know where it will go once done (and if I hustle, I'll even present it on a special occasion - real incentive). It may be a reaction to last year's derailment of plans to attend to such "unfinished business" - I'm tired of having to put projects on hold. Whatever my motivation, I am happily putting in the time to complete it. That's a very good feeling after so much forced march work in the studio lately.

Oh, and did I say I was going to use that leaf fabric for the backing? Poor leaf fabric; every time it thinks it will have a larger role in the quilt, I replace it with another option. It really would have worked fine, but then I remembered a fabric which I think will delight the recipient much more. This is just too fun!

I opted for a Hobbs wool batt and had forgotten how wonderful it is for larger quilts. One of the downsides of machine quilting larger quilts on a domestic sewing machine is wrestling the usually heavy bundle - one tends to wear the quilt (usually thrown over one shoulder) while a tiny portion of it is under the needle Every progression to the next spot requires hefting and rearranging of a sometimes awkward package. I believe I used Hobbs 80 cotton/20 polyester batt on the last large quilt, and the difference in weight is striking - an almost airy light bundle is making this so much easier on my body. Plus the springiness of wool is especially good at masking baubles in quilting...

Dare I confess the rest of my sudden energetic dive into projects? I can't seem to suppress the urge to start a knitting project, even though the weather is getting on towards summery. It's not that I don't have several applique projects I could take out on the porch to justify staying out in the nice weather. I justify this because it will be a short sleeve cardigan, hopefully perfect for Idaho's wide ranging daily temperatures where even if most of the day is hot, mornings and evenings can be cool. This is a cotton/wool yarn (color is called milk chocolate mint) and the pattern is knit in one piece from the top down - something I don't think I've done before. It's a simple pattern that I'm finding a lot of fun.

Mindless doodling

I was having a nice long conversation on the phone yesterday, and since a pencil and bit of paper was close at hand, I found myself absentmindedly drawing curves in the black spaces of this postcard. Not unusual, the curved lines - it seems to be my usual doodle. What surprised me was the arrows I caught myself drawing on the ends. This kind of doodling can reveal subliminal messages, and I'm wondering what I was trying to tell myself here. Get going? Any way will do? Operating at cross purposes? Split between choices? This way or that? Looking for adventure?

Care to join in with theories? ;-)

The Book as Art

I just finished reading The Book as Art by Krystyna Wasserman, which showcases the exhibit by the same name put on by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. If you are at all interested in Artist's Books, this is a must read. As regular readers know, I've been working on understanding this particular art form for awhile, and feel I am finally getting a handle on it. This book certainly helped.


One artist's book in particular spoke to me on several levels. Connie Conner Blair's "She has vanished from the outside and gone within..." is fairly traditional in form, and uses things I understand like ink, oil paint sticks, collage and etching. Each spread is a different color family, the left side being mostly mottled, the right side striated. Beautiful symmetry to hold the story she unfolds.

It is the text, though, that first caught my attention and made me take a closer look. I find it most unnerving to see, coming from someone else's hand, words I could have written myself. I was haunted enough by the few lines displayed that I spent time tracking down the full text - not all of which applies to my own history but much that does. That bit about "...books she doesn't read and things she doesn't need. She owns dishes enough for eight yet no one ever comes to dinner." Yeah, that struck a nerve. You can view this artist's book and several more in their entirety here.

Tulips

Please indulge me; I've been waiting what seems like forever for my tulips to bloom and bring me some much needed color. I picked a few to bring inside, and they posed nicely for a photo shoot. Three different varieties, and for once, these photos are untouched by any photo manipulation program, not even cropping. Just the best of the lot straight from the camera to you.

Backhoe Manipulations

Of all the parts of that backhoe I photographed (see previous post), I found I was most fascinated with the upper arm and its various curved shapes. I definitely was seeing positive and negative shapes, not the parts of a piece of machinery. And so I turned to Corel Paint Shop Pro to quickly help me work with just those shapes.

This is reducing the jpg to 2 colors.


But so is this - I can't remember what option I used within the 2 color filter, but it took it from flat to some shading.


But do you think I could leave it at that? Of course not! This one is 16 color.


This is also 16 color but with windows nearest color option.


Now 256 color windows nearest color option.


Here's a negative image.


And perhaps the strangest one - greyscale with brushstrokes filter.

Backhoe Inspiration

Every so often a big piece of equipment shows up on the property and I'm compelled to grab my camera. Not sure why it intrigues me so, but there's always something interesting to frame up. This big backhoe took up residence back in March.



