textile art

Mentoring: Who Were Your Teachers? Who Are You Teaching?

| ellenanneeddy

One of the things I miss from my childhood was the women’s sewing circles. It was old-fashioned even when I was a girl.It died out as women took jobs outside their homes. We have a version of it at yarn shops and at quilt guilds, where we get together and show each other how we work.

But my neighbor, Mary Annis, did it with her children. It wasn’t formal. She gathered her 3 girls together and included me when they sewed doll cloths, crocheted, knitted, or made art projects. Later on, when I learned to sew, it was at her feet. She was my first mentor.

I met Mary when I was eight. She saved a quilt out of the trash for me, taught me to be late, messy and not to answer the phone, explored knitting, crochet, quilting, quilling and tatting, and gave me room to breathe. I can’t imagine who I would have been without her.

Even in the days of YouTube, we still need to learn from people. We don’t just learn a skill. We also learned about how and why. It was an introduction to being a creative adult, a crafter, and a maker. It was, for me, life-changing.

Art has its own form of mentorship. We teach art in colleges. We have art classes. We can learn all the techniques and tools. What the classes don’t teach with the hows is why.

Studio hygiene. is about making creative space inside and outside your head. The outside is about work, protecting your body, and making work physically easier. The inside is about making a space where creative work is possible. That is part of the how. That space shuts down judgment, rude comments, negativity, and fear. It opens the doors to new worlds, knowing that perfection is neither possible nor necessary, nor even helpful. All we need is a safe place to try things.

Which leads me to another mentor from my past. As a brand new teacher, I taught art and music at a Catholic school. It was a flawed place. The books were ancient, the equipment was nonexistent. The headset was mid-70s Catholic repressive.

Except in one room. Midge Gamble was in her sixties. She taught 3rd grade at this very 3rd-rate school. She had precisely the same books and equipment. She refused to let in was the 3rd-rate attitude. Where the other classes were angry, hostile, her classroom atmosphere didn’t allow that kind of repression or the anger that fuels it. She helped me understand that the teacher makes the classroom

We learn from models. We learn from what we see. At some point, we show others.

Next week, I have the privilege of teaching in the MAP Program at the Peoria Art Guild. They’re a group of high school kids full of potential, passion, and ability. The program gives them experiences with all kinds of artists. It’s a great experience for these very talented kids.

So I come back to Mary. They had a memorial for her at the home where she lived. One of the ladies turned to me and said, “She tried to teach me to knit.” I said, “She tried to teach me, too.” Whether we could learn or not, Mary had shared it with open hands.

Learn one, do one, teach one. It’s how we build community and civilization. I hope you had wonderful mentors. And I hope you get to share with others who are passionate to learn.

Check here for more information about the Peoria Art Guild’s MAP program. It’s a free program they offer every year to serious high school artists. And a wonderful community.

IF you’d like to read more about Mary, her daughter Betsy did a wonderful blog of this amazing woman’s life. You’ll find it at Marygram.blogspot.com

Building An Ocean Floor: Seashells and Pebbles

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Octopus Family Planning Two: The Pin Up Girls

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Planning a Surround: Family Planning for Octopuses

| ellenanneeddy

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.

2025: A Year of Experimentation

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Thank you!

Not the Same River: Not the Same Piece

| ellenanneeddy

Last week I showed you my experiment recreating the elements of a piece I thought was particularly effective. At that point, it was speculative. You can read that at Again? Really. Yes. Really I’ve spent a week on it and here are my results.

I divided the parts into elements. Here are the elements I was working with.

  • The focal image
  • Hand dyed background
  • Oil paint stitck layer
  • Sheers layer’
  • Small elements
  • Background stipple.

What do these elements do?

  • The Focal Image is the answer to who. Ir creates the subject and focus of the piece.
  • The dyed background is the answer to where and when. It creates the light in the piece. It also defines the environment.
  • An oil paint rubbed layer is the texture of a piece. I don’t use it everywhere, but it gives a somewhat translucent surface without sharp edges. You can see the background, but it has shifted in color and appearance.
  • Sheers make another translucent shift across the surface. It transforms the background color and creates movement. Sheers have defined edges, but don’t have a visible thread edge.
  • Small elements can be used to establish a visual path. Flowers, rocks, leaves, bugs, birds and frogs can all point a direction through the piece.
  • Stippling changes the coloration of the surface. It creates dimension and defines light and dark.

