earmstrong8, Author at Inspired By Everyday Beauty

Try, try again!

On an early summer morning I sit on the dock watching. The sun rises over the distant woods and their reflection lights up the calm and quiet lake. Onshore, the wind begins to stir, and the waves become active, signaling it is time to start a new day.

One of my goals for 2024 is to have a piece of work accepted into a juried exhibition. It’s a great learning experience that drives home the old adage ‘If at first you don’t succeed….’

Preparing to enter a call isn’t as fun as creating art, but if you want to get your work seen and enjoyed by others there are skills to be mastered. I give myself regular pep talks and remind myself that if I want to get into an exhibition I have to submit entries!

I dipped my toe into the juried exhibition waters by responding to a couple of calls for Virtual Exhibitions–shows that exhibit worldwide through virtual galleries. These calls are a little less daunting as they usually don’t have specific size restrictions, and they don’t require shipping an accepted piece to the exhibit site.

Those early submissions gave me my first bitter taste of rejection, but they also gave me the courage to enter other exhibits. I have now moved forward to calls for on-site exhibits at various local and international venues.

There is no denying how disheartening it is when a piece is not accepted for an exhibition. It is never easy to get a rejection, but there are always lessons to be learned. It helps to keep focused on the positive. I think back to the enjoyment of creating the piece and I add some questions to my pep talk: Did I enjoy making the piece? Do I like the piece? Did I learn anything along the way? Could I make a better submission next time? As long as all of those answers come back yes, then I will keep on trying!

Someone said, “if you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting the same result”...or something along those lines. So, I’ve been digging for answers on how to improve my chance of success in the exhibition world. While continuing to develop and improve my creative work, I will also need to learn as much as I can about the submission process and improve those skills.

When debriefing with friends and seeking counsel from fellow artists and mentors, I am told repeatedly that rejection may have little to do with the quality or beauty of the actual piece. Not only do all of the technical components of the submission matter, there is also an element of luck! There are tales of pieces being rejected by several exhibitions then going on to win prizes. Reportedly, even well established artists still suffer rejection from time to time. The message seems to be unanimous: don’t give up, keep up the determination, and keep on trying!

Here are some of the tips I have gleaned so far.

Theme: Understand it

Every call for exhibition has a theme. Although themes typically can have a wide interpretation, they are not vague. Make sure you understand the exact definition of the words given as the theme — they weren’t chosen lightly. Give the theme a lot of thought, make sure you understand it and that you consider it in the current context.

When I first started to think about the themes, I thought I had to create a piece to fit the theme and I struggled. Through experience, I know that when I try to create a piece to ‘fit’ a specific call or request, I overthink things and inevitably the piece starts to look forced.

What seems to work better for me is first creating a piece of work and then thinking about how it might fit into a theme.

Artist’s Statement: Pin it to the theme

My art tends to fall somewhere between realism and abstract — closer to realism. Most often pieces are created as interpretations of things I have found in natural settings. I am after all ‘Inspired by Everyday Beauty’, What perplexed me was seeing exhibited pieces that were definitely very abstract fitting into exhibit themes.

The key seems to be the artist’s interpretation. In an exhibit, or submission to a call, the artist’s only shot at explaining their piece is through the artist’s statement. The statement is the opportunity to pin the piece to the theme.

I need to master the art of writing about my art. The required artist’s statement usually allows only 100-200 words to describe the piece. It is important to use these precious words not only to describe the art, but to engage the viewer, and that may best be done by evoking some emotion. What moved you to create the piece? How does the piece depict your intension?

There are lots of resources to be found on google, but also start to read and pay attention to artist statements you see in shows and in virtual galleries. Take note of style, voice and vocabulary.

A great resource I’ve found is Art-Write: The Writing Guide for Visual Artists, by Vicki Krohn Ambrose.

