Pockets!

Have you ever wished you could have an extra set of pockets? I have!

I recently re-discovered a new/old way of providing pockets. And I think it is such a good idea, I wanted to share it with you.

Last week, I was at Ron and Marty’s house and ran across Marty’s embroidered textile collection. Now, Ron and Marty are pretty serious when it comes to collecting wonderful stuff from the Arts & Crafts period, and when I saw her textile display in the dining room, I got very excited. The designs and the needlework were fabulous, and she let me take everything down and touch and explore the pieces.

All this is a roundabout way to say that when I saw the first piece, it reminded me of some ‘external pockets’ that I had read about before. In the 1700’s to the early 1900’s, women used pockets in a similar way to how women today use a handbag – to carry their belongings. The pockets back then were often under their dresses, and they were belted or tied around the waist. If you can’t imagine what that would look like, here is a painting of a woman reaching into her pocket:

Now, we can see how unglorious it is to raise your skirt in public, so a way to put your hand in your pocket through the skirt was devised, and here is a picture of that:

There is even a game of ‘Find the Pocket” on this site at the Victoria & AlbertMuseum. It is fun to discover the ways people hid, and used, their pockets by looking at paintings. 

Now, back to Marty’s beautiful textiles, I wanted to share some of them with you:

     This is the first one I saw; it is made of linen and has one pocket on top of the other, and has two reinforced holes in the upper corners that make me think it was tied around a waist,

as opposed to this textile, which has a drawstring construction – it would be used as a bag..

And this one was not a pocket, or a bag, but a table cloth case, and I am showing it to you because the design, colors and embroidery is especially beautiful on this Art Nouveau textile.

So, you see how beautiful and useful these pockets could be? My intention is to bring these back into the public conciousness and see if people might like it. I could make some from my designed fabrics, such as these samples:

And maybe I can start a new fashion fad!

Searching for Quality Art Materials

  Supply shelves in my studio

I’ve discovered that good art supplies can make a huge difference in the quality of my finished works of art. Fortunately, I live in a town where art is very much alive and appreciated! I feel lucky to have access to a wonderful art supply store that is owned by a working artist with a great spirit, Scott Pope. Creativity and love of art is sensed when you walk into his store, The Loft.

Scott has been supplying Athens’ artists for over 30 years. I know, because I’ve been shopping (and dreaming, and finding inspiration) at his store for almost that long! I even featured The Loft’s Jackson Street storefront in an early exhibit, and you can still see the silk painting hanging in Scott’s store.

    The Loft #1 - 2002

At The Loft I can always find a) great supplies, b) great staff, c) an option to order what I need if they don’t have it in stock, and d) answers to my endless questions! The Loft can be found on the Web and on Facebook, but their real strength is in walking in the door, looking around and talking to a real (knowledgeable) human being. Leslie is especially helpful, she puts artistic signs all over the store, and I love seeing what she is up to with her own artwork. I can sense that she is a good manager, and that Scott can depend on her, but I also know that I can trust anyone they hire to provide good recommendations.

  Colors galore at The Loft     Canvas rolls at The Loft

For my web and mail-order needs, I use several different suppliers. I highly recommend each of them, and I have found that they are all very helpful if called upon with questions:

Dharma Trading Company has almost everything a fiber artist can use. Dyes, paints, blank clothing and fabrics - it’s your one-stop shopping place when you are beginning to dye.

At ProChemical and Dye, I buy Pro MX Reactive Dyes and the Pro Liquid Reactive Dyes; I use their chemicals, and sometimes I purchase their fabric. ProChemical and Dye has many other quality products and they are worth taking a look at.

Thai Silks has a great collection of silk scarves; they are often the first place I go for my scarves to dye.

TestFabrics is my preferred source of ready-to-dye material - their supplies are a little more expensive than some of the other places, but it is worth it when I am seeking quality. I first discovered them in 1979 when I bought white cotton batiste yardage to create my (white-on-white embroidered) wedding dress. TestFabrics sells a wonderful silk broadcloth that I am currently very in love with, and they also have a nice silk twill. Both are a little unusual, and have a nice weight and feel to them.

