traveling light

This is the story of How I Became an Artist While Staring at the Walls in Vermont, Persisting Through a Plumbing Situation and a Neck Sprain, and Surviving the Eternal Vagaries of the Vile and Evil USPS.

I had something like an idea inspired by the Elements theme for the Journal quilts -- use copper armature mesh as the fire element and overlay panels for the other elements (which, for the non-alchemical among us, are air, water, earth). Further inspired by Virginia Spiegel's wonderful Boundary Waters series, I wanted to do something BIG, bigger than my usual 12-inch squares and way bigger than the postcards I've been churning out. Also floating in the back of my mind was: "Maybe do something for Quilt National. The deadline is Sept 5, so I have a whole month to throw something together." So I loaded up the car with the barest of necessities and headed north from the Bronx. This is the array of my rigorously pared down supplies:

Yes, everything in the green bags, in the copier-paper boxes, and in between is mine. I know what you're thinking -- she must have a really small car. . .
And because you never know when you might need to make a little sketch of something:
And since Great River bills itself as an arts institute and may or may not know from fabric, I brought the iron and ironing board in addition to the traveling sewing machine. And, oh yes, I just happened to have a case of Poland Spring in the trunk, so I brought that too. (Well, really -- do you drink the local water when you're on vacation, or at home?)
Happily it was a b-i-g room, maybe 45 feet by 45 feet. All for me. I pinned this up on the wall --
Inspiring, no?
Then sat down and stared at it and waited to think of something . . .
anything, really . . .
waited . . . . . .
waited some more. . . . . . . . . .
And that great industriousness consumed most of Friday afternoon. I decided I needed food. And maybe some dopamine. Foraged, came back, and thought: This is not going anywhere. Maybe color would help? I pulled some stuff out of the bags and made stacks:Fooled about with some combinations and then thought ... well, if you're going to go for color, then go for color: very fiery, no? and maybe somewhat airy and deep-water-ish on top? maybe the swirly marbleized orange fabric rather than the armature wire? I got this far and could go no further.

Bedded down at the inn, reduced to watching the Red Sox game --
(god help me --did I mention I'm from the Bronx? the place with the team that inspired the T-shirt slogan "If it's called the World Series, how come it's always played in the Bronx?" . . . but I digress . . .)
--feeling sad and agitated, and having second thoughts that verged too close to the yips. I said to myself: "Self, white is your favorite color. Maybe go back to the white idea." Okay.

Saturday morning, back at the Institute, looked at the orange-purple-aqua array and thought: Holy mother of god, what was I thinking? And stared at the wall. Remember the wall? Considered crying. Reminded myself that crying is something I can do at home for free. Packed away the orange-aqua-purple array and the stacks o' miscellany. Covered a table with the one piece of batting I brought, measured out a couple lengths of muslin to cover the length (5 feet-ish) and width (2 feet-ish) and started tearing the muslin into strips roughly an inch-and-a-half wide. Wove the strips together into a big piece of fabric. This took longer than expected and, by itself, is of little or no interest to interested bystanders. Besides, I didn't take a picture.

Skipping ahead to late Saturday evening when the Good Self-esteem Fairies swarmed in, trailing clouds of confidence and enthusiasm. Next door to the Institute is a radio station. A local theater group (displaced from Brooklyn and longing for home, i.e., New York) came in to do a promo and I ran into the voluble playwright, the artistic director, and two very large dogs in the lobby. Conversation ensued, the playwright wanted to see what I was doing, and then somehow the costumer and someone else from the company had joined in. I said "It's not much to see -- white strips of fabric woven together" But they bustled in, looked at everything, exclaimed happily over gelatin plate prints from Rayna Gilman's class that were still scattered around, and Discussed Seriously what I might do with the big white woven rectangle (BW2R). Turns out the playwright got his MFA at the same school I did, and somehow my undergraduate theater degree also came up in conversation. Then they all bustled back over to the door, the playwright turned and said: "Look at at all the things you do. You're a Real Artist" and then -- poof! -- they were gone.

Okay. That was over-stimulating. But even before being spangled with complimentary pixie-dust, I thought I had Something That Might Be Something, so I ironed the BW2R to some fusible Pellon and called it a night. In the morning, with variegated white-to-mid-gray rayon thread, I machine stitched parallel vertical lines across the width to secure the sections that weren't in contact with the fusible, packed up, and came home.

And now this post is more than Long Enough, so here endeth the reading for today. The chapter in which Melanie Rushes to the Deadline Whilst Beating Back All Odds Against It will resume in a day or so.