Photos: Aim for perfection

Most calls for exhibits require electronic applications accompanied by one or two photos of the work. Consider that the photos you submit are your only chance to make a visual impression on the curators. Make sure your photos are top quality to give your piece its best chance. Your submission will be one of hundreds they receive. You don’t want your piece discarded in the first sort because of a poor quality photo! The call will give specific requirements for the quality of the photos, but also make sure that they are focused, evenly cropped and squared up, and that the lighting has kept the colours true to life. Keep in mind that in many cases, if successful, your photo will be used for promotion, print or even display (in the case of virtual exhibits).

Curators: Get to know them

Often, curators choose only 30 to 40 pieces from a very large pool of submissions. The curators are putting together a comprehensive show and the chosen pieces must gel visually, conceptually, and spatially. This is where there is an element of luck. You have no real idea what the overall picture of the exhibit will look like. Let’s face it, the curators themselves may not know until they see the pieces they receive. You can up the odds on your luck by doing a little research. Check out the curators: take a look at their past shows; take a look at their work to get a sense of their style; consider the venue; and consider the audience. I am not saying to do this and then cater your work to the curator, but the more you know about the curator, the more you will understand the suitability of your piece for this particular show, at this particular time.

I cannot yet tell you what it feels like when a submission is accepted, but I’m going to keep on trying and you can be sure I will let you know as soon as it happens!

This blog was written in light of many enriching conversations with my mentor Irene Koroluk (irenekoroluk.com). I am grateful for her guidance.

Dye With Love

As you know, last summer I became captivated with the Magic of eco dying. At Summer camp I had lots of fun playing around with old cotton fabric and different leaves and flowers that I had gathered on my walks. You also know that I like Creating with purpose.

I decided the next step was to try printing on paper.

I had a few dry runs. Or, I should say wet runs. My first attempts to press leaves between rust-water soaked papers resulted in a bit of a soggy blur. I’ll spare you pictures of that mess!

Through practice, I discovered a few tricks:

use a good quality paper–I used cold press water colour paper
wet the leaves rather than the paper
separate all the leaf layers with parchment paper to avoid bleed through
stack the papers and press them very tightly between two ceramic tiles
steam (i.e. not immersed in water) for 90 minutes
cool completely before unwrapping to peek at the creations

I used six 8″ x 10″ pieces of paper folded in half with leaves in between every layer and every layer separated with parchment paper.

If you are following the math, that means I ended up being able to make a three-section journal, each section with two nested sheets. Folding the sheets in the middle means each section has 8 printed sides and the whole journal is 24 pages.

Some of the parchment papers were too beautiful to discard. I added a few into the journal for secret note space and textural variety.

The original intention was for words to be added free form throughout the journal, but I knew that it might be difficult to dive in and start to write on the flora imprinted pages. I added some lines for encouragement and to give sections for guiding script. I added dyed lined paper, and also stitched in some black lines. I remembered how as a child I had loved running our old Singer treadle machine with no thread over paper pretending to sew. This seemed like a fun idea to add texture and the suggestion of lines.

Next of course, I had to figure out how to bind the whole thing together. A a quick google search lead to directions on how to bind a book with waxed thread.

*Three sections bound with waxed thread*

After binding, there were a few long ends on my threads, which once braided were too nice to cut, so I added some wild turkey feathers, foraged on a summer walk, to serve a book marks.

My dear friend Martha in her retirement is focusing on a love of the written word and expressing herself through poetry. What better reason to create a special journal in which she can scribe beautiful words. This journal was definitely a project of dyeing with love.

*The final poetry journal dyed with love*

A Room of My Own

It was many years ago that I heard of Virginia Woolfe’s Room of One’s Own, but I recall that even then, when I had neither the funds nor the room to be creative, I thought it a brilliant idea.

I feel as though finally, I have arrived.

After a full renovation of our house, a process that spanned over ten years as my husband lovingly made our house a home, the final piece was an upstairs atelier for me!

As you know, since retirement I have plunged into creative pursuits of all kinds and creativity needs space! Not just for an afternoon, but sometimes for more lengthy periods as projects evolve and “mijote” as the French say. It may be possible that my husband tired of my work areas spreading throughout the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, the basement, and occasionally the bedroom. But, whatever the impetus he came up with the great idea to build me a room of my own–an atelier where I could have all my bits and pieces at hand, and keep all my bits and pieces somewhat contained!

