Fish Tales

For today - a quick review of progress on rust prints so far. The idea is make pieces that look like an amalgam of cave paintings and fossils, only these are the future ghosts of fish. Having looked up a little information about rust printing, I sort of know what I'm doing but each attempt so far has resulted in a surprise.

The very first fish  ... I had not realised that the fabric was a cotton/polyester mix, so the print was rather disappointingly pale, although the loose tea sprinkled randomly produced interesting spots.

The paper on which I had drawn guide lines for the first fish, and then left under the fabric - I liked the combination of visible pencil lines with the bleed from the print. I could try this again...

Rust on handmade paper, with stitch added ... not that exciting.

This time I used pure cotton and soaked it with tea, vinegar and water - some parts came out very defined, others too pale. I have no idea at this point why that happens. Stitch is being added to define the shape and add detail. I had outlined a silhouette with white thread... two visiting textile artists both advised me to remove it... so pleased I hadn't used backstitch all the way around.

Handmade paper which has string embedded - I thought this might look interesting and it was promising while wet but faded to almost nothing once dry.

Much better ...possibly because I had forgotten about it for several days. What to do next with them???

Fabric again -the underlying print does not show well in this photo - it is much more visible in reality. Machine stitched over the print, then added a layer of burn-melted voile and stitched on top. A bit crude and technically not great but I like it ... could I take this further?

Metal baking tray lined with foil, a layer of paper towel, a layer of cotton fabric.... rusty bits of stuff, a few loose tea leaves, a layer of tissue to help keep the bits in place... all soaked with tea, vinegar and water. On top of it all, paper pulp made with mostly brown paper soaked for several days in tea, vinegar and water. I had got this far when I remembered that the pulp needs the addition of glue and sawdust (it's quite a while since I last made pulp)... plastic bag over the top, then an old T-shirt and last of all a couple of books. The result will no doubt be a surprise ...another one.

Fail better...

At the moment it feels like mostly failure ... if failure is a result that does not match what you hoped for...

The beginning of a bowl - playing with the idea of the absence of swallows and hoping for a filmy, semi-transparent base with graduated edges on which to add silhouettes. The first two layers are of translucent papers - of which I now have very little.

Adding layers to strengthen the structure, whilst keeping some areas see-through ...too thin and it will collapse...At this point it is too fragile to lift off to check.

Parts of the bowl are exactly what I wanted ...but the overall structure is still vulnerable and I'm not sure about those hard edges, or the direction of the vertical strips.

So I add more and now it's very wrong... far too harsh. It sits for a week.

Because I regret the loss of the paper in the first two layers, I do something I've never tried before ... soak the bowl gently with wet paper towel for a day. To my relief, the layers do lift off and I work back. It's now once again too fragile to lift off, so has to dry before I can check ... but I'm hopeful.

Although it feels like a failure in one way, there has been useful learning.

A "first thoughts" attempt at the absence of swallows... pencil and stitching on a paper map, with two layers of net overlaid. Room for development, but feels like a step in the right direction. Fabric maps would work better, so I now need to work out  printing on to fabric...looks simple on the internet.

Bees

The project I'm working on has a number of elements. It began as a few ideas, which at the time felt like too few, and too simple. I've learned that ideas mature if you sit on them for a while; also that although the initial pieces of work are often made to be abandoned, it's a necessary part of a process I call 'first thoughts, second thoughts, third thoughts' - as the thinking about it deepens.
Since last writing, I've got through the fear and the "what's the point?" moments, which are total cripplers. Note to self: the point is irrelevant. Making is the thing that I have to give. It's also my voice and there are things I want to say.
    As I work, new ideas arrive - they are noted and now put to one side for later. Those first few ideas led me into new and unfamiliar ways of working. Starting on several new pieces at once, I lost focus and felt overwhelmed. The plan now is to get one element at a time sorted so each one can be ongoing as I work out the next bit. At the same time, the tucked-away ideas can be simmering gently.
   The first of the ongoing ideas is Bees.

