At the Beginning of the Day

I want to wish all of my readers the very merriest of Christmasses, if that is what you celebrate and a very Happy and Creative 2013. My intention is to do more work in 2013 and to finish my France book by the middle of April.I also need to find a studio space outside my home as the interruptions to my working days are becoming  so disruptive that I am barely getting anything done.The world only pays lip service to the fact that you work when you work from home. Ok onto my morning pages and then get ready for the day!

Inspired by Dufy

Finally feel like I can start creating again. I know you have to take the steps and  do the work, but working from home and getting so many interruptions does not make this easy at all. I would really love a studio away from home. Before I went overseas I played around with quite a lot of ideas for breakdown printing, trying out various things, and it struck me that that may be a very good way to try and create a piece in the style of Raoul Dufy- who is a favourite artists of mine.I had a postcard of La Vie en Rose by Raoul Dufy( i know it also has another name) and thought I would try and create a screen with some of the elements from the painting.My drawing on the screen was pretty rough and I wished I had paid a bit more attention, but I decided to quilt it today because there is no point painting a better screen if I don't like the effect.
So below is a photo of the breakdown printed fabric.

I know why I did not do anything  with it before I went away because I was a bit disappointed with the colour and the lack of focus in the bouquet of roses and I didn't like the table legs at all and well it wasn't  what I had envisaged. But  a couple of months distance and the need to get going again on something and feel enthused and the fact that  I had not set out to make an exact copy of the painting , but to be inspired by it and the colours.....so..... this is what I ended up with.

If anyone is interested it is for sale for $130 AUS plus postage. It measures 15 inches by 23 inches  ( 38 cm x 59 cm). As you can see it is densely machine stitched.I think I shall try some more of this, as it is a real challenge to make those thread work for you. It was also fun to work outside my usual colour palette and deal with the challenge of pink. Whilst I am completely besotted by pink roses  I generally speaking do not  count it amongst my favourite colours- quite the opposite really.

Uncharacteristic

I have been working on a small ivory coloured  silk dupioni Travellers' Blanket sample. Because the colour choice is completely uncharacteristic for me, I decided to work small but  also within the format for a piece for the Voyageart group to which I belong. I had it in the back of my mind that I might make a big version of this for my France book but in the end whilst I do like the over all effect it is too out of character with all the other colourful work I do. I didn't actually like it at all until the last stitch went in and really is a bit emblematic of the way I feel at the moment, so it has been a catharthic process as well- taking distance and taking a deep breath before I plunge into the main game which is getting my France book done!I felt I could only do that when I had cleared the deck of tasks which needed doing, like my book keeping for my business, this little piece and some other things which had been outstanding. It measures 10 inches by 20 inches.

Lagging

The last week or so has also been consumed by my fathers' health issues , and his partners' and I am about to take a few steps back from all those issues because they do not put food on my table or buy school books for my daughter.I need to regather myself and concentrate on the main game which is to keep my business going in these challenging economic times, to seize opportunities and to develop  new workshops ( I am developing a workshop working with the material I worked with in Vicenza which you can see here) and I have become re-enthused with polyester non-woven fibres in using them in a much more painterly way.But I need to  write it down and do the work. Also I am already behind on my France book, and the last couple of weeks have impacted not only on the work I produce but on the head space to do the work and I need a quiet head space to write.

I did do some stitching by hand on more sentinelle panels one of which was a commission. I struggled with the hand stitching because all in all I felt emotionally exhausted  by everything that has happened these last weeks since being back. But on the other hand it has reinforced that I need to keep going with these girls, they contain so many elements of the things that I believe in that somehow they have helped me come to the decision I have come to.

The turquoise sentinelle is for sale for $150 AUS plus postage. They measure about 6-7 inches by 18 inches and are entirely hand stitched.

I did manage to get to see my mother this week and stayed a night with her as it usually takes  about 2.5 hours to get to her house. Her garden was in full bloom.The colours of the particular flowers I photographed seemed to  blend in with the sentinelles I have  recently stitched.

I am currently reading a biography about Judy Chicago and wonder whatever happened to the Birthing/stitching project and the women who worked on them- does anyone know?