I love it! Once and for all I have almost all my ‘stuff’ together in a workable space. There is room for a big design board to post and plan works in progress; my new sewing machine fits into my old 1913 Singer machine table; a workbench gives space for drawing and printing and painting; an in-wall ironing board allows for quick pressing and doubles as an alternate work surface; lots of shelves house books and papers and supplies; and a big reclaimed glass cabinet stores a good chunk of my fabric stash.

The laminate floor works well for spotting rogue pins and quick sweeps, with a couple of sheepskin rugs for cozier footing when needed. The roman blinds can be pulled right up for maximum light. The sliding pocket door closes off the nearby washroom (read water supply), and opens up for more light and heat when needed.

The light is optimal: two big north east windows providing natural light are supplemented with a bar LED light for drearier days and night work, and a desk lamp for closer hand work.

The space is small, but efficient (8′ x12′) and everything is within reach. I’ve been spending winter days holed up in my atelier happily working away on projects, listening to CBC radio and gazing out at the neighbourhood.

That my friends, is the explanation for not having posted a blog in a while…I’ve been too busy playing and creating in the room that is my own.

Fabric Collage Play

Sorry to say I’ve fallen behind in my blogging, but I’ve been very busy having fun! In November, I attended a Fabric Collage workshop at the Kingston Seniors’ Centre https://seniorskingston.ca/ and it has given me a fun new obsession. The workshop was presented by Linda Coulter, a local fibre artist who specializes in collage https://www.lindacoultertextileart.com/

Fabric collage seems to be a perfect combination for me. You can use every scrap and piece of fabric, thread or bobble that you already have in your stash; you can have a lot of fun cutting and laying out pieces to build your design from either your imagination or your favourite photos; and, after tacking everything together, you can secure and ‘paint’ the piece with lots of hand sewing.

At the workshop, we each chose a prepared bundle of fabrics that provided a foundation or ‘ground’ fabric and a mix of cotton in compatible colours, different scales and different values. Who doesn’t love to get a little bundle of fabrics? Let the fun begin!

Linda provided a great balance of instruction, guidance and freedom to appeal to participants ranging from debutants to those more experienced with design and fabric construction. The introductory lesson was a good refresher for me to consider pattern, scale, colour value, movement, light/dark and focal point.

My bundle had an overall warm-toned assortment of yellows and oranges that are not my usual preferred colour palette, but I decided to roll with it and experiment. I used my bundle of fabrics for inspiration and began to lay out a base that would show some depth. I used a variety of scales to create a foreground and background. The instructor had brought a mountain of other fabrics from her stash and we were encouraged to hunt for any bits that we needed for our design. This was pure, unfiltered fun.

While cutting, layering, and adjusting our collages we kept stepping back to view the design from different angles for overall effect. This is very useful to know when to add or take away pieces, to achieve balance, movement, and a focal point. Once satisfied, the next step was to pin and baste all of the pieces onto the ground fabric. Not to worry though, basting can be removed, and pieces could still be shuffled around or changed at any point (the benefit of not using any glue)!

That is as far as we got in the short workshop. We bundled up our work to take home where, as Linda advised, we let it sit for a bit looking at it from different angles and distances before finalizing it. Then my favorite part, the hand sewing. I love to hold the fabric in my hands and add stitching with coloured threads to adhere the pieces to the collage, and to highlight any detail. To me, this is a bit like mess-free painting that can always be picked out and changed to correct mistakes.

*Baste and pin all the pieces to the ground fabric*

I did try not to make a landscape, but it seemed to migrate in that direction. It’s reminiscent of a forest gone to swamp land, as I see so often on my country walks in the countryside north of Kingston. My focal point–as is very plain to see–was the gorgeous bright flower cut from a larger fabric piece. Have I mentioned how much I love flowers? If you look closely while out in nature, no matter how bleak a landscape may seem from a distance, there is almost always at least one flower to be found. In this piece, I flipped the narrative–as one can do in collage–by making the swampland retreat to the background allowing the larger-than-life flower to dominate. I finished the piece with a border of muted, moss-coloured faux suede to tie into the imagined landscape and highlight the brightness of the flower.

