Off The Wall

Some supplies sit around and gestate for quite a while before they finally become something. During that time, they seem to either become far more precious or not at all precious, as in approaching garbage, of which neither is the truth. They are simply something to work with.

This cordage was made from strips of burgundy broadcloth that was part of a collection of fabrics a friend gave me when she was cleaning out her studio in preparation to move from Canada to Spain. She is a weaver so she'd chosen most of the fabrics for backings. Broadcloth is great for that but not something I'd use on the surface of my work. I cut it into strips, twisted it, and zigzagged over top to hold the twist, making rope. That was a few years ago. It was labour intensive so even though I wasn't using it, I wasn't going to give it away only that was starting to frustrate me so when I finally did find a way to use it, what fun!

It sat until I started my course with Harriet Goodall called Form to Freedom: Weaving for Fibre Sculpture and used it as the wrapping fiber for the twining exercise. The stakes that I wove over were the inside core of piping I'd reclaimed from an upholstery cover. My goal was less about the finished piece and more about learning how to hold my hands, learning how to work from left to right and from right to left, and learning the possible advantages or disadvantages of a high contrast between the stakes and the wrap.

If I were making the rope now, I would make individual lengths. Back then, I made one long continuous piece by knotting them together. Instead of cutting off the knots and weaving in the ends, I decided to embrace them and let them be part of the texture.

When I finished wrapping, I tied knots at the top to finish the stakes and painted them to co-ordinate. The match was only close and I didn't like the way that looked or the way the cream stakes showed through on the rest of the piece. I attempted to cover the bottom portion with paper clay only it wouldn't stick so...

... I applied overlapping bits of cheesecloth with gel medium, let it dry, and spray painted the vessel with a flat, black acrylic paint. On the inside, the black fades out so some of the original burgundy is still visible.

The knots at the top ended up looking like little beads which is quite fun. The vessel looks great.. better than in the pictures.. and received compliments this morning when I showed it to an artist friend. I think it's pretty good for one of my first forays into three dimensional work. In one of the modules, Harriet talks about not just making vessels and to think about putting work on the wall as well. That made me laugh since I've been doing two dimensional wall work for decades and have just decided to get off the wall and work with three dimensions. It's so important to have some kind of criteria for the work you're doing. You don't need to know everything but you definitely need to know enough to guide your explorations. Right now, for me, that's vessels no matter how many wall ideas start jumping around in my brain. I was talking about my new work with a friend and she asked me a technical question and I didn't know the answer. YES YES - that made me SO HAPPY... to not know. A lot of my vessel making time so far has been taken up with experiments, most of which don't work, and delightful journeys into how can I and what if questions. It's hard to describe how much I am enjoying not being the expert and learning something new. It wasn't easy to get here. I tried a lot of different mediums before this one said yes, yes, explore me. What I can say is if you're a bit bored with your work, try something new. Talk soon,