A while back I decided to see if I could recreate the energy from a piece I was particularly pleased with. If you’ve been following the blog, I’ve documented it as I’ve worked.
I wouldn’t call it a success. I went through three separate fish, not happy with any of them. I embroidered the best of them and still felt bland.
So I passed on the bass and did a catfish, which I’m not displeased with. The bass went back into the pile.
I can plan all I want. There’s a serendipity to art that is inescapable. While I was scraping out the studio, I found a piece of fabric I’d totally forgotten about.
All of a sudden, my wallflower fish had gone dramatic. I built him a whirlpool/vortex.
My fish fooled me again. I spent some time embroidering some nice metallic minnows that shyly blended right into the background.
They are pretty, but they have no punch.
So I’m trying these brighter gold minnows. I’m still not sure. They’re embroidered from poly, and they might stand out too much. I may need to do some from metallic gold.
I’ve been working for some time on my octopuses, and I’ve begun to build up backgrounds. I’m working on three of them simultaneously. It’s complicated. But if I work one piece at a time, changes in construction creep in. It’s almost unconscious. I may have worked the water a different way, or the rocks are different, and won’t fit in. This way, I’ll have three pieces that flow into eachother seamlessly.
This week I worked on seashells and jellyfish. I’ve been collecting stencils ( there are no commercial seashell rubbing plates I know of) to make rubbing plates. I used foam board for a base, and modeling paste to make rubbing plates of the stencils. You’ll find full instructions for this in Modeling Paste: All it Needs Is Peppermint Flavor
I used this rock backsplash I got from Lowes to make the pebbles.
This is one of the backgrounds I chose for the octopuses. I’m still not sure about Octopus 1. I’m tending towards the green-blue background. I wanted seashells and pebbles on the sea floor, and jellyfish floating above. I found I couldn’t place them correctly all at once. I put in the shells, then the jellyfish and finally the pebbles.
It’s a work in process. I’m waiting for them to dry to get the next photos and then we’ll add what’s needed. I think today will be cloudy with a chance of fish drawings.
You can blame this on three stinky days when I couldn’t get to the studio due to bad weather and hinky cars. I do not do well in captivity.
Usually, when I’m working on a piece, there’s a moment when I sit with 3-4 backgrounds, deciding which will work best. What I’ve found is that the background tells the story. The image is the who. But the background is the where, what, and when, Here’s a blog that talks about it. Telling the Story: The Background Changes Everything.
So I pin up backgrounds and move images from one to the other until I have the background that either shows up best or explains things better.
With three pieces in a display, that’s overwhelming. My arms aren’t that strong. So I’m going to use Photoshop and the art boards to interview my fabric choices. I don’t need to see the actual placement. I need to see how they go with each other. The octopuses are my pin-up girls and this is a virtual pin-up.
What am I looking for? What do I need my backgrounds to do?
They need to be 45″ tall
They need to match in intensity
They do not need to be blue
They need to flow into each other
They need to show off each octopus well
In the end, just like Highlander and Sudoku, there can be only one chosen for each octopus. There is no way of reproducing hand-dye.
I need to say this was not seamless. Photoshop seems to change every ten minutes, and I was not up to the latest artboard information. But it’s given me a chart to help me decide what works best.
I chose my fabric so I’m looking at 1 yard pieces, 36″x 45″. The edges will be irregular, so they don’t need to be exact.
My third octopus is not completely done and is only partially cut out. I don’t think that will make a big difference.
Here are some of my best choices.
This is a reasonable amount of pin-up. Once I’m back in the studio, I can put up the best choices and turn them in different ways. Strangely enough, the orange went with everything. I’ll put them up on the board and fussy-place them to settle it.
Would I have done this if Don hadn’t called a winter day off? Maybe not. The cats and dogs are way out of the way. That may have involved screaming at the computer. It was not simple. At one point Photoshop locked up and we had to give it the purge. No, I’m not kidding.
But it did give me a way to sort my tops all in one piece.
Why am I fussing? I’m planning on a layer of rubbed sea shells and pebbles on the bottom of each. I’ll get one crack for each to get it right. Testing out my options just seems smart.
I’ve been noodling around the idea of a series planned as a surround. I’ve done many series over the years, but this is different.
