2011+1= moving into the new year

 

The Snowshoe Hare, by Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.

Greetings for the new year.  I feel as though I've been lagging behind and had better post something before the first full week of the new year passes, the moon becomes full and starts waning, and the constellations that are visible take flight and realign  themselves. I picked the piece above from Mary Oliver because of a few words that would apply to those of us that have picked cloth and thread as our medium...tangles, lapping thread...across the field and into another year. 

I've been occupying myself with domestic affairs.  My mother had a few issues with heat - as in furnace went out and then the fuse box needed updating/replacement...and of course the payment of same. There is one small minor electric replacement that needs to be done but if it doesn't happen no big deal. 

Most of my time was spent at mom's during the pass week, yes we even stayed up until midnight on NYeve.  I think this was a first for us, together at the changing of the guard.  I had a small bottle of bubbly, have had it for near 30 years, so we opened it and even did a toast.  I think mom managed a sip or two and I think I scored about four before we decided, that's okay, we've done the ritual.  But she enjoyed it so...

The hands that first taught me to hold needle and thread...of all kinds.

I still think her hands are quite beautiful, even though they do show their age, and time has not been kind.  She has arthritis in her hands and has a hard time bending the fingers. She tries still to knit and crochet, though her memory is such that she is always undoing her stitches, since there are more or less  then what she originally starts out with.  But I'm going to give her a box of various thread so she might try embroidery. She use to make such beautiful cloths. 

I did occupy myself with stitching while I pondered domestic life. I finished LEFT, but will do a separate post on that.  I did finish my first cloth fascicle.  Assembled the beginnings of another and a larger cloth, 12x12.  That's large for me, since mostly the fascicles are closed, 4x4, and open page layout, 4x8.

This is the first fascicle to be completed.  One thing I did learn, even though I managed to get the three images on the page - the collation and pagination were off.  I did them as 4x8 page spreads not remembering that once they got bound the facing image/text would not correspond.  I have fix that for fascicle two.  So as a result the negative (cut-out, text, left-side, odd-numbered) image is not with the partnered leaf-positive (leaf, image, right-side, even-numbered) page.  The front-cover image is the outline of a half-oak-leaf and the dates worked.  The back cover has a few cryptic symbols, notes, comments - that is my thinking/thoughts sketching page.  The inside of the book has a, usually six line, poem that is the voice of the leaf that is pictured on the page.  All  my leaves are female - that is the voice that I know best.  I usually write these in my head while walking mom's dog...they are reactions but my mood, the day, something I see.  (My Chekhovian, "subjects for a short story," from the Seagull) I'd probably be better off taking a notebook with me, since sometimes it a race to remember as well...but maybe that is part of the processes.  The stitching is not pre-planned. It too depends on the mood and what's in my thread bag.  I really like working with this size...and books, well, they are as natural to me as my right hand.  I became a librarian because I simply love the touch, feel, contents, smell, the totality of the book.  

I've also been placing a little "key" on the pages as I'm stitching.  They are little squares that are stitched in the colors of the sky, at some point during the day...the most prominent color of the day.  This is done from something that I saw Deb G. doing over at her blog beecreative.  Deb is part-taking in something called the sky scarf: Leafcutter Designs - Projects, Conceptual Knitting.  The idea is to knit a row a day in response to the sky.  I really liked this idea, but really, starting another new project wouldn't be wise, I said to myself.  But I did like this so much that it's in my mind, on the mental Rolodex, and I'll do it down the road.  In the meantime, however, my little "keys" are my version of the sky scarf idea. 

Emily Dickinson made forty fascicles of her poems in her life time.  So I've decided that this year I will make forty as well.  With fifty-two weeks and one extra leap day I might make it.  It took me about a week to do this.  Assembly is part of the process.  I have a few yard of a natural muslin that is 32" in width.  I can tear 4" section that easily divide into four, 4x8 "pages."  Then the leaf preparation and assembling.  The stitching and notations are made following this processes.  I have also been keeping a "paper" fascicle as a sketchbook.  

The next fascicle is also ready to go:

You can see that I have adjusted for the collation, pagination issue.  Only the center, pages 3-4 are the actual images that will be seen together after assembly, (lower left corner)  The other pages are 2 and 5, 1 and 6. They are almost all basted and ready for stitching.  The cover is also started.  This time I'm putting the "keys" on the back, as well as the contents listings, the notations; this will act as sort of a colophon.  

Oh, and just to have something to do other then the fascicle project, I'm going to do doodling on cloth, my calendar cloths, if you like.  I thought I would do a monthly cloth, 12x12, where I could try out ideas, stitching/stitches and what-nots.  I guess you could call it a sampler or my what-if project. 

