Time for change.

A little bit of history first. I’ve always been a ‘piecer’ of quilts and love to use free-cutting and piecing techniques. Between 2001 and 2003 I became distracted and focused on building a series of quilts using predominantly white fabrics. This fabric encompassed a wide variety of fibre types; cotton, silk, viscose and blends thereof. Essentially, I ‘foundation’ pieced straight on to the wadding (usually a wool/rayon felt) and the backing, and then quilted. At this point, the piece was dyed and/or dye-painted several times - a key part of the desired outcome was extreme texture caused by the shrinkage of the wool-rayon felt (for more information visit www.cjunebarnes.co.uk).

I enjoyed the subtle blends of tonal contrast and colours but the driving factor was one of technique; ultimately the direction of the work focused on the texture caused by shrinkage. I eventually found this restricting and missed working in a truly compositional way and also realised that I hadn’t created any true ‘personal cloth’ of note during this period.

I returned to piecing whilst refreshing my surface design skills in the wet workshop - particularly my screen printing techniques (thanks to Jane, via Claire). Unfortunately, I realised my goal of producing great cloth to the point that I became unwilling to cut any of it up! This is not a happy place to be for a quilt-maker who loves to sketch using a rotary cutter. As such, I decided to change direction by revisiting my processes to develop a new way of working. I like to use paper collage as a design tool and to make things less stressful, I created a limited palette of papers in black, grey, and beige. I felt that a restricted colour palette would reduce the risk of clashes and simplify the variables, allowing me to focus on visual texture.

In time, a particular collage emerged that I decided to tackle as a series of quilts. I had to develop my palette of cloth first and my 4-day Independent Study class with Jane was the perfect opportunity to do this. I had no desire to slavishly copy the papers I’d made but simply wanted to use them as a point of reference, a source. I had a strong belief that once pieced, I could achieve the same feel in cloth as I had with the paper collage. As I was determined to cut and piece, I wanted to avoid making art cloth, whilst still working compositionally to achieve variety. This meant that when each length of cloth was cut into units, each unit would have movement and enable me to build relationships throughout the quilt.

My plan was to evolve the neutral colour scheme and gradually develop the palette. As a starting point I pre-dyed a wide range of tones in grey, beige, rust and olive. Some were to be kept as solid colours whilst others would be used as background for further marks and imagery. This meant I could focus on the ‘bench’ work whilst with Jane, starting with dye paints in cream and beige on un-dyed cloth. The dye element was important to me as I wanted to maintain the integrity of the hand of the cloth. As I worked, I became more and more intrigued by the way the white printing on my paper collage provided freshness to the composition. To achieve this, I worked on some un-dyed cloth and focused on leaving areas of white.

Jet-lag never seemed to leave me so some of my pre-dawn hours were spent preparing tools based on the imagery in my painted papers; specifically camouflage paint and netting – symbols of both protection and concealment. For example, I stuck shapes cut out of contact paper straight on to the back of a screen, focusing on the lines in between to create the feeling of a camouflage net. This particular screen was trialled using discharge paste on a length of pre-dyed silk-cotton and I continued to use it with black dye paint. As I worked with the screen some of the bits of plastic fell off, creating spaces within the line design, so I began to take pieces off in a planned and deliberate manner.

Other approaches included;

• A screen with an acrylic spray paint design that printed two scales of mesh (these were used to make several very densely textured pieces)
• Thermofax screens of thorn imagery (again, used in multiple layers)
• ‘Sketching’ straight on to the cloth with a needle-nosed (catsup) bottle, then using a credit card to drag and smear the dye lines (this supported the ‘thicket/ entanglement/barrier’ quality)
• Old plastic cone holders used as scrapers to create swirling, circular imagery.

One particular image contained in the paper collage had been achieved by spraying ink on paper through a floral net curtain. It was effective because it was didn’t fit with most of the other marks/imagery and provided contrast. Jane suggested I water-proof a piece of net curtain using PVA glue to create a stencil. I did this and used it taped to the back of a screen with partial success, and with more success as a traditional stencil. It was only on my return to the UK did the stencil find its true vocation as a tool for ‘Screen Painting’ (check out Laura Beehler’s class for this fabulous technique - Claire and I were so inspired by it we’ve written a book, see the C2C Shop).

I’ve recently completed my first quilt using some of my new palette. It was juried into Quilt 2005 at the Festival of Quilts and is a good start to the series. My message to quilt-makers is that it’s truly worth spending the time to develop your personal imagery, then hitting the bucket and the bench to develop cloth that’s truly your own. If the cloth is yours it becomes a design tool that prompts self-expression. This has to have a positive effect on further design development when building your quilt... and besides, it’s fun!

Gathering Momentum

If you want to find your own voice, the first step is to start looking for it.

