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Thanksgiving Week

Posted on by Sandy Webster

gone-away-boat

This is the week of Thanksgiving. We are to think of all that we are grateful for and I am working on that. Now that we are nearing the end of 2016 it feels like we have weathered a storm much like this boat above. I looked through my images of all the boats I have made to represent safe places, safe from turbulent seas surrounding them. I don’t much care for water but am quite partial to boats. Probably because they are designed to keep one out of the water. I should build one large enough to just sit in, put it in a corner of the studio, toss in a couple of pillows and a good book. Tune out all the things that either are out of my control and the ones I don’t want to control any more. It has been quite a year, a good year to just climb aboard.

I am back in the studio and working on those houses. Right now it is the beekeepers place. I like putting the roof on an open house. When I fix that roof into place it makes everything inside safe….even though the whole front is open, the things inside are safe.

I will show more boats below. Boats that were never intended to go near water, made to be part of a bigger picture, a bigger story. I wonder if that is the reason I am finding it hard to stay focused in the studio. Have I run dry of good stories? It seems everything I do has a story, a reason it is there. The story comes first and then the work. As we age do we run out of stories or the energy to tell them?  I should get into one of these boats and go off on an adventure in my mind. Then bring back stories of where the boat took me. This is a good idea. In the meantime, here are some boats .

return-voyage

Return Voyage that holds our memories that are connected with thin golden threads.

wheeled-boat

Different Road that sits with its painting in a private school in South Carolina inspiring students to make up their own stories about it.

shifu-boat

Shifu Boat I that probably will sink the minute it sets off dragging its anchor of memories. Paper boats are not that safe.

land-boat

Land Boat I completely cannibalized this boat for its parts. And it was my most favorite one of all so far. That rock for an anchor and an oar of roots that just want to tap into the soil, and branches pretending to be sails. When I first made the under structure of this boat it was to have a horse in it for Lyle Lovett. It was an ugly horse so the boat went off in another direction.

sampan-book

Sampan Book I liked building in the negative spaces, constructing sampans throughout this book. It was inspired by the sampans I saw in China. Closed it is made to look like a rope from a boat hooked to a dock.

navigations-lo-res

Navigations is work done in graduate school about masculinity. The silk phallic bodies are wrapped in the text of what was passed down to them on what it takes to “be a man”. They drag their testicular anchor bags full of small stones through waters of feminist text. Their boats are all iron axes, hatchets and the like. No chance of survival for these men in their present circumstances.

patriarch-cooperation

Cooperation This was part of a series done in undergraduate school about the patriarchal system I grew up in. Here the old man patriarch is teaching the next generation about cooperation. Keep the compatible end of the oar in the water….work together.

root-boat-detail

And finally a detail of a catamaran made of bamboo roots and willow. All it takes to anchor this boat is a feather attached via shifu paper thread with a story of connection written on it.

Better stop here and get back to the beekeepers house. His clothes line should be dry by now and I can put him with the others. And in another hour company is coming for the week. A celebration is in order. Happy Thanksgiving.  I am going to be thankful for boats and stories and single malt.

 

Rough Week

Posted on by Sandy Webster

cutlery-envelope-7

Not much to say this week that has not already been said. Thanks to those who were consoling in our shared grief.  Our country has shown colors we never knew we had. Each day gets better because we are at least together in wishing for the best. Today is Art Group here and we will get angry together one more time and then retreat to our studios. Our private sanctuaries where hearts and hands work together to make something, anything to express how we feel.

Below is a piece I did over twenty-five years ago about our divisiveness.

brotherhoods

Next week I will be back on track….promise.

Collector’s Boxes

Posted on by Sandy Webster

collection-houses

I am back in the studio distracting myself from this horrific election. So glad we sent in absentee ballots a couple of weeks ago. I do not think I could face the voters who seem totally incapable of critical thinking. There are some acquaintances that I will not be able to keep as close as I used to. This has been a costly time for us here in the United States, and I am sickened by the short-sighted frustrations of those unable to consider the reality of our times.

