roots almost in the ground

Usually I bite off more than I can chew. I know that about myself so, every time I start a new project, I know things will not go so smoothly as expected -as could be expected by others, mostly.

Since the beginning of May I have been busy in four different areas: I am translating a book (food for my wallet), I am following Karen Ruane's online courses on Contemporary Embroidery and An Embroiderer's Ledger, I have been working on my piece for the Group Exhibition themed 'Roots' and during the weekends I work in the Exhibition Hall. I am out of breath just talking about it all. But my piece for the Exhibition is at long last almost finished.

This is the main piece, part of which I showed you in previous entries. The upper part is new and so is the addition of the two bleached wooden sticks underneath.

And these are my roots. They will hang from the main piece with white twine and rest on this rustic wooden plank on the floor. The main piece itself will be supported by a backing made with the same wood. I have been very lucky - and I am very grateful - because a friend who makes wood and iron sculptures as a hobby prepared the planks for me. He cut them, sandpapered them, and put them together (the backing is made up by two planks). Thank you, Javier!

Here you can see the individual 'roots'. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I resorted to some of the things I learned in Karen's 'Embroider, Embellish, Create' class and my roots are nothing more and nothing less than Fabric Beads adapted to my purposes here. Some of you will recognize the white French Knots. The chaotic and undisciplined sprouts are made with raffia. I have two of these.

 

Another 'root' of sorts. I like the contrast between the finer, more elegant embroidery stitches and my almost random inventions. These Fabric Beads are quite large, the cotton fabric circle I used to make them measured 15 cms (6 inches) across.

This is the only small 'root', made with a 6 cms (2.4 inches aprox.) cotton circle. Partly improvising stitches again.

While making these fabric roots I repeatedly asked myself why my work leaned to the decorative side. There is no rational answer to that. It does because this is how it insisted on coming out. So I obeyed.

Tomorrow I will finish the whole setup and on Saturday I'll take it to the Exhibition Hall. There I will be able to finally photograph it in its entirety and in a lovely setting, so you can all see it too. There.

paintafeeling

shady corners

A hot, hot June. A refreshing corner on the river. About 100 mts from my apartment.

A corner in the shady corner. Streaks of sun. Murmurs of water.

I wish I were an otter.

I wish I were a tiny fish.

Deep breath away from the deafening sun.

A wise roof tile fell off the sun-drenched roof and into the cool waters.

Ripples, running whispers, happy little flowers.

Little flowers, whatever your name, you make my path happy.

Is this the way to the rabbit hole?

How would that look in a Hansel-and-Gretel night?

paintafeeling

the mole resurfaces

Hello blogworld. This particular mole is me and I am resurfacing after over 40 days of silence. I put those days to good use, so I am not really regretting it. Silence is a fine place to be when learnign new things and trying to take them in and make them mine.

I have been inmersed in my 'Embroider, Embellish, Create' online classes. The amazing cloth in the photograph is the result of my dedicated, industrious and joyful efforts. And what makes it amazing is that I actually made that!

Six weeks ago I knew very little about embroidery and other people's works were simply wondrous to me. I asked myself 'How did they do that?' and couldn't answer, so it all stayed in the realm of creative miracles. Now I know more and I see wondrous possibilities in every stitch I've learned.

My cloth is not finished yet. What you see in the first picture are my first two sections joined to form a larger block. And the second shot is a closer view of my first section.

 This is my entire second section just before I joined it to the first. I won't write endlessly about the names of the stitches and other embellishments, you can read all about that in Karen's blog. What I will say though is that I'm so delighted with the cheerful and warm effect of all these different stitches applied in an almost completely improvised way. Contrary to traditional embroidery, there are almost no rules here. The personal choices and imagination of each embroiderer are the limit and we all know there is not limit to imagination.

This is part of my third section, that has only been partially embellished and there's still work to do here. And my fourth section will be a little mystery that I'll show you and write about when it's done.

This week though I'll have to set aside my embroidery materials for a few days so that I can finish my piece for the upcoming group exhibition. We open on Friday 6 July but everything has to be ready and in place by Monday 2, so I'd better concentrate on this. In fact, I won't set aside my embroidery materials at all, because I plan to use one of the resources Karen taught us to complete my work. It won't look so neat and stylish - Roots are not exactly neat - but it will come directly from my knewly acquired knowledge. Little embroidery balls bouncing their way over to mixted media art. I am smiling to myself. Now I can only hope that they will look as good as I imagine them.

You'll get a chance to see and judge for yourselves in my next post.

paintafeeling