Someone once said to me, “I thought that artists were visited by Divine Inspiration and it all just kind of happened from there. I now know that creating good work - that’s truly your own - requires a great deal of slog and hard work”.

Slog and hard work. Sounds terrible. But to do anything well requires application and discipline. It doesn’t just happen.

• Singers sing
• Writers write
• Dancers dance
• Athletes train
• Runners run
• Climbers climb
• Gardeners plant
• Farmers farm
• Sailors sail
• Chefs cook
• Teachers teach
• Drummers drum
• Pilots fly
• Musicians play
• Artists practise

To be a practising artist is to practise.

It’s a combination of many things; Looking. Searching. Definement and Refinement. Planning. Practising. Implementing.
On a practical (and in some cases, virtually no-costs-involved) level there are many things you can do…

Looking

• Take your camera. Photograph stuff that takes your fancy. Get so close that the picture no longer resembles the subject and takes on a texture and life of its own.
• Carry a teeny-weeny notebook and pencil. Stop from time to time and draw something without looking at the paper. Do this enough times and it’s amazing what can happen. Lo and behold! An abstract grass-head, strange barbed wire, a set of lines that is hugely architectural, essence of bird, a strange squiggle that is somehow still very pleasing and potentially useful!
• Really look at the work of artists you admire and try to establish exactly what it is you love.
• Really look at work you loathe and try to establish exactly what it is you dislike.
• Review your own work and self-critique it. Try to be honest and objective. Is what you see the way you still want to work? If not, how do you want to change?

Searching

• Do the imagery. Cut, doodle, squiggle, tear, squirt, draw, manipulate. Make marks, generate piles and piles of imagery.
• Articulate; write down just about anything in the teeny-weeny notebook. Don’t read what you’ve written, that comes later.
• If you have a stash of stuff, take a good, long look at it and ask each item why it’s in the treasure box.
• What about all of those books? Most of us are book-addicts and yet how often do we truly read them? We might look at the pictures, stroke our favourite images but – read them? Seek out the book(s) that could help, read and re-read stuff (every day if necessary), access any notes or essays you have on personal imagery, composition, design. Dig stuff out from the web on self coaching. Buy ‘Picture This’ by Molly Bang and read it 73 times and do the exercises in it 100 times. Buy other books on composition and try out what they have to say.

Defining

• Visualise and articulate what the vision is and what you need to do to get there.
• Alternatively, imagine you have got there. Look back and ask “how did I do that?”. Looking forward (visioning) can drive the identification of obstacles, whereas looking back and defining focuses/concentrates the mind on the positive steps FIRST.
• The next step is to implement those positive things without even considering what the obstacles might be. Stay very focused on the positive steps, the things that will take you where you want to go. These positive steps are likely to be large things. That’s fine – when you know what they are, then you can concentrate on the detail (and God will be in the detail).
• Work small in order to explore more options, play more, take risks and learn. Create 100 compositions the size of a postcard or even a business card. Do it with cut paper, crayons, aquarelles, paint, dye, oil pastels, collage, stitch - whatever.
• And it doesn’t all have to be “work-work”. Take time out to feed your soul. Listen to music (or to the silence). Dance, meditate, do yoga, go cycling, jog, cook, garden, take a bath, read good writing, go to a gallery, go for a walk, stare in to space for a while. Stop and smell the flowers - “smells detonate in our memories like poignant landmines” (Diane Ackerman). Take the time to look and develop your eye. Really taste a glass of wine. Stroke the cat. Touch things. Re-charge.

Refining

• Do all of the above for 6 to 12 months then take some time out to consider it. Generate the imagery. Practise technique, get to grips with media, engage in the process. Then, gather the output together and dedicate time for reflection and selection.
• When you have a stash, pin it up and really look at it. Set aside stuff that resonates with you. Have an ‘absolutely, totally, certainly’ pin board. Have an ‘hhmmm, maybe’ pin board and stuff all of the ‘rejects’ (for now) into files or large envelopes. Don’t throw any away (yet) as it’s entirely possible that some may come into their own in the future. Reduce and enlarge the ‘resonate’ pile (and consider trying this with the maybes and even some of the doubtfuls). Only the hand and the will can make the vision reality. Keep doing imagery exercises and believe that enough stuff will come out of your heart, head, hand and body – enough stuff to sing with.

Practising

• Practise technique. USE the silk screen, brush, sponge, stamp, bottle, feather, pen, pencil, needle, thread. Tie, pleat, scrumple and fold. Throw, stroke, pin, cut, layer, unpick.
• Work with the media. Dye. Dye paint. Discharge. Use fabric paints, water-fast pens, resists, leaf and foil.
• Use whatever you think might enable the vision. Understand how your body, your hand, your mood impacts on the tool you’re using. Build understanding of the relationship between you and the tool. Build muscle memory so you can get the tool to do what you want, when you want it to. Observe the different properties of the media. Their possibilities and potential constraints. The impact they have on the hand of the cloth. Their sensitivities and foibles.
• Go on a retreat/workshop – but only if it genuinely moves you towards the vision.
• “We learn by doing, there is no other way” (John Holt, educator).