So the solution is just keep my head down and go to work.

I dug out some old stamps that I made during undergraduate school, so some of them are over twenty years old. Next I pulled some of the gelatin plate walnut stained prints from the string line in the studio. Turning them in various directions, I settled on sort of a theme….The Collectors. This lets me put some bits and pieces inside with them. It lets me make a house for them to keep their collections. A person and crows make the selections and I willingly give it to them….too much stuff anyway.

Here are some of things beside imagery that is being picked over.

collectors-stuff

And here is the first house completed. I made a hole near the peak of the roof with my Japanese hole punch so that if it is hung, it hangs tight against the wall.

collectors-box-1

These are appealing to the mixed media artist that is easy for me to fall into. Again I think that is because we gather things that look interesting and then for years have no idea what or why we have it. And there are those lovely little bits of Nature that all remind me of a particular place and season.  And I can wrap or stitch threads here and there. Maybe even stitch into the next panel before it is fixed into the house. Both pieces so far have clothes lines in them. I think this is an influence of recently stringing one up here at home….first one since we moved to North Carolina in 1992.

I have missed the building. Every so many years Lee and I have built a new place. But not any more. This is where we are and will stay. At this point in our lives it is best to be around the familiar and not become confused with change.

So for now I will make these little houses. I used to make so many. See below.

cropped-storied-housegreentea-house-openpenland-book-out-of-the-houseinterlude-editions-outside-assembledinterlude-editions-interior-assembledwebpagecabinetsarrowmontjournals2

Next week I will post more pictures of new houses for the little collectors. In the meantime, wish us luck tomorrow.

 

Making More Loose Ends to Pick Up – Later

Posted on by Sandy Webster

into-the-woods

It is not a very colorful fall here. Not like last year, too dry for strong colors. But I have managed to work on more textiles beyond the chemical rusting of the week before. Here are some of those efforts using lots of ferrous sulfate and black tea and a pinch of caustic soda.

aussie-pants grey-shirt canvas-on-rosemaryscrim

I recolored some Australian repurposed pants that had been dyed with some mollusk shells and were now faded. Next a shirt I bought that was a bit too yellowy and an old hunk of canvas. Then some scrim and a loosely woven silk scarf I bought in Australia to do some coloring on. See below.

gauzy-scarf-detail

I liked it but it was a bit too creamy. I knew I would not make it a first choice from the scarf stack. So it went back into the iron and tea pot for some greying down. It was much better losing the whitish parts. My cat, Spooky loved the results.

spooky-on-scarf

This week I was back at the dyeing pots with the gathering of leaves and attempting a bit of contact printing. There was an old pashmena shawl that was a stained pale yellow/green. I wrapped in what leaves I had in the yard and tried to get something to happen.

pashmena-back-in-pot

Pretty good on one end so this morning I dipped the other end in again. Once rinsed and hung on the line it became more soft and grey toned. Here it is with the loosely woven silk greyish scarf that now has one line of kantha stitching in place. I am going to add weight and some added interest by stitching this running stitch all the way across the scarf. Finding this old spool of ecru silk from my earlier weaving days was just perfect for the grey scarf and easy to follow the open holes to keep the stitching somewhat straight.

Here they are next to each other on the board shear in the studio.

scarves-with-silk-thread

And another detail of the now much better pashmena.

pashmena-detail

I also tried some watercolor papers with not much success and lokta paper with no success.

contact-prints-on-wc-papers

I am getting friends who have part time homes here to record their residence with contact prints using plants from their yards. Today one of them went home with her bundle still wrapped up because when we first unwrapped it, not much was too exciting. So we are leaving it til later in the week to undo. Another friend will be over tomorrow to make her fabric piece up.

But I am thinking it is a bit late in the year for the leaves to be giving us much. Tomorrow I might just take the leaves from the Japanese maples. They always seem successful. Maybe a bit of black walnut leaves as well…can’t go wrong there. But these colorful oaks and maples are not transferring so well right now.

I will post a picture of the kantha stitched scarf when it is finished….and when I get a decent print on some lokta papers.