10 Good Things From The Week

November 6, 2017

This is me trying to cultivate a sense of gratitude and focus on good things as I struggle through a difficult time…

Onesie Day at Steamclock. Especially wandering the streets to and from lunch dressed in our onesies.
Drinking an excellent hot chocolate at Mink Chocolate Cafe on Friday afternoon.
Enjoying the beautiful sunny weather we continue to have despite the cold.
The arrival of winter. (The Vancouver version).
Making a tiny bit of progress on the wool blanket, by cutting the pieces and planning the composition.
Walking in Mundy Park, Port Moody, and seeing the many types of mushrooms everywhere on the trails.
Hanging out at Bakery Sate on Wednesday afternoon, while rereading Art & Fear.
Watching a hilarious movie with Boris, and coincidentally sitting beside fun people I wish I knew better.
Finishing three books over the course of the weekend.
Checking out cool stuff at Canzine on Sunday afternoon.

A Walk At Pitt Lake Marsh

November 3, 2017

Boris and I decided to do a little road trip on Saturday in order to spend time outside and enjoy the unusually warm weather for this time of year. He suggested a visit to Pitt Lake, which is a spot we last visited about seven or eight years ago!

As you can see, this area is a gorgeous place for a walk with open space and great views of water and mountains. We only did part of the loop and still managed to walk about 12 kilometres, which we were woefully unprepared for. (But that’s another story…)

I’m appreciating the photos of these blue skies, and a reminder of the warm weather now that it’s begun to feel more like winter. I am glad we got out and made the most of it on the weekend.

Work In Progress: Test Stitching on Wool Fabric

October 23, 2017

Fall and winter are the seasons I tend to concentrate on stitching, and this year I am going to work on a project to make a hand-stitched wool blanket. My friend Michelle Sirois-Silver had a studio sale a few months back and she was clearing out unused materials. I came away with a pile of lovely colourful wool fabric she’d hand-dyed over the years but never used in her work. The material was so irresistible that I started coming up with a project as I selected colours because I needed to have it and make something beautiful for our home.

Look at those colours! I was originally intending to make a Queen-sized blanket, but I came to my senses and decided to concentrate my effort on a reasonable sized throw. I need to select a design for piecing the fabric together, but I want to concentrate my efforts on stitching designs into the fabric. I did a test piece (pictured below) using a spiral pattern done in straight stitch.

This is going to be a lot of work, and very challenging to do because I’ve never made a blanket before. It could take me years to finish, or maybe I’ll be so determined it’ll be gracing my couch by next spring.

Screen Printing and Paper Cutting

October 20, 2017

During my artist residency at The Leeway a few years ago I had the opportunity to learn how to screen print, using my cut paper designs as printing stencils. I printed a pile of drawing paper with colours intending to eventually turn these into cut paper pieces. I finally pulled them out two weeks ago and started working with this printed paper to created a new series. I took inspiration for these designs and the series from line drawings I’d been doing in my 30 Days of Drawing Sketchbook earlier this year.

I don’t typically do much drawing when I work on a paper cut, but with these I’ve had to draw it all out on the back before I start. I don’t feel I can freehand cut something like this because it’s visually complicated. The lines are needed to guide the cutting.

I love this piece with the mottled colours of the paper showing through, and I actually wish they were more saturated and colourful. I’ve always avoided colourful or patterned paper with my work because I thought complicated designs were better with a simple colour palette.

I have about six or eight pieces of this screen printed paper, and I’m already working on the second piece in the series. Stay tuned for more!

Learning The Art of Kumihimo

October 16, 2017

I am so grateful Vancouver has Maiwa and their school of textiles because they manage to bring to town so many interesting and skilled artists from all over the world to do talks, teach workshops, and share their work. When I looked through their latest brochure earlier this year I knew I wanted to take a workshop, but it was a toss up between embroidery and learning something totally different. I went with a two day workshop on kumihimo with master artist Makiko Tada, simply because her work seemed so compelling.

Kumihimo is a braiding technique traditionally used as functional and decorative ties for samurai armour and swords, and in current day are used for tying obi and haori jackets. My hands-on experience in the workshop demonstrated to me that kumihimo is essentially small scale weaving, and can get incredibly complicated.

Some participants came to the workshop with their own marudai, which is a wooden stand, but everyone was given a foam disk marked with notches and numbers to work with. This was more my speed since I am not a weaver and many in the class were. Our first project was to work with four strands of yarn in two different colours to create the most basic of braids.

Our next project took things up a few levels as we worked with twenty-four strands of silk thread, divided into sections of three per notch and long enough to wind up into bobbins. That’s when things got really complicated as we quickly went through four different kumihimo patterns to try and master by the end of day one. Some I was able to get my head around and others were totally confusing. It’s hard to explain but you use both hands to braid and they move around the disk in specific movements, usually in the opposite direction. My brain was totally exhausted by the end of day one, but I came back for more in day two.

Makiko also brought in many samples of a variety of different braids done in different fibres, and vibrant colours. It was inspiring.

Work by Makiko Tada

I completed three braids by end of day two that I am happy with, which are pictured below. I decided to stick with the simpler patterns and really get a handle on the technique because there was no way I was going to get my head around the five different designs we were shown. We were given beautiful supplies to take home for further work, along with two different disks to work with.

