Studio Kit

Hello again, and happy March!

The days are flying by really quickly aren't they?

I've got a lot to share with you today, so let's just jump right in shall we?

Day 7/100

I've been following a woman called Lisbeth Degn on YouTube. I quite like her, but a: her videos are the type that you actually have to watch - you can't just have her cheerfully nattering away in the background; and b: her videos are quite long.

Consequently, I have to have quite a bit of undivided time set aside to spend with her, and as a result of that, I tend to watch her videos once per month, or even once every couple of months.

Day 5/100

This time, I had an MRI scheduled for 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, so I booked a personal day off work, and when I got home around 7, I just got back in bed and decided to watch her until I fell asleep.

I ended up watching about 6 hours of her videos, in which she talked about two challenges. One, she has joined, and the other, she is hosting herself.

Day 6/100

I decided to join both, but since her challenge started in January, and the other one started last week, I have/had a lot of catching up to do. This post is about #the100dayproject.

As you can probably put together, the 100 day project is one in which you make a piece of art every day for 100 days.

Day 10/100

I have a TON of painted papers - long time readers may remember that I wipe up/use up my paint waste with good quality paper towels, which I then dry, iron (make sure to iron in a well ventilated room - I'm pretty sure the fumes that off gas in that process aren't good for you), and then put to use in my art.

However, I've been doing this for 20 years now, and I have more of this painted paper than I can conceivably use.

Day 3/100

I decided that this project would be an excellent way to use up some of this paper, so decided my broad area of applied art would be "collage", and since I've been wanting to improve my watercolour skills, I decided to make my media watercolour paints, watercolour crayons, and watercolour pastels.

The first one I was just trying to get my hand in, mucking about - throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, as they say.

Day 1/100

This one is about half the size of the others (which are 8x10 300 gsm watercolour paper), and the first thing I realized; was that I didn't like the size. Although making small pieces means it takes less time, 4x8 just felt too piddly.

And I also realized that trying to do a figurative water colour every day (which I did years ago and was my introduction to watercolour); PLUS add a collage element, was going to take WAY too much time.

Day 2/100

So, I immediately switched to a larger size, and to abstract. That seemed to suit me better, although (possibly) it wasn't much of a time saver, as each piece takes me at least 2 hours - some of them 3!

That said, once I switched to abstract, I immediately started having a lot more fun.

I am enjoying the freedom of abstract art, although for me anyway, it's even more difficult than figurative work.

Day 9/100

Finding balance is always prominent in my mind as I'm working, but also assigning meaning to what I'm doing is difficult, too.

What I mean by that, is not that I'm trying to have the viewer find meaning in it, but that I don't want to just haphazardly slap stuff on it, and call it good.

Day 4/100

I haven't studied abstract art, so I don't know what the rules are, but I assume there are some, and knowing what they are would be helpful. Lol

At its most basic, do we use the law of thirds? The golden ratio? I have a dim idea that abstract art is about knowing and being absolutely sure of all the rules in traditional art, so you can "throw them out" in order to make non representational work. Colour, line, texture, pattern and composition - as in all forms of applied art are important, I'm assuming. lol

Day 8/100

Well, I certainly can't say I'm an expert at traditional work, so maybe I shouldn't be trying abstract work, but after pounding out 10 of these in 28 hours, over 4 days I can say the following:

I am exhausted. Lol
My right shoulder is extraordinarily sore
When I'm tired, my ideas are fairly mundane
Some of these are more successful than others, regardless of whether I was tired or not
So far, days 3-8 feel like "Kit", (3 and 4 less so, but on their way); while 1 and 2 don't feel like me at all, and 9 feels so little like "me", it may as well have been channeled through me by someone else. Which totally sucks, because I absolutely loved the paper that strip on the left was made from, and was saving it for years for "something special".

Alas.

So, I'm learning, what I like and what I don't like, and I'm beginning to learn something about composition.

Anyway, next post should be catch-up on the challenge that Lisbeth is hosting (although I haven't even started that one yet). It's a stitch challenge, and it's a much more doable one project per week!

