I started with great billows of turquoise – experimenting with a looser background, bigger pieces of fabric, more thread for adding motion, and then the checkerboard of squares over it, with the background peeking through. It did what I wanted, but now I have a handful of turquoise squares left over and I need to balance this one with the reverse.
two new pieces for this year – I think my color at the moment is turquoise!
Sneaking in at the end of the year to post one last piece. I am not quite sure what I can say about this piece. It could be something to keep my hands busy while I think about something else. It could be a bold new direction, except I have been thinking about rivers in the abstract for a while now.
I think I am overthinking everything these days.
I have been working on designing the set for this year’s musical, I can post some pictures of that once it is finished.
Timna pointed out to me that my leaves, while life size, were not large. So I thought for a week about how to get things on fabric larger than life, and complained bitterly to a friend before I remembered Spoonflower and the fact that I could have my own designs printed on all kinds of different fabric. For future reference, here is their list of available fabrics – which they hide too many levels down in their menu. But that is a quibble when you think about that you can do!
I have two oak leaves, each 3 feet long, and roughly two feet wide, printed in brilliant color on satin. I am going to do something with them. Soon. I even had a detailed dream about what I was going to do, but I forgot it when I woke up. There was gel medium involved, and a large stretched canvas, and burlap, and a bottle of Sauterne. I can work with that when I’m awake.
The above piece (imaginatively titled Ten Maple Leaves) is one I finished in … 2010? maybe? I was clearing out behind the cabinet where I stuff things that are in time out, or are done and I have no idea what to do with them. I was keeping Margaret company who was visiting from Scotland, and making a thing. I still like it. It made me think about other leaves I meant to address in a similar way.
So I gathered up handfuls of leaves over the last week, and scanned them onto silk fabric. The first one I finished today is Ten Cottonwood Leaves. I am delighted with the blocks of fabric contrasted with the thin strips, and the way the leaves shine. I picked these up from around the front porch of a restaurant I am temporarily obsessed with (they make crepes, and also have the tastiest and most mysterious salad dressing ever). I thought they were birch leaves, but the trunk of the tree, going right up through the roof of the porch, is not at all a birch trunk.
Not work – inspiration. The marsh to the north of my mother.
Also an astonishing blue sky and perfect fall weather. This is what people imagine when they think of New England fall; sun, blue skies, cool shadows and warm sun. I think the weather we had Friday, with scattered rain and fog, and the brilliance of turning leaves with a scrim of mist is just as correct, and sometimes easier to find.
I can feel the landscape work winding down a little, and some of the pressure for abstract work ramping up. There is always work to do: experiments to make, fabric to dye, other fabric to paint or stamp or practice with gelatin plate printing again. Messing about to accomplish.
Onward!
When I delivered the sunset pine trees to the gallery, Lesley told me “tell me quick a name for that before I call it My Backyard” so I called it sunset pines and that was fine. This one is another view of her backyard, however I have not yet been to visit and cannot vouch for the clarity of the vision.
Working to get two pieces finished for Lesley at Grow Gallery – this one started with one of several photos she took and emailed to me, “in case I needed inspiration,” which I thought was very generous of her. I am pleased with the colors in this one but dubious about the perspective.
I finished this piece today. My mother loves salt marshes, and she gave me the vocabulary to describe them in ways that makes me love them too. This is the second marsh piece going to Crane’s for the Trustees of Reservations show and sale there in early November. Now I have a handful of sky and water pieces rattling about in my head to finish, and then I can turn back to more local landscapes.
Jenny’s Marshes delivered and hung up in the living room, out of the sun. Accomplished on Saturday. She looks pleased:
Lee Thomson 