thelmasmith

A request from an old friend sent me to the old slide master files. She remembered a commission I had done in 2002. One of the things it proves is the foolhardiness of keeping backup on Cds. If they aren’t clearly marked you will never find what you are looking for.

Since I keep images in my picture files on an external hard drive to keep the speed of my machine and I’ve changed machines since then it was a challenge. However the artist’s statements were still in the 2004 business files. TMI, I know, you didn’t need to know all that.

These images are commissions that were made in 2002 and before.  They are in private collections.  This is probably the only chance you will get to get a glimpse of them.

Preliminary sketch.

One of the images, backed by textiles that was sent to the gentleman who was handling arrangements for the commission.

The cliffs along the highway, byway, along Patagonia Creek. This is the road from Nogales, through Patagoia to Sonoita. You can see the image in the snapshot and the detail.

The far mountains were too bright; they advanced too far in the picture plain. They were covered with a printed sheer. The lines were then couched to reinforce the shaping while retaining the distance.

This is, by far, my most favorite detail of the whole work. Click the image to enlarge. There is a coatamundi in the lower left corner. The tall agave blossom tell that that particular agave has reached it’s life’s end.

The whole image, All is Right With the World. It is five feet high and eight feet long.

See all those folds in the mountains? Every one of them is a passageway for a traveler who is looking for a way to feed his family. For every traveler who gets through safely and finds a job a village of forty people stay at home, retain their own culture, and survive from the wages that one poor man sends home.

Other things to remember about the Sonoran Desert, it is the wettest, greenest desert on earth. You will see the Patagonia Creek Ford at the lower right. In reality that ford is three miles down the road. It is fed by an artesian spring up in the hills above Sonoita. It has fed this land for eons.

Water in the desert is rarely seen; it is like the force that runs the universe. Seldom seen, yet it’s effects are seen everywhere.

Now, I’ll show you an earlier commission, Desert Icons, that led to the one above.

This is the mountain range I see from my workroom windows. The mountain on the left is Mount Hopkins. It is home to the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. To the right is Elephant Head. If you look closely you will see his ear and his tusks. These mountains are all volcanic remains.

My favorite detail from Desert Icons, the Harris Hawk. He is about the size of my fist and I have small hands. There are twenty one different pieces of fabric giving him life. His stick nest is appropriate as the sahuaro is the place the hawks nest. It was made by destroying a child’s toy witches broom.

The last, Painted Desert, now in a private collection in France. This piece was the original piecework of the far, rolling, valley in AIRWTW; it was much too bright. It landed in the dustbin. I finally thought, no, it’s much too beautiful to throw away. I cut it and added the brilliant red orange, turned pieces this way and that. The backing was turned in instead of binding the work.

The image, is one of the Las Madres with artist, Valarie James, as it was being unpacked at the Tubac Center of the Arts in February, 2006.  It was a portion of the exhibition Changing the World one Thread at a Time.

Still, people are dying. Valarie James has produced one of the most professional and lyrical laments and memorials to this sad process. Las Madres, No Mas Lagrimas YouTube is well used and the subject matter is well served in this short film.

The back story on the journey of Las Madres is on Valarie’s blog.  Fortunately, the monsoon has come to the Sonoran Desert. It brings vicious squall lines, torrents of water, thunder, lightening, and flash floods. It also brings us much needed water, humidity, and a cooling of the intense heats of June and early July. A thunder storm can lower the temperature thirty degrees in a matter of minutes.

Pictured above are Sonji Hunt and Rhonda Blasingame. Do go to Sonji Says for a much more complete description of the class. Rhonda, please contact me; I’m unable to find how to email you.

Among the things I firmly believe is the idea that textile art is not well served by being kept to itself. We use the words art quilt and wonder why no other artists are interested in our work.

I went to the Tougaloo Art Colony in Jackson, Mississippi, last week because the words said art colony. I have never spent a week so joyously.

Ceramicists, painters, enamelers, textile workers, all noted and acclaimed instructors, most who were professors at other institutions came together for a week of very intense study. Very intense study was combined with very intense discussions, meals, trips out here and there.

Adding to the mix of intelligent conversation and hard work was the multi cultural aspect of Tougaloo. Above are Debbie, Sonji half hidden, and Annie from Chicago. Sonji will have much better pictures and more details.

I think this was about the point when we had all painted yards and yards of fabric and were beginning the next step in Sonji’s process.

It was quite interesting; each of us immediately had a recognizable painting style. We were creating layer after layer of painted fabric. Each layer from the big stack related to the painting before it.

Rosalind, our teaching assistant, is backed by Rhonda’s rust dyed works just behind Rosalind and on the left. The bright multi colors to the right are all Sonji’s brought to give us some idea of what and how the process goes along.