Nevertheless, I have 8 weeks to catch up on, while keeping pace with the 100 day project.

Phew!

Hope you're all doing as well as you possibly can.

Talk soon!

I have been busy beavering away at my newest bird in (what's apparently becoming) the woodpecker series; and have many times thought I should do a new blog showing my progress. For instance, (I'll check later); but I don't think I even showed you the final incarnation of the prior woodpecker.

What's been holding me up, is that I haven't found anything I wanted to talk about in particular. I know that in years past when I was blogging about my work, I usually talked about the process, what I was doing, how I was doing it, sometimes even what inspired me to do it; but with these pieces I'm just embroidering, and not even doing any fancy stitches - I remain fascinated by the "limits" of what straight stitch can do.

Process aside (after all, what can be said about the length and breadth of a straight stitch); I had an experience that put my nose, ever so slightly, out of joint. Perhaps it's more out of joint than I expected as I feel the need to blog about it - but whatever the current angle of my septum, here's where it started.

About the same time I decided to start blogging again, I also decided to start posting on my Kit Lang Art Instagram. Whereupon I discovered that somehow, though it still exists - all of my posts are gone. I don't know if that's because it was fallow for so long, the god's at Meta decided to unexist it; or, if in a fit of pique or the depths of depression, I deleted it myself 5 or 6 years ago, the result is the same. All of my work posted since the inception of Instagram until 2018 is gone, as were all of my followers.

So, despite the fact that people seem to be leaving Meta owned socials in droves, I am in the somewhat unique position of beginning again over there, only because I don't know where to deposit the photo record of this incarnation of one aspect of myself.

Whoa. I'm really in the weeds over here, aren't I? lol

So anyway, doing that has meant that I have to trawl the interwebs looking for pictures of my work. My early work in quilts and art, should be on this very blog, but two things have conspired against me. One, that I kept hopping from blog to blog (anyone remember the now defunct "Diva Quilts"? I even had it as a website at one point.) There was also "Cornflowers in Leslieville", and two or three more. I don't know what I was on about, but as I deleted those blogs and sites before finally settling here; I also deleted all of that work.

I didn't worry about it because I had all of it on "sticks"; but then, around 2013 or so, there was a flood in my studio, and the sticks, along with a lot of other stuff; was gone.

So here I am, trying to find pictures of my own work.

ANYWAY. (My lordt, I do blather.)

Some of the work has been sold, including "Beautiful Monster" above, but its owner lives here in Toronto, so I asked her if I could borrow it to take some pictures of it. She consented, so here is an unedited photo of it. (We're getting closer to the point of this post now!)

Although I haven't reached 2013 yet on my insta (where I'm still on 2008 or so, I think); I am in an embroidery group on FB, where I've lurked but have posted very little. When I edited the photos of "Beautiful Monster", I thought, hey, now I have something to post in the group!

So I posted it, and to date, it has gotten 48 likes and 2 comments. I didn't really think anything of those stats, until, that is, l noticed today that someone else's post has 2.7K likes.

I don't know why the number of likes stood out to me, but I scrolled back to have a closer look at the artist's post. It was a really cute piece, but it was mostly a well-done painted background, with (I swear) almost no stitching,

And it reminded me of back when I was making political textile art, and people tried to shame me out of making such work out of fabric; as if fabric itself is somehow sancrosanct, and ought not to be sullied with such subjects. One of the beautiful things about art, is how it has been used through the centuries as a means of protest, as a vehicle for discussion, as an expression of the artist's feelings which must burst out through their medium. But this is not, it seems, in many people's minds true of the women who use textile and thread as their vehicle.

How many (many) times over the years, have I been scolded and told "art should be pretty!"

Beautiful Monster (a piece about fast fashion) is not exactly political in nature, but does indeed make a statement, and perhaps not one that people are willing to hear, and so it gets a few vague "likes" and "loves", and two closed comments that do not invite further discussion.

