color pop :: a dialogue with two talented women

i mentioned some months ago, a treasure trove of hand-dyed fabrics that i got from a artistic friend who has terminal cancer. when our local creative group chose color pop as our theme, i knew i needed to make something with the fabric scraps that she gave me. i also realized that the color palette also went with the other treasure trove of samples that another friend gave me last year. it was time to start a creative dialogue with these women. as you can see, olga (the cat formerly known as paws mcgraw) was eager to help.

i got out the scraps and ironed them and just began sewing them together - doing it in a very intuitive way without thinking too much about how it would end up. just selecting colors and sizes that fit together and just sewing and holding them up and sewing some more. as you can see, the color palette is indeed bright and fits perfectly with the theme of color pop. 

once i had enough bits and pieces, i sewed them into mini quilt rectangles, wanting them to be around the same size, so they could hang in a group of three. since we are three women, three dialogues seemed right.

dialogue 1

dialogue 2

dialogue 3

then it was time to quilt. in my stash, i found a spool of rainbow-colored thread and i knew it was perfect for this color pop project. on the back side of the quilts, i used some shibori indigo cotton that i had dyed last fall. 

i had a small fight with my sewing machine, but we worked it out in the end. 

i had a lot of trimming to do, but it felt like part of the process. i quilted in a very intuitive way as well, following the lines as i saw fit in the moment. then switching. it felt like it was indeed a dialogue with the fabrics, as they whispered to me what they wanted.

dialogue 1 - finished with binding and quilting. this was the first one i made and is my favorite. probably because i'm also a firstborn. :-) this one features only fabrics from the friend who has cancer. that wasn't actually intentional, it just happened that way. the intuitive way i sewed the bits and pieces together just happened to come together like that. 

dialogue 2 - i love the block-printed pieces at the bottom and top left - they are from the friend who gave me all the samples and works from her education at what eventually became kolding design school. 

dialogue 3 - this one is another dialogue between the three of us. i hung them on these hangers with the cute colorful clothes pins just to photograph them, but decided that it was also how i wanted to display them at the exhibition. 

the night we hung the exhibition, we got these cute little coronita beers. it took hours to find the right placement for everything. i loved how my works looked together. i had also recovered the chair i've been sitting on throughout corona with some hand-woven fabric that we acquired together with one of the looms we got for the little museum where i weave. 

i bought the beautiful hot pink fleece at a wonderful leather shop in aarhus, thinking i'd make a festive color pop pillow of it. in the end, i couldn't bring myself to cut it up, so i just draped it over the recovered chair. it looked perfect with my mini quilts and the colorful knitted hugging pillows one of the other members made. now my chair is back at my desk and the hot pink fleece and the new recovered look give me a new perspective when working at home. 

dialogues 1-2-3 and my recovered chair, which i called "working from home.”

and the beautiful skirt that my friend lent to me - it's what she made with the dyed fabrics back in the 80s. and it was FABULOUS. what a privilege to wear it. i felt absolutely amazing. i positively embodied color pop. what a beautiful day that was. i'll always be grateful for the opportunity and the dialogue.

just get writing already

thanks to my old bloggy friend, lynne, of wheatlands, i read a magnificent piece by helen brain on her writing process of her forthcoming post-apocalyptic YA trilogy. it had me thinking all day. thinking about building imagined worlds in clay, or at least drawing them as a map, maybe drawing up a timeline on the wall. you see, lynne, judith (also from the old bloggy days) and i are working on a project together - a project that we hope becomes a novel.  or rather, not that we hope will become a novel - a project that WILL become a novel.

but for that to happen, we need to get writing and i'm weirdly struggling with that. it's strange, because i actually love to write and although i'm out of practice, i feel it's like riding a bike, i will be able to do it again if i just try. but, i'm having trouble sitting down and doing it. and i'm not sure why.

i listened to stephen king's on writing on audible and he basically says that you just have to sit down and do the work, day after day. and look at all that he's produced! and he did it drunk, high and hung over for many years, so surely i can manage when i'm none of those and have plenty of time to devote to it.

so what's stopping me? fear that what i write won't be good enough for my writing partners? fear that the words won't come? distractions - the internet, master chef, netflix, litterboxes to pick, laundry to do, dinners to make. i think, "today i'll be able to settle in after i make a nice coffee for myself. or just after i have some lunch." but somehow, the settling in doesn't happen. i get fidgety in front of the keyboard and the writing doesn't come.

