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what am i looking for here?   I don't know.   The first is the actual cloth.  Second is print out and it seems i am running out of color printer ink…color is Way off,  but serves the purpose.  I kept wanting to draw  in the human and the animal but kept thinking i can't because you don't draw so much on a cloth.   But then suddenly i thought that i can do anything i want to.    Why not?   Where do i see a rule that states IF and How Much you can or cannot draw on a cloth?  Nowhere.   So i might.   The Blue where the Breather comes from now looks like a hat.  Need to try to change that back to how i first saw it in the very beginning.   When the blue cloth was just dropped on.   How it appears in the very beginning is always somehow the best,  when it happens with no thought at all.  So need to see if i can go back to what that was.   

and i thought about how i think of the being as The Breather….something a child might say.  A childlike image.  And i am thinking about the scraps i put there and how i put them.  How it was important that they are unrecognizable in terms of known forms.  Why is this important?   And also forms and combinations that are not particularly pleasing to me,  i guess as in Familiar.

and then there is the wrinkle in the fabric on the left of the image,  the right of the Breather's "face" that really Does define  "face"  too much.  I want to get rid of it.   Want only eye orbs and nostrils…maybe the sense of mouth where the breath comes out…but that will happen (?)  when i cut the mouth through.  maybe.

lots of questions.

 

 

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8 responses to “?”

  1. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    I really liked the purple hill that gently whispered a few threads over the breath in the last post…

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  2. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    ?? questions, wondering and I asked myself if I do such deep introspection when I work with cloth and my answer is sometimes. What happens with me is that I forage and dye and then the cloth sits until it speaks to me. Sometimes I have a vision first but that is rare. Do I ask self questions as I pin and stitch, yes but it is more of a monologue as I hold each scrap, remembering the land where I picked the windfall, how I felt as I was doing so, what the weather was that day, what I wanted to get from the dye pot and sometimes, my utter joy at the unexpected result, other times, the known as when I dye with walnuts, the more familiar plant offerings. Of course, there are those times when it doesn’t happen as thought or turns out to be less than hoped for; in that case, redye!
    I work in landscape visions. To me what I make is so clear and I often wonder if it is too abstract for others. Would they know that my work is all about the land if I didn’t tell or write about it? But then this presupposes that others see my work, only a few have because for me, it is all about a sacred dialogue between me, the land, the cloth.
    I haven’t started a new cloth yet since getting back although I am reworking my garden prayer flags. Over the summer, strips have faded and frayed and I love the fraying as well as the fading but the need to build layers is strong. Today I will stitch what I found in my scrap bag, adding layers, much like the season changes add layers to our lives, an ongoing process.
    Coming back to New Mexico is like easing back into a familiar place yet anticipating that every day something new will present itself and as I write this I realize that after 4 years of working with cloth, this is exactly the feeling that I get…familiar but new and that is such a good feeling.

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  3. grace Avatar
    grace

    9 a.m. you’re right. it’s back. Thanks

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  4. Patricia Avatar
    Patricia

    for some reason i’m so grateful for this cloth in particular. for things like the breath embracing the land. and the vision. but i’m realizing that with this one, i’m most grateful for the way you’re sharing the development process…the questions. the considerations. the choices. the complete, open sharing or your creative process. it’s so personal. and you’re letting us in without a bit of hesitation. so for that, dear Grace, thank you…and love

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  5. grace Avatar
    grace

    i had some kind of crystal clear sense of your words this morning, next to my words…how they both spoke of similar but different Ways…but the day went along and those thoughts got lost. I’ll look for them again tomorrow morning….hope they will be there.

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  6. grace Avatar
    grace

    thank you. thank you

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  7. grace Avatar
    grace

    that clarity of 2 days ago is remaining illusive, but the
    thought that comes this morning is that clothmaking often, maybe
    always, to me is a means of becoming aware of things i’m
    concerned with that have not been put to words. or, maybe
    are not even known to me at the point of beginning the cloth.
    and this is more recent, i guess….at first when learning
    the story cloth making, the collage kind of making, i made
    more familiar images. But now, it’s becoming a way for me
    to look at the unfamiliar, or, the hard to see?
    hmmmm.

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  8. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    ahhhh…. it’s evening, of the next day and i was able in a small
    flash to see what i had seen originally….
    that sentence…
    “for me it is all about a sacred dialogue between me, the land, the cloth.”
    YES. ok. this is where it is. This sentence. ok. Lets see if
    i can catch this fish by the tail for just a little moment….
    No. i can’t. if i try to find words in the moment, they would
    be stiff. Not yet. But at least i found the starting place.

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