I suppose you could plan a series. But I’ve never seen it happen. You do one quilt with a subject that is either so fun or compulsive that you do another five more. That’s an organic process that I enjoy. But it doesn’t lend itself to consistency.
Spoonbill Series
These birds just happened. I love the shape of them, the bills and that crazy pink coloration. So I’ve made a number of roseated spoonbills.
We’re talking something different here. A surround has to be planned so that each piece flows into the other one. I can do that somewhat with the drawings. They need to flow across the different quilts into eachother. I can do that somewhat with background images. Rocks and seashells can make a pathway. I can also do that with small fish. I’m thinking of clownfish and something small and gold in color. That is the plan.
The coloration should be easy. The hand-dye needs to be all of the same intensity, and we’ll keep the octopuses bright. They should fitin with each other well.
The first octopus is embroidered and ready to place in background elements.
The second octopus is almost embroidered. I need to outline the suckers.
He’s already had a large change. Originally, I had one sucker tentacle closer to the head. It worked in the drawing but not in execution. So I cut it out, and moved it. I think it works better.
shell rubbings from another project
The next steps will be tricky. I plan to rub seashells into the fabric on the bottoms of all of these. They’ll need to fit into eachother. I’m not sure if I can display them all on one photo wall. But they need to dance across four pieces altogether. The last time I did something this large, I hung it off the back porch of my apartment building and walked down the alley to where I could see it as a whole. That was three homes ago. We’ll need to figure it out.
I’ll keep you posted as I work on this. I think it’s going to be a wild ride.
I didn’t have any shows this year. Which is ok. Every artist has ideas they aren’t quite sure how to approach. Instead, I spent a lot of time trying out ideas I wanted t do my quilts. That takes time and effort. It messes with production significantly. So I’m glad to have spent my studio time this last year in this way.
I learned how to make waterfalls.
There and Bacl Agaom
I learned how to make a reflection of my subject in water.
In the shell
I worked on seashells and tenacles.
B;lue Herons
I experimented with extreme borders.
I learned to make my own rubbing plates from stencils.
Three Cranes
I learned to incorporate those plates into my work.
I worked in desert landscapes.
I finally worked out the cat head fountain.
It’s been a good year for learning. If you’ve followed my blog, you know, because each week I show you what I’m working out, working on, and working through.
Here’s to 2025:
Major quilts
Small work
Unfinished work
I couldn’t do this without your support. Not necessarily monetarily, but spiritually, personally, and energetically. No art is in a vacuum. I suspect that I would do art if it were just me arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but your company on this journey has made it much more worthwhile.
What oil paint stick rubbing offers is something less defined by stitching. It offers the coloration and shape of the rubbing, but with a soft blur.By itself, it’s translucent. With stitchery, it’s more defined.
Meadows are wild. That blur reminds us that the meadow is its own quiet chaos.
I found wonderful stencils for weeds and made rubbing plates for them
I wanted browned dried weeds by the pond for this piece.
There are several concerns in working with stitched rubbings.
A rubbed background gives a glow around the weeds. Stitching provides definition. You need to decide if you want just the glow, or the definition as well.
It’s easier to stitch the whole background and add figures afterwards. It’s harder to stitch around the figures than to stitch the whole area first before applying the image. I stitched all across the weeds, knowing they’d be covered in places by the images.
I wanted a thicker line for the waves so I stitched them from the top with #40 weight embroidery thread, then stitched with #8 weight metallic from the back,
That was less successful. I think it was worth it this time. But it’s hard to stitch exactly into the line you stitched from the top.
Here’s the final pin-up for the piece.
Rubbings add a lot to a piece. But it’s tricky integrating the stitching into the surface. On this piece,I think we’re there.
Series really almost always just happen. You make one fish quilt and suddenly there are six fish quilts. Since you’re working them within a reasonable time of each other, their techniques tend blend in with each other. Instant series.
Series are about obsessions. They’re about images you just can’t let go of. For some reason or other you’re compelled to work an image over and over again, until something settles within you and says you’ve done enough.
But every so often, you choose to make a series. That can be for many reasons. If you’re not compelled by the images you are about to die of boredom But if you’re compelled, you know what you’re doing for the next three to six months. Series are exciting because they get to answer the what-if questions.
