New Work: Responding to Trees with Stitch

This work began with a cloth that was buried in the soil beside a Douglas-fir tree. Before the cloth began to decay I dug it up.

It was now my turn to respond to the cloth. 

I liked the bits of leaves stuck to the cloth so stitched over some of them to hold them in place.

Now it was the tree's turn to respond. 

When the cloth was dry I stretched it on a hoop and waited for a windy day. When that day arrived I raced out and tied a little paintbrush to the end of a branch. I dipped the brush into a bottle of ink then held the hooped cloth up to the brush. While the wind blew the branch around the ink-filled brush drew on the cloth - a wind drawing.

Now it was my turn to respond again.

It was time for me to add more stitch to respond to the tree's wind drawing.

The cloth needed a backing to support the stitching I had in mind.

I selected a bedsheet stained during its time wrapped around the trunk of the tree.

I found another unstained bedsheet to give a firmer cloth to stitch into.

I trialled different bedsheets to get enough contrast between the 3 cloths. Even though the colours are soft and subtle, contrast between the different cloths is still needed. 

I used my camera to take black and white photographs to check the value contrast between the different sheets before I settled on this combination.

I wanted to show the little branchlets that break off the Douglas-fir tree during a wind storm.

I went though my large bin of 'white' thread to find just the right ones.

I went outside to find one of these branchlets and made lots of drawings of it until my hands knew the angle at which the needles came out of the branch.

Next, I stitched some samples, trialling different stitch combinations. I settled on a made-up version of couching though no doubt someone somewhere has invented this stitch before. I call it a long-armed couching stitch.

Now I have to settle down and stitch every day to make sure I keep the rhythm going and keep remembering my intention with this work.

While the garden grows I am at work in my studio...

While the garden grows I am at work in my studio.

A new work. 

The challenge - how to express what is the province of Alberta on one double-sided panel?

I decided to depict the diversity of landforms in the province - landforms shaped by glacial and tectonic processes.

The schematic with a beginning sample. 

Cutting out the shapes.

I decided to focus on the interlocking shapes of the different regions and I felt colour would be a distraction. I auditioned a variety of different unbleached cottons from my stash. I selected mainly handwoven cottons from India. I washed these fabrics and lightly tumbled them dry to allow their different weaves to naturally collapse into wrinkles unique to each cloth.

Problem - how to make a neat double-sided join?

Solution - couching hand-made jute braid from India that I just happen to have in my stash, patiently waiting until needed.

The different landform shapes have been joined.

Yes, the landform edges do need more definition.

Hmmm, not sure about the outline. Is it too dark? Too wide? Does the whole panel need a wider border?

I added a border of a wider jute braid.

Nope - I don't like the way the outline of each shape takes away from the feeling of the different landform regions being related to each other. So I unpicked all of the braid on both sides.

I sewed on a much thinner jute braid.

Much better. 

Now to block the whole panel just enough to make it hang straight while not flattening out the natural landform wrinkles.

I think this must be the first work I have made without the use of my trusty irons.

Backyard Project and Work in the Studio

Ron and Nordic Fencing team leader, Mat, plan the location of the deer fence along the south boundary.

Nathan is digging trenches for irrigation pipes.

The main pipe will be located under the path going around the pergola and arbor. If there is ever a problem with the pipe it can be dug up without disturbing any garden beds.

Meanwhile, I am collecting leaf skeletons from under the tulip trees.

The damp conditions are ideal for the soft parts of the leaf to rot away leaving the leaf skeleton in tact.

After washing and laying the leaves out to dry...

...I am sewing them onto an embroidered afternoon tea cloth that spent a year or so outside wrapped around a tree trunk. I have been adding leaves to this cloth for the past couple of years. The repair of the decayed cloth with darned leaves speaks of how leaves fall to nourish and repair the soil, the skin of the earth. I will keep adding to the cloth for another season or so to demonstrate how soil building is a long term continual process.

The work is called, 'Earth Repair.'

The hyacinths are blooming in the studio bed. There is such a lovely smell as I come and go from the Green Shed.

Now that the winter rains have eased we can continue with the Backyard Project tasks

Etsy Ravenmadeworks - Mola Pillows

Ravenmadeworks

I have made a series of pillow covers using refreshed vintage molas and put them in my Etsy shop Ravenmade Works.

Molas are the embroidery of the Cuna Indians of Panama. They live on the San Blas Islands on the Atlantic side of Panama.

This well-worn mola (above) is a relatively simple design with strong mirror symmetry, all features of older traditional work.

The back shows the ground fabric has been made from 3 different fabrics pieced together and they have faded at different rates.

