fizz & fuzz: Work in Progress: Menship & Friendship

I have one more grad piece to do for school, and the deadlines are starting to gun toward me at warp speed, it feels like.

It's a huge relief to have one piece done, but I need to get this second one done in order to feel right about the grad show. Not only that, but these two pieces are the start of work I need to produce and photograph to apply for the next ArtsNB Creation Grant in October. Sounds like that's ages away, but considering I need 10 finished pieces to apply, and it's taken me roughly 4 months to get these 2 pieces near completiong... well... let's just say I'm going to be quite committed to my studio.

Speaking of studio, the Fox and I built a bookshelf for it. The Fritz decided it was his new cat house.

So, I've been having a lot of studio days lately (to keep me sane while writing business plans, and summary proposals, etc etc) and it's quite refreshing. I spent a few solid days cleaning out the storage room so that it's ACTUALLY a studio, and am reaping my rewards. I was able to hang my quilt up on my wall, and start cutting for the top overlay. This included a lot of computer time at school scanning old photos and playing with opacity. More time was spent at home photochem transferring images to fabric, cutting pattern pieces, sampling with sewing methods, etc etc.

After laying all my white pieces (some with images transferred) on the bottom layer of the quilt, I started to feel like things were falling flat. The white on white just faded together and lacked a striking quality. I experimented with tea dying for a bit more of an aged feel. I was feeling better about it, but still like something was missing.

Anyway, I had a meeting with my advisor today and it always really instills in me the importance for mentors and getting outside opinions. She made a lot of suggestions that just REALLY made sense (ie adding more fabrics in, ideas for textural prints, playing with different tints & tones) and really pushed me to make sure the top layer to make it as strong as the bottom, rather than relying on the printed letters to carry the whole piece. It's so easy for me to get stuck in my own reasons for why I want to use a certain fabric, or colour, or make things uniform and often it takes a second opinion (or two, or three) to help me to consider a new perspective, or to offer a new jumping off point that I can then build on. Anyway, that's going to be one of the challenges of leaving school - to no longer be in an environment where that input is automatic, and mandatory. I think it's really important to remain involved in groups where you can bring your work in and get a critique from peers, as well as to put myself to work with mentors who are already at places in their careers where I want to be. It's so easy to become insular, but so much more rewarding to stay involved with people. People are where it's at.

There's some Deep Thoughts With Rachel Anne for today.

Below are images of my latest work in progress - menship & friendship. On the To Do List? Come up with a real name for it.

These images are from a couple days ago, and alerady with some changes in fabrics & varying colours it's looking a lot better.