Saturday, September 27, 2025

A Thinking Thing


it's a cool windy Saturday, rain in the offing... a thin sun slants through the clouds every now again

we've just arrived home from our latest travels, a twelve hour car-ride to south-western Oregon to visit family and I'm reflecting on the week that's just been

my sister-in-law is a creative as well, at the moment she is immersed in spinning and weaving, having recently raised sheep for six years

I had taken my calligraphy and brush lettering supplies but a trip to a textile centre on Day 2 of our visit waylaid all of that... I left the store with a drop spindle and roving in tow, it was a Reeves-Schacht spinning wheel that followed her home 




a whole new learning curve for each of us but what great fun it turned out to be

I found two short but good YouTube videos and got right to work

a bit of trial and error but as I wasn't looking for perfect I was rather pleased with how things went

 (which should be no surprise given my penchant for texture, irregularity, and roughness)




over the next week I worked with wool from one her sheep, a shetland that was blended with alpaca (the off-white skein below),  an unlabeled medium-grey roving she had that was too short for her needs, and the darker brown (mixed wool and shetland) roving I had purchased

once I felt comfortable with the drop spindle she brought out some washed raw fleece, pulled away a large chunk, and handed it to me with the words "have fun" along with a pair of English wool combs

a bit of a learning curve to take raw fleece and make it into a roving but I got there and its the mixed grey on the left below

then it was on to learning to ply - a bit of a challenge as with a drop spindle however you spun the spindle for making each strand,  you then have to spin the opposite way for plying

its definitely a thinking thing

below, the three yarns on the right are two ply, the one on the left is the single I combed out and spun from the raw fleece



after a few days of spinning we went to the coast to take a walk on the beach 

I found this...

a half-shell in the same colours as the yarn I had spun



seems nature has offered up a weaving pattern

a collaboration then...


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Saturday, September 20, 2025

writing the landscape

time has been elusive, the hands of the clock whirling around and around at an ever increasing speed, day and night in a constant tug-o'-war

until the snow flies, I give up

moments are captured here and there, the beauty of the pen as a tool is evident in those brief snatches

it only takes a moment to make a mark, mere seconds to write a word

one afternoon, during a brief respite, I searched out a favourite photo of river ice




using the words of Mr. Service, I literally tried my hand




there's something in this idea that fascinates me, likely will for a while yet

it needs refining

refining needs more time

time will come

the trick will be to grab it when it does

I'm ready...




take care,

jillayne

Saturday, September 6, 2025

running on empty



darkness is falling early now, the nights cool with the feel of dampness that means the heavy dew of fall is here

it always surprises me how the slightest nuance of change in nature can register and I know a shift has happened even before the results materialize

sometime its like that with my work... I can feel something in me has changed even though it hasn't manifested in the work just yet

but like Fall, I know its coming

this morning whilst doing my daily writing I felt restless, and when that feeling comes over me I know i'm in need of a clearing out of sorts though I had nothing in particular in mind

as I thought about that my eye fell on a piece of work I had just finished, some painting of the ice along the river, another re-visiting of that winter landscape

trouble was, there was just too much of the landscape in it, as if I was trying to cram every detail... guard-rail, river, icy windrows, trees, rocks - you name it, it was there

and I right away thought my drawings were what was in need of a purge

 in that moment something in my head clicked

I have been trying to simplify my drawings for a long time but have found it difficult to do that, losing my way time after time, but perhaps if I can think about it from the other way around, as a removal, that might make more sense to me

what I can erase... what can be taken away

how much can go before it's too empty?




and so I isolated, chopped, and trimmed

so much easier to decide what to remove than what not to include




the drawings I want need only enough to tell the story I want to share

and not be weighed down with what doesn't