Home on the Main Range

Three or four hundred upper thread and bobbin changes over the past four weeks. There's a textural effect I'm trying to create with the quilting - that compliments the imperfect shapes of the pieced fabrics. Something akin to wabi, sabi and shibui. The infinite ways that dense, linear quilting can be used to create story are coming to life, one piece at a time. Sometimes barely visible, sometimes contrasting. There is an uneven fullness in the seams that help create miniscule bumps at the end of each line. There are also the seamless directional changes absorbed into the looser weave of some fabrics.  Every change and every bobbin. Testing tensions, adjusting for the different threads as each shape submits to the process. It is a peace-filled activity, permanently set up so I can work for several minutes at a time. Never wasting moments.  I get immersed in the meditative quality of the quilting and thinking only about the stitch. Some of the combinations I use: using the same ...

Washing up and looking out the kitchen window to the mountains, the national park, the ridge of ironbark looking refreshed after recent rains, the grassy top acres of the property, the secret garden and vegie patch. The septic tank lid. A wry smile in the midst of suds and rinsing water.  Spoils the train of thought - from majestic mountains to (hu)manly muck. Why does it have to be THERE? It has been for maybe 70 years. That's about when I noticed the circles within circles, their placement and the morning shadows. I grabbed the camera.  My process is simple and thorough. It's not necessary to do any more than steps 2-3, then 12-14 to make a quilt. Really notice something. Really pay attention to the shape, scale, textures, shadows, colours and contrasts   Take a photo - especially when the earth is still rotating while you're thinking about it and before long, it was true, the shadow had completely passed over the lid  Convert the photo to a quick sketch - try...

Fifteen yards of PFD fabric and my notebook went on an adventure in the studio. A check of my stash reveals limited greens, few reds and missing "depth". I need to build lights, medium and brights across the colour range. Dyeing is the first step. Overdyeing to intensify brightness is the second. In the midst of all this organisation, some neutrals were required until the happenstance of notebook and bumped dye solution.  A quick mop up, a rewrite of the notes and a journal cover enhanced by the mishap. 

A dear friend made masks for all of us using traditional, indigo dyed fabrics. I loved how indigo is a coating or covering of the fibres and, in its own way, protects them just as the mask protects those who are the fabric of our lives.  A mask for pandemic hygiene is one thing, but it can never conceal those smiling eyes.  

Carving out time to be in the studio is a challenge at the best of times. Life gets in the way unless the things that keep us whole are unashamedly and ruthlessly protected. My life busy by my own design and choice and the dogged insistence on living creatively is the only way I fit everything in. Not necessarily brilliantly organised, but I'm getting better at it. Better at ensuring the discipline and joy of creating happens every day. When there's greater chunks of possibility, that's the time for Sweet Spot. Something that follows persistence, practice and patience. Over and over again. Sweet spot is my dear friend. She's with me right now, quilting an improv quilt pieced from leftovers, scraps and orphans. The layout took days, if not weeks, of rearranging, walking away, fresh eyes, different approaches and trusting I'd know when we reached Sweet Spot. We're in the zone, a rhythm that's lost all sense of time and place. Magic space. In the spaces between...

  Currently working in a series - my 2021 challenge to myself - to create works that have a relationship to each other. I chose a random figure of "30%" which means there has to be something linking each piece that can be seen as incorporating about one third of the previous and next piece. It's not literal - but could be. It might be the language of the materials, techniques, colour, texture - any aspect so long as the pieces are genuinely connected to tell the story of my art in 2021. I can carve out hours or days throughout the year with the fervour of a religious experience. Actually, making art is my religion, my spiritual place. Using different techniques, working on creating better pieces, better stories and exploring the universe through stitch.  Below I've experimented with using black tulle as a mask - the dark tulle doesn't reflect light in the way white or light coloured tulle does - so it instantly creates visual depth. That's what I'm looking...

I often wonder about all the birds that have ever flown through the airspace above our property. All of them. Since forever.  A thread for every flight path, how dense and richly woven would that map be? What is the colour of  a bird's flight? How does a thread measure or reflect speed, height, trajectory, landing and takeoff, life and death?  How does the invisible become visible again? Sitting, most days, and simply observing has brought immeasurable rewards -  quietly learning to look more closely at what is and is no longer in plain sight. Line, light, scale, proportion, depth.  Generating ideas for my journals where ideas percolate, fabric is created and quilts are made.  This juvenile magpie is the third generation baby sharing time with us. I love watching them play, I miss them when they head off for a life out of their parent's territory. So smart. So capable. So engaging. Grateful for her visits.