Envelope Bag for CWB Cloth mates

This is the first version of the whole piece that I showed some patches from at CWB today. It is, of course, an envelope bag; the sun will be inside, and the moon will be the outside flap. I have changed the sun and started work on the other sections a bit, but mostly on the blue.

Mass Disruption?

Today was a remarkable late winter day. Bright blue sky, full sun and thawing temperatures. But we were at the river before it flooded, in that magic few hours between the ice melting off the shore and the water rushing over the banks.

While Gracie had her first swim of the year I found this in the newly thawed sand. It's red clay that has been pressed into a mold. Who knows what it was once, something mass produced. Could be a hundred years old, could be two years old. I'll never know.

Trudging the long way home, I thought about how this little shard looks like more than it (really) is. Or rather that it has become something it didn't used to be- it holds my imagination now in a way it might not of when it was part of something common and mass produced.

Because now that it has fallen off the edge of that cliff, or fallen out of the cycle of mass production/ consumption, I am free to see it differently.

Which leads me, of course, to where I was going: can we deliberately disrupt this cycle of mass production/ consumption by finding our muses and imaginations in the stuff that is cast off? Is that what's going on over at CWB? I really truly think so.

wearing your heart on your sleeve...

Today I got letters from two different students, each has a relative alive and working in Tahrir Square. Both sent letters from their relatives, each praises the resilience of the peaceful protesters. Each despairs that their civil disobedience has been met with violence. I will never, ever, take it for granted that I am free to teach about resistance, revolution and change as freely as I breath.

For Deanna- Boro Heart Outside...

After an all-night blizzard, the boro heart is still there!

Boro Heart for CWB Clothmates

I hope these give more detail!

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.

Joanne from CWB Wanted to see.....

Hi Joanne!

So, the bag started out as a simple woven piece
(intentionally rescued the stain there; apple is decorative).

Then I added a border, which you can see in the next picture of the bag folded up before stitching. You fold it like a diaper?

When it's done, well you can do anything you want to it. I appliqued letters on to this one, as you can see in the finished photo?

I hope this helps! Let me know if you make one, I would love to see it.