This charming painting arrived a few days ago from Regina
In the meantime, today I was back to the shibori buckets. This process is not for the faint of heart (or weak of muscle) -nor is it for people who are - ahem - impatient. I was dyeing in the kitchen, which is not my preference - but the 5 gal buckets are too heavy to be anywhere but in the sink, where I can dump them out without having to carry them anywhere. It seems that if I am going to do this in my studio, where the sink is down the hall, I will have to figure out a lwi process for it.
Today,everything I dyed seemed to come out purple. Actually, I was overdyeing some things I wasn't happy with - and some of them have a long way to go. (what else is new?). Both of these were more blah before I reworked them. They were, as you can tell, one piece. I tore them in two and shibori'd them differently. The one on the right is more interesting but they might just work well together somewhere.
This piece started with white and I think I threw it into some black dye. It is a lovely shade of green. Don't ask me what I did with the fabric - I have no idea. I guess I should be writing down what I do with each piece - but I'm in too much of a rush.
This was an overdye of a white fabric that had bits of orange on it. Better than all that white.
The dilemma is how to use them, but I guess that's the same dilemma we all have with fabrics we've printed. Shibori is ofen so strong that it can overwhelm something else -and it's a matter of using it so it works with your other fabrics and with your own style. Putting beautiful fabrics together does not necessarily become a piece of art just because. I figure this is a good opp for me to work on composition - but to me, the work still has to say something or it is just an exercise. Of course, that's ME. Not everybody feels that way - and I think it would be easier if I didn't. Oh,dear-myspacebarhasstoppedworking-so-I-will-say-goodnight.I-think-it-is-time-to-contemplate-buying-a-new-laptop.AARRGH.
