I’ll share the fabulous conclusion of this year’s Pippin
saga below, but my mind is already re-focused on the first of the holiday
shows. The Artisan Guild show at
the Convention Center sets up Friday morning. The fiber, glass and clay guilds come together under one
roof, and I’m very excited about participating. I’ve been working feverishly at advancing two huge new
bodies of work that I’ll show this season. First, I’m pretty excited about the felted tiles I’ve been
working on.
The inspiration for the tiles really comes from visiting the
Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. In my
family I’m the really big tomato fan, so fall is the conclusion to my season of
my tomato sandwiches. When I arrive
at the farmer’s market I casually conduct a surveillance loop around the market
to pick out my one perfect tomato for the week. My selection has to big, red, ripe and juicy, but not
especially pretty. I love the idea
of having one big fat slice of tomato in my sandwich - as thick as the bread
slices. The reality of my weekly
search explains the inspiration for the new felted pieces. I’m trying to capture the essence of
that one, big special thing recognized as essential to your life. For my family, the week the first ripe snap
peas appear in boxes on tables is a good example.
At the Farmer’s Market you suddenly see the rich, green
color and the memory about how much you love them kicks in. We buy a box and eat them raw at the
market. Then we usually buy a
couple more boxes and put them in a big bowl at the center of the table to
munch on. Taking an important part
of your life and framing it for the wall to help you remember it is important
to me. Of course as soon as I
start making one type of vegetable I’m inspired to begin making another. I have a few big pieces where comfortable
combinations of vegetables come together to shape the whole. I also love the idea of being able to
piece together a favorite dish by combining tiles. You might create a salsa art piece combining tomato, onion
and jalapeno tiles. Or you might
think of borscht by mixing beets, onion slices and garlic. The tiles are like a visual recipe. Of course some of the tiles do speak
volumes standing alone. There is
something seductive about a pile of cherries, which my brain would immediately
commit to inclusion in a pie.
My second new body of work is the collection of felted
vessels I’ve been making. The
genesis of these vessels, along with pictures of my first attempts, are
featured in earlier blogs. I now have
a collection of felted vessels that I have begun to package to display at the
show. It has been a lot of fun to
explore how different materials behave and combine to create new surface
textures. Merino noils, the very
short waste merino I picked up several years ago from Sheep Street felts
incredibly quickly, but the short fibers result in a bumpy texture. What I like about the merino is that the
finished product is very rigid.
The merino top, which is the longest merino fibers, felts quickly but
results in a softer vessel. If the
vessel were created on a larger scale I can imagine that it might collapse in
on itself. I also did some
experimenting with some spun horsetail hair. It has a fascinating texture that I incorporated into one of
the vessels. The contrast of the
coarseness of horsetail hair with the soft, fine merino is striking in both texture
and color. I’ve done some
additional embellishing on a few of the vessels, adding cute little felted
balls to supply even more character and make them more whimsical.
Another chapter of my life closed this week to make room for
my holiday art fair season. The
final production of Pippin was presented on Saturday night and yesterday
morning we did the set teardown. The
costumes were divvied up for washing and the parents hauled them away. The armor and the props were collected,
organized and put to bed for now.
Monday morning it all seemed like a dream. For now, I’m delighted with the amazing number of parents
and SOS kids that came together to deconstruct the show—the stage and costume
studio were beehives of activity.
The entire set was broken down and put away within three hours. Thank you again to Gwen, Chris and
Nancy and all of the parents and students that made this an amazing
experience. I will forever cherish
the memories.
Right now, though,
my calendar shows me that I have a workshop in Crawfordsville on Saturday, November
12 to teach about weaving with reclaimed and recycled materials--please do sign
up! You may contact Jessica Madsen
And finally, the last Pippin performance also coincided with the end of
the first trimester of high school for Jacob, who came through stressed but
successful. Tommie is on
autopilot, carving through his curriculum as junior. Coming up sometime in the near future will be a second
degree black belt test for the two boys, who have just about completed their
weapons training for their cross-training requirement. We’ve managed to stay on track with
Taekwondo training, voice lessons and hip-hop dance training, but we’re now transitioning
into the late fall schedule of boy activities. This week Jacob and I are looking forward to seeing Sweeney Todd at Ivy Tech, while Tommie and I are excited to be at the home opener for
IU men's basketball. Basically, we just
buckling our seat belts until Thanksgiving vacation, because it will be a
crazy, busy ride with lots of laughs and pie along the way. Oh, and Jim tried to hide it between loaves of
bread, but an apple pie emerged from the oven yesterday morning while I was
away breaking down the show! Best.dessert.this.week!!
Until next week
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