studio barometer

over the years I have come to notice a few things about myself and the way creativity happens for me

it cannot be forced

the spark can fade quickly if not acted upon

notice the state of the studio

specific to that last one,  there are degrees of disorder in there but sometimes it gets downright messy, referred to as:

 "the piles are piling up"

if the room is neat and tidy not much is happening 

but when every surface has several stacks of paper, thread, cloth, books, drawing materials, half-done things, etc. etc. - that's when I'm in a "full-on, the fire is lit, my hands can't move as fast as my thoughts"state of working

and since my last post the ideas have come thick and fast and my sketchbook has several full pages already... and there are many piles... many

first a straight stitch join, then the staple version

I have a stapler that uses small brass staples that quite lovely but trying to line them up for this was a challenge

I've figured out a method of getting them mostly lined up but it's definitely a challenge

next I trialed several different binding stitch patterns from a book I have to see what they would look like as a design element for joining two pieces of appear together

the "snowshoes" one is a nod to the Yukon

several more I want to work with but then a different idea struck, and yesterday I went back to the silver leaf

I'm on a texture quest, along with a few other ideas, so I started with this...

letting the brush lines show has some interesting possibilities

as does piling on the adhesive medium, building up the layers

bumpy layers to be exact

there are definitely a fair few ideas stemming from this one

and in the midst of all that, when I thought I had parked the ice texture inspiration that had me fired up for much of the winter months, I noticed a few random torn pieces of paper (one of said "piles") that had happened to land in a manner that looked like the ice so before anything got disturbed...

multiple pieces of torn paper laid against a scrap of my ink-painted paper and I was off again

the layers are tacked together with a dab of glue 

next comes stitch

thinking I'm liking this better than the fabric...

and so it goes in my world

the 100 Day poetry project is going strong

35 and counting...

a Winter Haiku for you, in honour of the ice:

unyielding river

with flashes of summer blue

fights the icy grip

on being led astray

I knew it would happen... 

sooner or later the writing of haiku poetry was bound to pull me further into Japanese art and design

I've always had a love of the aesthetics of their art, the simplicity of it so not much wonder, but I was also given a good nudge from Nigel Slater's new book "A Thousand Feasts"

in it he mentions a few Japanese potters and craftsmen and Google led me astray from there

one of the places I landed was an article with beautiful examples of the art of "kintsugi", mending broken pottery with gold

much as I would love to learn pottery, now is not the time... 

but...  I did think I could try reinterpreting kintsugi on paper 

and so I've had a go, using some of my ink-painted paper

first, a "crack"

on the blue paper it could be thought a lightning bolt...

it came out rather flat though, not enough silver leaf medium I think

short straight lines

thinking of "broken silver lines" from one of my poems though these aren't quite what I had in mind

a soft bush and too much pressure created more of a channel than a line, evidenced by the thin dark line in the centre of each mark

little dots, like rain

different sizes dry at different rates making applying the silver leaf at the right time a bit of a challenge

consistency is key, and perhaps a different brush for removing the excess silver leaf

my favourite

more of a "join" than a decorative mark

a different brush, thicker line and as I went over it, adding more medium, I did it in a rope-like mark

it's a bit lost in this close-up but in the next photo you get a bit more sense of that

some interesting trials but more I want to do

the materials are all on my worktable, waiting for tomorrow

more line practicing for sure, and perhaps I'll try a few different tools to see what kind of effects I can get

as with everything I do, the busier my hands get with something new the more my head starts to get involved; what I'm doing feeds what I'm thinking

I'm not done with my Japanese art and craft investigations though

the website that had the kintsugi instructions also has a video or two on sumi ink calligraphy

at least I already have the ink... and the paper... and a brush

writing rain...

the world is upside down and i'm struggling

there is a meanness that I don't  remember ever being as prevalent as it seems to be now, though I suppose if I sat down and thought about it I would have to say "no, it's always been there"

still, it feels worse

as a child, when my parent's were divorcing I worked through a lot of things by writing