This is the January cloth, pinned, sketched and experimenting with.  I'm not sure about that round circle object.  I don't see it blending in with the cloth over-all.  I think it would be better done in just thread but once it is stitched up maybe it won't be the thorn of the upper right corner.  We'll see.  

Thank you for stopping by and hope your week passed was not riddled with domestic problems but happily employing your hands with doing something creative.  

  

leafing pages

Where and when it all started: 

The above piece I've called the Three Graces.  This was done is reaction to a post that Jude Hill did on her blog after the hurricane that passed this past Summer.  The one that did considerable damage along the Eastern Coast of the US. I remember Jude picking up an oak leaf and holding it, mentioning that a lot of the leaves were blown off the trees (last week in August - not tree mottling season by any means) and that they had lost one of the old oak trees that was on their property.  There was a feeling of sadness that translated into beauty.  Holding many moments without deciding, September 3, 2011

The image above is what I remember most of those days from her blog.  The cloth on the right became the Hurricane Cloth.  


I started looking and thinking about leaves very differently after that.  Watching especially those transitional ones - the ones that change color, fall, get walked/trampled on. Go from whole to fragments, dust and a final return. 


While collecting these leaves, I also posted a few blog entries, here, regarding Emily Dickinson.  I remember going to her home, entering and peaking to see if it was permitted to walk through a door that presented a cold, dark exhibition area.  It had formerly been a place where Emily use to sit and watch over her garden, changing through the seasons. She would hid out here, especially in the winter when, though not much warmer in this room, it was too cold to venture out.  On display there, there were a few folios that held open pages of her herbarium. (Herbaria are know to go back to the 1600.  They were those volumes upon volumes where people would press and hold flora.  Memory devices, I like to think, more then how we think of them today - botanic study tools.) How different were these from her fascicles? - those composed, stitched, hidden little one installment pamphlets that became her first "printed" edition of the poems.  They were small in size, spare in text,  but left riches for all time.  A small view into her private moments.  They were her secret keepers - her memory devices.  I like to think that her herbaria were not that different of a gesture.

Image of a fascicle page by Emily Dickinson

 For on-line views of some of the Dickinson archives go to:  Harvard Archive.
The library works closely with the Emily Dickinson Museum and the Emily Dickinson International Society to bring its collections to the public. Descriptive information about the family library and about Dickinson's manuscript books or fascicles, letters, herbarium, and family photographs are now on the Web, with a growing number of linked digital facsimiles. 

Page from Emily Dickinson -  Herbarium.  (left)          Cover, volume 1, Emily Dickinson -     Herbarium (right)


Several other objects of inspiration also came along to add to my thought processing.  One of Lynne Hoppe's blog: muslin pages tutorial, Lynne Hoppe actually got me thinking back to my days of book binding.  I spent a lot of my undergraduate years assembling what might be referred to as "artist's books."  A big part of my work was alternative photo-processed images that were then gather as books.  Lynne's muslin book brought back memories of those youthful, energetic, and spirited school days: 

I really got inspired to start thinking about actually doing cloth books with my stitching from this image.  So somewhere between the top image and Lynne's book this is what I ended up with as an initial step:

The image above is a translation of the first image on top of this blog page done in all cloth.  The are just pinned at this point.  The leaves are cloth that has been rusted and two leaves, one oak and one maple were use to trace the shape and then cut out.  This is pinned to a piece of muslin cloth. I then drew the face.  This piece in turn was pinned to a cloth that has been dyed in walnut, rust and indigo carmine.  Each piece in itself is about 8.5x10" - they are separate at the moment. 


These were the other additional things that came along which really contributed more fuel to my thoughts.  Robyn, Art Propelled did an entry on The Poetry of Leaves, December 7th.  I kept going back and looking at the images - they just really wouldn't go away. Wouldn't leave my thoughts.  Two of the artists she mentioned especially were intriguing to the mental composing that was going on during those nights that I couldn't sleep, and kept drawing in my mind.  Patrick Boehner and Ronald Chase.

  The two top images are from Patrick Boehner. 
 Left: Title: Found Objects (Beginning and End)
Artist: Patrick Boehner
Date: 2008
Height: 9 ½" | Width: 8" | Edition of 50, 1 AP 
Height: 7.7" | Width: 6.4" | Open Edition

Right: Title: Documentation and Interpretation (Imperfect Remains)

Artist: Patrick Boehner
Date: 2010
Height: 16 ½" | Width: 11 ½" | Edition of 25, 1 AP

The lower left is a 1994 book titled LEAF by Ronald Chase.  There isn't too much information that I could find about the size or edition.  But, I liked the "aged" look of the paper and the fragile quality.  It really reminded me of something Emily Dickinson might have picked up, held and looked at. 

