Gardening vs Nurturing

As a part of the work i did for one of my degree modules, I set up a series of dialogues with the environment outside my house. This one i called 'Gardening vs Nurturing'.

I made a checkerboard of black, weed-suppression garden cloth and crochet doilies.

20 months later, this is what the site looked like

As i anticipated, nothing had grown through the garden cloth, while the doilies nurtured lush growth.

Fundy Study

I have started working on a new body of work

It began with an Articulation study week, where we explored the Bay of Fundy.
Here we are stopped for a roadside lunch

I have decided to explore all things red because it struck me as the dominant colour whereever we went around the coastline.
Fields of red-leafed low-bush blueberries.

The earth is red

The sea is red

I have started collecting red threads
It is a start....

Progress

With this work i am exploring the relationship between hemoglobin and chlorophyll.
 Their molecules are the same except for the presence of iron or magnesium in their centres.

I decided to show these centres with red and green buttons.

My years of collecting buttons has paid off because I found enough buttons of the right colour and shape to do the job.

The 1st buttons are sewn on.

I decide the buttons are successfully conveying the idea of the different colours produced by the different elements in the centre of each molecule.....

...so i continue sewing...

Moving A Work Along

Remember this work made from a collection of domestic linens dyed red and green...

...strip-pieced and cut a number of times...

...and how the colours where the same as what popped up in garden in spring?

After an incubation period, this is what has happened to it.
I have shaped it to refer to the human form, a tree and an animal hide put on the wall.
Now what?

Victoria College of Art Library

Over the summer I spent more time organising the college's library.

All of the books on individual artists are grouped and labelled with a bold sticker matching the first letter of the name of the artist.

The rest of the books and magazines are group by the courses taught in the college.

Each course has its own coloured sticker.
The system is proving to be most successful.
The books are being used and they are finding their way home.

Himalayan Blackberry

Thought you needed to see close-ups of the blackberry we have been battling to remove. 

The canes reached high into the trees, growing on these thick stems.

The roots are huge and take a lot of energy to dig out.

I have read deer like to eat blackberry but we have a lot of deer and I don't see any sign of them snacking on them.
Goats like blackberry. We are looking into the 'Rent A Goat' program.

Forest Restoration Project Report

Our big project is to restore the wedge of  Douglas-fir forest on our property. The 1st phase involves removing the invasive plant species preventing native plants from growing. While my sister was staying with us, she put in many long days working at removing these invasive plants. The area she focused on was the shady bog area below the pond where the outlet stream meanders.
This is the view looking further down this stream from where we planted the ferns (previous post). All invasives have been removed but there is likely to be regrowth of them.

This is the view further down the stream. Before Donnel came, it was a 10 foot wall of Himalayan blackberry, some holly and a little English ivy - all invasive species in this ecosystem.

Once the blackberry was removed there was very little vegetation left. Now with the light reaching the ground, the nurse logs and snags can do their job supporting new growth.

It looks like a bomb went off and the blast killed all the vegetation.
I will be watching the area closely to find signs of new growth and to remove regrowth of  the invasive plants.
Thanks Donnel for doing battle with blackberry for all those hours and for sharing your wisdom so freely. 

Gardening

While my sister was staying with us, we cleared the steep banks along a little stream of all invasive plants - mainly blackberry. We then bought 7 different varieties of ferns. Donnel wasn't able to plant them before she left but she did leave me detailed instructions on how they needed to be planted.

On Sunday Ron and i got them all planted - 19 of them. Ron dug the holes and i did the planting.

As per directions, i made little collars of decaying weeds and put them around each fern for protection from frost and to retain moisture in the soil. Then i added a knit cloth (Donnel's suggestion to hold the bank and to add more compost as the cotton and linen decayed. It was a hand knit tube found by friend Carol in a thrift store. 

While stones held the cloth in place, i cut holes for the ferns to poke through. Now these 4 ferns are wearing a shared sweater/jumper/jersey. I am sure they are most comfortable in their new home.
Oh, and it started to rain just after we had finished planting - perfect timing.

Clean-up Time in the Studio

After completing the Pattern Design course, my studio was a chaotic mess. I knew I couldn't begin on my next project until I had put everything away so I had some clear horizontal surfaces to work on.
The 1st thing I did was to pick up everything off the floor and put it on my central work tables. Then I added everything else that was out of place.
What a pile of stuff!

I worked away through the layers putting things back in their place so I could find them again when I next needed them.

Everything that needed more of my attention got piled into the 'Action' basket, which has morphed into a slippery, tottering double pile.
I'll attack it bit by bit whenever I have a few spare moments.
Or perhaps I need to deal with 5 items each day - that sounds like too many. How long would it take to eliminate the pile if I dealt with 2 items each day? That would be better than leaving it to compost and grow down onto the floor.

This is another pile waiting for my attention - fabrics and threads needing to be put away in the right containers.
As long as the pile stays like this I feel as though I don't have complete access to all of my textile resources. I might as well not have them. What if the perfect thread  I need for my next project is hidden deep within the pile? But it would take most of a day to put it all away. That day needs to go towards meeting one of my looming deadlines.
Now I have 2 and a half clear surfaces to work at.
Onward....

Pattern Design Stations in the Studio

To teach the Pattern Design course I set up stations around the studio.

This is where I demoed how to make different stamps.

This was a cutting station, though the students had space to set up their individual cutting stations too.

This is a print station. I learnt this set-up from Eleanor Hannan when I was in her Compositional Cloth course at MISSA this past summer (it is officially fall now). I found having the large foam print pad made printing so much faster than inking with a breyer or roller.

This was the Supplies station. Different people donated materials to the class so the students had a lot to choose from when they were planning their stamps.