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What to do, what to do. I could
© 2010 BJ Parady
unpack from my two day silk paper making workshop with Deb Menz. Or I could
© 2010 BJ Parady
play with the results of said workshop. These need stitching, gluing, applying to journal covers, etc. Or I could
© 2010 BJ Parady
get ready for the two workshops I'm teaching at the Keokuk (Iowa) Art Center this week. Or I could
© 2010 BJ Parady
deconstruct the silk screens I started last week. We did find Gorilla brand duct tape, and I have some new screens to try it on. So far the colored Duck brand seems to be sticking--printing with them will tell the tale.
And of course there's the spring yard work to do--mowing, edging, planting planters.
Since the workshop is fast approaching, that will come first. Then household chores. But what next? I flit, I fly, I dither.
But after this week, there are no deadlines looming. If you need me then, look for me in the studio.
© 2010 BJ Parady
© 2010 BJ Parady
Art doesn't just imitate life. It is life. Sometimes--rarely-- there are glorious moments when everything comes together, as planned, and the art I make looks just like what I envisioned before starting. Other times, it's one thing after another.
Right now, the bump on the road to fame and fortune is duct tape.
© 2010 BJ Parady
Plain, simple, common duct tape. One uses it to tape off a silk screen, so that the ink doesn't seep around the edges. It takes me about 15 minutes to completely tape a screen, which apparently is then supposed to last a long time if you let it cure 24 hours--during the process of silk screening, you use a lot of water and scrub a lot. Mine has been loosening up on the screen as seen above.
I've tried retaping. I've tried letting it set longer before the first use. I've tried a different role of tape--albeit one I already had. Nothing seemed to matter. And when I googled the interwebs looking for a solution, it seemed like I was the only one with this problem. I tweeted. I complained on my fan page.
Why go to all this work? Look what I can do with a silk screen:
© 2010 BJ Parady
And that's from the very first time I tried deconstructed silk screens on my own. I have things I want to do with this process.
One of my 'fans' (that term does sound a little pompous, doesn't it?) suggested colored Duck brand Duct tape from WalMart. The rolls I already had were the same brand, but the traditional silver (from back when duct tape was used for taping ducts). So I bought a colored roll, based on two ideas--maybe the colored one gets more glue, or maybe the glue dries out with time and I needed fresh tape.
I've now taped one screen:
© 2010 BJ Parady
I chose black because even though I liked the bright colors, I figured that if it works out, color would be distracting to the screening process. It's now curing...I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I've been bad about posting. It's mostly from a lack of having something to say. I'm stuck on several pieces, I'm playing with new pieces, thinking about restructuring my website, yadda, yadda, yadda. That said, let's go with an inspiring picture instead of words:
© 2009 BJ Parady
I call it Constable Sky.
More soon, I promise/
Far too often, my reach exceeds my grasp. I can picture how I want a piece of cloth to look when I'm finished with it, but can't figure out how to get from here to there. So I find myself exploring new techniques. This time it's deconstructed silk screen printing.
© BJ Parady 2010
The technique has been covered frequently online; I'm using Rayna Gillman's book, Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth as a starting point.
The process takes some time outs as you have to let the screen dry before you use it, so I've got them sitting on the drying rack until tomorrow.
© BJ Parady 2010
As usual when learning a process, I can see all kinds of ways to use this--things to try as resists, overprinting other fabrics, etc., etc. Probably I need to get more than two silk screens.
Will this be the technique that solves all my problems? No. Will it solve some of them? Maybe. Does having more techniques in my tool kit open up possibilities or confuse me to point of inaction? I think the former...or maybe I should say I hope it's the former. I can do the inaction thing already.
This is what the fabric I use to make art usually looks like when I start, a big white blank canvas. A big part of the design process for me is adding color to this cloth.
But when I'm finished, what do I have? What do I call my medium? I vacillate a lot on this issue. Here are some of my options, along with pros and cons for each:
1. Art Quilt
pro: most people can figure out what I mean by that
con: most people will start talking about their dearly departed grandmother, the quilter. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my pieces are neither for the bed nor traditional in any way.
2. Fiber Art
pro: art made out of fiber--what could be simpler to understand than that?
con: the general public has no idea what that means.
3. Textile Art
pro: at least now it's clear that we're talking about fabric and not basket making.
con: they still don't get it.
4. Textile Paintings
pro: some well known artists (Lisa Call, e.g.) use this term
con: I think it's still kind of ambiguous
5. Art
pro: it's concise
con: could be talking about anything
In the end, if I'm trying to explain my art in the absence of my art, I have to use more than one sentence to get the point across. It helps to have pictures with me at all times...but in practice, I don't always do that. So I work on honing my 'elevator speech', and spread the message as I can. The upside of having to explain my medium in order to help someone understand my art is that frequently they think I invented it all...I tell them I didn't, but if they want to believe it, well, who am I to insist?
my elevator speech:
I make fiber art about the disappearing Midwestern prairie, using white and black fabrics that I dye, paint and discharge, hand and machine stitching, resulting in abstract expressionist wall hangings.
If I can remember it.
© 2010 BJ Parady
© 2010 BJ Parady
© 2010 BJ Parady
© 2010 BJ Parady
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