Having tried my first collage guided by fabrics and imagination, I decided to try the next one using a favorite photo for inspiration. You know I love flowers… I chose this photo of a dandelion gone to seed because of the beautiful texture of the seed globe. As it turns out, you will see that the dandelion becomes my oversize focal point and I take great liberty in imagining the background setting in which it can be found. Maybe there is a theme developing here of letting flowers shine in their environments…

It was time to dive into my stash and choose fabrics that would create the background and setting for a dandelion star. I was intrigued with how I might show the texture of the fluffy seeds and considered using strands of white mohair, but decided to keep with cotton thread and stitch technique to avoid letting the piece become too busy. I used a variety of scale and pattern all in the same bright palette, to build a pastural scene fading off to woodlands, hills and sky. It was great fun to experiment with the adhering stitches, varying style and colour to alternately blend into or define the background.

**Imagine lying in a field looking up at this beautiful dandelion surrounded by pastures, woods and hills beyond.**

Fair to say I am now hooked on fabric collage and will add it into my long list of other fibre-based obsessions. I can’t wait to create more using my photos, fabrics I print and dye, hand sewing and free-motion machine stitching….if only there were more time in a day!

Evolve

As I am exploring pictures, postings and websites with artists’ fibre creations I love to zoom in and dissect them visually to analyse what they have done to achieve their effect. Sometimes, in magazines or on individual artist’s blogs there will be a description of the steps they have taken to create their piece. This is very useful as a learning tool to figure out the technicalities and skills needed.

What I would like to know more about though is the process, the inside scoop on how a piece actually evolves. Do ‘real artists’ just dive into a bucket of paints or cloths or threads and magically end up with a dazzling creation that has translated their inner thoughts through their hands? Or, do they secretly and carefully pre-plan their creations, using design principles and mathematical calculations to ensure that their vision will be transformed into a tangible interpretation?

I would argue that as with just about anything…it depends. It depends on the artist, and the medium, and the mood, and the desired outcome…. As with so many things, there is a time and a place for each style, even a time and place for a bit of each.

I have tried both. Sometimes ‘just diving in’, although very therapeutic and tons of fun, can result in one big mess, but it can also render some wonderful surprises! Careful planning, thinking and calculating on the other hand can help you to arrive at an end point with no catastrophic mistakes leading to ruination, or, leave you bogged down forever in the planning and fretting stage without ever getting at it. Both processes can end in big wastes of money, time and resources, and both can result in beautiful pieces of art.

Maybe the true skill is to know how to listen to your feelings toward any given subject, the medium and the desired outcome in the very moment when you want to create.

So all that, is a lead in to my latest endeavor which started with a dive in and then evolved from a disaster to a finished piece that I love.

As you will know from my previous blogs (Magic), this summer I fell in love with eco dyeing. I did most pieces on cotton and was happy with the results. Then I decided to try eco dyeing some beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace on a piece of wool–I dove in. Well, long story short, I think the wool was too fuzzy and although I got a great physical imprint of the flower from the pressure added in steaming, the print of the flower itself was a dark, blurry mess. So, I tucked it away in a bag and moved on.

Later in the summer, I decided it was time to start learning how to free-motion stitch on my sewing machine. In part to speed up some of the work that goes into embroidery, but also to try out a method I had seen that can embellish both wet and dry felt pieces. Aha, a purpose for my Queen Anne’s Lace mistake. What better way to start than to try free-motion stitching on a throw away piece of wool?

I backed the piece of wool with a light-weight, iron-on interfacing to give it some stability and to prevent wool dust clogging up my machine. I dropped the feeder feet on my machine and removed the presser foot. These recommendations are all made by Moy Mackay, who has written several books on felting techniques (http://moymackay.com).