The other two images come from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, on-line data base.  I've put at the bottom of the blog page, beneath the comment box,  three links to on-line databases, with images, for those that might want to do some further image collecting.  In addition to the Field, there are Harvard University, the largest Herbarium in the US and the University of Michigan's on-line data base.  They titled their's Herbarium but in fact it is a archive of flora in Michigan.  Nice thing about their database, no Latin required.  

I should add also that I worked at the Field Museum of Natural History as a curatorial assistant for 3 years while I was an undergraduate...many a lunch break was spent investigating those dark, musty botany galleries.  

Finally another artist that I discovered making botanical prints is Katie Cooke.  Her photographic method is wet plat collodion - probably one of the oldest forms of making an image mechanically.  It requires a glass plate upon which a "gel" like medium is placed in which are suspended the crystals that will capture the image.  A tricky process but such an incredible end product. 

So this brings me, now, to what I'm doing with all this information.  

This is my journal page with the ideas outlined for  this blog's text. 

 I started collecting leaves shortly after Jude's Hurricane Cloth inspiration.  Each leaf was unique and fascinating treasure.  I think I have them all over my house and  in books.  I just hope I'm going to remember where I've tucked them all in.  One day I will open those pages and find crumbles of leaves falling out - I'll remember (hopefully) and smile.  The top left is a mock-up of a "fascicle."  I'm planning on stitching up little books of the leaves as they go through the seasons during next year.  They will be traced, stitched/embellished and "bound" into little fascicle like studies.  I want to use naturally dyed cloth for the actual "leaf" images but the base cloth will be unbleached muslin.  (this will be sort of a on-going project in addition to the work I'll be doing over with Jude at Diaries, 2012.  Sometime, I'm finding, small in hand "sketching" "skatching" "skitching" and cloth- journalling  - defined as in daily/routine - is a nice break to practice ideas, stitches, general thinking, that might fuel a little of the other work.) 

Below cloth for leaf "fascicle" project:

Top rust, middle oak leaf cooked and soaked for three weeks, bottom tea. 

Two stitched up leaves that I have completed are: (these are practice pieces)

Oak leaf appliqued, dyed: rust; base cloth, dyed: indigo carmine 

Oak leaf traced and stitched on dyed cloth, acorn; commercially produced cloth

I started these as a small distraction, relief, to stitching the cloth that I'm working on for Magic Diaries, LEFT.  LEFT, is just about done.  Hopefully next week I'll be showing the cloth as a finished product.  Lots of little stitches and a few rough days with mom's health have not made the work just a slow cloth but a slower cloth.  

The above book is made by Aimee Lee.  Her blog is: It's My Party, this was featured on  Wake Robin's blog.  

I would also be remiss if I didn't give a nod to velma.  Her books just take my breath away. Images like those above and below can be found through out  Velma's blog. 

References:

Logan, William Bryant.  Oak: the frame of civilizatio.  New York:  W. W. Norton, 2004

Miller, Howard A. Oaks of North America.  Happy Camp, CA:  Naturegraph ,  1984.        

Finally my favorite bibliophile's quote on the leaf.  It's from John Carter's ABC for Book Collectors. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press and The British Library; 8th edition (June 1, 2004)

This is absolutely one of the treasure from my days as a Library Science student.  Not all our text books could make one laugh! 

Leaf:  The basic bibliographical unite:  the piece of paper comprising one page on its front side (recto, obverse) and another on its back (verso, reverse).  Leaf, leaves are abbreviated to l., ll., or f., ff. (from folio).  The inaccurate and slovenly misuse of page for leaf (e.g. 'the verso of p. 73,' 'the title-page is a cancel') appears to be on the increase and should be pilloried when found. Maybe only librarians, bibliophiles, and binders will find this amusing...but please, if you find such errors, do pillorize for the old boy!  

                                    

 And if you leave here with nothing else then a new word - word for the day kind of thing:  dendrology, the study of trees.  Dendriod is also nice - resembling a tree.  Now I need to find the word for study of leaves.  I'm sure there must be one...if not, I'll just have to....


Postscript to anyone who might be viewing this blog...if I have used your images incorrectly, my apologies.  I haven't been blogging that long so some of the etiquette of the internet is still part of my learning curve.  Hopefully I will be wiser in the future. Thank you.