Up to Now

I'm not bothered by my recent Not-Sure-Where-I'm-Going-with-This-ness, which surprises me. It could be a total waste of time, or it can take me to unknown and unexpected (exciting) places. And I know it can't be a bad thing in the long run.  But we are approaching the halfway point of P2P2, and I need to narrow down my choices to that end.

Yesterday I had tea with Pat; the cafe had to close at 4, so we only had an hour, but we discussed so many things I'm still regurgitating our discussions.  Pat is a member of The Group, so she has October 2012 in sight, but I'm never sure the experiments are for P2P2 only, The Group's exhibition, both, or neither.  I first needed to summarize what I've done.

First there was the spinning and knitting of hats.  I thought I was engaged in a grand color-mixing experiments, but during knitting I wondered if I could knit/weave a rectangular piece, wet-finish it stiffly enough so when turned into a cylinder, it would stand up on its own.  But as it turned out my two wooly pieces couldn't stand on their own, and they turned out to be not cylinders, but flat or oblong (when seen from the top), which I like.  The experiment also also gave me a chance to look at cloth from radically different angles. 

And then there was the P2P2-specific work, with massive amounts of photo manipulation and a few drawings, which led me to thinking I should try Japanese paper collage, not cutting but tearing paper, and coloring in the drawings.

Last night, still basking in the Spoke-with-Pat warmth, I decided I would like to see what happens if I combined the two (separate ?) experiments. Looking back, I think I connected the vertical cloth, even a cylinder, with Grand Canyon, and though I am still attached to different aspects of other photos, I think Grand Canyon's contours and shapes, and the memory of our trips, have been on my mind the most, and I can still use the Canoe photo colors.  I think sooner or later, I will have to try a small-scale wooly-standy-uppy thing in this vein.

And still, I'm glad this is just P2P2, because in the "long" run, I'm not interested in 3D or sculptural pieces; I still aim to be a cloth weaver, not an objet d'art maker. On this matter, Pat told me to keep my mind open.