I started by loosely following the impressions the flowers had left on the wool, roughly staying within the dark black shadows of the blooms. This seemed to be laying down a good base and I was starting to get the hang of my hands controlling the speed of the fabric movement rather than the machine foot pedal controlling the speed. I decided to keep on going and added two tones of green free-motion stitching to define the centre of the floral bundles.

The piece was starting to develop into something, so I kept on playing. For a different texture I switched to hand sewing. Deciding it needed some definition to make it look a little more like the fields of Queen Anne that were my inspiration, I used three strands of cotton embroidery floss to add in some stems. Using a heavy linen thread, I added some floret detail.

Now that I had a wool piece that I was starting to like, I turned my mind to how it could be mounted. I just happened to have a bundle of recently acquired silk ends. Hmmm, maybe one of those could be a border? I intended just to put one framing border so I auditioned the different silks. I wanted to complement the tones of the piece and not overwhelm it with the border so I settled on the smaller, green and gold print to pick up the colour of the stems and flower centers.

I decided on about a two inch border to frame the wool and then, the piece started to grow. I really liked that cream coloured silk, maybe a second, wider border around the first? What about the gold plaid? It was beautiful too and I did like the taupe tie in. This is the point where I had to take a step back and breathe. I needed to consider when less is more and get ready to make the call on when more would be too much. In this case, the plaid was out, it had started to get too busy and detract from the main piece.

*Loved the cream border, but it still needed some finishing*

One more round of the gold and green fabric would finish it nicely, giving it a ‘contained’ feeling. When I put it up on my design board it still wasn’t quite right though, so I added one final element by hand quilting around the detail of the commercial embellishment on the cream silk.

*Finished piece: Queen Anne’s Lace Embellished*

My initial plan was to mount this piece by stretching it over a wooden frame but as it evolved I realized the puffiness the batting on the frame gave was not the look I wanted. Instead, I backed the piece with the plaid silk and suspended it on dowels.

The final surprise was that although I hadn’t planned it, this piece fits perfectly in our dining room! It was a long path of experimental evolution for this one, but I like how it traveled from a throw-away mistake to a treasure.

What is your style, do you plan ahead or just jump in? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Magic

Well, the real term is ‘eco dyeing’, but it feels like magic. In my previous post about Summer camp, I touched on eco dyeing and promised I would elaborate later. Seeing as it is currently one of my favourite things to do, I have been busy and have lots of pictures to share!

Top: *Water lilies* Bottom: *wet blanket*

Water lilies are taking first place for my favourite eco dye leaves. Earlier, I used water lily leaves and stems on a dry piece of cotton, covered with a ‘wet blanket’ (cotton soaked in iron solution). I loved both the leaf print itself, and the impression that was left on the blanket. Interesting how the green of the leaves showed up, but I also like the dark impressions and detail on the blanket.

With visions of Monet dancing in my head, I was inspired to use water lilies in a bigger project. To start, I would have to gather some lily pads, so we set out in our kayaks to forage on a calm and sunny day. It took no time at all to fill the kayak with lily pads of all sizes. I may have overdone it, maybe a kayak full wasn’t necessary, but I would have lots to chose from.

Back on dry land, I put the lilies into a 5-gallon bucket of water to transport them home and kept them in the bucket overnight until I was ready to try the roll up.

I had recently purchased a 100% cotton sundress and could picture water lilies floating up from the hem on a cool summer day.

Enough of the dreamy visioning though, my mind turned to planning out the technicalities of how to turn my vision into reality. As always, I started with the end and thought backwards. You may think this is a trick used only in computer programming, or reverse engineering, but don’t let that scare you off. Thinking backwards is a great way to come up with challenges to solve. Basically, it means thinking of where, or what, you want to end with and then planning all the steps to get there. I try to remind myself that when you want a functional outcome, this crucial first step gives better results than just ‘throwing it all together and seeing what comes out’!

