the pictures are misleading – the brown one is much larger than the other.

Eddyline is 20×48″  Silver River is 25×20″

Photos by Stephen Petegorsky

I started another piece that will be connected after the stitching is done. Working big is interesting because pieces last longer than a day or two, and I have to keep the idea I was chasing in mind as I move through the work.

In which I again make something larger than I can photograph with any grace and have to get it photographed by someone with more space and larger equipment. Fortunately, I know who to go to (Stephen Petegorsky does excellent work).

I had this idea that the circles would get more intensely colored as they got smaller, which worked relatively well. The small peach circles are from a couple scraps that fell on the stack of blues when I was buying them. I collected some of these softer orangey-pinks for contrast, and the idea of finding another line down the river took shape.

I’ve already started the next too large piece. Just following my nose… Or my muse?

After encouragement to work big again, and fix what I perceived as problems on the last big laced piece, I started this one. The thread texturing on the background is darker, and lets more of the browns show through. The river has more different colors and sizes of circles. I have one last layer to put on, a line of small circles in varied pinky-oranges, and then I will hammer holes in it to lace it together. More better photos coming soon.

I have shift back to landscapes after I finish this piece. I have a request for some snowy New England views, in stark contrast to what we have going on here at the moment.

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!