my ordinary yet dramatic life

The life that I am living through right this minute tumbles forward, all around, and is stitched into the work in my lap.

Fabrics from a challenging project become mixed in a personal lived way with my present. 

I spend quiet time with them, hours of time, using my body in gentle gestures,

to make something forever mixed with my ordinary yet dramatic life.

the tenderest thing

 softness

 honesty

 humility

 bleeding

 our bodies are a way of knowing

 and cloth is like the body

 life experience

 wisdom

day dream

trying to put heart back in

 I've been tweaking my monumentally scaled embroidery. 

It had a red center, but I removed it (see here) and I feel its loss. 
So while we were driving to the airport before our trip, I embroidered wide arcs.

And while we were driving home, I filled in an area to make the central shape rounder.

But still unsatisfied, I undo. 

The piece is 9 feet square.  With a paper pattern, I drew another line, rounder.

Used silk yarn to stitch two neutral arcs.

Just a trace remains of red now.  A rainbow fading in and out.  Maybe now it is perfect.

Getting ready to show this piece again in Oakville, during World of Threads festival.

"I have had a guilt complex about pushing my art, so much so that every time I was about to show it I would have some sort of attack.  ....On the other hand, I destroyed nothing.  I kept every fragment. 
Nowadays, however, I am making an effort to change." 

 Louise Bourgeois, when she was only 68.

The Un Doing

Over the years, in my practice as an artist, I find myself un-doing.
I'll make something beautiful, then cut it up, take stitches out
start again
It’s a real communication with the work

At first, I add
I look, I think
I add another thing. I try to imagine what the piece will look like.
I add another thing

I look ,I think
I re consider



Then I undo