  It now seems as if it all came 'right' almost immediately, but my notebook reminds me it was weeks of trying different colours for the printing and various fabrics / threads. Admittedly I was working very slowly. Muslin was my first choice but it's too soft - organdie worked perfectly. Eventually it did come together and when I hung the first finished panels, the effect was what I'd hoped for ... the ghosts of bees.

The print is fainter on one side and as the light changes the bees become less or more visible. Some of them are stitched and some have cellophane wings added, which catch the light.
    Figures vary as to how many bees live in a hive; a reasonable average seems to be 50,000 in the summer months. I'm aiming to make 1,000.  Well, that's the plan.
   
     The thread for each bee is 65cm. At this point I could make out that as a result of research, this reflects the 6-7 week life span of  summer bees. Actually, it was random...having cut the first thread, I then decided to make them all the same length. The stitching starts and finishes in random places - the ends are left visible, signifying the thread of life. It was while working on bee 130 (probably) that I thought the stitching is like the 'dance' of the bees.

As I was playing around with some of the trial pieces, this idea arrived ... what I wanted was to enclose a single bee between two pieces of glass. Folding over the organdie occluded the bee - made it even more of a ghost ... it is visible only with light behind it. I spent hours online fruitlessly looking for a solution and the card is a temporary arrangement.

   
140 bees so far.

   

making it back

It's taken three hours to get back on...I last wrote three years ago and had forgotten how to sign in. The relief of discovering that my blog isn't lost, is enormous.
Right now I'm working on a project which is taking me in new directions. There are lots of ideas, some of which I have no idea yet how to actually, physically make.
When I started this blog, it was in part a way of committing to continue making, because even if no-one saw it, it was "out there" in the world and not just in my intentions and my head. The current work is still a small, tender, green shoot . So tender it could easily wither from a sharp snap of "what's the point?" So much of what I'm doing is unfamiliar.
So I'm coming back because being on here I commit to turning up with something to show.

Tentative beginnings ... I think I'm on model 5C by now, and of course the initial idea changes with each one I make...

...and some attempts simply do not work. This was built with newspaper, wire wrapped around it and the paper burned out...almost total collapse of shape but the wire has an interesting texture. Try again, fail again, fail better...

More experiments... rust printing. One of the first attempts, on paper, with stitch added.

And there are happy accidents. This was the drawing I used under fabric, to guide placement of the bits of metal/wire. As it was thin and fragile decoupage medium was used to stick it to muslin, and at this point I also discovered that adding tea leaves makes black spots. All new to me...

So much 'new to me' stuff ... yes, there is an excitement and there are also shaky moments (days) when the discomfort of  "I don't know what I'm doing and it's all been done before anyway" is too much.
It's not reassurance or comfort or solutions or jollying along that I need then.... it's a safe space in which to simply say "I'm scared".

Making it again...and again...and again

Take a few technology glitches, a dose of discouragement because a piece of work will just not come right, add some boredom- and I can see how blogs peter out. It becomes increasingly difficult to get back to it - and after a while there's too much to catch up on.
So - here is the instant coffee version of the past two months...

.... the three wall pieces are finished - just need some holes in the wall now...

There has been a lot (really a lot) of making maquettes in the past weeks. These are first drafts of small hens to be cast in bronze. They're * put together, taken apart, modified where necessary, redrawn,  (repeat from * until you are either happy with them or throw them away)

...and this one was thrown away.

Another maquette ( cornflakes/pizza boxes are great for first drafts).











Many, many, many hours later of making it again and again,
this is the final version of the hare....

...which isn't finished yet -  because I'm on version 5b of the front feet and still not happy. So for the past fortnight he's been sitting in the corner.

 The ship is also not quite done - the structure is complete but I really cannot decide how to surface finish the base.,,

 .... so instead I made a new dress and apron for one of my dolls.
Ok...it made perfect sense to me..

 ...and then made some button cards for the charity shop I help in. The buttons I cut off clothes going into the 'recycling' bin and up till now they were displayed in an inelegant miscellany of small plastic bags. These lovely cards I found on the internet...