I remember so many times my writing began with "I'm so mad..." and for the first paragraph I would write every hard feeling I had, words pouring quickly on to the paper,  all the frustrations, anger, sadness coming out in a torrent

after that first outburst, my thoughts were freed from that weight and the rest of the page would be filled with quieter ponderings, either philosophical in nature or about nature itself

seemed those were my two favourite subjects to write about

ever since then words are how I have always found my way and writing them is down is how I make sense of what I'm experiencing and how I'm feeling about it

when I set myself the challenge to write 100 Haiku poems about the Yukon for the 100 Day project I thought, among other reasons, it would be a good distraction from the woes of the world

and it has been that

based on nature and inspired by the Yukon, I have written 22 so far

the first subject I chose was rain

we didn't get a lot of rain when I was growing up - summers were rather dry, the Yukon being classified as a "semi-arid" region

because of that rain was special, and it still is a delight to me so it made sense to begin there

this first poem was inspired by a drive to Dawson last summer... passing by a still-burning forest fire, it was raining lightly, the land shrouded with a mist

in some areas of the burn you could see the green already emerging, a stark contrast to the blackened land

its reassuring how quickly nature recovers

this one is a nod to the early spring ritual of my brothers and I scrambling through the forest on a quest to see the first sign of Spring crocuses on "Crocus Hill"

in typical Spring fashion, there was almost always sun and rain and this poem is a remembering of that

and another favourite memory ... in the Yukon I grew up in, scattered showers were the norm and it was rare for the sky to be completely covered in grey rain clouds and to pour rain steadily from morning to night

 (it's a bit different now as the climate there is changing)

instead, there was blue sky, clouds and scattered showers

the beauty of that was often, when the grey rain was falling, a shaft of light would break through the clouds and shine on the rain, changing it from a dull grey to a sparkling rain shower

we used to call them "sun showers", as if thousands of drops of sunlight were falling to the ground

simple, quiet reminders of things I noticed that mattered to me growing up... 

the things I am writing about are not unique and will be common to many, especially those who have lived close to nature

they're simply about my experience and what I noticed

and pleasant reminders of that

a coming together

a few days ago I finished my little book using the pages marked with memory

a few posts back I shared how I did that - you can read it here:

"add water and stir" 

I wanted to paint something for the inside covers using acrylics ink - I tried for a feeling of water and ground, perhaps a patch of snow or two

these first two images are off-cuts of that paper

the covers were made with a piece of linen painted with earth pigments

I used small strips of linen as a resist when painting it so the cloth looks almost like an old wooden sidewalk, the kind Whitehorse was full of when I was a child so another small piece of relevance to the work

coptic binding - I've made several books using this method but this was the first where I felt completely at ease with the process, it went smoothly, and though the stitching may look slightly crooked  in the photo below it isn't, it's just an optic illusion

 

each signature has three folios (folded pages), the centre one is shorter than the other two

there wasn't enough paper for three full-size pages and this seemed like an interesting compromise

now the challenge is to make use of that design detail when I fill the book though I haven't quite decided how, either writing in the centre with some kind of drawing or painting on the background page or vice versa

the centre-most page of the entire book is an abstracted photo of waves on a favourite Yukon lake printed on vellum

 

not sure exactly what I'll use this little book for but I'm happy to sit with it and wait - the right thing always comes along if I give it time and space to arrive on it's own

in the meanwhile, the thing that kept me busy all last week and again the week just past was a project I started in the spirit of the 

"100 Day Project"

where you do a thing every day for 100 days with the potential of having created something (or things) of some consequence, gaining focus skills, and increasing your knowledge/skills of your chosen subject

I've been wanting to write since I was a child, often writing poems and prose for hours but never with any real focus

for the 100 Day Project I chose to write one Haiku poem every day for 100 days

today I completed my 14th poem, and am pleased to say I have worked at this every day, both in the poetry writing itself and also in planing and adjusting the plan... as I do

so, it goes like this:

100 poems, ten subjects, ten poems in each subject

all subjects have to do with memories of life in the Yukon

five small books will be made, two subjects / 20 poems per book

when they are all written and the books made I'll make a special box, in the Japanese style to hold them

I also have a sketchbook where I write out each poem and the memory/inspiration behind it

I'm writing them in the 5 - 7 - 5 syllables over 3 lines format

I won't bore you with all 100 but every so often I'll share a favourite or two

it's a lot of work but the reward is the doing it

as it is with most things

Also, I’ve learned a few subscribers on Substack that did not receive this post by email. On investigating, when I set up my newsletter a list of any newsletters that I personally subscribe populated in as recommendations. I thought that list would only appear on my Homepage, but it turns out that when people clicked on the Subscribe button to receive my posts by email, that list came up with all those newsletters selected. If the “Continue” button was selected it subscribed you to all of them - the “no thanks” for that was well below the list so is often missed and people continue without realizing they are now subscribing to a a raft of other Substack newsletters.

