Tag Archives: Writing

The Third Leg

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from faithfully maintaining this blog over the past 8 years is how key writing has become to my practice. I often think of it, along with drawing and stitching, as the third leg of my artistic stool.

Layers of color, and the happy accidents that occur as those colors mix, contribute to what I find most intriguing about watercolor. Stitching over those passages is a big risk.

I’ve learned that writing opens the door to unconscious ideas, ushering them to the surface. It’s something of a secret weapon which quite often not only directs my next steps, but also helps to crystallize a better understanding and articulation of whatever I am working on in the studio at the time.

But if done carefully and consciously, stitching adds a dimensional component that enhances the paint.

This phenomenon proved true once again while working on my quarterly newsletter late last month (have you subscribed yet?). In writing a description of my gravitation toward painting images of elder women, something came to mind.

The point of adding stitches is texture – both visual and physical. Stitching also provides another means for creating definition within the image, such as the left side of the house shape, as seen below.

I had already incorporated the suggestion of a house form surrounding the head of the subject in the early stages of outlining the composition of this piece, but as I wrote, the idea of protecting one’s personal boundaries (home) came to mind — specifically in relation to the fight of older generations of women for equal rights and for control of our own reproductive choices.

It wasn’t too big a stretch to draw a line between that feminist history and the idea that the overturn of Roe v Wade this past June is akin to burning down someone else’s house.
The result is “House on Fire”.

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Among many other wonderful things, September/October means the return of Art at the Kent, the annual exhibition at the Kent Museum in Calais. Always fabulous, endlessly inspirational and a testament to the wealth of brilliant artists that call the Green Mountain State home, it’s a must-see event in a setting that is uniquely Vermont.
I’ve written about it’s magic before.

The Wayward Bench © George Sawyer paired with Mud Season 9 Patch #11 © Rosalind Daniels Just one stunning example of the eclectic pairings on view in “Interplay” at the Kent Museum

This year Art at the Kent presents “Interplay” from September 9 – October 9. Don’t miss it!

5 Candles

I’m trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this marks my 260th post and the close of five years of faithfully writing and posting to Eye of the Needle every single week since November 29, 2014. A huge shoutout to my son who encouraged me to take the leap; I’m not sure I would have ventured into the blogosphere without his gentle nudge.

If you’ve ever toyed with the idea of starting a blog about your art, or even some sort of writing practice, consider these benefits:

Practicing anything leads to improvement, and writing regularly has taught me an immeasurable amount about expressing my ideas — both on paper and verbally. And perhaps even more importantly, it has helped me appreciate ruthless editing.
Those who tout the advantages of writing about one’s art aren’t kidding — it really does improve the ability to pin down and coherently articulate your process and the ideas behind your work. This is key when talking to others, especially if what you make isn’t as readily understood as the art of an oil painter or a stone sculptor.
Writing impels one to structure and organize a thesis, a potentially tall order for those of us who think visually. Writing helps solidify the bigger picture (idea) behind your art, making the tricky decisions about which direction to take next, if not clear, much easier.
Without this blog I wouldn’t have discovered a fraction of the interesting artists, books, articles, and general information about art that I share. My research has led to a feeling of connection with the art world and its larger community.
Eye of the Needle has also created a sense of personal camaraderie. Your comments are always welcome and much appreciated. I thoroughly enjoy reading/hearing about your experiences and recommendations.
And finally, I never dreamed how much I would enjoy the process of writing (and rewriting) itself. Reading what writers say about their own art helpfully overlaps with other creative processes. Books like Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and Eric Maisel’s A Writer’s Paris have provided info and ideas that have bled across disciplines into my own practice.

But (isn’t there always a but?) that said, I have had to come to grips with the huge amount of time (on average 8 hours per week) this commitment demands. I’d like to spend more hours drawing and on my textile work, neither of which could be considered particularly “speedy” activities. So I’ve decided to make some gentle changes. The transition will be a work in progress; please bear with me.

I am going to take the month of December off from writing but will still be uploading links to one post from my archives each week. If you’re anything like me, it may be as though you’re reading it for the first time. 😊 I will still leave the door open to the possibility of sharing information I may come across in my reading that I think might be of interest or of help to you.
All of which means you will still be getting your regular Friday email from me.

©Elizabeth Fram Next step: planning how to attack to smaller pieces flanking the queen while balancing all with the other side. It looks a little wonky now, but we’ll see what happens.

When January rolls around, I’m hoping to have a clearer idea of how to proceed. It’s likely I will trim back to 2 written posts per month, while keeping you abreast of my drawings and textile work as they unfold. We’ll see.

As I post this on Thanksgiving Day, it seems particularly appropriate to say thanks so much for being here up to this point, and I hope you will stick with me as Eye of the Needle moves forward.

