With this blog, I’m continuing on my quest for documenting my own Personal Archeology, otherwise known as cleaning out the studio. I’ve had a long connection with textiles over the years, as evidenced by this very crude embroidery that I did in late high school/early college. I remember that it ended up on the walls of my first apartment, and was sort of indicative of that rough,untutored style of the early 70s. Everybody was into a lot of macrame and we crocheted with our fingers. Those “hippie” days were about being in touch with ourselves and the materials and craftsmanship was not much of an issue.
The large stitches on the gold burlap backing didn’t fare too well over the years. The untreated, stained wooden frames that stretched the burlap gradually leached tannin into the backing material. Conservation and composition wise, this piece was a disaster, but maybe it spurred a few conversations over some nice dinners.
Here’s another piece that I’ve been keeping maybe twenty years to include in the right project. It hasn’t come up yet. To the untutored eye, it might appear as a pile of colorful dryer lint. It’s actually a felted wool sample made in a felt making workshop I attended years ago. Some colored wool roving (strands of wool not plied or woven yet) was dampened and compressed under heat to make this base. You can see where a few black and white strands of plied yarn were overlaid to outline some of the areas before the heat was applied. The result, to my eyes, is an amorphous blob that never inspired me to do anything else with it. There are some amazing pieces of art work being done these days with felted wool, but in my opinion, this sample was not one of them, so it stayed in a drawer until my recent cleaning campaign.
This weaving sample will probably still stay on the wall of my studio where it has lived for over thirty years. About 12″ or 30.5 cm tall x 10″ or 25.5 cm wide, it’s the result of a six week long class that I took at the Smithsonian in the early 70s. Their Smithsonian Associates Program has taught fantastic art classes for over 40 years, and the products of those classes were a great way for me to build my portfolio to get into graduate school at the Maryland Institute College of Art. This particular class involved having someone shearing a sheep for us, then we carded the wool and then hand spun it with drop spindles to make the yarn. Natural dyes such as various flowers and onion skins were utilized to color the yarns and then finally they were woven into this crude sample. (Hippie days weren’t over yet, remember?) This small output of six weeks worth of work just made me grateful that I didn’t have to depend on my own devices to clothe a family, as they would have had to go naked most of the time if it had been left up to my efforts.
I’ve dabbled in a lot of different media over the years until I finally settled on art quilts as my fav. However, perhaps if I had practiced more on other techniques they would have become more developed. It certainly has been interesting as I’ve been opening boxes and drawers in my studio to give myself some sense of control over my stash. Control however, can be just an illusion, but at least I feel better about having less “things”, as not as many boxes are crashing to the floor these days.
What kinds of former creations have you found lately and what feelings did they evoke? Any regrets as you cull your stash, or have you found a successful way to re-purpose them?
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I found one old piece of cross-stitch that I worked back in the 8th grade (c. 1978 in other words) and never framed, etc. I threw it out because that was such a horrible time in my life that I couldn’t bear to look at anything that reminded of that time.
Otherwise, pretty much everything that passes through my hands get used or repurposed or passed along to someone else!
Dear Erin, thanks for being open and sharing about that painful time in your life. I know how seeing certain objects can bring up memories that we’d rather not deal with. I’m interested in hearing about something that you re-purposed. What was one of the more clever things that you turned into something else, as I LOVE to hear how people use their creativity? (Wait until one of next week’s blogs when I bring out some really embarrassing stuff I had been saving!)