28 January 2010

murphy defeated

Apparently my grumbling at Murphy for his rudeness the last time I was in the studio paid off today.

I decided to join a local art house and their member's show is coming up in short order so I rumpled through the studio today looking for new work to show. I had one piece in mind but it needed a few things (one of which is the dreaded hanging sleeve). Its a far larger piece then I usually make and it sort of made me twitchy trying to figure out a hanging device for it.

After about an hour of putzing with it, I gave up and drug out the ever growing pile of fabric I have that has been printed, stamped, painted, screened and generally tortured to within an inch of its life with some form or another of surface design.

I love all the surface design I've been doing lately. But I've struggled a bit with how to use it. I find that I want to leave it graphic and stitch very little on it, which pretty much goes against the grain of what I usually produce.

I yanked out several pieces of batik fabric that I made during Rayna's class back in late November. I've not touched them since I stamped them with wax and I got to wondering if the stuff would come out after having been in there for so long.

It did. But its obvious that on many pieces I didn't have the wax hot enough because the stamped images didn't go all the way through the fabric or it was very uneven. Luckily I really appreciate imperfect printing so it works for me.

I painted two pieces and wrapped them around 12" square canvases. I'm really in love with the format and the graphic quality of this and I think I'm going to make several more:


Red X (top view)




Red X (side view)








Brown X (top view)



Brown X (side view)




Snazzy titles, eh? Sometimes the obvious is the easiest way to go...

I added them to my newly revamped website already (I can't tell you how in love I am with my new software, its like blogger on steroids and has taken hours and hours and hours of work out of maintaining a site for me).

I'm looking at that pile of printed fabric differently now. There's no batting on those pieces above, and the stitching is minimal, just along the outside of the X's. It give the focus to the fabric, which is really where it should be since so much time was spent on that aspect.

So we'll see where this goes. Its just nice to have the studio cooperate for a day.

4 comments:

Kathy said...

these look great, Lynn. I was actually in that class with you, though my pieces continue to languish. I really need to get busy. I've got all the stuff - I even have the time. Energy and motivation are eluding me.
By the way, I'm just up the road in Commerce - not too far from Donna Hamilton. Small world, no? We should get together. I even grew up with a Westie. Best dog on earth.

Jean Baardsen said...

So will these small pieces go in the art show? They'd be easy to hang since they're on stretched canvas.

Linda Branch Dunn said...

What is the new software?

great new website. Wow.

Linda Branch Dunn said...

The Xs are great too, especially the high-contrast brown and yellow. Only after looking at the work of the Mass Cultural Council winners I think you need to give them snazzy, enigmatic titles, too, like "Oracle," "Learning to Let Go," or "Private Enterprise." :)