Raven and Sparrow

Hand stitch immersion

For the last five days I've been taking a class called Experimental Hand Stitch Level 1 from Gail Harker. She is a long-time City and Guilds instructor who has broken away from their standard curriculum and developed one of her own. She has an Art and Design track and a Hand and Machine Embroidery track that eventually merge (if you have the stamina) into a very high level fiber arts exploration. I teach natural dyeing for her sometimes and thought I would like to see what its like to be taught by her. I hoped that doing the hand stitch introductory class would blast me out of the narrow range of stitch options I have fallen into with my work.

On the first two days we dyed thread and felt with Procion MX dyes. I have never liked the unnatural brightness of chemical dyes, which is the initial reason I switched. I kept mixing them together to try to tone them down, with some success; one of my classmates wondered if I was depressed. I did enjoy the ability of the Procion colors to mix in the fabric. Natural dyes have much larger molecules so they don't feather and swirl like chemical dyes can do.

For the next three days we used our threads and felts to practice one stitch after another, continuously. We did running stitch, chain stitch, open chain, detached chain, circular chain, back stitch, stem stitch (this one I knew well) blanket stitch, split stitch, seed stitch, fly stitch, french knots and couching. It was very intense. There wasn't time to finish them. Gail monitored carefully to be sure we understood how to do each one, but there was no other evaluation from her. She wants us to finish these pieces on our own and make a sampler book to submit back to her for critique on technique, design and color. This gives me pause, as I have quite a lot of other embroidery on my list of things to do. I am wondering if finishing these things is necessary and a good use of my time, but I am reluctant to skip the evaluation. I have been working alone for so long I could use some critical input, but maybe not so much on this....I don't know.

The class did make me apply my needle in different ways, but the stitches we learned are the simple ones. I could see that Level 2 is where I would be breaking new embroidery ground for myself but I probably won't go there. I did find the class experience of being pushed all the time to consider color and fabric really broadening. On Saturday night as I drove home the colors and textures all around enveloped me so strongly it felt like I was seeing with new eyes. That alone made the class worthwhile.

Working on water

The last couple of weeks have found me working on the water portion of Becky's Winter. I was never really happy with the wax marks I made to approximate the watery portion of my scene. The rough and repeated dyeing needed to get the color on was a blessing in a way because it broke the wax down and allowed more blue from the indigo into the marks. Still, it definitely needed more integration and that is what I am trying to do with the embroidery. I don't have a plan, so I spend a lot of time looking at the cloth trying to decide where the next "wavers" will go. I think it is working, but I still have much to do.

Spiderweb

With Halloween approaching and with spider webs adorning every nook and cranny, it seemed like a good time to break out the spider web runner for this weekend's dinner party. The last time I used it it was closer to Halloween. I put dry ice in my little witch's cauldron and carved jack o'lanterns on the table. It was pretty dramatic, but a lot of trouble. This time I just used flowers in the cauldron and left the pumpkins intact. Its a little calmer and a lot less spooky. I like the runner layered over the chestnut-dyed pique square, which is so useful so often.

The whole dinner was sort of spur of the moment. I thought I was going to be teaching a table setting class this weekend, but no one signed up. Its disappointing because this is the second one that didn't go. I'm trying to figure out whether its a viable concept. I might take a page from Jude's book and offer it for free. In the meantime I made lasagna and ate it with my friends. Take that, disinterested public.

 

On the wall or on the table?

Becky's winter cloth often provokes comments (mostly from Grace, but others also) claiming that it belongs on the wall rather than the table. They might be right.

The fact that this particular cloth is a scene rather than a pattern makes it seem like more of a picture than a tablecloth. When it finally makes it onto the table and is covered with dishes, centerpieces, etc. it might dissolve into an unintelligible mishmash and waste all the time spent. Also, being on the table subjects it to the possibility of stains and certainly dooms it to many more washings than it would need as a wall hanging, which will shorten its life. Sometimes my guests get uncomfortable when a really special cloth is on the table...they worry about spilling, which distracts from the conviviality of the occasion. Actually, any effort can elicit this response, as when I am told "don't go to any trouble, its just us."

Table setting in its entirety is usually considered decoration. Tablecloths fall into the domestic category that includes dishtowels and doilies...part of the endless outpouring of practical cloth that is subject to feminine fancifying, and therefore not serious.

I think the real issue is the feeling that table is not a worthy showcase for intense or artistic effort. Perhaps it is too closely linked to the mundane needs of the body. Maybe eating is just too frequently necessary.

Certainly setting the table is not considered art. The continuing squabble over art versus craft is one that I have avoided because it is so difficult to pinpoint where on the scale of human making the dividing line resides. We used to make stuff for all kinds of uses, including spiritual and ceremonial ones. The effort expended corresponded to the "specialness" of the occasion and the objects made sometimes were repositories of the energies those occasions brought forth, becoming important in themselves. Literacy enabled the codification and transmission of judgement about the quality and power of this or that object and allowed the divorce of object from its use. Now art almost demands separation from any association with actual use. Even (maybe especially) decoration is deemed unworthy as a goal of art. Art has to SAY something, has to communicate important and eternal verities. It should expose the heretofore unseen. It should be for the ages.

Table setting is too practical to be taken seriously. Too decorative to say anything. Too fleeting to last. Too feminine to be important. It is not art, so too much effort is suspect...showing off, probably. I get all of that.  

And yet. What if gathering for a meal is or could be our modern day equivalent of spiritual communion? What if the common daily act of nourishment is a metaphor that could carry and recall all of the ways the world nourishes us, and all of the connections that make our lives meaningful? What if the table was the altar around which we join together to celebrate and honor the lavish gifts of the earth? What if it made manifest the web of relationship that binds us to our brief lives here? Wouldn't the setting of such an experience be worthy of effort?

This is what I am aiming for, although I have yet to achieve more than a whisper. Lots...most...of my settings are pretty at best, and that is okay, but I would like to make a setting that shares my deeper feelings about their presence with my guests. One way (learned from Jude) is through story telling, and that is what this cloth is trying to do. Instead of talking about generic winter, it is about OUR winter. I hope this scene will remind those at the table of the dark, mysterious beauty all around them here, and also of the joy of lights in the night, of warmth from the cold and shelter from the rain. Of how great it is, how special, to sit and laugh and eat and be together. 

In the end, this cloth may be better on the wall. It might not work. For me, it is worth the effort to try.