I am still dreaming and pondering and cogitating the science of how wicking occurs on silk. This topic rolls around and around in my brain like a marble in the bathtub. Finally, my thoughts landed and I had my fiber art project for July's show in Chico, CA. I was driving home from Oakland and my prayer was- "What do I do with all this?" And out it came- "Controlled Chaos".
I now have the title, how to do it, and the colors to use. Took all of 1 minute. It was all I could do to get home and sketch it out.
The piece will be done on Crepe Backed Silk Satin -Charmeuse. This is the best silk for this project because not only does it take the color well but its drape is exquisite. I want this piece to not only glow with color but also hang well as the bottom 5' will puddle up on the floor from where it is hung.
I will be batiking about half of it, heaping on the dye, hanging portions of it to take advantage of gravity, and creating artificial hills for other parts of it to travel up and separate into the colors desired.
The overall effect I want to portray is, as stated in the title,- "Controlled Chaos". As ballet is performed in such a way as to appear effortless, so will this fiber art piece be- quite difficult to make but will appear effortless.
Want to come along for the ride? I hope so. I will take pics so you can come with me as I try to hit a home run on my first time at bat with this one...but then again....to take the analogy further- before a baseball player steps up to bat, they have had lots of practice learning the game. I've prepared extensively for this piece. Lots of dyes and lots of fabric have passed my way before attempting this one so know that; like the ballerina- I am going to try to make this look effortless.
Next posting will be April 26th. See you then. Leave a message if you want to chat. I do show up now and then to see if anyone comments on the blog.
13 comments:
Wonderful intens colours!
Thank you for sharing
Thank you Geni! I'll post more next week as I work on the next project.
wow, sounds great, look forward to see the work in progress
(DragonPoodle = Cheryl in NC from your classes)
Hey Cheryl. I almost had a chance to start yesterday and then decided that I have to clean first. All that white silk needs to be safe from the horrid mess that's down there at the moment from dyeing veils. Today I plan on working on another commission for a max of 4 hours and THEN- it's play time. I have been shoving off play time for way too long.
Thanks for the encouragement.
ooohhh, silk.....I will eventually be taking your gutta resist on silk class. just thinking about it makes me drool....
off to wipe my chin now...
Gutta resist starts today! There's still time to jump on the wagon.
ha ha! I can't even keep up with one Quilt U course, let alone two! Think I will savor the one I am taking now and look forward to this one later. "see" you there...
One time I actually took 2 QU classes and it was reallyreallyreally stressful!!! (QU teachers can take other people's classes for free- one of the benes for being on faculty...). I got all crabby and raucous. (I did use a fake name so no one would know it was me). I don't know how people do it. Amazing experience. Did I say it was stressful?
I did it once and once only, too. I ended up just giving up on one of them--and I'm retired and so (theoretically) have lots of time.
did you have a funny fake name or did you just go for something "normal"?
I made up a name which was actually really fun- fake identity as well. BUT the down side was that every time I went back to my own classes, I had to really watch it and not let the postings carry over her name at the top! That happened several times where I am answering a student's question and I posted it with "Kathy in California" at the top! Fortunately, we have access to our own forums so we can delete or fix postings so that was lucky.
Then once I posted something in the other forums with my real name at the top and I had to have the teacher fix it for me. Yes, both Carol and the other instructor knew I was in their classrooms so they were okay fixing it but I felt foolish and humbled for making them do extra work to accomodate my fun.
I'm a terrible liar (in that I do not do it very well) so have learned NOT to lie. This is a case in point- you have to keep such close tabs on your words!!!
yeah, that's what keeps ME honest--lack of brainpower to remember what I told and to whom.
what a great idea for an exhibit. the fabric should play nicely into the drape of the fabric and I like the way the puddling on the floor will contribute to the wicking of dyes up the fabric...or will it be down???
I did a piece which you can see somewhere on this blog called "She Spilled Her Guts" where a portion of it hangs down and so long that it pools up on the floor and I liked it so much that I want to do this next one the same way. I sometimes have themes that run through my work that I have to play out to the end.
Such themes I have recently explored have included: layers, absence of color, tormented emotion, sharp, friends, and now wicking and pooling.
Do any of you ever work in themes?
I think I will blog this question and should have done so yesterday but am running on fumes...will I be able to do that today? I should. Maybe I can do that right now....okay....see you in the next entry.
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