When thinking about my final piece, how it would look on a moving body; how it would fit into my wardrobe colour scheme; how it would wash; how to best highlight the beauty of lily pads; I came up with a few challenges:

How could I get a permanent, beautiful background colour, without the orange tinge of the iron dye interfering?
How should I lay out the leaves to give the desired effect of carefully balanced/random placement?
How could I work with a ready made dress that has pockets, neck and arm binding and a hem, each with a subtly different thickness and texture?
How would I print the front and the back of the dress, without the prints bleeding through and muddying each other?
How should I apply the iron water? Would it be better to use a wet blanket, or wet the leaves, or wet the dress?
How would I get the mirror image effect on the front and back of the dress, not on a wet blanket?
How would I roll the leaves and dress up for steaming without creating creases in my prints?

I can tell you, this took some thinking. As I played out the process in my mind, each challenge seemed to present another sub-challenge. I’ll spare you all of that rumination and just share with you the steps I settled on.

Oh yes, one final thing that I often have to do to move myself from planning to executing: Consider the worst case scenario. It could end up as one big mess. But, in this case, all I will have lost is a cheap cotton dress and some time. At some point, you do have to just plunge in and take the first step, remembering that this is all a big experiment, and it’s meant to be fun!

With the dress being a dress, it had seams, arm holes and a neck hole to contend with, and I wanted a mirror image print on the front and back of the dress so I had to figure out how to use the same leaves, keep them from bleeding through where I didn’t want them, and not waste their print on a wet blanket.

First, I soaked the whole dress in an iron water solution and wrung it out until damp. To make the most of the strength of the print, and to make sure it showed on the right side of the pockets (not the inside), I turned the dress inside out, and placed the leaves sandwich style between the front and back so they would have direct contact with both the front and the back. I started with the biggest on the bottom near the hem and floated up to smaller ones near one shoulder in a bit of a wavy drift.

I knew the print would come through to the backside of the fabric and didn’t mind that, but I didn’t want bleed through when I rolled up the bundle. I have been using saran wrap to block in my smaller pieces, but the dress seemed too big for that so I decided to try using parchment paper and it worked a charm. I laid out enough paper to cover both the front and the back completely. In essence, I now had a five-layer sandwich: paper, dress back, leaves, dress front, paper.

*Bonus: the waste parchment paper was beautiful!*

The piece was now ready to roll so I chose the longest stick that would fit in my steamer. I carefully folded in the sides of the dress to make it as evenly thick as possible and about 12 inches wide. This was rolled onto the stick, and bound as tightly as possible with string. Next, I popped it into the steamer and waited, ever-so patiently, for 90 minutes…plus another half hour or so for cooling. Then, the great reveal!

The biggest surprise at this step was beauty of the waste parchment paper which had blocked the bleeding by picking up the print. I’ll definitely be using this later.

*Round one: lily leaves on iron rust background*

As for the dress itself, I was pleased with the basic outcome. The leaves were well defined in tones of purplish black. As anticipated, the main colour of the dress was a pale orange from the iron water. I briefly considered leaving it this way, but really the dress is for me and I am pretty much stuck on blues, I still had a water image in my mind, and orange wasn’t very ‘Monet’.

The easiest solution, given my recent foray into indigo dyeing, was to give the dress a few dips in the indigo vat hoping that blue over light orange might make a nice blueish green. Things looked promising when the dress was hung on the line, but after the first rinse and dry, the indigo faded quite a bit (possibly the vat had been tired), and too much of the iron orange was showing through muddying the colour.

*First over dye with indigo became much paler when rinsed*

*Procion mx dye: electric blue & sun yellow*

OK, one more try. Third time’s a charm right? I decided to deviate from the natural path and treat the dress with a bath in Procion mx dye. I soaked the dress in a soda ash solution for 20 minutes to ensure colour fastness, and then put it in the dye to ‘stew’ overnight. Next morning, a rinse in ice water, hand washing, line drying and a hot ironing finished it off.

Finally, the dress was finished! I love the blue/green background, and the front and back mirror image. A bit of the underlying rust shows through, but I think it adds to the richness of the water effect.

What do you think?