Another Week

I love reading about how other artists organize and manage their practice and in that spirit thought I would share the variety of things I’ve been working on Monday through Wednesday of this week. If for no other reason, it’ll show you that I usually toggle back and forth between several things at once.

Monday = life drawing and whatever else I can squeeze in.

I post this blog on Thursdays. It publishes immediately but is sent out through the wonders of Mailchimp to my mailing list at 4am on Friday mornings. This is why those of you who have subscribed can read it with your morning coffee every week. I have found that setting up and keeping a schedule is the key ingredient that has allowed me to post consistently each week for almost four years. And while my schedule of stitching and drawing is a little more flexible, it is the same devotion to consistency that results in a sense of accomplishment.

This week that “squeezed in” Monday project was working on the lobster piece

I try not to think too much about the next week’s post over the weekend other than to keep my eyes and ears open for new ideas. But each week unfolds the same way: Mondays are for entertaining various possibilities for that week’s post, Tuesdays I compose a draft, Wednesdays are devoted to polishing, and I publish on Thursday. Depending on the week, any of those steps can run very smoothly or be quite laborious, which makes it easy to see how blog-writing has become an all-consuming profession for some.

Tuesday = the start of a new drawing and the final touches on the lobster piece which will still need to be framed.

I started Eye of the Needle as a means of better articulating my practice and of opening the door to a conversation with other artists and with anyone who might be interested in what goes on behind my artistic curtain, so to speak. It has given back to me more than I could have imagined on both counts.

One unexpected discovery is that the time spent writing often spurs ideas for the practical side of whatever I’m currently working on, and while I’m stitching I can sometimes work out the wrinkles of my post that week. Drawing is in a whole different league though because it requires being constantly engaged in the process at hand, with moment by moment decisions necessary.

Wednesday = experimenting to create a shaped resisted area before folding, stitching and dyeing a new piece. The shape below is cut from cotton cloth, and I stitched a duplicate directly underneath it on the other side of the silk – hoping that since cotton won’t absorb the dyes I use that I might have at least the shadow of this shape remaining after stitching and dyeing the silk.

Cotton resist basted in place

Piece folded, stitched, and dyed. The lighter area is the cotton which has barely absorbed any of the dye

The results didn’t turn out anything like I hoped – let alone expected. I’m thinking now about my next move.

The images of this week’s work are an example of the variety of things I’m juggling at any given time. Believe it or not, they all feed into each other, although sometimes I wish my various disciplines developed in a straighter line. As you can perhaps imagine, sometimes my practice feels a bit disjointed, but I have come to understand and trust how the three legs of the stool – writing, drawing, and stitching – have become equally necessary to each other.

My son just gave me a copy of the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. I’m looking forward to seeing what ideas it may have to help me to pull these elements together more tightly.

Leap of Faith

Do you remember this piece from several weeks ago? I am taking what I learned from it and trying again with the goal of figuring out how to portray something “hidden in plain sight” — a stitched image that is camouflaged within shibori patterning while remaining visible.

Another challenge is deciding what the shibori pattern will be so that it works together with the shape of the image, not against it.

This time I’m using my lobster drawing from a couple of weeks ago as a jumping-off point. I sewed the stitches as densely as I could, trusting their solidity would make it possible for the image to hold its own in relation to the visual strength of the dyed pattern that is yet to come.

The rectangular stitched area is 6 x 9 inches. The background stitches were added to set the image apart from the rest of the cloth, hopefully helping the lobster to stand out once the shibori pattern is in place.

In reading Young Yang Chung’s Painting with a Needle, I’ve learned that Asian embroiderers commonly placed various kinds of padding underneath areas to be embroidered in order to achieve a three-dimensional effect. Perhaps creating a relief-like form will give this lobster the oomph it needs to mingle and co-exist with the dyed pattern, each with its own voice, but neither overpowering the other.

I used both batting and heavy silk thread to pad the lobster, some areas more heavily than others. I think it adds something of a sculptural effect. The process is very reminiscent of trapunto.

The middle image in this post shows the completed embroidery. The next step will be a huge leap of faith as I move forward with the dye process. I hope what I have to show you next week will be a happy outcome, or at least a step in the right direction. For now I am cautiously optimistic.

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Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life both hold a place on my “favorites shelf”. I return to them from time to time for inspiration, encouragement, and solace. Writers may write about writing, but for the most part the wisdom they share can be directly translated to any form of creative work. It’s just that they’re, well, writers, so they have a knack for making the information both inspirational and accessible.

I will be pushing the above two books closer together to make room for Ann Patchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, which I read this past week. It has earned its spot next to the others. At 45 pages, it’s short, to the point, and so very worth your time if you’re interested in such things.