Which all sold....



.....and then I found some more card designs ....and then I ran out of buttons.

The intention here was to make a pair of hens that look as if they're walking along in conversation. It works well from the back - of which I don't have a photo and they've now gone to the foundry. There has been an expression of interest already; maybe I should simply accept that my mission in life is to make hens...again and again...

Making waste

In a book I'm now reading it mentions artist's 'waste'...the willingness to work for hours on an idea and then discard it if it hasn't worked - that part of the process that is often crucial but ultimately invisible - and there has been a fair measure of that this week.
It's not really a waste in the accepted sense; it's playing around and accepting that some things work out and some don't...and I do believe that you learn from every new thing you try - it all goes into your reservoir.
So - playing around with reduction, I thought this looked sort of interesting...

...but it didn't translate well into a finished object...however, some part of the process may come in useful in the future...

Having finally found a wooden chair in a charity shop last week, I have started on the seated woman sculpture-first job was to strip fabric off the seat and sand the chair.

Whoever stapled the upholstery to the seat should have been given an award for "the most staples it is possible to use" ... there were about 140 - 20 in each corner alone. By misusing a screwdriver and hammer over two days I got most of them out. I reckoned that by the time I'd finished I'd either need medical attention or have arms like a Russian weightlifter.

And the waste? Cutting out paper shapes again and again to work out the body/ corset shape. This is full-size attempt two, and there's a way to go yet...

How to make the moon for the big ship has been on my mind from the beginning and it's possible that this solution may also be discarded - I've attached it temporarily and need to live with it for a bit. It's glue-covered muslin on wire..

...and I think I like the string (also a temporary "see if it works") on the struts. Fits with the ship thing and with women's weaving - as well as possibly helping with the stability of the structure.

At some point I need to work out how to mount this on a base.

And finally, no waste here...
 A while ago I was given a shoe box full of old photographs from a house clearance - they date from the 1920's to the 60's ; typical family snapshots - of an Ireland that has disappeared. I have them copied on photo paper and make cards, mounting them in a way that suggests an old photo album.

This one of the girl with the pig is my absolute favourite.

Make and do and mend

Make ....Having finished my sister's rag rug, the next hooking project is another 'Stones' rug -  for Naomi...but before I started that I wanted to make something smaller (and quicker to complete). The power supply to the new workspace is a black cable going up to the ceiling from a socket  ... two or three small wall hangings would camouflage it. So I spent some time looking at 1950's textile designs and came up with some ideas...

Of course I checked what fabrics I had before deciding on colours....

...but as it happened what I did have came close enough. The brown is a disgusting fabric - flimsy and totally synthetic. I'd never use it for a rug but it was fine for this. Next time I decide to sew pieces of fabric to the edges, I think I'll do it first...

Work on the big ship is very slow - because the weather is so damp, some days all I can do is add one layer to a small area. I am so, so glad that I decided to opt out of exhibiting at Form this year...when I put the three figures into the ship it took two seconds to realise that they were completely wrong - I'd have been in a panic if the piece had to be done by now. I've started again and think these will work better...but if not, I'll try again...

Do ..... These are papier mache hens that I stopped making several years ago...after ten years or so I was very, very tired of  them - life's too short to be that bored.

Last year, flattered into submission by the young women at the local gallery, I made a few - and remembered why I'd stopped making them.

This is exactly what it looks like - more hens. I've promised them eight and three are already pre-sold...and they are still immensely boring ...and I did this to myself - all by myself.

Mend ...

When I was making giraffes I gave the first one to a friend...and it stood in his house for ten years..until last year his two young daughters decided to play with it... they must have had a wonderfully giddy time because three broken legs and a missing ear later it arrived back to me...was it possible to mend it? I didn't think so, but couldn't bring myself to burn it, so it's been standing about (well, falling about) in odd corners since then, forgotten until I moved all my stuff. Still not sure if it's worth doing - I might end up having to repaint the whole thing and as it's dry-brushed that could ruin the surface finish and its knees will never look the same again...