Process and Product

“It’s like having a little tape recorder in your head that is playing at an incredibly high speed at an incredibly low volume. A little voice telling you about all the things you’ve seen and considered…..and you just want to get them out of your head.”

Peter Plagens, describing the process of painting

“Creativity is doing, pushing, experimenting, trying. Only by working his chosen media did he find their limits; only by trying to express his vision – however trivial, simple, or extraordinary – did he see it.”

Robert Taibbi Creativity: Working the Medium

Ted maintains my website for me. Well, he’d maintain it if I’d give him stuff to put on it. Every so often he gently reminds me that “it’s been awhile since there’s been something new”. With the last gentle reminder, I promised myself I would get out to the studio and get something finished. Progress is slowly being made……. as in slooowly the ice age receded.

I admire my friend Gladys’ way of working. We share studio space and have taken workshops together. She’s amazing. A flurry of intense activity and, next thing you know, there’s a fabulous piece of art. When I read Peter Plagens’ description of the process of painting, I thought of her right away.

Then, on the other hand, there’s me. My portion of the studio should carry the disclaimer that anything that vaguely resembles art is purely coincidental. I’m in love with the process and there is where the problem lies. This piece of fabric was shown at the art cloth show at the Quilt Surface Design Symposium a few years ago. I spent a few months and a few yards getting the nice purple-raspberry color I was picturing in my head. The black lines took about 20-plus hours, spread over two evenings after work, and were made by filling a little squeeze bottle with thickened black dye concentrate and drawing on the fabric. In a moment of experimentation several months later, it went into a blue dye bath. Then a yellow dye bath. It was sold at the art cloth show and my fellow textile lovers were horrified. How could I spend so much time on something and then let it go? Easy. The picture in my head was out in the three dimensional world now, so the yardage didn’t interest me anymore. The real pay off was discovering how to make a nice bronze-y color by layering lemon yellow over the purple.

The other problem with loving the process is the level of detail that can be included in the expressing the vision. This piece of fabric has been in the works for almost two years. I was driving down a highway in the fall of 2006 and missed a turn while admiring the way the sun shown through the fall leaves. Dash and I took some hikes in the woods, looking for leaves in “good” shapes. I photocopied the leaves and then made plastic stencils. With an archival textile marker, I spent many happy hours putting the leaf pattern on the fabric. I’m in the process of waxing the empty spaces between the leaves and will then wax the black lines where the leaves overlap. Then the plan is to mix up lots of autumn leaf colors and drop them into the leaf shapes. Is there an easier way to get the effect of sun shining through fall leaves? Probably, but it might not be as much fun.