I think I’ve failed on this piece. It’s not bad. It just isn’t as good. Why?

I’m reasonably sure of my background and my oil paint rubbing layer. The sheers can be dinked with.

I didn’t get to the small elements because I’m just not content with my drawing. These fish will add movement, but I don’t think they’ll help enough.

Oooops. Sometimes I don’t know until I get the piece embroidered. I drew other fish for this. This was the best of them, but it’s just not dramatic enough. I need a drama queen fish.

Here are the two drawings I rejected. I’ll save them for another piece another day.

I could push through. All the elements are there. But the experiment failed. I took similar elements, and they did not create the same energy.

I could blame it on the weaker drawing. That would be fair. But I suspect that the energy of the piece itself is different, and probably can’t be reproduced.

Will I throw it out? Heaven’s no! I can always use an extra fish. This one just doesn’t belong here.

So, as a rest, I’m back to octopuses. The fish piece is on the wall, aging like fine wine. It will find its time.

Fallow time seems to be an important part of the process as well. Repeating the same elements doesn’t always create the same energy. The parts just aren’t the sum of the whole.

Again? Really? Yes. Really.

| ellenanneeddy

I try really hard not to rate my pieces as I make them. I find that my opinions of things change over time, largely in reaction to people’s reactions. If I suspend my judgment of work, I find I learn more from it. Suspending judgment allows me to flesh out ideas and move on. Finish the quilt. Next quilt, please. The learning is the goal. The quilt is almost a byproduct.

But sometimes I do a piece that knocks my socks off and throws me across the room. It’s not an everyday thing. When that happens, I find myself asking some of the same questions that I ask when I do something I hate. What happened here? Why is this piece wonderful? Or awful? What?

Was it the color palette? Technique? Is it about my background? The image itself?

A fabulous piece makes you think, “Can I do this again? How did this happen?”

I love this piece so much. So I’m going to try not to reproduce it, but to focus on its successful elements.

Part of what I love here is the quiet palette. I normally go for eye-sore colors. This was restrained. Luckily, the last batch I dyed had a piece, not exactly in the same palette, but in the same tone.

The fish can be the same threads. And I think it needs to be.

I had trouble with the fish. I wanted a fresh image, not the same, but in the same colorations. So I started several fish, only to find them wrong. I love these. But in terms of direction and size, they’re just not right.

I went through my collection of drawings. My embroidery process uses a pattern drawn on Totally Stable that goes into the back of the piece as a pattern and a stabilizer. So each drawing is consumed by the embroidery itself.

Not to worry. For the last 3 years, I’ve saved a tracing of my drawings for later. It’s turned into a jumping-off point for other pieces, and I consider that collection a treasure. I found a fish that had to be at least 10 years old, which I don’t believe I ever used.

This will be reversed when I’m done. I’m half way through the embroidery.

Originally I used a tree rubbing plate both for the trees themselves and for the reflection in the pond.

And I want to explore the rubbed oil paint trees. This piece of fabric evokes a stream rather than a pond.

Now that I’ve analyzed my elements, we’ll see where it goes. It’s at that awkward spot where everything looks wrong. But that’s the exact moment to suspend judgment and push through.

It may take all those elements and work well. It may not. There’s a mystery here I don’t understand. But I think that part of it is that a piece is not the sum of its parts. Instead, perhaps it’s a whole being itself. Maybe it can’t be reworked with the same success.

Push on. Finish the quilt. Next quilt, please. The learning is the goal.

What Makes A Series?

| ellenanneeddy

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

The Water Lilies by Claude Monet

“History of the Water Lilies cycle

Offered to the French State by the painter Claude Monet on the day that followed the Armistice of November 11, 1918 as a symbol for peace, the Water Lilies are installed according to plan at the Orangerie Museum in 1927, a few months after his death. This unique set, a true « Sixtine Chapel of Impressionism » in the words of André Masson in 1952, testifies to Monet’s later work. It was designed as a real environment and crowns the Water Lilies cycle begun nearly thirty years before. The set is one of the largest monumental achievements of early twentieth-century painting. “

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.

Thanksgiving: A Pause

| ellenanneeddy

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.

But who wouldn’t follow a path of lunar moths?