I spoke with a gallery that expressed an interest in a show. It’s a smaller gallery, and it made me think of Monet’s Orengaria
For those of you unfamiliar, here’s a short history
What an astonishing thing, to have a circular space, filled with Monet’s waterlilies
Monet is really the poster boy for series. His waterlilies illuminated his whole life. He painted many other things, but when I think of Monet, I think of waterlilies in the pond
Not to agrandize myself, but this little gallery would offer a chance to do an in the round kind of show experience.
Lately I’ve had a fascination with octopuses. My passions in images have to do with movement. So much of my life I’ve been constrained with a body that just doesn’t move as well as it might, I’m fascinated by the movement of creatures who are not resrrained. Nothing can move like an octopus. They also change color. I don’t know if some of the pictures I’ve been looking at are ai or not. I’m playing. They can just be wild. Why not put them in a gallery in the round?
Here are my two prior octopus quilts. I think they’re a good start
So here are my drawings for the series. There might be more. I’m not sure if they are three quilts or four. I’ll know when they’re embroidered.
So we have one octopus mostly embroidered. I’ll keep you posted as I work up the others. Encircled by octopuses. Sounds pretty wild.
Between the cooking of birds and a small blizzard, we’ve had a pause in the world.. Don spent yesterday napping, I believe. I don’t know because I binged watched most of the extended Hobbit with Tolkein, my cat, and started a new sweater. Not what we normally do.
This was not a year for travel. Time and space have not cooperated. But it doesn’t mean that I felt people were distant. How did I manage to make friendships that have lasted 30 years, 40 years? How did that happen?
When we all could travel easier, many of us made friendsgiving, the day after thanksgiving. Now our bodies just aren’t cooperating. But strangely I felt everyone there. Don and I are only kids. We’re both, thankfully considering our parents, orphens. But we have family, rich and strong and very much loved. Thank you all.
Speaking of parents, my father fished as a religion. It was where he found peace, rest, calm and joy. I’ve never wanted to catch a fish in my life, but he took me in his small row boat, and immersed me in that world. Part of me has never left. When I stitch fish, I’m revisiting it. I offer it to you.
I spent the week batching luna moths for my cranes. I’m not sure whether they sit on the coast or not, but they’d be in the adjascent swamp land.
I love batch embroidery. It’s coloring in the zone. I use it for most of the small to medium elements in my quilts. So much can be done with small fish, flowers, frogs, birds, lizards, and anything else you can think of. I always make too many. It’s sort of like too much bacon. How could that happen? And of course, I can always think of a use for another fish or strip of bacon. Many pieces need a left over elements, just to round it out.
Batching elements helps me build a body of things to incorporate into a quilt to make it more love, to make it move, to make it flow.
It may be too much. This is the first pin up. They always shift by the time I get the water in and make adjustments. I think it needs rocks to ground it.
I’ve been working on this piece for a while. And then I’ve needed to let it sit.
Partially, I was waiting for weed stencils I could turn into rubbing plates. They came from Temu. and took forever. But I’m pleased with them. I want more, higher up on the right side.
Now we come to the tricky part. We have a blank space on the left hand side. You don’t have fish or frogs in surf. Maybe butterflies by the shore. I think rocks would be understated and wrong. What will I use to fill in?
Usually I know my options pretty well. I work a lot with grasslands and swamps, rivers, and ponds. Ocean shores, not so much. I’m not sure what is on the beach except for horseflies. Somehow, that’s not what I wanted.
Google didn’t help either. I looked up coastal insects and got lots of information about pest control. I was hoping for pretty pest control subjects. They did mention some pretty moths.
This is a moment I’m glad I’m a bibiloholic. I have in a series of books, Florida’s Fabulous insects. I have a terrible urge to use a lunar moth I already embroidered. IT worked pretty well. Moving moths could set the path for the eye through the quilt. When I looked it up, luna moths are down there.
So I drew out a series of luna moths. It’s more than this piece needs, but there is no such thing as a luna moth I won’t eventually use.
Design is a process. Solve one part of the puzzle, move to another part. Waiting is also part of the process. I find pieces grow into themselves rather than follow a design I had in mind.
