Yesterday I was looking at some books with pictures of beautiful cloths. One was a shibori book, two were on/by Jack Lenor Larsen, and the last a newsletter/magazine of the UK guild. I didn't read anything, I only gazed at the pictures. The shibori one was the first I've seen in English which talked about the sculptural aspect of shibori, not the dye pattern only, and I was pleased because in Japan, shibori is a combination of texture and dye pattern, and not just the latter.
This morning, I woke up thinking how all of you push me to try new things, and though it doesn't look like much/many, how glad I feel I tried some unlikely things, particularly with colors. I think in experimenting broadly, I feel more certain and confident about what I like. I have a few wonderful ideas about what I'd like to do, and though they may come out looking similar to what I did before the experimentation, I think they will feel more authentically mine, at least I will know that. (New stuff, that is, once I get the four projects on the four looms out of the way. OK, at least two.)
Which makes me wonder even more how I'm attracted to colorful and textured things in other people's work, and yet enjoy sober things in mine. I don't know which direction I will go after the next couple of projects, but I sometimes wonder if I'm returning to white-on-white plain weave. That's ok, too, because tracking is one of the topics I've always wanted to look into.
Yesterday at around 3PM, I believe I came out of a bad patch. It was frustrating because I was so inpired by Clare's quits, and encouraged by Christine's advice and the Testile Luncher's feedback, I was seriously rearing to go. For two weeks, try as I may, forcing myself to engage in different things, I couldn't get out of the tunnel and what little I did was just crap. I even thought of writing a post on the insider's view of mild-to-moderate depression. Fortunately that will have to wait a while. Today, I'm continuing cleaning out the stash room.
6 comments:
Are you still sleeping in the lounge?? :) Keep going on the stash.
What is the name of the shibori book?
Fortunately and unfortunately, yes. Fortunately because it's so much warmer than the bedroom, and I suspect, quieter. We ran out of money so we had to choose between carpeting the bedroom and curtains, and we went for the carpet, and I have this sneaky suspicion curtains would have made that room warmer.
Unfortunately because life seems so chaotic!
The book is... "Memory on Cloth - Shibori Now" by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, 2002, Kodansha.
Kodansha also has another big book on Shibori that's based on some ancient notes left by a Kyoto (?) dye house. I know it's at the Polytech Library but I can't remember the title nor the author, sorry. But that one is more on methods and patterns.
It's kind of funny because Kodansha, when I was growing up, was a kids' book publisher, but they've done really well in publishing books about things Japanese in English (and possibly others.)
I have that book by Yoshiko Wada - eye candy. You know I did a course with Catherine Ellis at Forum in Ballarat recently, a wonderful week.
When was that, DD???
Easter Sunday until the following Saturday. The Ozzie girls were so embracing. Word had gone out to look after the Kiwi and they were wonderful. I had three days in Melbourne after Forum and was picked up and taken to fibrey places including the Melbourne tapestry workshop and a great market at a convent which for the life of me I can't remember its name. Also saw through a mill at Cheswick right from the fibre being fluffed and carded to the blankets being woven and tasselled. It takes me three hours to tassel a blanket, their machine went clonk, clonk and it was done!
Oh, just recently. How wonderful!
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