Path Markers

Items collected this week:

1. knit tassel found along the Tromsdalen cross country ski trail. [Still enough snow that my husband and I were able to ski].

2. small pock marked rock from a recent visit to Senja.

3. red melted candle found in the yard whilst I was raking.

4.  brochure from the exhibit KRATER at the Kurant Gallery, Tromsø

5. birchbark.

6. black linen embroidery floss (purchased, not found).

Soul Food

A replenishing day on the island of Senja.

My lovely friend, Miranda, visiting from London.

The sea.

The sun.

A little rusty wood........

Soul Food.

Shifts

As I move forward with my creative practice I continue to deviate from my quilting and stitching roots. I still, however, have piles of textiles I worked with years ago when a full-time quilter. I consider it my challenge, and my pleasure, to continue to use them, but in more unusual ways.

So, lots of lovely silks are being cut and torn up around here these days.

I still sometimes feel uncomfortable with this new, non quilter/stitcher way of working --much less self confident that I used to, but I'm learning to find comfort in the unknown and I'm learning to get out of my way and to listen to what my eye and the fabrics want from me. 

It's an ongoing struggle and one for which I am grateful, for through it I'm able to fully experience what it feels like when I finally let go and (hopefully) I learn each time that the struggle ultimately doesn't need to be there.

As for the silks, they don't seem to care. They're quite content to be in whatever form they're in.

Nirvana.

Listen With the Eye

My husband and I made our second trip to the Norwegian immigration office this morning in order to register our temporary residence here. Unusually, we had time to spare, and decided to spend a little time wandering around a nearby derelict building site (not unusual!).

A visually fruitful trip.

The Outside World

Like most of us, I draw much inspiration from the work of others. It's fantastic to see how artists combine materials, create compositions, use colour, etc. --in essence, how they see the world through their work.  I also, however, get to the point, quite often, when I have to STOP looking at the work of others. I need to stop searching the internet for images that I think may trigger some idea that is already very present within ME.

I love how David Bayles and Ted Orlando capture this in their book Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking:

Most of us spend most of our time in other peoples' worlds -- working at predetermined jobs, relaxing to pre-packaged entertainment -- and no matter how benign this ready-made world may be, there will always be times when something is missing or doesn't quite ring true. And so you make your place in the world by making part of it -- by contributing some new part to the set. And surely one of the more astonishing rewards of artmaking comes when people make time to visit the world you have created. Some, indeed, may even purchase a piece of your world to carry back and adopt as their own. Each new piece of your art enlarges our reality. The world is not yet done.

I hope some of my work may inspire you to follow that idea that is following (and wanting to catch!) you so that you may continue to make your place in the world and contribute to, and enlarge, ours.

Off The Wall

The small textile items on my 'working wall' of several weeks ago are finally being put to good use. They began as larger projects that didn't work, were cut up, put in a box, and travelled with me to Norway. I've now begun to attach them to archival art paper and will eventually mount and frame them.

It's lovely to see them as small textile 'sketches' in their own right, and interesting that they work quite well this way when they really didn't work when they were larger.

I'm happy that they've found their way and I'm thinking that they've sparked the impetus for me to begin to sell on-line.

Sometimes good things come in smaller packages.

Street Talk

A few days in Oslo. 

Truth be told, time in a city leaves me yearning for nature. 

Finding visual inspiration in the cracks on the buildings. 

Luckily, the birds sing here, too.

Spring in the Studio

Before Easter I experienced a bit of cabin fever, most likely having something to do with the 83 cms of snow we had over a two week period, producing an even more interior mode than usual. Whatever the reason, I had the need to create a shift of energy in my workspace. 

No more plodding along like one needs to do when over knee deep in snow. Move with abandon!  I spontaneously tacked small bits of old work samples to the walls. I didn't care where they went or what they looked like. I simply needed to see everything up and to experience a certain sense of release.

Now, even though there are still metres of snow all around, there is definitely a distinct feel of Spring in the air. I can hear the incessant 'drip, drip' of ice as it melts off the house, and more birdsong than usual. Faint bits of green are appearing at the tops of trees as buds begin to make a slow hint at opening.

I'm feeling more of a sense of calm in my work as I continue to experiment. The explosion of small bits was removed and in its place a more organised visual emerges - an almost japanese aesthetic, which seems to suit my process right now.