Currently, for instance, The American Quilter's Society has pulled two pieces it deems "controversial" from the exhibition Color in Context: Red. One of the censored pieces entitled "Origin" by Yvonne Iten-Scott could be said to depict a vagina and labia; while the other, an abstract depiction of the Red Cross, by Laura Shaw, entitled "Your Mother, Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You", was also pulled. (Link to one of many articles, here.) The exhibition was one produced by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association - an organization I formerly belonged to, and may join again after this!); who pulled the entire exhibit in protest.

Of course, as the article points out, this is not the first time that the AQS has pulled pieces - I remember specifically Kathy Nida's piece "I was not wearing a life jacket" being pulled in 2016 from an exhibit. She and I are professional friends, and this act was devastating and angering to her.

So.

I am proud to say that my piece, "Written on the Body" was hanging in the halls as part of an exhibition at the 2012 Republican Convention, in Tampa, Florida.

The piece represented a commodified woman, crucified by legislation, political platforms and the words used to describe us, written on our bodies like tattoos.

Since 2012, I have, unfortunately, had the distinct displeasure of continually adding more legislation around the cross; and I suspect, under the current administration, there will be much more to come. (More pictures likely forthcoming as I update.)

If art cannot be used to engage one another about important issues, then what is it for?

And if we women cannot open our minds to those who use the "gentle arts" to discuss important issues in the same way, then where are we? And who, exactly, will we be in one year, two years, three years, four years?

No answers here, just speculation.

So it seems I am in favour of feathers, after all. 😁

I was too lazy to dig fabrics out of my stash, so I grabbed some cotton and painted it with acrylic paints in the required colours. An hour of drying time, and I was ready to cut some feathers.

It was so quick and easy, it really made me wonder about the point of my stash in principle.

All of we sewists, crafters, makers, take a certain amount of pride in our "stash"; the amount we have acquired admired by others (#goals), and then we hoard it away like so many dragons.

I have even, over the years, seen people refer to themselves as "fabric dragons"; (I have certainly referred to myself as a "book dragon" on many occasions!)

But seeing that young woman a couple of weeks ago, trying to distribute, donate and otherwise get rid of her mother's much beloved "stash"; seeing how it filled her daughter's hallway and living room, and the daughter's slightly harried air as she talked about individuals and non profits and scheduled pick ups...

It did make me wonder, what are we doing it for?

Are we collecting just to have it? Does the ownership of more fabric than we'll ever use in our lifetimes get us more brownie points at the gates of heaven?*

Do we "win" when our children or friends are the ones who have to deal with a towering inferno of fabric, threads, notions or *clears throat* other tricks of our various trades? Giving them responsibility for an avalanche of stuff that they don't want and didn't ask for when we're gone?

I have thought about this eventuality, and have therefore set out in my will that my fabric stash and hundreds of spools of thread are to be donated to the Textile Museum, without ever considering that it is REALLY strange that such a donation from an individual should be necessary.

Similarly, last night, while looking for something else, I found a brand new set of water colour brushes (12 in all, flat, hake, cat's tongue, rounds and riggers in multiple sizes), that I hadn't even taken out of their plastic sleeves yet (!); and when I tried to put them in my paint brush container with their new friends, they didn't fit.

I ended up spending a pleasant half an hour or so going through all of my paintbrushes, sorting them by type and size, tossing ones with damaged bristles, and ones that had been malformed by my carelessly leaving them in pots of water for too long - even that a symptom of my overbuying. If I had only one or two of each type and size, with an intention to make them last for years, rather than unintentionally viewing them as "disposable", would I have dared?

I discovered I had nearly 20 flat brushes (in 4 sizes) alone. I won't share how many round brushes I had - but can you believe that just recently, I was thinking I needed to get a size 10 round brush (because I saw an ad for one), but I learned last night, I have 6 of those - almost none of them having even been used.

How many paintbrushes will bring me happiness? How many mop brushes, in all sizes, do I need, to win The Game of Life?

I have just been buying to buy, happily, needlessly, mindlessly, consuming as every "good" Westerner should, right?

