It all started with a single idea from classical music…Variations…and the underlying structure of lace...Grounds…coming from the simple movement of a cross and a twist.

Result? Grounded Variations

[All of this is directly related to Limen (Origin)…more on that piece to come…]

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I finally started the lace for the my piece in the Pagan Poetry exhibition that is part of the World Lace Festival this summer. The one the started with the idea that got me into glass and that was being formed before the exhibition was even an idea.

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Returning from travel at the end of April got off to fast start with having to ship some lace to NYC for an exhibition and the cascade of work just continued to follow.

Most of my time in May was focused on preparing for my first official paid Bobbin Lace teaching gig at Sweet Pea Fiber in Hyattsville. A friend from high school hooked me up with the owner. It was an absolutely fantastic experience. I’ve learned so much and look forward to teaching it again…and expanding the content. (And is another exciting thing in the works…)

When I started making lace, I learned in a way that was highly technical (which you all know I love) with Karen Thompson but the structure was so rigid that my mind had difficulty finding the space to find the art. So, next course was with Pierre Fouché which was waaaaaay on the other end of the spectrum.

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[Heads up...these a poll at the end of the post!]

Back in a post from January, you got a taste of some of the stitches with a single strand of floss. While in Durham I finished up the second 10 week session where, the class worked on different methods of creating different tones...

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Tapestry Shading is a form of embroidery typically used in historical ecclesiastical embroidery for human figures. It is simply long and short stitch running vertically along the length of the figure.

When I started the module at the end of last year, there was the choice of either stitching a furry or feathered animal using directional shading or tapestry shading. Tapestry shading seemed more relevant to my art practice, so that’s what I chose...

What I didn’t realize when I selected Allegory by Piero di Cosimo, is just how complicated it all is...

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I came into this trip thinking, 3 weeks? Tapestry shading, no problem! I should be able to easily complete a module in this timeframe…my certificate silk shading flower in 2019 took me just about 3 weeks....

3 weeks…yeah, no. I’ve been just about able to get all of the various pieces for sampling assembled. More threads gathered, additional fabrics considered, lots of thinking, some sampling, and planning...more on this to come.

…That all said…

This trip has really lit a fire under my butt to get my RSN Diploma complete. It’s really hard for me to work these modules in fits and starts as I’ve done over these past 4 years. When I did the certificate, I’d pretty much focus on the prep for the module a month going into the first class and then work through the piece through its completion. I’ve made all of these diploma modules so much more involved, probably because I really want to learn these techniques, not just rush through the module and the technique to get a piece complete.

Sure, my tendency towards perfectionism has slowed things down. But I have regained confidence in my technical work and fallen back in love with the beauty of technical work. While all of this work isn’t necessarily for an accredited advanced academic degree, this really is my form of Master’s program. All in all, I’m super motivated to get back to my studio and start finally ticking off all of these modules.

I don’t want you to think that all I’ve been doing is stitching:

(I did have designs to bring a fair number of additional projects and do some prep for an Intro to Bobbin Lace class I’m teaching in May....but so far, haven’t gotten to them..)

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...this conversation followed close on the heels of a whirlwind road trip to/from Cleveland for an artist talk with Ann Hamilton.

One of the main things reiterated in her talk is to allow for time for the ideas to develop and emerge. Ideas and forms can be very cyclical and be part of a larger cohesive narrative.

Conceptual.
Visual.
Perpetual.

It’s just that it takes time for the patterns to emerge (or more accurately) to be recognized.

The reality of Poland is that I am 95% positive that I won’t be attending (it’s a little close to Ukraine for my comfort and I worry about health care access given my various health considerations). So how do I alter my idea from its original concept? How do I take and rediscover and deepen my understanding of an idea that I’ve sat with for so long? After thinking about this for 3 years now, how do I remove my mind and let the research, the technical, and the materials become art?

I had already let go of the rigid mechanics…Because, how do you plan for a performance and installation within the context of a group exhibition, in a space that hasn’t even been confirmed (and therefore, you haven’t seen/experienced in person or even via photograph), in an area of a foreign country that recently overthrew it’s local government for embezzlement and other shady dealings?