I’m glad I took this workshop because it was super challenging and different from most of the textile work I’ve learned so far. I’m not sure what I am going to do with this going forward but I definitely need more practice.

Work In Progress: Repetition and Pattern in Blue

October 13, 2017

For one of the recent proposals I started roughing out an idea for an installation inspired by this classic Japanese textile pattern of repeating scalloped shapes. The version I started with looks dramatically different than the rest of the work in progress I am sharing here, but it was a rough prototype. I chose five different shades of blue paper to work with and have been playing around with patterns to incorporate into the piece, as well as spacing, and overall assembly.

These are four variations as I play around with adding more patterns to the pieces, and whether or not to cut all the shapes or leave them mixed with uncut pieces. I’m really enjoying working with colour in this. I think I’ve cut about eighty individual pieces of paper into a scallop shape with the goal of assembling a sizeable finished piece.

The Tree of Life At Lipont Place

October 6, 2017

These are photos of some of the wonderful art in Tree of Life at Lipont Place in Richmond. I went to see it last weekend and left feeling super excited and inspired by all of the incredible work. It’s a traveling show predominantly featuring textile art by fifty-eight master artists from twenty Asian countries.

From the Lipont Place website:

The Tree of Life is an archetype, theme, motif, image, spiritual concept and mythological story that is found across cultures and throughout human history. It is understood to connect all forms of creation and is a cosmic conception that embodies life’s mysteries, unites the heavens, the earth, and the underworld, and is seen as a representation of everlasting life. Its various interpretations from indigenous cultures and major religions have influenced art, architecture, and visual representation for millennia.

This international exhibition explores the ways in which the Tree of Life has been represented in 20 countries across Central, South, East, and South-east Asia and includes the artwork of 58 artists and craftspeople, many of whom are masters of their chosen form and some who are Living National Treasures in their countries of origin. The artworks are as diverse as the cultures they originate from and are both traditional and contemporary. They are handcrafted from natural and sustainable materials, and include textiles, paintings, ceramics, weaving, leather, lacquer ware, jewellery, stone, wood, and metal.

The show continues until Tuesday October 10th. Read more about it on the Lipont Place website.

Pattern Play with Upcycled Envelope Paper

October 4, 2017

I created these pieces two weeks ago for an artist call application, and have been inspired by their mix of colours and patterns ever since. I shared work in progress of one of them in a previous blog post about revisiting recycled paper from security envelopes in my work again. It was a pleasant surprise all of this pattern mixing works as well as it does. Both pieces are approximately 9″ x 9″, and will go nicely into 12″ x 12″ shadowbox frames.

The pieces are inspired by a few different things, including quilting blocks and granny squares. I realized recently I should just acknowledge I am heavily inspired by textile art design and process in my approach to creating art from paper. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to bring my modular approach to installation in the type of work I create to fit into frames and hang on a wall. These two pieces feel closer to those ideas.

I had a lot of enjoyment in making these because I had to pull it together in a short amount of time in order to make a last minute deadline. I couldn’t over think it, so I made decisions about composition, material selection, and pattern choices as quickly as possible. It felt really good to work that way.

I want to make more of these pieces because I have lots more security envelope paper to make use of. In the meantime, my fingers are crossed these two get accepted into the show I submit them for.

Sculptural Work by Mo Kelman

September 25, 2017

I attended a lecture by Mo Kelman at the beginning of September as part of Maiwa School of Textiles fall schedule, when they bring in a new round of out of town speakers to teach and talk. Kelman is an interesting choice for Maiwa because while she does use textiles in her work, her approach is non-traditional and not at all functional.

I went back a week later to view her show at the Silkweaving Studio on Granville Island.

It was great to see her work in person so soon after the talk because photos don’t quite do justice to them. I loved these amazing sculptures that use bamboo structures, nails, thread, fabric, and sometimes sausage casing (!) to create abstract organic forms stretched across the wall. The shadows cast by the forms were an import element to the work as well, but maybe it’s because I love a good shadow.

Unfortunately, you can’t go see the show yourself because it closed on the weekend but you can check out more work on Mo Kelman’s website.

Work In Progress With Envelope Paper

September 24, 2017

I’ve been focused on writing proposals rather than producing work over the last few weeks, but an opportunity that came up last minute with a short deadline led me to some very productive studio time this week. I needed to create a piece using recycled materials, which is something I used to do more with my altered book work. Luckily I still have plenty of reclaimed paper tucked away in the studio and I realized my collection of security envelopes was the perfect thing to use.

I’ve never used patterned paper in my cut designs before because I tend to think it’ll be too busy when combined with an intricately patterned composition. Based on the work in progress pictured here, I was wrong. It works really well.

This is one of the two pieces I created for the call for artists that was due last Friday. It explores an idea I’ve had in my head for about nine months combining patterns, and taking inspiration from quilting blocks. It was good to find a new way to use security envelopes in my work because I’ve always found the material extremely compelling, and I have a box full of it still to make use of.

Canvas to the Imagination

Rachael Ashe – Art | Craft | Life