I’ve removed all of those recommendations so going forward that shouldn’t happen to people, “Subscribing” means you will only get mine. For those who unsubscribed from the unwanted emails/newsletters, it also unsubscribed you from mine. The fix for that (if you choose) is to go to Substack, click your name or profile image, wherever it shows on the page (usually upper right) , then settings, subscriptions, notifications and re-select mine. Technology is all well and good when you know what you’re doing! 

My Substack

something different

Saturday evening and a good but busy week is behind me

no time to take any of the painted cloth further as I was settling in to a new, fairly long-term project so I thought I'd post some pictures from my most recent foray into print-making

I did these about ten days ago... using an Akua 5" x 7" printing plate along with Akua black ink

I find the "subtractive" process enjoyable although I didn't get some lines nearly clean enough so there is definitely a bit of a blur to this one

mountains, water and foreshore

I'm very pleased with the ridge-line on the closest mountain as well as it's shoreline, but missed the shore on the mid-ground one - we could say there was a landslide that ran straight into the lake obliterating the shoreline...

a close-up of the foreshore shows a few logs piled up along with other sticks and grasses

also pleased with this area though I admit the wood pile was meant to be a rock pile

I'll take the wood though as it's far more typical of Yukon lakeshores 

this last edit has a shortened sky and I used a "Noir" filter - I think it makes for a slightly cleaner image

I also like the smaller sky area, it seems to reduce the static in the image

print-making is a messy business but a rewarding one and with so many techniques to try I'll be back at it soon, now that this week's busyness has settled down a bit

so what kept me busy all week?

I was writing poems, Haiku to be exact!

more about that next week...

Also, I’ve learned a few subscribers on Substack that did not receive this post by email. On investigating, when I set up my newsletter a list of any newsletters that I personally subscribe populated in as recommendations. I thought that list would only appear on my Homepage, but it turns out that when people clicked on the Subscribe button to receive my posts by email, that list came up with all those newsletters selected. If the “Continue” button was selected it subscribed you to all of them - the “no thanks” for that was well below the list so is often missed and people continue without realizing they are now subscribing to a a raft of other Substack newsletters.

I’ve removed all of those recommendations so going forward that shouldn’t happen to people, “Subscribing” means you will only get mine. For those who unsubscribed from the unwanted emails/newsletters, it also unsubscribed you from mine. The fix for that (if you choose) is to go to Substack, click your name or profile image, wherever it shows on the page (usually upper right) , then settings, subscriptions, notifications and re-select mine. Technology is all well and good when you know what you’re doing! 

making connections

setting aside a piece of the seepage-dyed fabric from last week, I quickly grabbed it back again

something in the way it landed in the basket caught my eye, a soft fold halfway down the cloth and immediately I thought of Martha's dress

for those that don't know about Martha's dress, a quick telling...

Martha Black was a prominent figure in Yukon history, having gone to Dawson during the Gold Rush, newly separated from her husband, pregnant and in search of a million dollars in gold, half of which was left to her by a prospecting friend who had recently died

if she could find it

she never did, but she stayed, remarried and went on to become the second woman elected to Canadian Parliament

among other things

she also loved to fish, hunt and collect wildflowers

the museum in Whitehorse has a dress of hers on display from her time in Ottawa

I had photographed it thinking there were some interesting patterns and lines in the embroidery I could copy into my sketchbook for reference, and I also liked the way the gathers of the skirt portion at the waistband resembled pleats

a printed photo of it happened to be laying on my work table one day when I was working with some grey silk 

one of the pieces I picked up was badly creased so I tossed it to the side where it happened to land on said photo - as I picked it up I noticed how the creases made me think of the neckline of Martha's dress...

