threads on thursday - may days

I have been stitching and working in the garden.  It's that time of year - sowing and (sewing.) I have completed my May cloth: 

The cloth is rectangular.  I just think I hold the camera in such a way that I have a foreground that makes it appear lopsided!  

It took me a while to figure this one out.  New colors and commercial colored cloth made me look a long time before I thought about what I was going to do.  The story is the greening of the leaf. I worked through winter with the leaves that had fallen, dry and no longer producing sugars and photosynthesis, exchanging gases.  Here, lower right,  leaves start  thinly colored with green and become more saturated with color as the season progress.  There is still a little tribute to the old, dry leaves of last year, lower left.  Also, the addition of color is  a response to the blooms that have started popping up, two months ahead of schedule.  Lastly, top right, this is about as much of the super-full moon that I got to see since my area of the country was pretty much overcast during the last week.  

Following are the details:  

  

This is a close up of the center leaf.  Jude talked about needle weaving in her magic diary class so "ode to Jude:

The last thing I'll mention here are changing times.  

Before wheely luggage people use to carry their suitcases...manual labor.  Before plastic luggage there was leather.  Imagine, organic gestures. 

 I was born in England, Leicester.  We immigrated in 1961 by crossing the Atlantic in a ocean liner, the USS United States. February - it was a bit bumpy and we weren't allowed on deck because of the ice.  Portholes were covered to prevent the glass from being broken by the waves/ice! Not exactly Titanic mind you, but an experience. 

My mother still has the leather  luggage that we used to "come over on the boat."  She hand sewed covers for the luggage to protect it; leather is soft.  This cover is a very heavy canvas.  She was getting ready to throw it out but I rescued it. Washed it and will save it because I think it is part of my history.  I also found the original luggage tag.  All luggage had to be a assigned a letter, based on the travelers' last name.  When we arrived in New York, the luggage was sorted on a platform for retrieving by the letter assigned. It took us a long time to collect all our things because in fact, just like luggage handlers today, a little disorganized. They weren't all with the "z's." I'm amazed that the label  has survived over 50 years.  

Above, you can see how it was squared off.  Well fitted to the suitcase.  The corners are quite strong;  they are double layered. The opening, for the handle, is also re-enforced, two layers thick.  It was buttoned and also had leather straps to act as a second level of closure/security.  The staining is from the leather.  Quite a piece of engineering.  My mother was very skilled with her hands.  She now just talks about all the things she could do. Sews a little - mending mostly,  because  hand movement is very painful.  Her arthritis is one of the things that brings her down.  But she still tries. I'm keeping this too because my mother is part of this cloth. 

LEFT and the color of memory

Prep sketch for LEFT. 

Have you ever consider the color of memory.  

Today I remembered my dream from last night. Perhaps, I felt as thought I hadn't dreamt for a long time or if I had I was not remembering.  It's been hard to get a full, continuous amount of sleep when sleeping over at my mom's.  She wakes up almost every other hour and I along with her to ensure her safety and also that she just goes back to sleep. 

 So my dreams concerned an old friend to whom I had written yesterday with an update on my situation.  We were very close at one time but drifted.  People drift.  Lives go on sometimes in ways and waves unforeseen.  I thought we'd always stay close, and maybe in a way, absence is a form of closeness.  So in the dream I wandered around this arrangement of rooms that can best be described as labyrinths.  Mazes of different colors (pastels no less...which I would never have picked as colors that I fancy!) But then at the end of the dream...he was gone again.  This time the image was very different...sepia toned.  Lovely colors of walnut cloth dipped by magic fingers! The color of Eau de vie de marc. This is actually a brandy made from pomace - marc in French.  You might be more familiar with the term grappa.  It is a clear brandy type beverage that might have some sediment.  I use to kid my friend that it was the water from the life of marc.  In the dream that is actually how it ended.  My friend had vanished (the magic of dreams is that anything happens - right) but instead there was a little niche with a water fountain.  The color was so intensely sepia.  It was rich...when I awoke, my first thought was of the Eau de vie...that made me think about, "does memory have color." 

Looking at the image of the "prep sketch" the edge are obvious what we called faded, yellowed, aged.  There is even a musty smell to the page.  (does memory have odor?)  When we want to antique an image, we have it tinted most of the time "sepia" but sometime blue (cyan.)  We tend to think of old as Black and White images...digital is full spectrum color.  Technicolor. Photographs/film will fade to a reddish color.  (there is a chemical reaction on the acetate film base and moisture that will also crack the surface of the film...another image of aging...surface alteration: wrinkles/lines)  We tend to refer to elderly folks as having a greyish tone.  And when we lack oxygen - we turn blue. (As an aside, Joan Didion's new book was released today:  Blue Nights.  It is a memoir for her daughter.)  The blue refers to location at certain latitudes where there are long summer evenings - little darkness. Patina, also covers a more vibrant color...memory is held under the bluish cast.  

My cloth, LEFT, has to do with memory, past, remembering, loss.  The color was picked to evoke that sentiment.  It is suppose to make you think of the "back then."  The place, "the past, is a different country.  They do things differently there" kind of thinking.  The quote is from the Go Between, by L.P. Hartley.  

The cloth was dyed in walnut, double dipped with vinegar.  The "door" opening, top right, has a brighter orange color - that was an additional dying with metal - to get rust coloring.  Rust is passage of time, elements, change.  The band around the "amber/umber" color is a cloth that is "dyed" with (mold stain.)  I left the cloth - a pale pinkish cloth - wrapped in plastic (so as not to lose any moisture) for a good period of time 6-9 month!) to promote the mold growth.  Washing it made the "blackness" fade a little to a bluish (payne gray) color.  The thread that I'll use too, has been selected to keep in the same color scheme.

So when you think of the past/memory, do you see it in color, monochrome...or dark like a shadow.  Is the shadow following you.  In a linear sense, is the shadow then, your past perhaps. 

Latest stitched figure, LEFT, detail.

Discipline and being good to yourself

Thoughts to consider.  Read over at Sandra Reford's blog, link over at the side bar, the following under the heading of DISCIPLINE:

Discipline  

Being an artist is like every other job. You have to go to your "office" every day and work.

Penny Berens stitches 5 hours a day.

Judith Martin spends 5 hours stitching, 3 hours in studio designing and 2 hours researching. That's a 10 hour day.

Australian artist Dijanne Cevaal dedicates 50 hours per week to her art. That includes blogging, writing articles, teaching, designing, dying and making.

and ofcourse I can't remember where I read this additional comment, the person said that they thought that Jude stitches in her sleep.  That I believe as well.  How do you do it Jude. 


This is a quick post for the moment, mostly because I've had this on hold and if I don't publish it...I won't remember why I wanted to share it...


I think the reason had something to do with the fact that we need to keep focus and put time aside to do what essentially makes us who we are.  Happy to be accomplishing things - big, small, important or not, what we do for ourselves to define ourselves is as important as brushing your teeth, washing your face and getting up in the morning.  This is important to me because I watch my mother slowly forget what sparked her days.  She sings now, odd you might think.  I don't think so.  I think she sings because music does have a calming affect but also because I think it is a way for her to remember.  There is rhythm, repetition, and reference to processes that the mind uses....anyway, remember to remember. 


There is a shop that some of you might have access to or have heard of, Paper Source.  It is overpriced but they have a lot of eye candy there so a visit is worth just the temptation to touch.  If you get a chance find one.  I know they are here in Illinois and I believe they are also expanding - Well, I mention this because one of their logos is "do something creative everyday."  Good quote to remember. 


More on sewing, stitching is in the making...