Planning

• Figure out what it’ll take to get there (God can be in the detail).
• Consider your cloth. Figure out what media will best do the job you need to be done, and what tool will do it.
• Cut the stamps. Expose the screens, distress the paintbrushes.
• Book the time in.
• Find the space; both emotional, psychological and physical.
• Save the money; if you want to take a class, buy tools and media, rent or create studio space, go part-time in order to generate time… it’ll take a level of financial investment. Start saving and investing right now.

Implementing

• You’ve worked to acquire Knowledge and build Skill. You’ve already got the Attitude or you wouldn’t have got this far.
• Just get down to it and manage your expectations. Remember, you may have to create nine in order to get ‘The One’.
• “The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand out as finished work. The best you can do is make art you care about – and lots of it” (Art & Fear – David Bayles & Ted Orlando).
• Consider skipping workshops for a while (unless it’s something that could specifically help you move towards finding your own voice!)
• Undertake ‘private’ work vs ‘public’ work – don’t share, don’t do personal stuff in a class situation, get input from no-one in terms of stylistic suggestions for your work.

Above all, enjoy the work and enjoy the journey.

Difficulty = Opportunity

Sometimes we get stuck. The work isn’t panning out as you saw it in your head. The fog comes down and you can’t see your way forward. Staggering about in the half-light, seeing glimpses in your mind of the vision… but you can’t quite get a hold of it. It’s a struggle and you’re losing belief. What was a full cup of potential is now half-empty. But re-think this – half a cup of potential is better than nothing at all! The cup is still half full. Hold on to that.

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” ~ Einstein

Image Courtesy of einsteinatoz.com

When confronted by an imperfect outcome or a problem it’s all too easy to become wholly focused on the problem, rather than trying to focus on possible solutions. Remember… you have the power to re-frame things and try to see them more positively. Grab that half-full cup and start talking to yourself. Try hard to suspend judgment. Instead, adopt an attitude of curiosity and start asking very, very specific questions.

Let’s say the fog is down on work-in-progress. Put it up on the wall and look at it. Look at it long, look at it hard, examine everything you see – in detail. Try to understand what you’re seeing and how it fits with your inner vision of your own work. If it does – establish why. What - specifically is it about the work that sets little chimes of hope going? The colour, the texture, the scale, the contrast, the imagery, the mood (and what is that mood – specifically?) The message, the balance, the focal point, the pathway, the values, the stylistic elements?

Having a conversation with yourself and your work does help as long as you try to keep the questions open, curious and specific – try to establish the needs of your vision and how many are met (so far) in the work-in-progress. For example…

• “What’s wrong with it, what causes me not to like it, where - exactly – does it fail to meet the needs of the vision?”
• “Let’s look at what’s good about it; the colour is good, I’ve got good contrast in terms of mass vs void, pale vs dark and the texture’s fantastic. So, what’s making me unhappy about the whole?”
• “Maybe I’m over-reacting - the key element has yet to be put in and that’s vital for the overall feel and balance of the piece”.
• “I’ll focus on this then. Let’s think about what I originally had in mind… how much impact do I really want this to have, how big does it need to be – how will size/scale impact the piece as a whole, and the colour too?

And if the Judge moves and hits you with a ball loaded with top-spin, hit it straight back in a curious kind of a way. When you get slapped with “well, from what I see it’s not exactly turning out the way you’d seen it in your head”, don’t get defensive, don’t get aggressive, don’t get hurt. Use the energy of the to-spin to turn it around. Consider saying something like… “fair enough Judge, what exactly makes you say that?”

Soon, you’ll have a conversation going…

• Judge says; “it’s a bit linear, and I didn’t think that would be what you wanted”
• You reply; “no, it’s not and I’m realising that between vision and reality is a lot of gut-wrenching hard work. .. linear in what way?”
• Judge has to get specific and says; “well, you’ve got a lot of pretty straight horizontals now and everything seems to be in a row – I thought you were trying to convey a sense of crowd?”
• You reply; “I was, any suggestions as to how I could still get there?”
• Judge now has to coach you; “ um – well, how big a crowd did you want - how many people constitute a crowd?
• You get thinking; “mmmh, more than I’ve got, that’s for sure – how big do I want my crowd to be – let me think about that for a minute…”

Above all, try looking at your work-in-progress from a standpoint of curiosity rather than judgement or despair. It’s very easy to be judgemental and often, it’s an unfair stance to take – particularly when you know you’ve only got 25/50/75% of the way there in terms of process or composition. Instead, work hard to look at the piece objectively and with curiosity. Every time you see a negative, re-frame it and be curious about it.