and I was off

creasing pages in my sketchbook, adding simple running stitch

from that I cut swatches of linen and silk and began experimenting with different ways of making creases...

how to manage them when they connect?

overcast them or running stitch instead?

fold on the top or underneath?

or both?

endlessly fascinating

I took a larger piece of brown silk, folded a deep crease for a v neck and added chain stitching

the shibori-painted water fabric is a reference for her love of the Yukon river along which her and her husband George went in their boat, fishing, hunting, and searching for the wildflowers she loved so well

and so I come back to the beginning of this post, back to the cloth landing in a particular way

I grabbed this sketchbook, flipped to this page and laid the cloth where you see it

for reasons I don't know the colour of the dress was off in this print but it's a perfect match for my 

ink-painted fabric

and when I pulled up the original photo of the dress to show here, I again noticed the "pleated" effect of the skirt portion

which led me back to the ice

the basis of this work is centred on the overwhelming love Yukoners have for the land

it's a large territory with few residents, a population of just 46,000 for the entirety of it and most of the people who live there travel it widely, spending a lot of their time in nature, fostering a deep, fierce love for all of it

I have always said the people of the Yukon clothe themselves in their love of the land

wearing it like a second skin

essentially, I'm wanting to explore various elements of clothing in a way that references an element of the landscape by noticing these connections 

each to the other 

gosh I hope that makes sense!

today I found another photo of Martha, this time in a wool coat with a deeply notched lapel… I'm thinking mountains, a range of them... and the deep notch?

well, I suppose that could be the Chilkoot Pass, the one she hiked over… first though, there’s work to be done, with  ice, pleats, folds and tucks

On the Edge

It feels like I've been skirting around on the edge of a few things lately

new things, hesitating to jump in

thinking I need to get it all figured out before I begin

this week I gave up and dove in

I'd been painting paper and stitching on cloth but what I really wanted was to paint the cloth

I've painted cloth before though I've found it difficult to control the seepage

lately I learned that capillary action works well on dry cloth, and poorly on wet

any time I had tried it I had wet the cloth to varying degrees first

big mistake

I mixed black and Payne's grey ink, rolled up a piece of dry linen I had started ice stitching trials and set it in the ink, cut edge down

watching the ink seep up the cloth, I could see right away it was going to give me the organic edge to the ice I was hoping for

and the partial line of stitching shows me how effective that will be for the overall piece

the image below is a more accurate representation of the colour - the light these days is wreaking havoc on the colours for the camera

the success of this trial led me to want more

thinking that I'd like to make a Gather Bag of sorts, I cut a long rectangle of white linen

I marked off about 4" from each end and in those spaces I did a shibori-style series of gathers and tucks

next I lightly brushed white gesso across the centre 5" or so of the rectangle and when that dried I painted soft swooshing lines in an very pale grey watercolour

the cloth was then folded across the width, lightly rolled, and the cut ends dipped into the same ink solution as before

this time it took the better part of an hour for the ink to make it's way up the cloth

when the cloth was dried I removed the shibori stitches and gave it a good press with a hot iron

some lovely marks on each end, and again, that beautiful organic edge of the ice

next is to mark off the ice wind-rows and stitch them, adding texture to the in-between here and there

and think about how to add some stitch detail to the water area

the other thing I was on the edge of was moving my blog to a new platform

Blogger is giving me a bit of trouble now; my laptop is an older one and the formatting sometimes has a mind of it's own

as I've had a few people ask about an email delivery option I did some research and finally settled on Substack

I've spent the last two weeks familiarizing myself with the platform, getting myself set up, and doing a few introductory posts about what inspires me and my process

it is not, nor ever will be, a paid subscription

nor a "Buy me a coffee" option

subscribing only means that my weekly posts would be delivered to your email Inbox

if you don't wish to subscribe you can bookmark the URL and visit as you would any web page

I've called it "Thinking With My Hands" because so often that's what making art feels like for me

and for those who want nothing to do with Substack I'll still post here, for as long as I can, every Saturday

which will be the same for the Substack posts, Saturday night around 10:00pm 

if you are interested in checking it out the link is below

https://jillaynewickware.substack.com/

Enjoy!