I am continuing to experiment with silkscreen, and silkscreen inks. I’m in the market for good inks, particularly sustainable/eco-friendly inks, and good screens. I am also struggling with the fixing process for silkscreening on textiles; I want to be sure my designs are not going to wash away. If anyone has suggestions or feedback, please let me know!

    Always a need for more supplies

A quick note: Tonight, the ATHICA Mystery exhibit opened. The reception was fun, and I saw quite a few of my friends there!  All artists submitted art in the same format, 8.5” x 5.5”, and the artist’s names were not revealed. The task of the viewers is to see how many artists can be recognize by their style. Over 100 Athens artists had been invited to participate in this exclusively Athens-artist event, and I was proud to have been part of it. See the exhibit before it ends on September 18, it’s quite a showcase of Athens talent!

Sources of Inspiration

Who inspires me? There are many people, artists and designers who inspire me; people that I know, and others whom I’ve never met. While looking around, I can find sources of inspiration everywhere I look - in my home town, in the big city, the media and of course, on the Web. But the person that inspires me the most is my daughter, Kate. She is talented, smart, creative - and I swear - it’s not just because she is part of my family! Most of all - she is patient with me and all of my crazy ideas and the many creative paths I continue to tumble down.

I’ve so enjoyed watching her as she embarks on her life independent of us. She’s the one who helps me blog, she answers my questions about websites, and she leads me to new creative ideas. You can see samples of her ideas and thought processes at her blog: love-and-reason.com and her sense of design at her etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/loveandreason

Her academic career has been in art history. I always knew she was terribly creative - even when she was a little girl and dressed quite - independently! Here is a photo of Kate in 1995 exhibiting her personal sense of style.

                                             

How does Kate inspire me?

She’s a natural teacher. She imparts knowledge willingly, she’s patient, and she explains things clearly. She has worked in the classrooms at the Montessori School here and I swear I can hear her patient teacher’s voice when she is explaining technological mysteries to me. Her apparent ease with new media helps me stay up to date with my communications.  

Kate is always sending me cool stuff that she finds on the Web: fashion, design, business advice, etc. She helps me sift through new ideas, and find new questions.

My designs come from me, but Kate is my sounding board. She’s the one I can share new directions with before I go public with them. We share our design explorations though digital images on email and pix messaging.

Now we are moving into a design partnership - we are working on a t-shirt line that will be Brooklyn-themed. We’ll both design; and we’ll silkscreen the t’s ourselves. 

This is Kate’s preliminary sketch for our first product - the three bridges from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Isn’t it fun?

                                            

Kate is my muse, she is my inspiration, and she is my technological wizard. The world is changing, and she is helping me change gracefully along with it. 

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Why I Worry

Sometimes I find myself wondering why I seem to worry so much over my artwork. I don’t normally see myself as a worrier, but when I have an idea forming, an idea that I am nearly ready to put into action, I find that I have to… well… worry about it for a while. Whether I am considering writing a blog post, creating a new design, experimenting with a new technique, or designing a new product, I worry about it - I agitate, I ponder, I become a little uncommunicative! I focus all of my attention on that point I am trying to nurture - it’s like I cannot take action without having this storm in my head first.

Lately, I’ve come to see this process as a healthy one rather than a disruptive one. The worry-time is a gestation period for the thoughts that are swirling around in my head, a time for images to fly by, and for problems to be solved. I become quiet because I am seeing what is inside, what is to come, rather than what is plainly apparent on the exterior.   

I am finding that this blog is changing that process somewhat. It’s easy for me to talk to you about how I create - how I make things, how I am inspired, how I put hand-to-silk, and that helps me think though my ideas and plans, so thank you Dear Reader! Where would I be without you?

  

 House Wren silkscreen on paper