I have several things on my mind at the moment, all of them to do with the lines and shapes formed by Nature and Human Activity on the Earth’s surface.
First, my latest stitched Suffolk puff soft sculpture is almost completely assembled – it’s part of the Growth series in this website and I love how these puffs provide a really nice surface on which to stitch. Moving on further, it might make some sense to embroider first before cutting out the circles. I’ve filed each photo I’ve taken of this group of forms “Grey and gold puffs” and this one has added “Grey and gold puffs with basting blog” because it has been resized to fit on this page. That however will probably not be the title of the finished work, in which case I’ll need to rename the several pics for consistency.
Second, sheer fabrics I pinned an image on Pinterest the other day because that pic reminded me of the love affair I’ve always had with the design potential of sheer fabrics (I also follwed the link to the wonderful work of Beate Hien which I’ll explore in depth sometime soon) I used nylon organza in several of the Timetracks series, and one I made after our trip to Egypt titled“Gift of The Nile” scroll down because there are pics of others in that post, too.
Third, grids. My regular readers know that grids are my default design layout 🙂 That pinterest image reminded me of the potential of double needle stitching a line. About fifty years ago, when the Princess line with A-line skirt was in vogue, I made myself a lovely special occasion dress (the races? a wedding? I forget…) The bodice featured silver metallic lines of double needle stitching I did on the fabric before cutting out the pattern piece, and there a fine ridge formed between the two lines visible on the surface. How could I forget this – it is a perfect technique for my next Out of Order piece…. I want to produce much more distortion in the grids as the deteriotation of the state of the world seems to have accelerated markedly over the past year, and this will be the perfect technique to lay down the grid for #4, coming up soon.
So appreciate seeing the material you used for Time Tracks 7. I got to your website via an image in a book shared at the meeting of Peninsula Fiber Artists in Port Townsend WA yesterday. I too LOVE grids, not that any of my successful work has included them.
Thanks for commenting, Linda. Was that the QN09 catalogue, perhaps? Anyway I wrote a little about it here https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=485 ut by now it could have gone anywhere. I still own it and currently have it up on the wall within about 2m! I so often use grids because of influences in my past. As a geography and geomorphology major in precomputer days (I’m 79) I needed to illustrate papers with hand drafted maps and diagrams – so that’s really how I think – each grid unit is in reality a diagram that is just part of the whole. The other main influence is my 1987 arrival to live in Denver CO for a while (husband’s job relocation) and it was there that a new neighbour took me along to a meeting of the then very new Arapaho County Quilters guild because she knew I was involved in textile art as an embroiderer. I took some classes including one on how to draft your own pattern to any size, another on seminole patchwork, and a one day class by Blanche Young, who wrote a top selling book on the Flying Geese pattern. I loved all that stuff but soon was designing my own non-traditional quilts, which have so often included a grid layout. I checked your blog and hope to see more posts soon, but I also found your website and about the research you did your book on company towns up there- they were quite a thing 100+ years abgo, right? In Australia there was the Cadbury’s Chocolate town at Claremont in Tasmania the Australiian state in which I grew up. And as in your part of the world company towns were quite common in particular the timber and mining industry locations around Australia. My husband is a retired exploration geologist, and from 1987-81 we lived up in the city of Mt. Isa,which although a small pre-existing town, was essentially built and owned by the Mount Isa Mines company that discovered, mined and smelted copper for decades – and it dominated everything; if you lived out there it was just assumed you worked for MIM, becuse a huge portion of te population did, or depended on the company’s contracts for their business. When we went there Mike didn;t work for MIM but we bought a house that, like hundreds of others, originally part of a huge housing development for the workers they brought in after WWII for every stage of their production. Mike was exploring for uranium in that area,as that was booming at the time (no pun intended – mining is essentially a serikes of booms and busts) But finally, just in the last year or so MIM closed. Another member of Mike’s family and many of our friends lived in Kambalda, a Western Australian company town in in the outback area known as the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia (because it was explored and developed eastwards from the early settlements on the west coast) Massive nickelsulphides found there in the late 60’s prompted by the worldwide boom in nickel, and out there the nearest town was the historic gold mining city of Kalgoorlie, 40 m away. The Western Mining Company established their mine and a whole new town, Kambalda, from the bare ground up. The mine closed down in the past couple of years. Here in Uruguay, there is the site of a long ago deserted mining town of Rosario, on the river Rio de laPlata pretty well opposite the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires – it’s importance was as a source of gravel and river sands that wer shipped acorss the BA for building – the way t he river flows there was no gravel on that siee of the river. Someone still loved there when we last went and we had a neat ride on a little steam train, from the company offices down to the loading dock (in poor repair)but there’s noting there now except the outlines of the streets, essentially. the offices have lots of maps and ot her stuff ou can see in through the windows showing the shutdown was fairly fast and stuff was just left. Probably nowhere for it to go anyway – shut downs ore usually fast but often made with the possibility of reopening. Here in Uruguay, up near Paysandu on the Uruguay river the company Town Fray Bentos is now an important UNESCO World Heritage site – established by the British to process freeze and send to UK beef and beef products produced here in Uruguay by British sttlers and others on the exvellent natural grasslands or Pampas of this region. It’s a wonderful place to visit, and people still live in many of the places though the frigorifico, meatworks closed long ago. It as established as a seperate self-contained company town, and must have been quite a place to live and work – a theatre seated 1000 for example … sporting facilities were for company employees living there. Anyway, I’ve rambled on, and that’s more than enough – you can tell I relate strongly to your interests!