honesty

in my creative life there are things to learn, things to understand, and things to accept

at some level or another it seems i've been fighting with these concepts for most of my creative life, especially the latter

there's what is and there's what i want there to be

 disagreeing with that gap when it exists causes me no end of trouble, usually culminating in things being set aside for weeks, months and often years

case in point, these small pieces of antique linen with snippets of fabric and lace attached with tiny, almost invisible stitches

some I'm kind of pleased with, others seem a bit more orderly and contrived than i would prefer, and so they sat for more than a year... what to do?

take them apart and start again?  hack at the pieces so they look more tatty?

i used them as i found them, no trimming, just straight from the scrap box... the thought of hacking into them deliberately seems a bit contrived

and those with ordered layouts - take them off and just plonk them back on any which way? 

close my eyes and do it?

again, that would be even more contrived than just doing what i thought looked nice 

as well,  the neatness of whatever embroidery had been added - it's what comes naturally for me, to stitch neatly... the only way I can make my stitching look "bad" is to either purposefully make it messy or take scissors to it and mess it up that way

(and yes, i have taken scissors to my work to get a random appearance)

in looking at these small pieces the other day, trying to decide what to do with them in my ever-present quest to finish past works, a dawning realisation came over me, that they are very much "me"

not contrived, nor orchestrated... each thing placed where I thought it looked best - to showcase the particular beauty of each scrap... stitches placed just so to enhance a particular quality of the fabric or lace

planned and deliberate, yes, but not in a deceiving way, not to make any of it look like something it wasn't

there's honesty in this work and it's taken me until this exact moment, in the typing of the sentence above, that the final puzzle piece has jogged into place

it's all about honesty

when i fight what i do naturally my work is not be an honest reflection of me and all that i bring to it

that fight takes my work and makes it a lie

and therein lies my struggle these past months, years even

in not accepting what is, i was creating what wasn't and it felt hollow

a shallow reflection a best

and so the way forward has now become a whole lot clearer 

feels like a pretty great way to start a brand new year

the little things

christmas...

the big things in life seem to usually grab all the attention - often for very good reason, but it's the little things that bring us back to who we are

they're what settle us, bringing equilibrium to the see-saw of life

this time of year, when the days are darkest and life draws near, the seeking of warmth of comfort tend to be what's needed most

i don't have all the "To Do"s done but i have spent wonderful days with family and friends in the companionable enjoyment of simple small pleasures

visited with our son in edmonton for a week and during a break from studying, he and i did some watercolour painting - there were a few ideas on pinterest so i tackled the two you see here

quick and simple, seasonal but not overly so

yesterday was a baking day and for the first time in a long while i made butter tarts... my grand-mother's recipe, using currants, not raisins

i miss her most at christmas

the times we lived with them in the big house, excitement filling it from top to bottom, with five adults and four children under 8 years old, it was a houseful and my grandmother loved every second of it... 

then it was parcels that came in the mail after they moved away, loaded with christmas baking - the butter tarts were a favourite of all and they seem to bring me nearer to her than anything - except maybe fudge...

it's time now to take care of those last few things on the list, 

and then to put my feet up, and enjoy the quiet magic of christmas

and to wish you the best of the season

Merry Christmas!

old loves

if there is one thing I have loved since my earliest memories it is old and weathered wood

the yukon territory has a number of old and derelict buildings... cabins, stores and saloons hearkening back to the gold rush days... wherever gold was found buildings followed and in the 1960s, long since abandoned,  they were free to wander in

they fascinated me, even at a very young age... who had lived there, why didn't they now, what music played, the wind in the trees, an echo of distant chatter that whispered through the rooms... 

my hands on the walls, the feeling of raw, time-worn wood a tangible link to then

i'm taking this work slowly, finding my way as i go; the more i do, the more feelings that bubble up to the surface and the more i begin to understand what this place and these things mean to me, the influence they have had in what i like and how i think

still looking at photos, editing, cropping, adjusting colour and contrast - it's really one big paper shuffle on my worktable these days as i work on layering and collage

the image below is a digitally edited crop of a photo of the back of a quonset hut in whitehorse, yukon - down the alley from my grand-parent's house, i walked by it daily for several years as a small child

this photo was taken a a few years ago - it's been cropped and converted to a "silver tone" version of black and white which has enhanced the grain of the wood and highlighted some of the faded areas

the one below is cut from a montage of yukon photos printed on acetate

water, mountains and wood

below, the two have been layered with the acetate on top

i love this...

the way the lower portion of the wood almost appears as water; shining, sparkling light acting as ripples 

 the edges of the boards, a kind of wave action... the last impossibly tiny waves as the lake finally calms

next, a slightly darker version... the light is fading, twilight approaches

and now with the sky cropped and the whole lightened

wood as water less effective here but the sky takes on more luminosity 

the dark blues, sparkle of light, water and wave action, sharp lines in the sky... the effects of the somewhat muddled acetate print layered on the weathered wood

all of these things come together, a kind of "polaroidesque" sum of the parts, that is all that i love about the yukon

 all of my memories, layered in mind over the years and compressed into one enduring image

a picture of love

the making of me

it feels finally, as if the pieces have really started falling in to place...

the things i have wanted to learn have slowly but surely been worked at

bookbinding

calligraphy

making my own inks and paints

painting

and now printing

these have been my big five, long since desired, and though i'm by no stretch a proficient in any, i can usually muddle through to get the results i'm after and sitting here, feeling rather content about it all, i know the next part to master is the part pertaining to me

what i like

what i'm drawn to

the story i want to tell

for many years i've taken a few minutes here and there to think about what all of that might be and made lists in various notebooks

this morning, in looking at one of those lists, it seemed it would be a nice thing to have one place to write all that down in; a record of my preferences,  snippets of favourite fabrics and threads,  and notes about what draws me to them

i see small colour palettes,  in thread, fabric and/or paint... so often as i'm searching through a box of thread i notice one that somehow seemed to escape my notice up until that moment... in minutes i have added darks and lights, colours to enhance, greens for foliage, browns for wood - it's always the same, i play and then it all gets put away... how nice it would be to record it somehow

 a place to keep all the bits and pieces that, when cobbled together, are the making of me

of course it must be a book... it's always about books

a small book to take with whilst travelling... one that is not precious but still something special 

for years a little book sat on my writing table, a bought book with a tooled leather cover and the most beautiful paper inside

in february of 2016, a few scraps of japanese yarn-dyed woven fabrics were being shuffled around my worktable for the umpteenth dozen time when it occurred to me they could be stitched together in boro fashion and make an interesting piece of cloth 

i stitched the fabrics onto a page, made a note but then thought if it was such a good idea why not start right away?

and so i did

nothing else has been added to this book since that day which makes it the perfect choice 

next was to gather up some of the lists scattered here and there from the times i was thinking my way through what i like and what i don't

as these lists already have good homes they'll stay where they are but the enduring bits will be recorded in the new book and then continued in there

the lists above and below were written years apart and yet the essence is the same

this next page was an interesting one to do

can't remember exactly when it was done but i had decided i wanted a list of what mattered to me in my making from a thinking perspective rather than from a descriptive one

 this book is not meant to be a sketchbook in any way, not a how-to or a reference of ideas - rather, it will be a book of ideals

"a principle to be aimed at"

a place to jot things down as they are observed, to add a snippet of fabric to that has become a constant in my work, to capture that colour combination that is intriguing me though there is no plan as to what to do with it

this isn't a project, not a thing to spend days or weeks working on, just one place to keep the bits and pieces that reflect the "me" part of my work

hence the title

"the "making" of me"