If we’re keeping score, I have 128 Cupforms and 18 Bowls where I was the gaffer. Like thread, blown glass has an energy. I look at the bowls from Pilchuck, from Public Glass and from Pittsburgh Glass Center and they begin to conjure something, but the expression truly comes from the connection with someone. (And to be honest, they are not nearly as awkward as I thought they would be.) For the bowls residing in my studio, the story told through the hands and the breath is just a seedling.

The heart of the reason I got into glassblowing, was to understand the properties and possibilities of glass. What I was given in the process was so much more. A community. A community external and internal to the materials.

Somewhere along the way my ego thought I could and should take the lead on the bowls.

I applied to 4 other opportunities with my “fully formed” concept as a solo and all of them were rejected. But each application, I added a bit more information. Each one, offering a bit more insight about the Nature of the work.

I’ve realized is that the ultimate expression of the work is bigger than just me. Initially, intuitively, I understood that it was never for me to make the bowls myself. It’s a more intimate conversation across material. There’s still time for me and the work to grow, research, reflect, and refine.

So what does this all mean for Poland? Lace and glass and time will still be brought together. The form will be something different yet similar, a bit more productively playful and experimental.

The statement will evolve, but it always does with time and process.

The core remains the same.

The greater stories are all there waiting to be unearthed.

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After culling through the free use images in the National Gallery Collection, I came across Piero di Cosimo’s Allegory:

The figure in the painting meets the key requirements:

• The figure can be in any position - standing, sitting or in movement - as long as it has a head with facial features and hair, and arms with hands;

• The figure may be naked in which case muscle tone must be demonstrated and some kind of draped garment with folds and creases must be included in the design; and

• an image with a good balance of shadow and highlights.

In thinking about pulling together the materials to start my practice, I got curious about the underpainting and how di Cosimo constructed his paintings. Instead of searching the internet, I decided a trip to the National Gallery Library was in order.

The answer to my initial question ended up being easy and relatively uninteresting, what I learned was quite fascinating…

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The year stared off at full speed with giving a presentation for one of the local Embroiderers Guild of America (EGA) about my studies with the RSN and how that work has shaped who I am as an artist and the artwork I create.

Besides the technical embroidery work and how that blends with aesthetics, the presentation reminded me of just how much is learned through sampling, having the patience to sit, practice, refine, troubleshoot, understand how all of the layers of work come together. [My new mantra, if you think you’ve sampled something enough, sample it one more time.]

The presentation reminded me of who I am as an artist at my core.
The joy and meditation I find in the hundreds or thousands of teeny tiny stitches.
The magic of stepping back from a day of work under a magnifier to see the larger picture.

Expect more embroidery from me this year - from coursework, to artwork, and something that probably won’t be a surprise to you all...

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I have returned from Canada!

What an amazing and unexpected residency-like experience. I not only had a chance to help out with the Braddock Sash, I got to tag along to four other textile study groups/meetups. (It would have been five, but due to various circumstances the last one was canceled.)

First-off.

Winnipeg is cold.

As a native New Englander I feel that I can honestly and fully endorse this statement.

Second.

I learned so much. You know those ideas that when you have them, the manifestation is so easy and so elegant? But then you realize that you’ve signed yourself up for something deeper and more involved than you could have fathomed?

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First off!! The News...

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I started working on a sprang scarf and learning tubular sprang lace. A scarf is pretty much self explanatory. Tubular sprang is fantastic for making little tubes, similar to those finger puzzles or long fingerless gloves or leg warmers...

The Scarf

Apparently I missed the memo about using one of her specific books to create the sprang scarf and thought we had to start from the warp and design/draft out the pattern and then make the scarf. Heh.1

But I still went ahead with my plan to design and draft my own scarf, making the process slower, but I’ve learned so much more in the process.

Carol James has created an ingenious charting method for Sprang, using basic graph paper, or excel spreadsheet, or in my case, Procreate. Basically: three blue cells for a R edge stitch, three green cells for a L edge stitch, uncolored for a regular stitch and four orange cells for a double stitch.

The patterns themselves end up looking like artworks.

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I feel as though I have been in this weird, highly awkward, and uncomfortable chrysalis state with my work for some time. Experimenting, learning new things pulling from different techniques (many of which you’ve been privy to here). All in service to be able to express the complexity and intricacies of materials and techniques that I’ve fallen in love with – dashing between medias and techniques as dictated by external factors. I could be safe. I could rely on my technical embroidery – the foundation of my practice – for all my work. And I do love a good couple days of uninterrupted stitching. It’s been a couple of months filled with rejections filled with capricious comments that, at the end of the day, fall short of substantive and constructive feedback. The work I’ve been doing hasn’t fully formed. I don’t fully fit with the glassworkers, or the lacemakers, or the embroiders. And within all of these subsets there are so many paths that can be taken. Sometimes it seems (even to me) that I try to take every path available simultaneously. My work and I are not easily categorized, labeled, and placed in a box.