i sometimes wonder if i'm in the midst of a mild depression. i'm not sure i'd be able to discern the difference between it and everyday life. january and february are the darkest, most dreary months in these northern latitudes and that doesn't help me. you'd think a steady rain outside would be just what i need to keep me indoors in front of the computer, but alas, instead it renders me sluggish and uninspired and a bit grey myself and as much as it should, it does not make me sit down and write. (that's not strictly true, as i am sitting down and writing this.)

i love the story we're working on - a story of a brave, amazing young dutch woman who sailed as a man with the dutch east india company, was exposed along the voyage and put ashore in the burgeoning cape colony. there she met abraham, an aging pillar of the new community, who married her and they had a child before it was revealed that she was already married and she was sentenced to bigamy and banished back to europe. and all of this is true! we just have to weave it into a historical novel and bring her story to life.

maybe it's there that the pressure lies - the idea of telling her story and doing it justice is a bit daunting. she must have been so brave and adventurous to set off on that journey, how do we find her voice?  all i know is that i certainly won't find it by sitting here, not writing anything.

and so i turn back to helen brain's good advice to herself..."Maybe all that was needed for my book was the courage to push myself into unknown territory. Maybe I could immerse myself in my subconscious, and let the book filter up from the depths, instead of trying to force it to conform to my conscious process."

or maybe i should just get writing.

procrastinating

as i often do with a deadline looming, i find myself procrastinating - making detailed lists, skimming a few chapters of "podcasts for dummies," updating the trello boards (yes, they are really just more lists), going through scads of photos to choose which ones should be sent for retouching (not a priority), writing this...doing things, but not the things i should be doing as i'm careening towards that deadline. doing things only tangentially related to the task at hand. doing things to prepare for doing the task at hand but not actually doing the task itself. why do i do this? why do i need to feel the sharp blade of the axe whispering against my skin in order to get to it? alas, it's not there yet, and so the procrastination continues...

* * *

oh to be a poet of procrastination.

* * *

i've been thinking that america looked like an empire in decline for some time now.
apparently i'm not alone.

* * *

perhaps a reason to start running?

* * *

i jumped on the fire & fury bandwagon and ordered the book.
maybe i shouldn't have.

another successful drink & draw weekend

i had a little weekend getaway with a few friends. one of them has moved over to fyn (the island between us here on the "mainland" and the big island where they keep copenhagen) to an idyllic little village and opened a gallery and B&B. so charming! and she's got a beautiful studio, where she showed us how to do the monoprint technique she's been working with of late. we used "china paper" - a thin, but surprisingly strong paper that can take a lot of layers of paint and texture.

so much fun. we each chose a color palette and after a walk, to gather bits and bobs from nature, we settled in to work. we used a variety of techniques - painting with acrylics, using gel pens, printing with feathers and plants, slowly building up texture on our pieces.

i found myself working with mustard yellow, teal, payne's grey (it looks quite black in these photos) and a peachy color that i mixed, plus the odd metallic gold accent. it was interesting how we were each drawn to a specific palette that i'm not sure any of us consciously knew we had in our heads.

some of my pieces worked and some didn't. some worked for awhile and then stopped working. it was an interesting process and one which i thoroughly enjoyed, but never really felt i had control over.

through it all, we laughed and drank some wine and enjoyed some good vegetarian chili, told stories, shared and laughed some more. we had moments of silence, deeply concentrating on our work, and then more laughter and sharing. it was that kind of powerful feminine medicine that you just need once in awhile.

i was surprised by the direction some of my pieces took - these two got rather dark after i became inspired to use a bit of dusty grey pastels on them, giving them a very different look than my other, bright pieces (underneath, the palette is the same). and some of my old favorite helleristning motifs came out from somewhere in my subconscious. it felt right, like moments of flow always do.

here's the end result of one of the others - i think you can tell that she's actually educated as an artist.

this friend did two rounds of the small sheets of chinese paper, with very different color palettes. she felt the second round went much better than the first. but sometimes it does take warming up when you're learning a new technique.

and our hostess, who had been working with the technique for some time, made some beautifully textured, multi-layered pieces. beautiful to see the individual ways our creativity manifested itself, expressing something utterly unique, using similar materials. magical. we definitely need to do this more often.

what does a creative workspace look like?

i've been pondering what makes the physical surroundings of a workspace creative. because it strikes me that just filling it with creative people doesn't necessarily do the trick. i've been pondering this for awhile and have collected quite a lot of inspiration on a couple of pinterest boards - kulturhus and stationen (co-working). interestingly, some of the first photos i pinned were of a workspace in LEGO's project house, several years before i ever started working there. the space looks amazing - with light, open spaces, bright colors and even includes a slide.

