Back in the Studio
a newly finished Marking Time artwork
It has been delicious to be back in the studio. I have dedicated a certain number of studio hours a week to complete current series like Marking Time and COVID Cost. The knowledge that these projects will be completed by fall 2025 has eased my mind and allowed me to use the rest of the studio hours to revel in the materials and the ideas that I have collected over the last couple of years. It has been reinvigorating and exciting to once again delve into, experiment with and explore materials and concepts.
New Explorations
a patchwork of teabags
I had been wondering what to do with the myriads of tea bags leftover from staining and dying the silk cocoons for Emergence besides using them as substrates for my Marking Time tea bag collages. One idea was to make a wall size collage of the teabags. Semi-translucent, fragile and variously shaped, I am patching them together, using embroidery threads, and adding found objects. I play with color, shape and density. I have only just begun but know I want this to be quilt-sized, and hanging so that the light filters from behind, highlighting it’s transparency and delicacy.
“I am taking my time and letting the work speak to me and tell me in which direction to move forward.”
work in progress
Several years ago, in a paper making class, at the Woman’s Studio Workshop in NY, I created a huge sheet of handmade paper. I cut up old cotton bed sheets and pulped them in a Reina Hollander Beater. The sheet was formed by pouring buckets and buckets of pulp into a 5 by 7 foot wood frame lined with mesh. Set on plaster buckets it was left to dry first in the sun and then on its mold within the workshop. It has a thick, textured and undulating surface. I loved it but wasn’t sure then how to use it! At an art residency at Vermont Studio Center, I rusted it with found rusty objects. The repeated working of the paper, wetting, drying and handling it caused several portions to tear. I hung it in my studio, spent much time looking at it and musing. For one of the ripped portions, I started a loose warp and created a weaving within the paper. I am very happy with the results and I am considering burning and repairing other portions of the paper. I am taking my time and letting the work speak to me and tell me in which direction to move forward. I trust that over time these materials will enable me to continue to convey the themes of memory and loss that I frequently address in my work.
New Exhibitions
Lastly, I have begun to actively plan a pop-up exhibit within an abandoned structure on local park grounds. The more I spend time immersed in making, the more ideas are fired. Right now, I am not sure where these initial explorations will lead me, but I am so very grateful to once again be elbow deep in the process and excited to see where these will lead me.
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