it works

It Works!

A friend stopped by the studio this week with the gift of a mini toy sewing machine from the 60's.

It got me thinking about icons. I avoid representation in my work but oh, sewing machines ... it's hard to resist the lure of adoring them, isn't it? I do love them. They are so simple and good. Danny Mansmith gets it, of course. 

Danny Mansmith's "The Waiting Spirits"

The mere act of lashing one slice of fabric to another with thread is small and large at the same time, the stuff of metaphor and art and I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. What else would the daughter of a machinist and a home-ec teacher do? Well, after trying everything else first, ha ha.

"This is my life's work." - Andy Goldsworthy, after a pile of rocks fell over, again.

staring at the studio ceiling

Studio morning so far.

Wasted time on facebook, drank coffee.

Stared at the ceiling for a while under the premise of stretching my neck.

Why I need a premise when I'm here alone is another story.

Now I turn to this:

folds and stitches, in black

I'm not really sure what it is.

Well it's a dress, and it's black.

But I've draped and carved it in a way I've never worked before,

using seams and pleats and paring it down from a large piece of fabric, just like I used to carve fish out of bars of Ivory Soap when I was a kid. It's spare, refined, minimalist, stark, mysterious. I like it.

It's almost done. I don't know yet if it works. It's scary and exciting, in the way that our work scares and excites us: everything is on the line. Nothing is on the line.