So all of this seemingly innocent "stash boosting"...is it really just a symptom of toxic capitalism? Are we encouraging each other to consume for the sake of consuming? Pushing each other to buy more and more, in a never-ending silent competition to be sitting on a pile of the most stuff?

Yes, we need to have tools to hand and materials available for our use as we create our projects.

But how much of our compulsive collecting is for this, and not for that?

Why do I need to have an entire bin full of black fabric "for my art"; when I can put some black paint on single roll of white fabric, that I can also transform into any colour and pattern I want/need at a moment's notice?

...where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness...What he opposed in it, he must attack in himself.

Salman Rushdie - Fury

Just some things I'm pondering at the moment.

Next up, I'll need to stitch those feathers down.

Maybe I'll work on that tonight. We'll see!

'Til next time.

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*I don't actually believe in heaven, but you get my point. 🙃

Last night I sat down in front of the TV, teed up The Moonflower Murders (not as good as The Magpie Murders but still enjoyable); made myself a thermos of tea, and set up a little TV tray with my sewing machine on it, and another with my iron and a towel as an ironing pad on that one.

Rather oddly, I find myself making a quilt.

I was beavering away, sewing tiny pieces of wool together, listening to the TV and occasionally looking at it. At one point I looked up, and discovered I had an audience.

She is SO. CUTE! ❤️

So, how did I come to be making a quilt, you ask?

How long a story do you want?!? 😂

You may remember that I'm a blabber, so the shortest version I can give you, is that about four years ago, I found a bunch of wool in my stash, and realized I either needed to donate it, or do something with it. I decided to make myself a hand quilted wool quilt, like the ones I grew up with.

I cleverly chose to do rather large-ish squares, but by the time all that hand-sewing was done, I was really over it, so I decided to hand-tie it rather than quilt it. And though I wasn't thrilled with the quilt itself (the colour scheme wasn't very me) I loved the result!

Several months after I made it though, my elderly cat developed urinary incontinence, and I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Eventually, I had to throw it out, as nothing would remove the smell permanently. It would seem to be gone, but it always came back. So that was the end of that, and the end of my quiting forays, I thought.

I had really wanted a wool quilt, as I had moved away from wanting to do something *different* than my aunties and grandmothers and great grandmothers, to wanting to stand in a line with them, and be part of something that stretched back hundreds of years.

However, long-time readers know that I have a few *dozen* quilts, and am in no need of anymore.

So I thought my wool quilt would have to be an emotional connection to my forbearers, without any physical proof of it, and that would have to be enough.

Cut to, this past Saturday, I was scrolling through my neighbourhood group on Facebook, and I saw a post from a woman who was giving away her mother's fabric stash. Her mother is now quite elderly, and no longer able to use it.

My neighbour posted several pictures. I gathered from them that her mom was a rug hooker, as her entire stash was wool, and mostly cut up into strips. The fabric itself, her daughter told me, was culled from old clothing.

Amongst the bags that she posted though, I saw one of fairly large chunks of royal blue and red. I asked her if I could have that one as I immediately thought about making a quilt for my grandson.

(Oh right, life update: my oldest son got married in 2019, BSP and I split up in 2020, Maggie (cat, 19), Jessie (cat, 19), Tyler (*much beloved dog, 17) all passed away within the same year and a half; two years later I got Riley (pictured); and I now have two grandchildren, a granddaughter (3.5) and a grandson (nearly 2). There! You're all caught up! 😉

So, I get to this woman's house on Sunday, and it turns out her mother's stash is VAST.

Huge bags went all the way down the hallway from the front door to the kitchen, as well as dozens more taking up half of her daughter's living room!

She had set aside the bag that I requested, but invited me to take a look.

As noted, almost all of it was cut into strips, but I saw a coat lining's worth of *this* gorgeousness thankfully uncut:

- clearly not enough for a quilt, but with some judicious additions, I think it could make an absolutely stunning throw for my bed, which is upholstered in that gorgeous rusty orange colour.

And I also saw this bag of REALLY! PRETTY!!! sage green and white plaid.