Without much thought, I realized I was looking at negative space as well as angles as I composed some of my shots.


There was so much of interest, and I kept finding kinetic energy in this static object. This one reminds me of a fist slammed into the ground.


The shape of the bucket itself exudes a heaviness.


And these angles give the sense of powerful upward thrust even though they are not moving.


I noticed the rear view mirror and tried lining up a reflection that related to lines in the rest of the composition.


I started isolating other areas - this graceful curve high up.


And these wonderful undulations.


I could see something hanging down, something with a frayed end that I thought was a cable that had torn loose. I was very surprised to find, as I viewed my shots close-up on the computer, it was actually a branch that had caught in the machinery.


This is a closeup of the bucket - I was drawn to the texture, that curve and the numbers. It's saying something to me but I don't know what yet.


And of course, there must be a shot of the metal treads.

Color Palettes

I ran across this photo in Smithsonian Magazine and was totally captivated by the color palette.

Then came the latest Keepsake Quilting catalog with this quilt on the cover. The blues and greens are very much like those in the boat photo, but lacking the additional interesting reds, mauves and that splash of yellow.

I ran both through CCS Drive's image to colors palette generator. This on-line program pulls out the main colors from any image, and also gives you a limited number of colors in light, medium and dark palettes. Then on the right, it allows you to pick from the complete palette to create your own palette. As you can see, there are limitations to this program - it did not pick up on the bright red nor the yellow.


It had an easier time with the limited colors in the quilt photo. A pleasing calm palette, as described in the catalog (the quilt is called Zen Garden), and fine for a lap quilt, but comparing the two images, I'm more intrigued by the one with unexpected colors. This is what I need to learn to do with my own palette selection.


I kept searching on-line for other palette generators; most gave me even fewer colors than this. And then I found a freeware Color Palette Generator 1.0 from asptemplate.net. It can be used either on-line or in a small downloadable program that can run on your computer without internet access. As you can see, it pulls many more colors out. I haven't quite figured out what's going on there to the right, but when you click on a color in the palette, it gives you more information. A bit of fun playing with these, and maybe they will become a regular tool in design kit.

Border Wars

There was a major "argh" moment in the studio today as I tackled the borders for my stack n whack quilt. You may recall that I'd decided to miter the borders even though I wasn't looking forward to the process, saying, "I think I would be unhappy if I just butted the borders. The miters should echo a bit the flow of the stripe around the stars." Sometimes you just have to suck it up and get on with it. So I got out the book I reference to double check on how to calculate the length of the borders. I measured and calculated and measured again before cutting my border strips. One of those extra long tape measures really helps.

I carefully marked where to start and stop the stitching to match 1/4 inch from each edge of the top and penciled in the 45 degree angle of the seam. I pinned the first border to the top, and had the foresight to flip it back, fold in the miter and position it over another border strip placed along the adjacent side. Just wanted to verify that the flow of the stripes around the corner really did add and not detract to the flow of the stripe around the stars. Yes, I think this is the look, although in some ways its a little busy. Better fold up a square of that green and position it like a cornerstone to be sure that isn't better. No, definitely not what I want. Also, unfold that miter and see what the butted version would look like.


That's when I saw it, when I flipped back and forth between miter and butted and realized once again I can't visualize worth a damn. Even so, my usual logical mind should have picked up on the fact that by mitering the corners, that center stripe would stand out like a sore thumb and throw off the balance of the quilt (maybe YOU can visualize the miters and how they isolate that center strip.). Really looking odd and making me lose the whole strippy quilt effect. As you can see above, the butted version gives three columns and a nice symmetry.


Well, switching to the butted border, at least, made my job easier. I recalculated border lengths, folded the already cut borders in half and lined them up on the cutting board on the line half the actual length. Wouldn't it be terrific to have the whole table a gridded cutting mat so these lengths longer than 35 inches would be easier to cut? With butted borders sewn in place, I was relieved to hang this back up on the design wall and think, yes - this was the right way to go. I really like this quilt and think I will use that leaf print that didn't work for the corner triangles for the backing. We'll work on that tomorrow. I want to get this layered and pin-basted this week, although I don't plan to quilt it right away.

By the way, if you haven't left a comment on my 1000th post, you still have a chance to win a little gift. The number of comments have not hit the "magic" favorite number yet.

May Day Greetings

Yes, even though it is still cold and sleeting nearly every day, these tulips in a sheltered spot are in full bloom. Hope there are bright flowers blooming wherever you are!