Do not be fooled by Rosalind’s seemingly plain pink fabric; when done it was a gorgeous blue fabric with pink underlays.

I’ll be more on my game tomorrow and the next few days. In the last eight weeks I have made fourteen separate flights. The airlines are fourteen for fourteen. Every flight was either delayed, double booked, canceled, delayed for mechanical problems, delayed for lack of crew, or delayed by weather. In spite of the cost of fuel I think next time I will drive.

That means I plan to go back to Tougaloo next Art Colony. It will be an entirely different group of professors. I have no idea what I will sign up for. I do know that I wanted to get my hands in to every medium that was taught next week. I’m hoping they will extend the Art Colony beyond one week

Valarie James is both an artist and an activist. She takes no verbal stand. She just shows you, with her art, what she sees.

Her work is progressing far beyond this La Madre, which was shown in 2006 in the exhibition Changing the World One Thread at a Time. She speaks of secrets we will never know. She collects precious, heirloom quality, hand work on textiles in the Spanish language.

A documentary, called The Trail of Thread is in process.

I’ve been working on this red, matka silk, on ivory Thai silk ground a little every day. The acute, inside corners are challenging.

You can see my basting thread; it’s ivory silk so I don’t lose it on the red. I’m working with red silk thread in a size 11 straw needle.

I have no idea whether my needle work is good, bad, or indifferent. Here’s the back of the Thai silk. It is a joy to work with. The smaller sample I had made, disassembled part way, and repinned was worked with fine fuse on the acute angles; I didn’t like it. So on this big one I’m just toughing it out.

Here you have the cat covers that go on when I think I am tired enough to make mistakes.  You can see the debian test pattern on white muslin.  I laid in the “d” with an embellishing machine and black wool roving.  I doubt I will use the resulting felted letters on the quilt itself.

You can also see, in the lower left corner, my test pattern for the Debian swirl on white muslin.  I had  all sorts of plots, plans, and foolish fancies.  In the end I decided the best thing to do was to take up a needle and thread it.

The textile arts are a varied lot. They show up in the most unexpected places. The image below is copyright by two entities and the artist; it is published here according to the fair use for educational purposes section of that law.

Notice that Untitled, by Joyce Melander-Dayton, is of acrylic, cotton, wool and beads on linen. The very definition of textile art. This advertizing popped up on page nine, more or less, of the May 2007 issue of art & antiques. Copyrights are held by Melander-Dayton, the June Kelly Gallery in New York City, and by arts & antiques.

I like the fact that textiles are popping up in unexpected places. These places that are geographically removed. Those of us who practice the textile arts should be an encouraged.

I read arts & antiques monthly; quite honestly it’s more wallowing in the luscious glossy printing of high quality photographs. This magazine gives me a window on all sorts of visual art from many centuries. I find it is a very pleasant way to add to my knowledge. I see things I would never see in a venue restricted to textiles. I think that is important.

I finally cleared off the rest of the detritus from the six foot long work table that has my Juki set flush into the top. I’m looking for a 1960s vintage, sturdy, typing table with locking wheels. I need a task specific table for the Pfaff Smart 350. It’s a needle felt machine that is newly in the marketplace. Until today my only experiments were to darn my wool socks.

I decided to do some experiments. Yesterday I had torn eight inch widths of muslin, cotton flannel, cotton sateen, and a fairly heavy silk.  I decided to work both with hand dyed wool roving and with scraps of red matka silk. Here’s the sample with the cotton sateen face.

There is red-orange, black and a purple brown wool needle punched both as cobweb felt and as disciplined, controlled lines. The red matka silk was manipulated in the middle swath and just needle punched on the lower right. The dupioni silk was a scrap; half of it had fuseable web on the back.

The three layers took the felting well. I think if I decide how and when and were I’ll do this sort of work with a design rather than random testing I will either lay the face fabric on the flannel or just felt on the base fabric. The needle punch holes are quite apparent.

Here is the sample I laid up with a muslin base, cotton flannel, and a heavy silk.

Same materials, handle slightly differently. The purple silk ravelings took the punching nicely although they drew up a lot shorter than they started. Do click on the thumbnails as the needles I am using are too coarse and have damaged the fairly tightly woven silk face. I am in the process of ordering some size 42 triangular needles. I suppose while I am at it I should inquire about size 44, too. Back is as boring as the front.

I’m encouraged. Even though I damaged the silk sample the process shows a lot of hope. I’m particularly interested in the cobweb silk. If I can solve the fineness aspects of the needles I have some lovely space dyed roving here.

