class act

I'm back from Vermont. As is typical, I went thinking I was going to do one thing and ended up doing something completely else-wise to what I thought I intended. I like what I've got, and I'm forming a post on't, but first...

Before heading to Vermont, I took Rayna Gilman's gelatin printing class at the Country Quilter. I was a little anxious about this Vermont escapade, and these see-and-do classes tend to give me performance anxiety, so I was not the most ebullient participant*, but now that I have the basic idea, I think it will be fun to Try This At Home. Here are some of the results: Above right, fragmented gelatin plate, ink lifted off with a crocheted placemat, successive colors on a commercial, pale gray, printed fabric. Below left, a mishmash monoprint surprinted with the crochet pattern, printed on commercial marbelized fabric. Below, right, the same marbelized fabric, print made from embossed paper and commercial stamps (circle and spiral).

I think the most successful piece is this one: metallic mesh, torn paper, and feather resists; commercial text stamp on the gray fabric.
And the most interesting things were most accidental. When I pulled the paper resists off the plate, some of the layered residual paints came with it:

*The most ebullient participants

wereJane Davila and Vivien

(Whose Last Name I Don't Know).

Apologies for being slow to report on Vermont, but it feels like a lot to process. Now I know why some of the folks who do the Yaddo and McDowell things find themselves paralyzed by a sense of The Enormity of What I've Done. I wasn't exactly paralyzed, and I don't want to make too big a deal out of the Profundity of a Weekend, but there is feeling of something having shifted.