There will always be many potential ways forward, and that in itself can be frustrating and confusing. If Jane Dunnewold has driven one thing into me it’s to consider all possibilities as objectively as possible. Keep asking – “if I do X, Y or Z, how will each action affect the whole, and what purpose will each action serve – how would the piece be moved forward?” There will always be one “most elegant” solution. Seek and ye shall find.

But you’re fraught with doubt – will I make the right choice, what if I screw it up? Remember that the option(s) can be auditioned with cut (and/or painted) paper, sheers, scrap cloth, acetates etc. If in doubt, try it out and see what you respond to. Sure, all of this takes time – but the fog will clear and your work will grow as a result of investing time, reflection, thought and auditioning.

Time is something most of us feel we don’t have enough of. Family, friends, children, pets - whatever. You love them all dearly but sometimes you wish they’d just leave you alone. Again, try to help yourself out here. Rather than mope about muttering, sit down with those who matter and have an open, frank discussion about what it is you’re trying to do and what they could do to help. Try to avoid whingeing about the way they prevent you spending as much time as you’d like on your passion. Keep focused on ways forward. Seek help, discuss alternatives, agree some boundaries. Establish certain times of day, or days of the week/month that are exclusively yours and be firm in holding yourself and others to them.

Consider turning people into accomplices. Get the kids finger painting – do it with them and some great stuff could come out of your hands. Tape lining paper down on the drive and get the kids - or even the pets - to walk, cycle or trot across it. Drop a load of dog/cat hairs on to the scanner/copier and see what happens. As for the mother-in-law, ‘borrow’ her false teeth, photocopy them and then blow them up 25-50-100-125-150-200 times. Scary.

Do whatever you have to do to get out of the fog. Blast your horn, “sound your barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world” (Whitman). Smell your way forward, take small steps, use the knowledge and skills you have. Ask yourself non-judgemental questions, come up with possible ways forward, ask “what if”, make experiments, play, take risks, be curious, re-frame things, look at the positive and not just the negative, laugh at and learn from dodgy outcomes and acknowledge and celebrate that you can clear the fog and re-fill the cup.

Visualisation & Articulation

Visualisation and articulation are important activities in achieving what we want from the future; it helps to try and be specific about what things look like, what things feels like. Looking back can also be helpful as it can enable us to identify the things we want to take on the journey, and the things we’d prefer to leave behind.

As such, try to take some time out to reflect on the following exercises. Give them serious attention and jot down your thoughts and feelings for each one. When completing them, please follow these guidelines;

• This kind of reflective activity takes time. There are five key exercises - try to set aside 30-45 minutes each day to answer each one, and 45 minutes to an hour for the fifth/ concluding exercise.
• Choose a time of day that best suits you (early birds vs night owls), find a place that you enjoy sitting in, get a glass of wine, cup of tea, make yourself comfortable.
• If music helps, put on a CD.
• Don’t read things you’ve written in response to one question when answering others. Try to be disciplined about this as it’s important to try and let the subconscious speak – if similar words emerge across all of the exercises, they’re words that want to be heard, things that want your attention.

Here goes…

1. You’re already on a journey in terms of the textile work you undertake. But you’re now seeking some new direction, some new place, some new vision, some new voice… and if not new, then perhaps different;

• What do you want to experience on this journey
• What does your (next) destination look like (and remember that you may not stay in this place forever, it’s just your next stop)

2. Choose 3-5 words that describe the work you’d like to make - you won’t be held to these, as they may change during/as a result of any work/exercise you do when trying to get there.

3. Describe your current work;

• Build a list of words that describe the positive aspects of the pieces you make, the things you’re happy with, pretty sure about and want to keep
• Build a list of words that describe the things you’re unhappy with about your work, not sure about or that you’d like to see change or develop

4. Think about process. Many of us engage in more than one process to realise our work; wet work such as dyeing, printing, discharge and so forth. Dry work such as cutting and piecing, hand and/or machine stitch. Ask yourself;

• Of the processes I engage in, what do I truly, truly love the most?
• Of the processes I engage with, what do I find a bit of a pain – in other words, I do it because it has to be done, not because I necessarily enjoy it.

Now ask yourself how much time you spend in the ‘love it” and ‘put up with it’ zones. Is this an area that could do with some tweaking?

5. Assuming you’ve now completed the previous four exercises, it’s time to go back and review/ reflect on your answers and consider the following;

• Have certain words been repeated, is there a key message emerging (but don’t worry if there isn’t!).
• What new thoughts/feelings do you have as you read; jot these down too.
• Ultimately, what conclusions can you reach as a result of this reflective activity?

So, having reflected, extracted lessons from the past and forecast thoughts for the future, consider the conclusions you’ve drawn and start planning how you’re going to move forward.