still learning, still trying

Writing is hard. Writing a regular journal requires nerves of steel and a clear vision of what the hell you want to say. I have a running list of ideas that I keep as I am working. This journal serves as a reminder to myself that I am working toward goals, with ideas that are inspired by my observations which tend to morph over time. Dialing back the record often surprises me when I follow the course of one piece.

Here's an example of that, I have been working on this piece since 2014:

I am creating wire chairs for the center of this cloth representing the 7 nations that came together to create the nuclear arms non-proliferation agreement with Iran.

Textural details

All fenced in. Now what?

The (is it worth it?) debate

Building fences

Breakthrough

And it's still not done. Writing can be like that too. drafts get discarded. Ideas morph. Doubt moves in. I'm still learning.

I am non-verbal

I show up. Every day. for hours. and hours. It's a nest. This week has been particularly intense due to my goal of finishing a number of lingerers — those pieces that linger on the draft board without a finished edge, without a way to hang themselves, without a final yes in my final work-in-progress voting booth.

Here, Silent Witnesses is on the trimming board.

So I finished a few, hand-sewing facings and hanging sleeves. Fixing that little divot of stitching that bugged me. Adding just a bit more detail. Trimming excess.

I focused in on the details of craft.

My favorite thimble, a metal tipped silicone model, is a must have when finalizing the details of facings and hanging sleeves. This piece was done on canvas, so pushing the needle through the facing and fabric back proved difficult. I was tempted to just glue them down. But using an embroidery needle and pushing it through with that metal tip worked.

Refuge needed more marks and texture.

Finishing makes me edgy and still at the same time. I count stitches, measure space and drift into repetition. My brain goes into non-verbal mode. I look at the endless edge that needs turning and call upon my inner, resolute put-my-head-down-and-do-it mood that stops everything else. At the end my shoulders ache and I am eager to clear away the boards.

Scattered showers needed some rain.

Don't get me wrong, I can be distracted. Answering emails, looking for lunch companions, organizing one last shelf of collected debris provide respite. But finishing is its own reward. It stops a thought and allows it to move on. It shows the weaknesses of a piece and gives me an avenue to pursue the strengths.

The boards are cleared. Space allows new thoughts. Ready or not, here I come.

Free-motion Quilting 101

Many people have asked me how I do my free-motion quilting. And, usually, I say I am no expert. I couldn't do a feather if you paid me to do it. What I can do is respond to my ideas with a threadline that makes sense to me.  I do it sitting down on a domestic machine.

For me, using YLI 40 weight thread, both in my bobbin and on top, helps. But it is no panacea. Tension issues can arise based on how fat the batting, how loose my shoulders are and how dull my needle might be (I switch out my needles at least every two weeks and sometimes more if I am stitching intensively). I don't drop my feed dogs as it gives me a little more resistance that I find helps me in directing the thread. Some people prefer that the dogs are lowered. Let me remind you: it takes hours and hours of practice and a vision for where you want the thread to go.

If you are interested in starting the journey I recommend my friend Nysha Nelson's new video Free-motion Quilting 101 (buy it here). His precise, easy-to-follow instructions will get you bumping along the road with a set of tools that allow for creative exploration. Nysha takes the time to think through the zen of stitching. He allows the casual bump or divot to inform the work rather than detract from it. Nysha sets up simple exercises that won't overwhelm the beginner and will still challenge seasoned stitchers.

Starting the journey takes planning, deep breaths and a certain devil-may-care attitude that allows you to make mistakes along the way.  Listen folks, do we really want each stitch to be so precise that when people walk by they say that it must have been done by a computer? Not me. I like my quirks. Spoiler alert: I will not win blue ribbons at quilt shows because of it. Blue is not my color anyway.  Dips and dingles are part of the charm of moving the fabric around.

I say go for it. Start. Practice. Walk away from those pre-programmed stitch patterns. Dream stitchlines. Nysha will help.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The edges are raw. The threads are chaotic.

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

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.

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?

Silent Witnesses, Paula Kovarik, 2015