Hard to Play…

I have these two weeks to just play in the studio, the goal here is to come up with three works to photograph to enter for an exhibit I’d love to participate in, and I’m finding it really difficult to just stay on task and stay focused.  Part of the problem is I am not exactly sure where I’m going, and that’s as it should be, but that isn’t familiar territory for me in this context, and I’m all over the place.

That’s probably why I haven’t posted in about a week, as my dear husband, who is in Saudi Arabia and looks forward to my posts reminded me today.  I don’t like to post when I don’t have anything brilliant to say.  I’m actually just muddling along, feeling my way, and starting to get some direction.  And the deadline is looming.  Pun intended except there is no loom involved here.

I know when I teach, I encourage students to not have a plan or a goal for their fabric.  That actually works really well for me with garments, because there is an underlying goal, the fabric will eventually be worn, but that kind of “not knowing where I’m going” is much easier since I actually do know where I’m going, I’m eventually going to make a garment.  It is different when I’m sitting here with three 9x9x3″ boxes with nothing in them, and I have to make “art” by next Friday, so I can photograph them and enter the show.  I really don’t know what I’m doing here, and I’m using unfamiliar materials, and yet, a vague memory of working like this in art school comes haunting back somewhere in my subconscious.

When I am working in familiar territory, warping a loom, constructing a garment, sending out applications or proposals, I’m the model of efficiency.  But creativity can’t be rushed.  I try a little of this, spend a couple hours seeing if something will work, it doesn’t or I get a better idea, and I shift into a different direction.  And it is really really hard to do this by yourself with no feedback.  This is where I really miss my daughter.  If nothing else, she can come in and state the obvious which I usually can’t see because it is staring me in the face.  I find myself taking frequent breaks, weeding the yard, having a lot of cups of tea on the deck, emailing friends, walking down to my neighbor’s for cocktails, hanging with the boys in the basement (I actually played beer pong one night and won…  Don’t ask…)

I’m finally feeling like I have a direction and for better or for worse, I have my work cut out for me and I think I know what path I’m taking.  Until I get a better idea…

So here is what I have for now.

I completed box number one, cheered on by two of my son’s friends, Jenna and Alli, who stopped in frequently to see how it was going.  The series is called Life Forms, and this box represents earth.  It is cross cut felt, rewoven back together.  It is hard to seem the dimensional quality of the felt in the box.

In the meantime, it was either Jenna’s or Alli’s suggestion that gave me the idea to continue the series with Fire and Water.  So I built batts of carded wool in fire and water themes, and stacked them up.  Then I wet them down, and rolled them for hours sitting on the deck listening to a book on tape.  Once I got them down to the size I needed, I cross cut one of them into strips, pressed the strips flat and started to play with “fire” forms.  The strips are pinned down on a board, and I’m trying to sew them all together so they will hold while I arrange them in the box.  Meanwhile I’m finding elements in my studio that I think might want to play along, some bark, and some deep plum crinkled paper yarn from Habu that I’m weaving into a grid or net.  I have no idea what I’m doing…