A couple of heart and strip-weaving samplers to share. When I compare the largely off-white piece (above) with the chaotic, colored one I was stitching on last night (below),
I feel a (new?) preference for the blank spaces, the more subtle textures, signaling a shift in taste, perhaps? We shall see. The piece above received this plaid heart, plus three others last night. I added the orange batik stripe and the tea-dyed damask linen ribbon to ground the design a little. During the applique process, I found myself wishing that my stitches were being received on a plainer surface where they might show up a little better…
The top piece features an eco-print by Arlee Barr. It is almost too much to embellish it at all, if you know what I mean, but I tried to let the leaf prints hold their own next to the hearts. And, look! Is that a shadow heart to the right of the striped-heart?!!
Both pieces show off some cloth weaving learned in a Jude Hill class (blog, Spirit Cloth, on side bar), as well as some heart treatments learned in ANOTHER Jude Hill class.
Perhaps it is Monday-mind, but from where I sit right now, I just want to finish these up – chop chop – so that I can move on to other things.
When I was at art college I was immersed in my own little bubble of making prints from scanned bits of rust and scratched-up plastic, and one day I came up with an image that had a totally clear space in it which didn’t ‘fit’ with all the others. My tutor (rightly I think) said sometimes the eye just needs a place to rest, which made me see it in a completely different way. As much as I love your second piece, I understand the importance of empty space too, I guess a place to wander off from all the bright colours and jangle, a doorway of some kind.
I love the first piece and the way you used the printed cloth. It’s like having space for thinking and feeling.
I used to like to design in threes – making the eye bounce from thing to thing in a triangle… not to the exclusion of a focal point, always, but often… now having a place for the eye to rest feels more like what I want before me.
ah, you are coming to the dark side–or rather the light side 🙂
yeah, yeah, I know — and all this hand sewing, too!!!~
both pieces are lovely–after nearly a life time of preferring to work with riotous colors (except for the mandatory everything black teens/college days), I find that I, too, am quieting down my palate. I’m thinking a new chapter, yes.
we do go through phases, don’t we?
Chloe – it’s exciting when that newness pokes its head through… one trick is to recognize it… and let the new way/style have its place… all too often, I try to incorporate it into whatever I am working on.
It’s hard sometimes to accept it though, when you’re completely wrapped up in one direction, it can feel a bit alien and uncomfortable.. like you say, if you give it space to breathe it can lead into unexpectedly rich new places. A metaphor that works on lots of different levels in life! 🙂