hoop by hoop

 one thing at a time

slowing down
hoop by hoop.
I don't need much really.
This enforced quiet time is just what I've been wanting.
hoop by hoop

I use the hoop as a design tool
I stay within its boundary
not planning but trusting
I'm not sure it will be OK

 "living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what next or how
the moment you know how
you begin to die a little"  agnes de mille

an emergence
an unfolding
hoop by hoop
like nature does
hoop by hoop

the creative act is miraculous
it is defined by its situation

we are defined by our situation

studied simplicity
the world's fragility
the connection of textiles and healing
hoop by hoop

this piece is very large  (nearly 9 feet square)
the size means that it is part of my life for years
three years just for the stitching

hoop by hoop

this cloth is physical evidence
of hours of labour
of silence
of stillness
of healing for body and soul

 "the repetitive motion of a line
the caress of it
the licking of wounds
the back and forth
the endless repetition of waves
the rocking a person to sleep
an endless gesture of love"  Louise Bourgeois

hoop by hoop
made with the body
not the mind
with the heart and the empty quiet

you never know what's going to happen
please let me be myself and love me for it
hoop by hoop

grace

 To remind her about the lake at home, when the moon is full

 To repeat and repeat that I love her

To advise that life is imperfect, beautiful, risky, brief

Visit here for more about this new piece.

Editing Out

Textile artwork in a mainstream art show is very problematic. Textiles are too 'material' and quilting is REALLY problematic. If you show five textile pieces, the one that you'll have the most problems with in a fine art context is the quilt. People are sniffy about cloth art because it is so immediate and familiar.

Quotes from my tutorial with Catherine Dormor this morning. We were discussing textile practice within a fine art context and the difficulties that all of us who work with cloth and fibers face.

These are real issues and have no bearing on the quality, craftsmanship and conceptual underpinnings of one's work. They are issues that we need to be aware of even if we choose to work as we feel driven to work. Not to do so would be naive.

I'll miss discussions like this.

The artists who have managed to get textiles into the main stream of fine art have been established as fine artists first. Even an artist such as Magdalena Abakanowicz now mutes her textile past.

cloth

silk organza coloured with hawberry above, blueberry below a layer of organza coloured with cone flower stems, leaves and flowers plus iron silk-wool gauze coloured with blackberry bramble, goldenrod, sumac, blueberry, hawthorn, and blackberry/iron nine square feet of silk-wool gauze, willow on top, rudbeckia/iron below this is hemp, previously coloured with encaustic. It was simmered in an alum solution with other coloured fabrics and received their colour beautifully.

I have quite a lot of naturally dyed fabrics, now to listen to them.

leaf

There's something lively about these tucks. Slowly made yet allegro.

singing

layered indigo cloth procion freeze dyed with tucks the horizontal and the vertical together

Dyed fabrics manipulated with hand stitch.
Flickering shadows are cast.

I have eleven new ideas, all large.
None done.
Just details shown here
(and I AM SO HAPPY!)