Lee Thomson

The last time I did a daily project, I posted the results to the blog daily as well. This time around, I feel content posting daily to Instagram and Facebook, and letting pictures pile up until I can say something more coherent about them. Making the pictures public is important, but talking about them is much less so.

What I can see about this grouping is that I seem to be seeing mountains in them, and bringing that to the fore. I also like edges and triangles within my triangles. I have not tried to depict anything in particular in them – that may come soon. I will finish out January noodling with more abstract themes, and change directions at the end of the month.

I realized that I was not prepared to travel and make triangles when Red Kate and I went to visit my mother in the far Down East of Maine over the weekend. I tossed together a kit, but it took me a day and a migraine to figure out how to make the things I was thinking about. While I was visiting I got fond of hand work and hand stitching, so the most recent set are all hand stitched, even after returning home. The character of the stitched line is so different when done by hand and by machine. Also I think I need to learn how to use a thimble because the tip of my finger is sore!

top left; Jan 8, Jan 7,
bottom left; Jan 6, Jan 5

Most of Saturday Al helped me sort and package his robot parts and job related things from the time when he was holding down seven 1/4 time jobs (the end of the tech boom was hard for a while!), and at the end of the day I took his enormous ugly desk apart and we loaded it into my car in the beginnings of the snowstorm. I have a whole new corner of my work room open and ready to rearrange – it is pretty intoxicating!

At the same time, I am exploring the idea of moving my work space out of the house and into a more formal studio space. As I talk with other people about their studios, I get a better idea of what I am looking for; space, company, a place to be at work that is not the house, and doesn’t have the same distractions as the home.

As I clarify my hopes, and empty out the current space to make room for more creativity, the possibilities for the future open up in front of me.

Today’s triangle, and yesterday’s triangle, because I did it, and then started doing other things…

I looked at my first potential shared studio space today. I liked the woman who organized it, and the space was friendly. I need to see some more places to get a better feel for what I can expect by way of company, space and amenities.

Also I have adopted a small bear for a traveling companion. Meet Ursula –

It has been five years since I made a circle a day, and ten years since I made a fabric postcard a day. Time to do it again.

I am starting with equilateral triangles, and the color green. The triangle above is 3.75″/10 cm on a side. The nice thing about equilateral triangles (all sides equal) is that they tile smoothly on a flat surface, and they can be used to compose three dimensional shapes. I am going to have a lot of these triangles – I should be able to amuse myself with the results when I am done!

This post feels oddly disconnected from the work I did manage to finish back in the early part of the year.

I started a new series of very abstract river pieces, much larger than I have been working previously.

With the interfacing I use, I can only work on pieces smaller than 16″ square with my machine. I imposed shamelessly on the goodwill and patience of the local quilt shop Notion to Quilt and test drove (extensively) the sit-down long arm machine they have there. While I enjoyed the experience, and I love the machine, I think space and financial constraints will keep me working on smaller sections using my current sewing machine.

Since the final pieces are bigger, I had to experiment with ways to slice the work, and then connect the sections. The connections became a part of the design of each piece, and I can see that going in different and interesting ways.

I have had more time away from sewing this year than in the last decade, and I tried to take some of that time to experiment. I took a bunch of acrylic paints around town and on vacation, and tried to paint what I saw. I took a class in screen printing on fabric with Esther White at Zea Mays Printmaking and learned a lot about a process I had not tried before. I took a class in encaustic and mixed media with Lorraine Glessner at R&F Handmade Paints, and learned a lot about wax, oil paint and layers of imagery. I also fell in with a remarkable collection of women taking the encaustic class, and I hope we manage to stay in touch.

If you are unsure how to spend a quiet evening, check out these womens’  work: Cheryl Holz, Sally Hootnick, Ann Breinig, Meg Tweedy, Victoria Sivigny, and Valerie Zeman

Terri and Sheri, you guys have to get websites organized!

I’m heading into 2017 with some new tools, new friends, new techniques, and ready for some new things.

Many things changed for me over the summer. Big things, but good things. One daughter graduated from college with a degree in math. One daughter graduated from high school with her sanity intact. The math daughter found work in Boston working with giant piles of data, which is making her cheerful and earning her the beginnings of a living. The still sane daughter started at the university in September, majoring in Geology like her mother, her maternal grandmother, and following her great grandmother’s interests. (She jokes about being maternally doomed in the major department.)

My sainted mother chose to sell her house and move to assisted living of her own volition, and under her own power. That took more months than either of us expected, but she seems to be settling in with a whole new view. I made some paintings of her old view before she left, because it was gorgeous, and changeable, and vital.

The house feels both oddly empty and randomly full of people, as daughters return between semesters or on weekends or holidays. I find I have to count in my head, how many people slept here last night, and think about breakfast.

All of my sewing work was on hiatus over the summer, and seems to still be on hiatus now. I have been flailing with new techniques, to see what speaks to me, but even with fabulous teachers and interesting work, I think I am still drawn most strongly to fiber, fabric and stitch.

Next year, 2017, marks a decade since I started the Postcard a Day project, and five years since the daily circle project. I think it is time to undertake a new daily project, but it is not yet clear to me what – your suggestions are welcome!

copper river

Copper River 12″ wide x 27″ high, burlap from coffee sacks, collected purple fabrics, cotton and metallic threads, linen twine, copper washers. 2016.

I feel like I have been looking for tiny copper washers since before Christmas. Al kindly provided me with several boxes of large washers with different finishes, but I had my mind set on copper, and small, and I started looking online. They were not readily visible online unless I was willing to order them made to my specifications, with a minimum order of a couple thousand. Since that seemed excessive I let the whole process lie for a while, until I asked someone in aggravation and they recommended I look in the local hardware store because that kind on thing is basic. And sure enough, it is. So I have cleaned the local hardware store out of small washers in the three smallest sizes, and I shall go around to the less local hardware stores soon, because I am not done with this!

Shorter Blog: Copper washers are at your local hardware store. They are more expensive than other washers because copper is expensive these days. Copper paint does not work.

I am waiting to hear back from three different exhibits with all of my current work allocated to one or another. If I want to enter anything else I have to make something new.

The trick with a website and a blog is keeping the website up to date!

The blog updates when I have new work to post or something to say or something interesting to demonstrate, but the Welcome page and the galleries can get stale and old without a little attention on a regular basis. I added the new abstract rivers to the galleries, and changed up the images on the Welcome page. Let me know if you miss a favorite and I’ll put it back.