I've been using the Pomodoro app this summer to focus on my artwork, and it is definitely helping. The big pottery quilt I am working on is coming along pretty well, and should be done this summer. I can see a shift in what I am focusing on from image to narrative -- capturing a likeness of images isn't enough for me anymore, and I can tell that the new direction I've been painstakingly crawling towards, that involves text, is the way to go in the future. I hate and love getting bogged down in process, though, so productivity is destined to be limited. Sigh. As long as there IS progress, I should be satisfied. Ah, to be a Virgo...
And, being a Virgo, it means as I rearrange the deck chairs on the creative Titanic, I find amazing resources that can help keep the seats in straight rows. Here's a link to a page of resources for creating hand-stitched text. I like my graffiti lettering style, too, though. It is a mix of split stitch and/or back stitch, depending on the location of the text and the word being written. Improvisational for sure.
Here is a link to a neat artist, Laura Wait, I came across who uses calligraphic marks like text. Communicates as much as the unreadable text used by many collage artists. This work is encaustic but could be fiber. (Of course, if it was fiber, the artist would not be selling it for $3500 - $7500, as that is just the nature of the medium. Sad, really.) It is really good that today though, because we can print on fabric, a new door has opened to making multiples and exploring techniques using paper and mixed media, and then copying to cloth. Possibilities are endless. The ability to get a really free-form, gestural mark and then reproduce it perfectly is intriguing...hmmm...yet another idea, or chair on the creative Titanic!
Onward to a creative day. Special opening tonight at the Albion Cultural Exchange in Wakefield, MA. Come on down to see the work made by fantastic Create peeps! 5-8 p.m. Cheers.