refuge

The piece I was working on last week transformed before my eyes after several hours of experimental stitching. The cloth is an old circular tablecloth that I dyed with a spray bottle filled with watered down dye. It was going to be an underskirt for my nuclear testing piece that is languishing in the corner of the studio.
I pulled it out of the experiment pile last Friday and folded it in half, then cut it into two wedge pieces so that I could try some stitching ideas I had. The stitching exercise gave me some great textures. It started with random straight lines that went across the piece higgledy piggledy to anchor the cloth.

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Then at each new bobbin I changed the color of the thread to add more interest. Eventually a wonky grid emerged. As the grid grew I noticed that at the junctions of the navy blue lines there was a sense of dominance. So I decided to reinforce that by starting a new line of thread (in black) that started at the juncture and traveled on in a wavy line across the piece. Letting the thread ends hang.

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As the thread ends started to accumulate I had to figure out how to handle them. Bury them? let them hang? cut them off? Tie them together? I loved the extra texture the thread was giving me but the thread ends were obscuring the texture below so I decided to nail them down with a spiral of stitches and trim them off. It was then that I realized I had created a terrain of sorts with little focus points that could represent targets.

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Laying the stitched cloth over the remaining wedge of fabric made me stop in my tracks. Suddenly it all made sense. This piece is about a land ravaged, surrendering to chaos and on the edge. The stitched piece created a shoreline over the second wedge.

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The edges are raw. The threads are chaotic.

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And now I am hand stitching trails, individuals and groups across the void. Moving them toward the calm and away from the chaos.

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audience incognito

While working away on the first of many ideas for the Silent Witnesses project it occurred to me that we are all voyeurs these days. Checking into social media sites to see the latest meme or birthday event, following people we like (or don't like anymore), zeroing in on the salient details of excruciating terrorist events. — The blood, the body parts, the damaged child.

Don't get me wrong, I get a lot of ideas from those folks for easy meals after hard days. Simple ways to slice a watermelon. I even enjoy the occasional splash page from Spotify to tune me into new music. The blogs and postings by This is Colossal and the American Craft Council give me sustenance and joy.  Being plugged in results in a synapse symphony which probably takes my brain a bit longer to sort, study and dispose of each night in sleep.

So I admit it, I am a silent witness. Now actively so.

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Silent Witnesses started with a pile of rocks with holes that I collected on a Lake Michigan beach.

I don't often speak up when political idiots test my patience. I don't rant about peace and war, women's rights, gun legislation or poverty (except to a few trusted friends over coffee). But I do process it. I do take it all in and parse it out and add it to my anxiety level. Those ripples of details fuel the ideas for my art, focus my energy toward understanding, fragment my feelings of hopeless angst. They distract, inform and poke at me each day in the silence of my studio.

We are all witnesses to horror today. The horror of hate and anger and terror. How do we change the flow to the positive? When will slicing a watermelon outweigh children carried on the backs of their frightened parents?

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Silent Witnesses, Paula Kovarik, 2015

silent witnesses

Just back from an energizing Common Thread Symposium at North Carolina State University where I met some inspiring artists and fiber art teachers: Susan Kay-Williams from the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court; Katherine Diuguid, an incredible hostess and talented fiber artist;  Susan Brandeis, Ilze Aviks, Andrea Donnelly, and Jeana Eve Klein to name a few.

A greek chorus in the fiber studio -- whispering to me.

This greek chorus in the fiber studio stood silently witnessing my attempt to show others how I do my work. I couldn't help but identify with their headlessness. When speaking in front of a crowd I feel a little weightless, as if floating and wandering through a third person narrative. I have to trust that my remarks make sense. The students were engaged and interested, and despite some hitches in equipment failures we had a good time learning from each other. I am hoping that they will pursue some of the drawing exercises we played with in their own work.

These silent witness birds gaze out to the lake as if hearing voices.

When I got home this two yard print from Spoonflower was on my desk, spurring me on to work on my Silent Witness project. The photographs from my residency at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore have inspired this project based on all those animate and inanimate objects that are witnessing our actions on earth. It started with this photo but then moved on to photos of rocks with faces.

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Rocks with faces, stitched on canvas. Those shadows give me some ideas of how the next stage in stitching may proceed.

A lot of the artists I talked with over the weekend spoke about the meditative quality of this work. Hours alone focusing on stitch helps me to clear out confusion, simplify meaning and intensify my message. So when I am burying threads and watching the sun pass over the cloth I think about the passage of time, the care in detail, the silent witnesses to understanding.

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Burying threads is an exercise in patience. When I work on something that requires it I think about the finite quality of it. What might feel like an endless chore actually does end, with patience.

exuberant distractions

How can I resist these colors? Why am I sitting in front of computer instead of grazing idly through the parkscapes gathering up the color? Fall beckons. Make haste to the outdoors.

Hardy Ageratum and Henry's Garnet Sweetspire.

I will continue the hand stitching on this piece (The grass was greener) outside, in the lingering spectacle.

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The grass was greener, detail, Paula Kovarik, 2015

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A potential stitch pattern? Hyacinth Bean vine takes over the back deck.

big blank wall

Distractions, responsibilities and confusion have set my studio in stasis. The design wall has a big blank hole on it. About two weeks ago I took out one of those precious pieces of cloth I have collected and pinned it to the board. It is a piece of hand woven linen. With slubs and weight and presence. I found it in a junk store in Germany and instantly knew that I had to have this cloth in my work.

Problem is the preciousness. How to deconstruct, define, deepen (and defile?) the cloth with my visions? Those little hand stitches that join the two panels down the center of the cloth have to stay in honor of the weaver. The slubs provide their own layer of texture and depth. Stitching, marking and moving beyond the original cloth challenges my resolve.

Usually when I come to this stage in a work I start with a clear concept. A couple of the ideas in my sketch stash could work with this cloth. But which one? Which is worthy? Why?

For now I will experiment on smaller cloth. Stained and tattered placemats with scalloped edges present a pallet without risk. Without gravitas. The big blank wall will have to wait. I feel the breath of it whispering.