Speaking of glass, you haven’t heard me talk a lot about glass here. It’s with good reason. Finding regular access to the space and the equipment is hard, stilted by factors that I cannot control. But I finally pulled out some of the pieces I made earlier this year in the workshop up in Pittsburgh with Kit Paulson and started to make some steps as part of my application to Pilchuck this coming summer…

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I heard about Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse in some podcast I was half listening to a year or so ago and it wended its way into The Pile and it shot right to the top after it (along with Homo Ludens) were mentioned in Richard Powers’s Playground (which set a pretty high standard for my reads this year)1.

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I had the (mis)fortune to start Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture1,2,3 just in the calm before the political upheavals in DC began back in January, with the change of government administration. It’s taken me some time to digest and process this book (along with my next Pile report on Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse) within all the political machinations going on and ever growing uncertainty around existence. [If you’re interested in what Huizinga has to say about art, scroll down a bit (past the paywall). Yes, the lead is buried a bit, but I needed to lay some foundation for the wonks out there]

Homo Ludens, written in 1938,by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, it seems a bit like your standard academic text – starting with a straightforward premise: “Play is superfluous. The need for it is only urgent to the extent that the enjoyment of it makes it a need. Play can be differed or suspended at any time. It is never imposed by physical necessity or moral duty. It is never a task. It is done at leisure, during “free time.” Only when play is recognized as a cultural function–a rite, a ceremony–is it bound up with notions of obligation.” (p.8)

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One of the things that struck me, looking around the welcoming and closing dinner, there were very few younger bodies. I’m not sure just how indicative the ages at the convention were of the membership as a whole. I’m positive that there must be many other factors influencing attendance. The overall cost? The timing/duration1? The offerings? That it was in Texas?

How does a Craft survive? Everything needs to evolve to survive. That was one of the things that struck me in the conversations I had–many of these people at the convention hold so tight to rigid Tradition and Technique. There’s almost holy reverence and rigid adherence to doctrine.2 There seems to be little space for breathing room, reinterpretation, imagination of possibilities. I get it. I typically subscribe to learn the technical and then improvise. But at some point, if people aren’t given the opportunity to meet a technique where they are, will the technique ultimately survive? How does it survive if there is limited access?

Also, there were only four male bodied lacemakers at the conference and they were all in their late 50s.

I didn’t attend any bobbin lace classes–I attended two Sprang Lace classes and one contemporary Needlelace class...

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Oh…dear readers. I attempted to start reading this book on the bus ride up to Pittsburgh at the beginning of March but the bus driver drove the bus like a car and needless to say, my stomach and ears couldn’t keep up with my eyes. The bus driver on my return to DC was much more reasonable hurtling down I-70 at breakneck speed. As a result, I was able to read about a third of the book while on the road.

But. Yeah. Unfortunately, The Golden Thread will be moved to my DNF Pile or maybe I’ll pick and choose some bits and pieces to read as I have a moment here and there.

I had such high hopes for it.

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The big thing for me immediately on the horizon is the IOLI (International Organization of Lace Inc ← I think the Inc is awkward when IOLI isn’t referred to by it’s acronym) Conference in Dallas from August 4 - 8. I am so excited to be finally studying with Carol James in person and also studying Contemporary Needle Lace with Carolyn Wetzel. So of course, I’m sampling and practicing a lot ahead of time. Remember this is the year of lace?

Sprang Lace is a form of lace making that is akin to finger weaving or tablet weaving (more on this to come). In my post about The Golden Thread, I talk at length about the Warp Weighted Loom – It’s kinda like that or if you know tablet (or card weaving or inkle loom weaving), but probably it's closest relative is finger weaving. Examples of sprang have been found dating back to Ancient Egypt.

For the Needle Lace preparation, in the evenings I’ve been working through making little stitch samplers from Jacqueline Peter’s A Practical Guide to Needle Lace. Apparently there are two ways to work needle lace. From the top or from the bottom

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