and then we set it on fire

I know what you're thinking -- isn't Dorothy Caldwell renowned for her embroidery? Yes. Deservedly so. I'll get to that.

The supply list asked for some odd things -- a hammer and a large nail, a candle and matches, incense -- but did not ask for a sewing machine. I was very distracted by this omission.  Was bringing the machine assumed? What if I'm the only person without one? But the class is, after all, called Human Marks, and nothing electrified was needed.

With the candle -- preferably, as it turns out, a cheap candle that smokes -- we made traceries on paper. On the beautiful Arches paper that was in the class kit, the smoke came up very delicately. You can see it under and between the sewn-on doo-dads on this page.



Smoked Arches paper



One of the women in the class first did a watercolor wash, then smoked over the wash, and then scratched into it. I thought this was extraordinarily beautiful and tried it at home on bought-at-Michael's Strathmore watercolor paper. (Sorry this is a bit out of focus, I'm having some trouble with my eyes which is giving me trouble with my camera.)



Left: smoke alone. Middle: watercolor wash.
Right: smoke over wash and scratched.

The smoke-over-wash is darker in real life, but this gives the general idea:

 I think the Surrealists called this "fuming."

spa day

Late in the week we did waxing and bleaching -- not on ourselves but on fabric.

I had the idea that working with wax would be complicated and hard. But this was fun and easy because it used soy wax. I like fun and easy. We each glued string to a wood block in some kind of pattern to make a stamp, dipped the stamp in gently melted soy wax, pressed the waxed stamp on black fabric, then bleached and rinsed. One of the joys of soy wax is that it is water soluble so you can rinse it out in the sink with HOT running water and not clog the pipes.

I added some drips (the round spots) with a tjanting. The blotchy bits are either residual sizing or not enough patience with the bleach. I was late to the table so there was very little wax in the pan which, I'm told, is why I got so much detail in the string.

I think I will do this again. I was at Home Depot cruising for stamp supplies for a project I have in mind. The first homemade stamp, tile spacers adhered to a sheet of Lexan, is drying upstairs.

best laid plans

This year, I had decided that I wasn't going to take classes, but instead "just do the work." But then some things came around that proved irresistible. The first of which was a class called Human Marks taught by Dorothy Caldwell at the Crow barn. We went at a fairly gentle pace all week and so I was little surprised at the end to see that we had done a Great Many Things.

We began with ink and other stuff on paper. I am falling hard for ink.

^Day one, Exercise one: Make a single mark

^ This is the only time I'll show work from the other people in the class. My colleagues  were wonderful and talented and thoroughly embraced the adventure of the exercises. But several folks expressed concerns about "being published" and that is to be respected. The assignment was to make a single mark with ink and a brush. Then we posted the single marks and, as so often happens with the posting part, a graceful arrangement emerged.

^ Exercise two, Fingerpaint with ink

The above and the next two pics are marks made by fingerpainting.

^ Exercise two, Fingerpaint with ink



^ Exercise two, Fingerpaint with ink

The last exercise (Thursday into Friday) was to assemble the exercises into a sample book. I liked this streaky fingerpainting so much that I used it to wrap/cover the book.

^ Make a mark using a Micron pen

Detail

^We got two pens in our supplies package. This was just "fool about and make a mark with the .03 pen. Fill the whole page with the mark." I held the pen very loosely and let it bounce on the page, then quickly pulled it toward me -- bounce, pull; bounce, pull. Two marks, dot and line, for the effort of one.


^BIG painting on some lovely Arches watercolor paper

^ Then we each strapped a biggish brush -- 2" or so -- to a dowel or yardstick and went outside to paint. (It was cold and damp, but who cares?) Assignment: Splash around making BIG marks, fill the page. I liked this so much I took it to the framer. It will finish about 48 inches (122 centimeters) square. This flashed me back to college. I was a theater major and did a fair amount of scenic painting -- b-i-g brushes on l-o-n-g handles and the canvas on the floor.

Dorothy has the gift of materializing beside you, saying just the right thing -- usually something like "Do more of this" -- and then vanishing. It was wonderful.

We did some more paper stuff and then started working with fabric. I'll post it in chunks so as not to take up too much time at one time. But it was wonderful. And, I think, transformative.