A commitment to the studio and my art

This could also be titled The Move #1385. I'm getting comfortable with fluidity and the maelstrom of moving into our new home which remains largely a beautiful space on a building site. It's easy to let those other "things" happen at the cost of studio time and arts practice. I'm inspired, a lot, by that deeper understanding that everything will always be needing attention and there will always be something or someone wanting to divert attention from the studio. To make sure it doesn't happen, I'm keeping tabs on my studio time, and more importantly my commitment to at least 1.5 hours a day (so that's 10+ hours a week worst case scenario) that I'm immersed in what grows my soul and brings me joy. The kind of joy where I lose all sense of time, and it's only the aching bones that suggest it's time to stop. That wondrous feeling of being immersed to the point of no distraction. When I'm in that space, I'm a better person and better able to deal with the necessary intrusions and interactions that simply happen.

Comments

Making progress Trees #2

It's all in the background - designing substrate

Scaling up an image of the Brisbane River to develop the substrate for a new art quilt. Each square needs to be 6cm x 6cm to make a finished size of 5 cm square. I created a "to scale" model of the finished quilt on drafting paper. I printed an image of the river (attribution below) and then scaled it up to get a fairly accurate flow across the quilt. The substrate rightly tells the background story. It is the foundation on which the main elements or features reside. So it isn't the "hero" of the piece - it needs to be recognised and visible without overwhelming the piece. I can now easily identify which squares hold a section of the river and start to experiment on piecing, applique, fusing, printing, and painting to learn which gives the best outcome for the substrate. (Brisbane River original image: Magpie Shooter; edited version Paulguard at en.wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/indix.php?curid=9724127) My foundation piece might well end u...

The mess before the beauty

The excavator's words have stuck in my head, rent free. ' I have to make one hell of a mess before it can become beautiful. There is no beautiful end without the mess '. Or words to that effect. The retaining walls at the back of the house have to be finished before anything else can happen in the yard - and in between downpours, a few expletives and more rain, it has beena testing time for all involved in the construction. I thought about his words - and the effort of making a quilt from scratch. The planning, drawing, testing, dyeing, playing, creating, starting again, creating and the final 'ah ha'. There is so much 'mess' before a quilt is resolved becomes a thing of meaning and beautiful in its own way. Blessed are the excavators.

Ali George Artist

Search This Blog