it's a light, bright open space and you can look down upon it from above. but even in most of the photos, there aren't any people working in the space (that could, i grant, be because the photos were purposely taken when hardly anyone was around). the photos represent a common area, and what they don't show is that they are surrounded by a traditional open workspace filled with normal office desks (which can raise and lower, of course). they also don't show the noise factor and the fact that if anyone actually uses the slide, it's quite disturbing to those working around it.

there are small meeting rooms overlooking the space. this meeting room, while colorful and (of course) filled with danish designer furniture (arne jacobsen 7 chairs and a peit hein super ellipse table), looks pretty small and cramped to me. and what about the distraction of looking down on the bustling workspace below or having those below be able to look up? does that promote or hinder creativity?

the cabinets there are filled with LEGO in all sorts of shapes, colors and sizes where the designers go to get the materials of their creativity. these cabinets are found in many areas around the company and there is something delightful about having all of those creative materials at hand.

this couch looks inviting and like a great place for an informal sparring session or impromptu chat. however, it's right above the big space below and it feels like everyone would be able to hear your conversation. this could be bad if you're discussing something confidential, but it could just also be quite disturbing to those trying to work below. especially as conversations in LEGO can take place in many different languages.

and stepping back a little bit, you can see that there's another informal workspace, just beside this couch, where it's even more obvious that the spaces are potentially more disruptive to work than facilitating it.

interestingly, every aspect of this area was thoroughly thought-through and deemed to be very creative and to promote creativity. all of the intentions were in place. but, in my opinion, it just doesn't work. it's too open, too many desk-laden areas are adjacent and it's too disruptive to getting work done. but i don't necessarily have any answers as to what would be better. i have an intuition that it involves getting rid of outlook and powerpoint as the main tools of people's work. and i also have an idea that it doesn't involve big, open spaces, but little, enclosed cavelike ones, to which people can retreat and do solitary, intensive work and then re-emerge and engage with others. i'm not sure precisely what that looks like. but i'm pretty sure it doesn't involve noise-canceling headphones for the entire department.

i suspect similar amazing-looking, well-intentioned spaces at google and various co-working places are equally not conducive to creativity.

i've got this book, on the evolution of workspaces, on my order list.  and after i published this, i came across this article on how etsy tackles the problem. and then i came across this one, which i think has some great ideas.

what do you think an ideal creative workspace would look like?

tho' it's totally unlike me to use someone else's photos, i did in this post. all photos came from here. 

pinspiration no. 4 + a bit of randomness

we awoke to a sparkling frosty morning, so i had to run out and grab some bokeh. soon the frost will be totally gone and i won't have another chance for months and months. right? the frost will go soon, right?

then, i settled in with pinspiration no. 4 and a cup of tea. the sunshine was bright and kept beckoning me outdoors, so progress was slow.

our baby bunnies are 3 weeks old today and are VERY active now. i cannot tell you how much we enjoy our bunnies - way more than i ever would have imagined. and baby bunnies? they're like miniature, whole complete rabbits. perfection.

and my pinspiration no. 4 dragonfly. here's the beautiful original i was inspired by. it was hard to cut into the vintage cross stitch, but i like how it turned out, tho' it's far from the perfection of the originals by mr. finch. it's an interesting exercise to basically indulge in someone else's art. which in my view (and picasso's) is perfectly ok if you're not doing it for commercial gain. this, for me, was an exercise in forcing myself to cut into a vintage textile, as well as to find materials around me to work with...some waxed cord as feelers and some little wire legs. for the body i used a bit of cotton that was trimmed off some old curtains and had been soaked in black beans at one point. as you can tell, most of that "dye" rinsed out. it was a good exercise for me in many ways - both freeing and yet awkward. but it has pushed my thinking towards making something entirely my own.

but in the meantime, it looks very pretty on the branch i hung on the wall in the living room a few days ago. and i'm learning a whole lot from this making something i've pinned on pinterest thing.

* * *

i listened to this on repeat (more times than i care to admit):

it seems a little lame to be enamored of belgian house music, but there you have it.
i mean really, belgium?

