No apologies

No apologies for the lack of postings. I've been busy. (That's an excuse, not an apology).

I've been spending some good time in the studio, but trying not to be too frenzied about cranking out fabric. I've got a couple of pretty pieces and one that I can't figure out. It's either dead ugly or it's going to turn into something. I just don't know. Let's start with the good looking stuff.

This is nice.



Overprinting with a mask made it better, and I think that some embellishment and quilting might finish it.



This is from early this week. It's 2 yards long! I never print this size at home because it's hard to move around the table. At the studio I'm using the same print board, but there's so much room! It washed out very well and, with luck, will get another layer today.



So now for the problem child. It started out pretty good. It was done with a polychromatic screen released wet (i.e., not deconstructed).



Did it get better? Perhaps.



The red was a bit if an F#$% up if you ask me.After steaming and washing out the orange lost some of its strength. We're not going in the right direction.



Scissor are the answer, right? And how about some charcoal drawing? The color palette is wrong to my eye. It's weak. It looks like somebody had a terrible accident with a sorbet dessert tray.



Green circles, darkening from top to bottom Humm.


I just don't know. The working title that came out during the process of making this monster is "Seeds of Change". I think it has something to do with too many political speeches about "Change". I wanted Hillary. I got Obama. After the speech last night I feel better about that than I did before.

Well this cloth is like a mosquito bite right now: every time I scratch it, it seems to get worse. I think it needs to rest for a while.

Now I'm going to go stretch a couple of new silk screens then off to the studio. I made 6 new frames last night. One of the advantages of getting the print table out of the basement is that I now have no reservations about making a mess with the table saw. My woodworking shop has come back to life!

Studio pictures as promised

Here's a panoramic view of my new studio. It's huge--really huge! I moved in today with help from Dan and our friend Mary Frances. It was a long tiring day but with three people we really seemed to make quick work of it. I went back this evening for a couple of hours and got dye concentrate mixed so I should be in business tomorrow.

I continue to be surprised that this day actually came.

Moving day

The lease for the studio is signed and today's the day I pick up the keys and move in. Wow. I'm very excited but still have a little bit of that going-over-a-waterfall kind of feeling. I hope I'll have pictures to post later today. For now I suppose I should start packing up. This seems less intimidating that packing for a workshop. There should be fewer weighty decisions about what to pack.

But, the most pressing immediate need is coffee...

More later.

Getting organized

I know I'm not alone in this. My life seems to be an ongoing cycle of organization and disarray. I clean up and them I mess up. The railing at the top of our stairs at home is a collecting point for work in progress that's too big to leave anywhere else (and other stuff).

Here's the sad state of affairs today.


There's a queen-size quilt for our bed that's waiting to be bound. The purple thing is something that I'm just starting. And the bits of silk are part of a series of 10 scarves that I'm doing so that I have something to sell in the new studio (Move in day is this coming Friday!). Bottom line is this: I have got to get this stuff done so that it can go where ever it is that it's supposed to go. It just can't spend it's entire life in the hallway.

As I said, the studio is about to take off. I've got the contract in hand, the insurance is paid for, and I pick up the keys this Friday. I'm very excited, but I still have occasional hyperventilating moments. Am I making a commitment that's bigger than I can live up too? Those moments seem to pass quickly and I keep moving (or floating) forward.

There's so much to do. I've got to do some packing and figure out how much is going to the studio and how much is staying home. I think it's going to take awhile to work out the balance. One of my big questions is what to do about dye. I've switched over to working exclusively with dye concentrates. I mix known concentrates of primary colors then mix everything else from those. I've found that the shelf life of the concentrates is greatly extended by refrigerating them. The same holds true for sodium alginate pint paste (NB: adding 1 tsp of denatured alcohol per quart to the alginate mixture helps too). So, do I buy a little dorm fridge for the studio? Do I just let the stuff go bad faster at room temperature? Or do I schlep it back and forth (not likely!)? This is the stuff I can't figure out. Since my studio time is going to be a little spotty, I'm leaning toward the fridge. Opening up a container of spoiled alginate and getting a face full of the disgusting ammonia smell is just about enough to ruin my day!

A final note on color. I snapped this photo last week in the Bishop's Garden on a visit to the National Cathedral. What amazing colors. I need to do something with this.