There is still almost the full width of the samples I made up. So I’ll lay them on top of the wool box. That way maybe I’ll be able to find them when I have more experiments in mind.

As an afterthought – here’s the task specific modification of an old typing table that holds the Bernina. It’s particularly useful as it’s the same height as all my card tables. I can extend it to side or back simply by wheeling it out away from the wall.

I’ve been spending the day procrastinating. I’m also processing a lot of personal information. Here are a few of the non coincidental coincidences I’ve experienced today.

Baba Yaga stands in my kitchen. She over sees my cooking. If I have eastern European genes I am not aware of them. However, here is a story of Yaga.

Do go to the top of that page after reading all about the ancient goddess. Then, take a look at what happens when you take an ancient goddess and put her in charge of a Sonoran kitchen.

Here she is supervising a quesadilla.

More importantly, go take a look at Yaga’s fabrics and designer clothing.

Another beautiful day in sonora.

I worked almost all day and finally came to the desk about three.  Got the winter clothes sorted out of the closet and put away.  Dumped out the donation bag of widows weeds for Valarie James Las Madres project and added some summer clothes and reconsidered and removed others.

Got black clothes washed, dry, hung up.  Same with whites including my towels.  Also a piece of the peruvian pima cotton sateen.  I have decided that the brown back on my fancy banana leaf pillows though beautiful is distracting.  So I’ve a piece of sateen in a green dye bath.

All the Left Turn Lane came back from the Pomona Downtown Art Center.  They had been there since December.  Since they were in the community conference room and the art center is associated with Pitzer etc.  I wonder if I can legitimately call it a solo exhibition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claremont_Colleges

Anyway, the dye board was set up in the garage and I got everything unpacked (bulk packing) and individually rerolled and wrapped and put away.  While I was at it and had the ends off the storage tubes I decided to get rid of some of the space wasters.

I did my best with the cat bat.  When that storage unit was in the house it had no ends and was tunnels for cats.

While I was at it I rolled all the rest of the sateen off the core and folded in by the yard.  There was ten yards before I had to get it back out of the closet and tear the pillow length.  I think it’s nine and a half now.

I’ve been rereading the paint and dye books.  The Tuckman & Janas Creative Silk Painting keeps talking only about “new” instant set dyes that need no steaming. They never mention a name or a brand; it is most frustrating.  The stretch or not stretch page is followed with a stretch with tape over stretcher boards.  Stabilize with freezer paper, loose stretch (over an open cardboard box), stabilize on adhesive boards, stabilize on a smooth flat surface.  Aaarrrgggg  -  they do mention the complete book of silk painting at only $27.  Since the book in my hand is more than ten years old I should be able to find it second hand.  Do I want it??

Kate Broughton’s textile dyeing makes references to acidic mediums and acid dyes almost as an afterthought.  It gives several different ways of working.  Including laying silk on washed, ironed, white canvas, doing the dye painting, letting everything dry thoroughtly, peeling the two apart, touching up the mirror image on the canvas, and steaming the whole shebang.  The particular artist then makes totes out of the canvas and I’m not quite sure what with the beautifully hand painted silk.

Another artist in the same book talks of acid dyes, wet in wet like watercolor.

Even dharma says very little of particular use.  There is something “everybody” knows that I’m not getting here.  I have dupont dyes, untouched.  Single sentences about water and alcohol.  Asides about vinegar or citric acid crystals.  Even the “recipes” from each artist’s paragraph may mention vinegar but no one ever says, “Do this with the vinegar.”

I’ve got to go fold white clothes.  Obviously I’m not going to start painting on silk in the next day or two.  However, I do have three quite large bunches of what I would call silk broadcloth folded up and in a marked container.  I have to figure this out sometime.

Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition landed in my mail box. I’ve just begun reading the text having fallen into and through the images several times already.

Here’s a look at the work from another direction, Kyra, talks about how the book captivates her. Here’s Sonji Hunt’s lovely review of the opening reception.

The most amazing thing I have learned about myself from Dr. Mazloomi’s writing:

“Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This triumph is music.”

Now I know why my series, The Blues, is languishing. It has finished itself. I have found that triumph of new hope. I want to thank Dr. Mazloomi for putting it in words for me. I really needed to see that in print so that I could see into my own spirit.

You can get the catalog here. Keep an eye on Dr. Mazloomi’s website for information about the travels of this exhibition. Be sure to see it when it comes within a day’s drive. The catalog is spectacular; the exhibition is even better.

I also received my copy of Threads of Faith. This is another magnificent catalog with lots of text. The traveling exhibition has closed but the book will transport you there.

Many thanks to Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi for permission to use her copyrighted dust jacket images of the book.