December 7 – Intentions

Intentions are the most amazing things.  Setting an intention is to watch a miracle in progress.

This past year has been a tumultuous one for me.  Work in my studio has, at best, been in fits and starts with lots of dead time in between.  Most unsatisfying. Then a week ago it all changed.  At the moment of change I was reading a book.  “Daybook”, a journal by Anne Truitt (20th C. sculptor, painter, author).  She was talking about her daily work in the studio.  Regardless of mood, emotional turbulence, events in her outside world, every day she worked in her studio.  In doing so she found stability, groundedness, her spirit. Now how many times have we heard this?  Writers are suppose to sit down every day and write.  Painters need to put brush to canvas daily, regardless.  Julia Cameron has written books and more books about this.  Twyla Tharp has written on the topic as well. I’ve read them all. However, in this particular moment the light bulb went off for me.  What I needed to do was to work at making art absolutely every day, even if for just 15 minutes! Along with that decision came the miracle.  I have been working every day since.  I’ve been loving it.  20 minutes has turned into an hour, two hours, six hours. Am I on a roll?  Definitely.  One I intend to make last for the rest of my life.

The piece I think I’ll share with you today is a rug.  As you know from my October entry, my Finnish friends & mentors (Rod & Karoliina) visited for the month of September.  Before they left I was given a challenge: make 12 rugs during this next year using their technique — and perfect it! (Yes, that last part are Rod’s words.  He’s quite the task master. ). Here is my first one, which I’m quite pleased with.

I started out with a cartoon. No my usual style. I usually just dive in and see how my idea manifests. But Rod insisted and Karo agreed on its importance.  

 

I laid out my base fiber, alternating chocolate brown and gray.  I am always interested in the color interaction of the fibers and this was no exception.  Honestly, however, I also didn’t have enough quantity of either color alone to form the base.

Here is the piece as I’m laying out the top, decorative layer. You can see the bubble wrap templates I’ve used to hold the space for some of the main design elements.

 

For some reason I left the detail lines off the left side.

Now I have added them back in.  Much better!

Here is it, all done.

It’s thinner than I expected.  The edges aren’t perfectly straight, but they are pretty good.  I am satisfied.

 

 

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