Lee Thomson

Secrets: I finished a piece, but I cannot show it to you, because it is a present. A wedding present. Once I’ve given it to the recipients, I will show you all. I am very pleased with it.

Disasters: My beloved sewing machine has stopped working. It makes strange buzzing noises, and hiccups and burps. And then it blinks and burps and the needle rattles. I am having a very bad feeling about this. I have a spare machine, and a promise of another spare machine, so I will be able to continue. But I am worried that just thinking about a new machine, a large quilting machine, has made the current machine jealous, and it is having a tantrum.

Obsessions: I read the call for entries for a particular show, and realized my work was solidly in their purview, but. BUT! There is a minimum size which is roughly 4 times the size I usually work. So I have an idea for a larger work, and I have, so far, two different attempts to translate what is in my head into fabric. There is a particular shade of turquoise that haunts me, and I have to incorporate it somehow.

I like circles. I mean, as a shape, they are appealing and easy to make patterns and ideas with, but also they are geometrically simple; I can elaborate on the surface without obscuring the shape and idea of a circle. I like them enough that I made one a day for an entire year. And I’m not sick of them yet!  I am noticing that the smaller the circles get, the more sinuous I can make the river. It is either that or go large…

I’m realizing working on abstractions helps me think, in the same way going for a walk helps me think. This piece was started as an homage to Andy Goldsworthy – the poster for the movie about him has white sand spread on a dark ground, with a sinuous river shape swept through it. I like the way the sand piles up at the edges of the shape, and is more dispersed towards the edges.

I am ashamed that I have a copy of this picture and I do not what it is. The colors and the solid shape of the building in the snow and the hinges (what IS is about hinges that grabs me?) made it visually compelling, but I hope Velma will weigh in and tell us what it is. Also what is the strange extra roof piece on the left there? I do not know, to my chagrin.

I have one last piece to finish from Velma’s photos. I am least sure of this last one – the perspective is tricky and the colors are not varied, but the overall image is terrific and I am enjoying working on it.

After a small meltdown on Facebook I swore I would start calling my work “welded and pierced textile art. ” This is what happens when someone describes your work as “messing about with” rather than the more formal “working with” or the more artistic “fabric is my preferred medium.”

But really it is remains stitched textile art. That’s just what I do.

Several neighbors have chickens, even though we are walking distance to the center of town. To be fair, we are also walking distance to open fields and serious agriculture – delicately balanced between urban and rural. The chickens are generally well behaved, and they make nice noises. I admit I have a preference for ducks, because I think they are funnier. But I am becoming increasingly fond of other people’s chickens.

I’m not entirely clear it’s done just yet, but I’m close. I think this is from a trip on the Parker River Jenny took – it is her photo I was working from. I like the infinite horizon of the marsh, even when you are inside it. That stretch of flat, water level land is expansive and invites the eye.

Jenny has commissioned two additional small pieces that need to relate to this one. I had a plan, but when the image required to be in a different orientation, my plan was busted and now I need to do some thinking about the next steps.

A small section of the horizon in the marsh.

I started a commission piece today. A friend and I have been talking for two years (we move slowly) about what might work in her house. We had an enormous plan to make a set of pieces that would fit under the eaves in her bedroom, but that wound up not working so well.

This spring, we agreed on a nice open location, and a feeling for what she wanted for a topic, and I finally started today. I dyed the silks for the sky and water this morning, and got the top parts of the work blocked in and started stitching.

Updates as they occur!

Still working with Velma’s photos of her barn. This one is mid-fall.

Velma’s barn again, this time after a snowstorm. I loved the way the barn was blanketed with snow, and how bright the roof was, with the snow untouched, and the shading in the snow and the weeds coming up through it down on the ground.

There are two more exteriors that are calling to me – and another interior. And! I found the first of the door hooks. It was under the color correcting lamp, which was why the lamp was tilted at an odd angle and making shadows on things.