More experiments

Here is some of the fabric I have made recently, experimenting with flour paste as a resist, and also using soft scrub with bleach to disperse the dye. I have done it over several times, to get layers of interesting results. I am still working on how to use these fabrics: getting too busy with details is not in my nature, but using the whole cloth doesn't seem right yet either. I think I have to keep it in the back of my mind while I come up with ideas.

Some things happen during the process: that orange streak, where did it come from? I love the way it looks.

Totally new

I have been experimenting this summer, with some new techniques. In the first photo, I used paint and stamped using cardboard. The second photo shows paint applied to heavy canvas. I loved the texture of the fabric, and painted, stamped, and used various objects to apply paint to the fabric. Sometimes I sprayed water on it, and once even painted with coffee. I used several pieces of fabric that I would come back to and add more. I drew with pen and pencil, sewed the pieces together and did some machine quilting. In the last picture I used flour paste as a resist, and then used thickened dye to paint over it when I had dried. The circles were made using soft scrub.

It was fun and freeing to try something different. I let myself become a different person, in a way, because all those details can't be me! I had to figure out new rules as I went along, and am still trying to see what worked and what didn't on all the fabric I made. Here is a quote I ran across yesterday, when I was looking up improvisation in jazz:

(by Brian J. Kane)

Creating Within Context
"Freedom in jazz improvisation comes from understanding structure. When people listen to jazz, they often believe that the soloist is "doing whatever they want." In fact, as experienced improvisers will tell you, the soloist is rarely "doing whatever they want." An improvisational soloist is always following a complicated set of rules and being creative within the context of those rules."

I don't know a lot about jazz, and never learned to improvise in music, but I can see how improvising is not just playing anything, or it wouldn't make sense. It is interesting that when we make something in art that is improvised we are following some rule, whether we realize it or not.

Now I am back to solid dyed fabric, and it feels all new again.