Sandy Webster, Artist

Starting on the Land of Lethe Journal

Posted on August 15, 2017 by Sandy Webster

Here is the opening or “Title Page” of the small leather journal. I had private students here for a few days and I worked on this when not needed to lend a hand. One of them reminded me that those marks of four slashes and then a diagonal one across is referred to as “tally marks.” I had forgotten that and really like the name. It has always been a favorite doodle mark for me….just marking time is how I thought of it…not really counting things by five….just like doing it.

I wove a bit of shifu thread that had been colored with soil from some place special to me and then tied it onto the page. Here is the back of the next page that is a weaving made by making slits into the paper and then plaiting through strips of more Thai kozo paper that were colored with a greenish soil. The back of the title page was not so interesting….just the ties and back of the tally mark stitching.

At the base of the green paper weaving I did some more stitching with favorite threads and then cut a hole to make another weaving with shifu threads over warps that have been stitched into place. These are two of my favorite tools for doing small weavings with paper. One is the bone needle that a basket maker in Tasmania made (I have several because although I buy them for gifts, I find I can’t part with them) and the other is a small comb that I purchased at Wafu Works in Hobart. It is so perfect for picking up threads and lifting them out of the way and then packing them into place.

Here is that page finished.

And the back with lots of tally marks on the next page.

I like the backs and will likely go back into them with more memory marks. This heavy print making paper is nice to pierce and then stitch through. Like the old learning to stitch cards that we had when were very very young….just put the bright colored yarns into the eye of a very big needle and poke it in and out of the holes. I think we were supposed to be making something by following the direction lines, but I am quite sure that I just filled the entire surface with yarn until I could not get the needle through.

And the back of this tally page with some small coppery scraps stuck in place. On the right is a small knotted shifu thread basket holding a small flat round stone.

And then the last page of a patchwork cloth of shifu weavings sewn together.

I have made a start on this journal. This signature now has something on each page. It is a signature that used slightly smaller folios than the other five signatures. It seemed that they should all be treated similarly. I will continue to back into them before starting on the next set of pages. It could be that I am avoiding writing on the pages and will just make marks using cloth and stitch. I might put scraps of our clothing in it.

I did that with this very large wall hanging when we were married for thirty some years….about the year 2000. It is made up of coffee filters with comments written on them, spun into threads and holding scraps of our clothing together. Coffee filters were also used in the block-like quilt designs to make up the calendar month of October. On the square where the 27th would have been that year is a copy of a picture of us before we were married that my husband kept in his wallet all those years. This year will be our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Anyway this piece hangs in the guest room and I think needs to be put away soon….maybe harvested for parts.

It covers one wall almost completely as each square is over twelve inches in each direction.

Here are some details. It all had to do with how marriage works….some days things are held together nicely and some days a bit messy.

I liked doing this piece but maybe it is time to take if down from the wall of the guest room. I never gave it a thought that some people staying in that room might be wondering what in the world it was. I do like these details though and may just cut some up to put into my Lethe Journal. Put some coffee stains in there too because we still start our day with that….sipping coffee.

Til next week.

Back to the Stitch

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Sandy Webster

This is a detail of a very large quilted paper piece that asked the viewer to record on scraps of paper the first stitches they remembered learning. The response was mostly predictable ….. from grandmothers and mothers teaching them how to sew. I still have this somewhere I think. Anyway it seemed that stitching was always there for me. Poking that needle in and out not with the intention of making a good stitch but more about holding ideas together.

Or making marks…

Sometimes the stitching went with words as part of illustrations. Like this in my artist retreat book. After all our time together as artists came to an end I made this book about what that felt like…to be with others who were just as passionate about their ideas. We all had egos to match our intentions and I love how I saw that and then recorded it here. The sound this book makes with the stitched in rattly pages is just wonderful. I love this book…the words, the images, the sounds and the stitches.

Then there are the books that are held together by stitched spines.

Many of them remain blank because they became about the binding and not about the content. I should go in there and mark them all up….maybe just stitch on the pages.

And this book was all about mending. I steamed and pressed the paper to get the pages to feel more like cloth and receptive to needle and thread.

Sometimes what is happening on the back side is a better story.

And this print on cloth done in undergraduate school. I was warned that I was getting “dangerously close to craft.” I love that and understood exactly what my advisor meant back then and held off on stitching into these prints until after graduation.

