Studio 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.

I had mentioned the last time we talked that a publisher had contacted me and asked that I illustrate a poem in their upcoming book called “Power Poems for Small Humans".

I enthusiastically agreed, and eventually, I was paired with poet Liz Morgan, whose poem is entitled “When Someone Asks About My Drawing of My Family”

I won’t share the poem here, but Liz's poem is about the many iterations of non-nuclear families.

My original idea was inspired by the videos you may have seen that run on the theme of a blind dog who has a seeing eye goat bff, a donkey and a pig who are best friends, animals who adopt animals from other species, and my long time favourite: Roy and Silo, the two male penguins at NYC’s Central Park Zoo, who first fell in love, and then year after year, tried to raise a clutch of rocks, until the zookeepers finally gave them an egg to hatch and raise. She grew up to mate and have adopted babies of her own. <3

The sketch I shared with you six weeks ago of the little pig, was part of a larger piece that was going to be a farmyard composed of many iterations of different types of animal families.

But then I was thinking about the brief I was given:

“… something between an illustration and an environment…the important thing is that the artwork meet and embellish the emotional place of the poem.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that gave me pause! It reminded me of when I was in second year at Uni, and a professor asked for “an intelligent, emotional response” to a text we had been given to read, and no further instruction. And it was worth 40% of our mark! Boy, that struck terror into my heart. Lol

Anyway, as I considered this “between an illustration and an environment” I thought that perhaps I was being too literal. That a more abstract idea was called for.

I slept on it overnight, and realized that Roy and Silo ought to be my inspiration. When I thought about it the next day, I could “see” this two page spread as you see it here, and realized that was they way to go. My "Roy and Silo" are two stylized male birds (an eastern towhee and a black capped chickadee) who have a clutch of baby chickadees to nurture to adulthood.

So I called it, "After Roy & Silo”.

Now that the publisher has the images for use in the book, I will unmount (dismount?) this piece and put a group of hares or perhaps a fox family in that blank space where the poem will be in the book.

When that’s done, I’ll show you that version too. J

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