The front view of the 3 different red fabrics making up the ground. 

Orange then black fabric were layered on top of the red ground then the 3 layers were basted together. Smaller pieces of different coloured fabric were inserted into specific areas according to the design - see the green and white areas above. 

The design was drawn or traced onto the top most layer then basted with thread along the design lines. The top layer was cut about 1/8" on each side of the line before the cut edges were folded under. The folded edges were hand creased then the edges were hand stitched down. It is an embroidery technique known as reverse applique or cut back applique.

The traditional designs evolved from elaborate body painting and reflected things observed in the environment. 

This mola has inserts of printed cloth most likely acquired by trade or from visitors to the islands.

'Mola' means blouse and they were made in pairs - two identically designed rectangular pieces, one for the front and one for the back of the blouse. The horizontal line denotes the top of the panel, often accentuated with rick rack.

The above mola is more complex in design and detail and has many different inserts suggesting it was made for the tourist market. 

The back shows the density of the hand stitching necessary to execute a more complex design.

The purple strip at the top was likely the fabric the mola was attached to to make the yoke of the blouse.

It was very popular in the 60s and 70s for travellers passing through the island archipelago to buy molas. Women would sell their worn blouses and make new ones to wear. 

Today most mola production is for the tourist market generating valuable income families have become dependent on. Many contemporary molas are made in a wide variety of sizes, are often simpler, as above, or more complex to get higher prices and are brighter in colour. They are incorporated into clothing and home decor items to add value to the product.

Traditional Mola Blouse worn by a San Blas woman.

Dorothy Caldwell: Book Making - Putting it all Together

Dorothy showed us many other methods for making our mark on fabric and paper. She also showed us many examples of what others had done in the past and what contemporary artists are currently working on. 

 We were left to continue exploring the methods we liked.

Then is was time to start thinking about how various elements and pages could go together.

Cleverly Dorothy got us to use the sheet of paper we had been working on top of to make a practice book with a woven spine binding. I was delighted I am a messy worker because I have lots of random marks in the pages of my book.

Another book involved folding and cutting up the large piece of paper we marked with ink while outside. This book was such fun to make. It now awaits embellishment, or not.

After the practice books, we worked in earnest on assembling our main book. Dorothy sat with each of us while we showed her our marked pages and she offered advice, suggestions and help that kept us going until the end of the week.

The last activity involved everyone sharing their books.

Such a wonderful workshop.

Thank you, Dorothy.

Dorothy Caldwell's Human Marks Workshop

"An individual stroke is an utterance of touch." Dorothy Caldwell

 Dorothy is demonstrating the next Stroke Painting exercise. 

We taped various types of brushes onto long sticks. We dipped them into pots of different dilutions of black ink. With a large sheet of paper on the ground in front of each of us, we were instructed to use our whole body to make the mark on the paper. After we had filled the paper we flipped it and continued making marks but this time very slowly and deliberately. An added bonus was soft rain started to fall adding texture to our marks.

We hung our marks in the breezeway of Gloria's studio. We studied the layers of marks when the papers were more transparent with the light showing through them.

We spent the rest of the day making marks by piercing with a large nail, burning holes with an incense stick, burning edges with a candle, and adding smoke and wax to paper.

Next morning we learned about the history of Kantha embroidery. We then began to make our own Kantha marks on fabric.

This is the result of a group exercise where we all stitched blindfolded, responding to words Dorothy gave us to meditate on.

All of these exercises have helped us to feel centred and focused on what we are doing.

Etsy, Ravenmade Works New Pillows

I'm getting ready to list more pillows on my Etsy Shop, Ravenmade Works Shop, but I want to know more about the textiles they are made of, where they came from, and who made them. I want to include this information in the description of the pillows.

Hand spun, hand woven wool fabric is embroidered with wool in geometric, counted cross stitch designs.

I had a successful bid for them at an auction house. 

They were bags that I took apart and "refreshed" as pillows.

If you know anything about this type of work, could you please add a comment to this post or email me with your suggestions - ravenmade@gmail.com. 

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity.

'Home' Installed With 'Continuum' in Oakville

With this 2nd installation of my graduation work 'Home' I was unable to suspend the frame from the ceiling. I had to modify the work to fit the challenging space in the Oakville Town Hall.

I used 2 of the 4 sheets to make a bed.

And added a plain pillow with a treat.

This installation was also different in that the stitching on both sheets is complete. One year of each tree's biological processes has been recorded chromatically on cloth.

I put the book documenting the process on a chair beside the bed.

Two different installations of the same work responding to two different spaces.