Moth story

It's interesting how some elements of this project have fallen into place relatively easily, while others falter and stall. I've stopped stressing about it ... and arrived at a mindset of  "it will either come or it won't, or it might at some later time".
Possibly because I have relaxed, my attempts to construct the ghosts of moths produced a happy accident, due in large part to a perceptive and supportive person I met recently sending me exactly what I needed.

The first moth... 20cm long, and I was pleased with it for a day or two; mostly for the fact of having made it. When the perceptive person said she thought it was too 'solid' to be ghostly it confirmed my own feelings. Much mulling followed....
A week later a generous amount of teabag paper arrived in the post and after mentally searching the house for a suitable former, I came up with this...

Wrapping fine wire around the kaleidoscope produced a thin, fragile and unstable 'skeleton'...

...which I covered with pasted teabag paper, first of all - with great difficulty -  placing narrow strips on the inside. The paper stuck to my fingers more than it did to itself and the whole time the flimsy construction was in imminent danger of falling apart.

Looks a bit slimy and disgusting ... but when it had dried I loved the haphazard quality of it as well as the translucence.
The wings that had taken quite some time to stitch were attacked with scissors, vigorously crumpled...

..... and this time I am truly happy with the result. This moth ghost made itself; although the initial mental vision of it was misty and undefined there was an "oh, yes!" moment of recognition when it was finished.

The shape reminds me of an empty pupa case, but the wings suggest an additional layer of emergence and leaving.

The plan is to make a number of these and I have a misty, undefined mental image of the completed piece, but am totally open to what form emerges.

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".