* * *

and i'm longing for something like this in my community.
nice to know it's good to be bilingual.
and tho' we already knew it, it's hip to use natural dyes.
oddly, this seems like me. in danish.
and this is an interesting question to ponder.
ikea. more than just crack meatballs.
blown away by this work.

messenger bag in a morning

 

i work best under pressure. sabin declared last week that she wanted me to make her a new gym bag for school.  she even got out a stack of fabric she wanted me to use, but do you think i started the bag?  this morning, she declared that i was going to be in a lot of trouble if i didn't finish it in time for her to use it tomorrow. and suddenly i was motivated. i got straight to work, making it up as i went along, using bits and pieces of natural linen and bright echino fabrics and here i give you the end result. a sort of messenger-style gym bag. i only used the fabrics she selected for the lining on the inside - i hope she won't mind! if she doesn't like it, i'll definitely use it myself.

what's interesting is that making it feels like it cleared out a creative block i've had, feeling a bit stuck on my cut out & keep quilt project.  while i was sewing this, the back of the cut out & keep quilt popped into my head, fully formed. i've had about six different versions of it laid out, but none of them seemed right, but now, i know exactly what to do.

i'm going to remember this the next time i'm stuck...i'll give myself permission to work on something else. sometimes i deny myself that pleasure because i have a tendency to be a serial project starter and a bit of a reluctant project finisher. but it seems my creative process needs multiple projects and quick wins. like a messenger bag in a morning.

collecting III: the fabric stash

probably my most extensive collection is of fabrics. it's gotten a bit better since i began to focus on organic cottons with bee charmer, but still, it's pretty crazy. i have repurposed the wooden boxes our weekly organic food delivery comes in and they make great storage. plus, they bring a new one every week, so i can keep adding to the stash and always have enough storage.

some months back, my mom expressed disbelief that i had all that fabric without knowing what i was going to make of it. but i don't need to have something in particular in mind. i choose colors and prints that i love, and feel a nearly giddy happiness just looking at it and knowing that whenever inspiration strikes, it's there, waiting for me.

at the moment, i'm totally enamored of the cloud9 fabrics that i made the dresses out of. and i'm working on that big cut out & keep quilt again. i wasn't happy with some of it, so i uncharacteristically spent a lot of time taking out some seams and rearranging a bit and now it's getting there.

being surrounded by beautiful fabric makes me happy. i can sense a nearly audible hum in the air...the hum of potential. and at times, i swear the fabrics whisper to me and tell me what i should make of them. so it would be crazy not to have plenty of their little voices at hand. right? right?  ok, i do realize this makes me sound like some kind of crazy lady, but still, the stash makes me happy. and it begins to be evident that happiness is what's at the heart of all of this collecting.

creative process or wherein she justifies an afternoon nap

i'm working on a quilt using heather moore's wonderful cut out & keep, the design she did for cloud 9. there really is a difference in the organic cottons - they're softer and just nicer to work with. if you follow my boards on pinterest, you know i have pinned a whole lot of beautiful quilts of late. i was looking for just the right thing to do with these wonderful fabrics and so i got loads of inspiration. and then i did something completely different.

it's the first time i've come up with my own design and i'm pleased with how it's turning out. it's a little bit planned and a little bit intuitive.  despite the drawing i did with the plus quilt i made of the other cloud 9 line - nature walk - i didn't draw this one out. i also stuck to making blocks, as it was an easier way to ensure i used each of the 8 fabric designs in equal measure. after doing some experimentation in free form piecing with some echino fabrics the other day, i also have concluded that there is a reason why quilters for centuries have made blocks.

as i had all of the blocks finished yesterday afternoon, i kind of hit a bit of a creative wall. i felt they blended together a bit too much once they were all laid out. the fabrics didn't get a chance to shine like i wanted them to. you can judge for yourself in the top photo. what's odd is what this creative block does to me. it makes me suddenly feel overwhelmingly tired. and i find that i need to lie down and close my eyes for a little bit. the creative block triggers some kind of whole system shut down and i simply have to have a little nap. what i want to know is whether anyone else recognizes this phenomenon. if i have a 15-20 minute nap, i'm refreshed and ready to work again. i'm wondering a little bit if this is normal or something i shouldn't be admitting out loud.

i'm still not completely sure how it's going to end up, but there will undoubtedly be some cream sashing in some form or other. another thing that really helps me as i'm laying out a quilt is photographing it and walking away. looking at the photos on the computer really helps. i can definitely see things onscreen that i somehow can't see when i'm looking at the actual quilt. one of the things i notice in looking at these, as that i was subtly influenced by our moroccan rug in my design (you can see it best in the top photo).

i love these fabrics and this definitely won't be the only quilt i make with this beautiful line.