Island Mountain Arts, Day 1

The power to make things beautifully lies in each of us already. It is a core so simple and so deep, that we are born with it.

....but we have beset ourselves with rules and concepts and ideas of what must be done that we become afraid of what will happen naturally.
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander


So began Day 1 of the Bricolage Workshop with Ken Flett (who will, I hope, correct me if I am wrong on the source of the quote).

I've always fooled myself into thinking or convinced myself, "My art isn't about me". Now, I'm rethinking what my art is about exactly and where it comes from. And thinking about not thinking while doing it. Letting it happen naturally.

Since my art isn't about me, self-portraits are my least favourite subject. Our first exercise was a self-portrait using glue and tissue sewing patterns. A flat one. 'Glue it like you mean it' flat. Great tip but difficult project for a 3-D assemblage artist.....who doesn't do self-portraits!

Using the shapes, lines and arrows from the sewing pattern, I fashioned a face shape with an overly strong jaw line and eyes that were a little bulgy, as I recall. (It's somewhere in the studio but I'm not going to look for it to take a photo.) The uppercase G and number 7 for ears were a nice asymmetric touch. Some students, like Edie in the photo below, added encaustic and beeswax.


















The afternoon began with an exercise: nine minutes writing about 'I Remember'. Having read Tricia Scott's Where I'm From blog post only two weeks previous and making mental notes, I was ready for this!

I remember......sitting in a wooden crib, long baby-soft hair, baths in a plastic tub (in a concrete shower painted pink and turquoise), buckets and cake pans collecting drips of water from the kitchen ceiling on rainy west coast afternoons, huddling under icy cold sheets upon late arrival from distant shopping trips....exhaling heavily under the covers to warm up – the sawdust furnace (just stoked) taking forever to warm the house, Christmases laden with all the gifts and toys and candy any child could imagine, Suzie Steps peeking over a red cellophane bow on a gray woolen work sock, finally growing tall enough to see the top of our first fridge.....

"I wonder what this is leading to? I bet we have to read it...."

Writing for that amount of time is quite difficult, physically, after the CT surgery back in my first blog post. I usually take an extraordinary amount of notes during workshops, but not this time. I made up for it by using the digital camera.

When asked, some of us willingly shared our passages with the class. Others hesitant at first, joined in. I remember....my sister borrowing (like 'stealing') my clothes...... the sadness and wonder of death at age 10 and wearing a Brownie uniform to the funeral...... chewing tar for gum....

Then we began creating cloth art dolls to represent and tie into I Remember.

In Ken's stash of found fabric there was a grotty old canvas drop cloth splotched with blue, pale yellow and sand-colored paint. Certainly nothing you would associate with a baby doll but those colors always remind me of the beautiful Canadian dancer and choreographer Anne Ditchburn. She's a hard one to find these days but she twirled her barefooted, enchanting and ethereal self through Slow Dancing in the Big City to Leonard Cohen's singing, in pale blue and sand gypsy fashion, "adorned with her fine lace scarf, more exotic than a headscarf has a right to be".

In my collection of found supplies, I had some doll hair (the real thing from my hairdresser), some rusty items and my trademark silk yarn but nothing for eyes other than beads.

I drew a flat pattern on paper, with slightly wider limbs and body than I wanted the finished doll to have. This extra width would compensate for the 'narrowing' when the stuffing was added. Deciding not to turn the heavy canvas, I would hand-stitch it wrong sides together sandwiching the hair between. The pattern was positioned over the canvas taking advantage of two brown paint splotches for abstract eyes.

Keeping the slippery hair in place between the stitches would be a problem. I glued tissue paper to the back head pattern just inside the stitching line and then glued the hair into position on top, adding another layer of tissue to hold the hair in place. The bangs, of course, would be sticking straight up out of her head! I could stitch them down, later.

If she was to represent my childhood memories, I had to add the Mom and Dad element. Deciding on a hidden charm or talisman that only I would know about, a rusty washer and a china shard tied together with silk yarn would be perfect. Sifting carefully through fellow student Dianna's box of broken plates, I chose a small piece that looked as though it might have come from a 1930's farmhouse on the prairies. The sharp edges would have to be filed. I'd like to think the rusty washer was actually one of those rescued from my late father's welding shop/garage. "What in the world are you going to do with those?" The silk yarn ..........I guess you can figure that one out.

Hand-stitching through canvas was more than I could handle so I opted for stitching with the 1960's era machine in the next room. Although it looked fine from the front the tension was not right and had huge loops on the back. The poor ancient machine did get a repair, in the mean time, I decided turquoise staples were an artistic and suitably incongruous fix-up. Getting over my high school neatness habit of clipping all hanging threads (at least in art projects) I didn't remove the cockeyed machine mess. It added a nice textural detail to the back.
One part of the canvas had a straight, thin blue line – a spine! (She has a strong backbone.)

Talisman in place, stuffing stuffed, opening stapled. She needed a diaper. A tissue sewing pattern (representing years and years of sewing), a piece of soft white cotton or a piece of gauzy fabric? If the pattern tissue had been the lighter kind and less yellow I would have been tempted to use it but instead I chose the filmy gauze, allowing the paint blobs to show through a little.

She needed a little more detail – another found object. A heart like raggedy Anne! I have a whole bag of rainbow hued springy coils from a machine shop. The heat from the lathe turns them deep copper, indigo, purple and violet. I love hardware cloth positioned over anything. That could work with a bit more silk yarn to hold it all in place.

One doll was formed from bits of fabric stuffed into a short mason jar and had large buttons for eyes. Another was a long legged doll of olive green fabric with two fronts, one male and one female. It's shape was lovingly sculpted with tiny darts. The faceless head surrounded parka-style with tan fur. Primary colors of embroidery floss made into loops of hair coiffed a doll with a sweetheart mouth – made from a red heart-shaped enameled charm. Yet another was made from the softest paisley printed flannelette. A doll any child would cuddle and take to bed with them.

A casual viewer of this collection of wonderful art dolls we created might easily pass them by, thinking them plain and even primitive, not realizing the important memories and deep emotion behind them. On looking closer they would know the dolls have stories to tell.

Days 2, 3 and 4......later.



Has anyone noticed a herd of stomping elephants hangin' around my blog? Just wondering. ; )) Thanks for waiting.