And another use of print with stitch and cloth.

I find it harder to thread the needle and notice the feel of the cloth more now. It needs to “feel” like what I am trying to say with it. So with the tattered shawl now being about dementia and the holes left by what we took for granted and now can’t quite put our finger on, I am working slowly on the holding it together part. It feels good….it really does.

And it has sparked a return to the shifu threads colored with the soils of home and travels. These will be used in my journal of the Land of Lethe…a map of what may or may not have happened.

I have moved all this cloth and threads and shawl over to a corner because I have two of my favorite students arriving for an extended time working here in the studio. What is important to me today will not begin to be as important as their plans starting tomorrow. I will be in their heads and well out of my own.

And the good news is I have been asked to talk about my artist books to students at my undergraduate university in a few weeks. They will be receiving many of those books along with my extensive pop up collection. It will be good to share them and talk to students who want to not just know how to do something but why to do it.

And in looking for images for this post I found this one. An altered image of cloth and stitch. It is sort of the essence of something. It is like poetry I think. More will come of this….later. But in the meantime it is an evidence of things held together. It is the holding close by jabbing something in and out that drags a line along behind it….knotted at both ends to stay put. Some very rich stuff in that I think….or it could just be sewing.

Til next week after the students have left me….maybe they will let me post images of their work and talk about the why….or maybe they won’t. Passions are sometimes hard to talk about.

The Garden

Posted on August 6, 2017 by Sandy Webster

It was a good garden this year although no where as giving as last year. Too much rain I think. Too many other things to do than tend to it. So now with the last of the tomatoes coming on, we are letting it go.

Most of the roma tomatoes have been roasted and put in the freezer.

More sit on the window sill until tomorrow.

They will be sliced and seasoned with olive oil and an herb garlic salt I made earlier from other things in the garden.

Once charred a bit in a hot oven, they are cooled and placed in zip lock bags to be flattened and stacked in the freezer.

I packed Swiss chard into countless sandwiches after the lettuce was finished.

And we saw our first cicada release himself from his shell.

Interesting bugs aren’t they? His mother must have placed him here among the grape vines. I will finish up the tomatoes tomorrow and then let the deer have the rest….or the snails that seem to be slithering around the vines. We have enough.

I am going to return to the studio and more sewing before students arrive later in the week. Once they are here my time belongs to them. I will fix them a dinner of chicken breasts smothered in roasted romas with asparagus and a nice Australian red wine.

Later this week I will show more images of the tattered linen shawl and talk about the importance of threading needles, poking repetitive holes and leaving marks on cloth.

Til then.

Patches and Stitches

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Sandy Webster

This is the linen shawl that was much thinner than the scarves so the damage of the natural pigments was greater. I pulled out some of the pieces of silk that were scraps tossed in with contact printing while in Australia. They looked like they might be just the right thing to patch the holes by placing the scrap behind the holes. At this point I was thinking I would wear this shawl like I would wear the scarf below. Remember last week I said I would add some beads for color…

I just randomly filled some places or followed along with the earth pigment marks. I like the double thickness of this and I like the holes. It feels good to the hand. And while selecting the earthy colors of beads to go with this scarf, I decided to rid myself of about seventy-five percent of my beads and jewelry findings. It filled a duffle bag and the recipient will make good use of them.

Anyway back to the shawl. I also had a selection of very old silk threads that I had purchased at Wafu Works in Hobart, Tasmania. It is a lovely tiny Japanese cloth and sewing shop that I manage to go to each time I am there. And each time I bring home a little something. Here are the threads.

The spooled one is a thread made in France but purchased in Goolwa, South Australia this past March. And now you can see the silk scraps pinned over holes.

And how it looks from the other side. At this point I am still thinking I can wear this.

Then removing the embroidery hoop from my stitching done to reinforce the frayed edges, I put my thumb right through the cloth. Maybe this is not so wearable after all.

Sadie likes it.

And I still like stitching on it. I still like how the silk looks. I am going to continue with it because held up to the light, it tells a story. A story of fragmentation, holding together, making do, not letting go. Plus I am guaranteed good company while I stitch. Now I am adding areas of metallic threads and am thinking of how the cracks in pottery are filled with gold to emphasize the special-ness of an everyday item.

I am also mindful of the other side and now am backing some patches with other gauzy cloth on the opposite side. Note the small whitish patch on the lower right. And then the opposite side from it.