Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Found Cloth Meets Found Buttons


A little post about the Found Cloth.

My first instinct was to isolate its beautiful marks by weaving it with the shiniest, finest, whitest damask I could find. My in-laws recently gave me a set of their old people's linen towels, with permission to do what I wished.

But. To my mind, this path would make Found Cloth a thing of beauty alone. And it just isn't. It is part of a hard and chaotic life- not only is this something left behind by a person following a tragic path, it also turns out to be a hospital sheet.

This chaos, this hardship is all part of its beauty. Certainly the life it was part of is responsible for some of its beauty- it would not have been out rough in the elements, in the little strip of meadow that runs along the train tracks, gathering marks and colour but for that life.

So. I worked some of the best parts of Found Cloth into a panel last night-it is the third panel from the top in the photo. I used a pattern I made on Jude Hill's weaving assistant that would feature big chunks of Found Cloth's marks. I used lace trims, pillow cases and tablecloths-very obviously domestic textiles- to make its background. Like Found Cloth, they are marked and dyed with flowers, berries, sunshine and rust. Some of the dye stuff comes from the same meadow where I found Found Cloth in fact.

At the bottom of this whole long piece, I'm adding three points- woven- which I will trim with my collection of found and shell buttons...I wove one up quickly, below. Lost/found buttons! Like Found Cloth!

I think I want Found Cloth's beauty to be derived from its bigger more complex story, not just its looks. I want it to be a story that refers to 'home' as much as 'not home'; about the beauty of the place it was lost as much as the risks of life out rough. I want it to be discarded and cherished, lost and found.

7 comments:

  1. enjoyed reading how you came up with your design. looks great and i love the addition of those buttons.

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  2. i like this, found is just part of life's collage.

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  3. Thanks, folks, for looking. I decided last night this can be my primary canvas for the CWB techniques. And a place for buttons.

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  4. Hi Gracie- I really enjoyed your thought process here. I also like the idea of a long hanging such as this sounds like it will be. Your soft blend of colours contrasts well with the shiny buttons. Gilly

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  5. Hi Gilly; thanks for this; I'm kind of going back and forth on the paleness of all of this, but it feels right so far. I'm surprised I'm making a long cloth, but it appears I am.

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  6. and hung from a double headed arrow

    it has reached its mark
    it heals things.

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  7. love the button edging point....lovely idea that and what a great piece of work with an interesting story

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