My inner fabric dragon said "It must be mine!", and my inner swamp witch said "Cut it! Cut it! Cut it now!", while dancing with joy. Lol

It was packaged in a bag with this equally beautiful soft cream wool, in exactly the same weight as the plaid. So I scooped it all up and ran home with my booty, like the "START THE CAR!!!" woman in that long-ago IKEA commercial.

I checked it all over, and it was clean, with no moth, but musty smelling, so I aired all of it out all day and night on Monday on a line on my balcony; and brought it in to dry (it snowed on Monday) all day Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, I quieted the swamp witch (who hadn't stopped yelling since Sunday) by cutting it up. She was utterly delighted.

And that's how, last night, I ended up doing this:

I will assemble the blocks tonight, and then I'll put it aside for awhile, because there won't be enough blocks to make a queen sized quilt, (I'll have 15 nine inch blocks when I'm done).

So I'll need to find other fabrics to bulk it out, and I don't imagine I'll find them immediately.

The little swamp witch wants me to embroider cream blocks with yellow flowers. (Wood sorrel, or possibly goldenrod?); but that would be crazy, right? Right? 🤣

So after I've assembled these wool blocks, I'll put them away and have a think.

Aren't you glad I told you the *short* version?

Lol

Talk to you soon-ish?

Until then, be kind to yourself and others. It's a tough old world out there.

Xo, Kit

lol I just checked the "historical posts" on my blog (because it's been literally years since I posted here); and the piece I'm going to talk to you about today is one that I started whittering about in 2018.

Six years ago!

Anyway, I've been working on this piece on and off as the mood struck me, with the bulk of the work being done in 2024.

I did the last stitches earlier today, and thought it was "done"; but maybe not?

I'll explain as we go.

So, if my math is correct, 15 years ago I bought 4 little bird panels from Linda Kemshall. (Or maybe it was Laura? I can't remember.) I bought them because I loved them, and initially intended to just frame them; but when I actually received them, I was like..." I could do something with these."

*ahem* Of course I had no idea what the "something" might be; so they languished.

Then I went through this phase about 10 years ago where I was printing watercolour on fabric. (I really need to get back to that; it was one of my very favourite things to do.)

And then, six years ago, I was sorting through allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of my various personally hand-dyed, hand printed, hand painted and watercolour printed fabric (I hope the abundance of "els" really concretizes the unbelievable amount of such fabric I had); and decided to either earmark it for an actual project or donate it.

In doing so, I managed to decrease such fabrics to 2 bins.

And in doing so, I found some watercolour printed fabric* that perfectly matched Ms. Kemshall's (Laura or Linda to be determined) birds.

So, I started the long journey of stitching this piece. Pulling it out and adding some stitches now and again when the spirit moved me - I have been doing a lot of hand stitching over the last six years - but it's been spread amongst a lot of pieces - I have many large pieces on the go; as well as many more small pieces - I think I've finished around 50 small hand done pieces in that time.

Anyway!

It's done now - or is it?

Here it is - all done, buttttttt - I think I need to put some feathers on that bird. Remember when I used to do birds? That whole series was 11 years ago!!!! Time really flies. No wonder I'm so old! lol

Anyway - I'm gonna sit on it a bit and think about it. If I did so, it would totally cover Linda/Laura's work - and is that okay?

On the other hand, don't I need to make this mine? TBC

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Also, hey! I just jumped in here, like I didn't disappear for literally years, and I don't even know whether there's anyone still around.

But, I kinda miss blogging, so I thought I would.

P.S. I don't know when exactly I'll be back. It's kind of all up in the air. But if you're out there, hi!

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EPS: When I reviewed my previous posts about this piece, I said that these background fabrics were made using disperse dye, but this fabric is cotton; which is how I know it was actually made using the watercolour printing method - a very similar process (paint on paper and print on fabric); but disperse dye uses dye for polyester and acrylics on copy paper and is transferred using heat; and watercolour printing uses watercolour paint on watercolour paper, and is transferred to cotton fabric using weight.

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