for any frazzled mom is BACK TO SCHOOL DAY! And today, DRUM ROLL PLEASE, is the day! Joshua got on the bus at about 6:51 a.m., followed about an hour later by his younger brother! That means I got caught up on computer work, prepared a class supply list for my new postcards workshop, and worked out. I hope to have some postcards to share in a day or two…LOTS of postcards, including in progress shots.

Now, to go take the “back to school day” photo that I forgot to take this morning (before Joshua tears his new clothes…)–also a tidbit from Twyla Tharp follows this post (2 in one day?!!!)…..

In Chapter 2, Tharp talks about the importance of establishing rituals that get you in the right frame of mind for creating. Her way is to go work out at the gym for two hours at 7 a.m. Needless to say, that is not my way…sigh! Thomas Mann donned a coat and tie and sat down to write until he had completed a predetermined length of writing. Tharp says:

“To get the creative habit, you need a working environmnet that’s habit forming.” p.17

This is exactly what Virginia Woolf mean when she wrote A Room of One’s Own. You need a place to go and create. Tharp also wrote:

“The other obstacle to good work, as harmful as one’s fears, is distractions.” p. 25

Hmmm…you mean like e-mail and blogs? Sometimes, though, I think you need to decompress and socialize, so here we are!

I promised pictures of some fabrics I dyed, so here you go–all of them on the design wall all at once!

For our first excercises, we dyed one color two-ways. I had been hoping to make a dark, deep blue, but didn’t find the color I wanted (and that’s w/ith 1053 swatches!)…that was because I didn’t yet know how to take the correct hue (color) and darken the value. So I picked a deep, deep eggplant purple (which is a bit ironic since I generally avoid purple like the plague). Due to warmths issues (blue dye likes summer temps and the classroom was a bit cool), it came out a shade or two less blue, but I love the red-violet that I got. Here is the first piece, which I folded and manipulated a bit. Here’s what it looked like in the bucket before dyeing, still dry:

Then, with the dye, while soaking.

Finally, ironed–it’s the piece on the left; the one on the right is the same dye, measured for mixing in a different way, and scrunched instead of folded..I LOVE those chevrons!

The next days, we had the chance to use up some extra mixed dyes, so I did a couple of “scrunch and pours”. The first was this one, a scrap about 9 by 19 inches. While I was ironing it (looking at it horizontally), my table-mate Debby saw it vertically and said gee, it looks like sky and trees and a lake. Of course, now I can’t see it as anything but that, so guess it will become a small wholecloth quilt…thanks Debby!

Then I did some pink-yellow-tangerines, which I TOTALLY love!

For my final piece, I decided to do a folded one, using Caribbean waters colors. The contrast was low, so the patterning isn’t as bold as I would like. However, since I was thinking of using this for a wall or lap-quilt sized Hawaiian-style quilt, on a hand-dyed background (possibly the same but much lighter aqua in a very textured style, with an accent of raspberry–piping? on the edges), I’m happy with it. Next time, I may try lightly dipping the folded edges in soda-ash-solution, which will cause the dye to bond very rapidly with the soda-soaked portions, then pour more dye on the remaining dry parts, which should create some fairly bold patterning. Think I may try that on a SMALL piece first, though, cuz it could also be awful!

People ask me where I get my ideas, and I say everywhere. It appears I’m not the only one. I also tell folks not all my ideas are good ones, but I just get so many I pick the better ones and work on them. I have so many ideas, I’ll never be able to act on a tenth of them (which is probably a good thing!), but I’m clearly in the habit of finding inspiration in many places.

And as for teaching, I always tell my students to feel free to ignore my ideas if they don’t work for them. The purpose of my ideas is to let the student figure out for themselves what will work for them. If my idea creates a “yuk no, that won’t work” response, that’s GOOD, because it has helped my student learn one more thing about what they do or don’t want to do!

Twyla Tharp wrote on P. 10 of The Creative Habit:

“Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.”

BINGO!

And speaking of raw material (literally), I’ll have a new post tomorrow about my hand-dyed fabric from Carol’s class. Cheers!

So…what were my favorite things about the class:

Obviously, the class itself, ALL of it, and the dyeing and the color!

Meeting Fay, from Manjimup, Australia! We had met via the Dyers’ List (an online forum that sticks VERY closely to the subject matter, not any real chat there), when I asked if anyone else from the list was attending the class. Here we are at the end of the class.

Next time, I’ll have to visit her, and from the looks of the region, boy do I ever want to go there! Fay told me (if I remembered correctly) that Manjimup comes from the Aboriginal, meaning place of water. She was so impressed about our northeastern US as being so full of water: streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, seacoast. I did tell her that out west it is arid, more like most of Australia, but her astonishment at all the water was interesting…it shows what we take for granted here! To see pics of her corner of the Earth, click here and here.

Meeting Vicki Jensen (here’s her blog), who organizes all the classes at Pro Chem (and I suspect she does a lot more, too, for the day job), who is also an amazing artist in her own right. She was working on some felted pieces for which she had dyed the wool, done the felting, dyed the linen on which it was to be mounted and more…I was having severe lust! It also makes me realize that in time, when I actually have some time to think (and at the tail end of summer, it has been *months* since I’ve been able to do that with two haywire boys underfoot), I’d love to explore other fibers and textures to include in my art. That, and learn to use potato dextrin..check Vicki’s blog and scroll down a bit….yum!

Seeing 266 Third Street, Fall River, Mass. I had been there once before to visit my Aunt Mary M. in 1971—which was 72 years AFTER my dad was born in that house 107 years ago, on January 22, 1899

(no, that’s not a typo…he was that old! almost 59 when I was born). I didn’t recognize the house, but finally spied this foundation, and new it had to be the same house, split into two flats as before (two mailboxes, two satellite dishes!)

Seeing the work of the other women in the class. Sandra works with yarns and weavers, so instead of yardgoods, she dyed a t-shirt, which I would love to duplicate:

Sharon is an accountant in her day job, and equally precise (a trait I sometimes envy but seldom achieve–her folding was meticulous!) in her tie-dyeing “other” business:

Suzie K’s cloth…she makes art cloth, and am sure she will do more and more to this piece, which I also love just as is. And in the “it’s a small world” vein: she and her hubby were assigned to the US Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, and left there at most two months before Paul and I arrived there in 1987! Who knows…maybe it was her Keepsake Quilting catalog I found in the Community office that opened the doors to the world of quilting for me!

I’m not sure who made this piece…Judi? It is FABULOUS! This came out of the dryer as we were finishing up day 5 and I’m so glad I got a picture!

I’ll do one more post in a couple of days, about my pieces (none of which are as “eye candy” as these pieces, but what the heck!)…. have a good weekend everyone!