I happily work on six, seven pieces at a time and then ALL OF A SUDDEN, the need to finish something becomes urgent.
I am the same way with housework… looking with neutral disregard at piles of clutter everywhere until one day, I CAN’T STAND THEM ANYMORE.
This piece was a dream-sketch quilt and it is taking waaaaaaaaaay too long to complete — as are my three Easter Cross quilts, a poppy piece, and a pillow commission. So forget about the torture depicted in the piece. The thing torturing me right now is the unfinished state of things.
(but I have been all tied up — kids on break, garden attention-grabbing — just in the last few days I removed the dead inkberry, attended two track meets,
potted up a bunch of sedum, raked the side beds, planted some basil seeds, used garbage-snagged pieces of glass (– someone’s old fridge components picked up yesterday –) to make a casual cold frame, swept the side porch and readied it for summer morning reading, swept the bluestone, got the houseplants outdoors, grocery shopped twice, cleared up the south bed, made the garage passable again by moving shit around, started a new compost heap)…
During the construction of this quilt, which I am calling “Witness”, the artist Barron Storey — whose work I really love — started a “women and ropes” series. My “ropes” look more like threads, and lack the paralyzing tension that I had hoped to depict, but this quilt is, nevertheless of a “woman and ropes”. The cloaked witness is partially shown here:
On a lighter note, I am finding this business of having middle-aged eyes is adding a new dimension to design — the looking with glasses on, the looking with glasses off — something I never knew about because I had never worn glasses until middle age. Last night I noticed that the batik of the Witness’s face, if you blur your eyes, really looks like a face. I like it when things like that happen.
An interesting piece – you’ve managed skilfully to get many layers of meaning in a small area.
thanks, Kaye — not adhering scraps to a fairly flimsy backing and using mostly hand stitching is pretty new and there are literally some bumps to work out.
grand cloth and stitch…despite all odds.
I have spent my whole life feeling all tied up in knots, so I absolutely love how you are putting this into a piece of art. I laughed out loud over your threads that “lack the paralyzing tension” that you felt you had failed to depict. Some days I feel the way Gulliver must have felt with all those tiny ropes imprisoning him. Mine are mainly of my own making, the “I should” ropes. Today I think maybe I shan’t. I’ll go for a long lazy walk instead! xo Kari
I read your piece and was immediately drawn to your use of rope imagery. I too have used little, symbolic ropes, to bind and immobilize the large.
I like what Kari says about Gulliver and trying to break free from our chains and Kaye’s layering of meaning. You have captured both sentiments here.
I wish that wordpress let me respond to each comment in turn, but I haven’t figured that out yet. so thanks Gigi, Kari and Jude, too…
a long lazy walk sounds great, Kari — and surely is one way to free up a little for awhile…
when I worked at Ropes & Gray, or I should say AFTER I worked at Ropes & Gray, I made a series of little paper bowls that were gray with little white twine around them as visual puns… those weren’t really ropes either…
this this this tension i understand and all the pressure the new seeing is quite exciting puzzling but inspiring
Hi Dee. I can’t remember if I replied to your lovely and very welcome comment on my blog the other week. I can’t ‘reply’ to you so am leaving a comment here.
I think I’m the same with tidying up….leave it for ages and then just have to do it. But you exhaust me with your list of what you’ve done. All this and fabulous stitching too.
Made me laugh…I understand completely that need to finish something. That moment when the piles become too much. I like the variety of stitching, the layers in the second to last picture.
hi jackie and deb, thanks for stopping in.. .. hope to finish a few pieces this week!!
They might be Lilliputian ropes, that´s why they can be mistaken as threads… looks great…