The inner tube project - Take 3

Creating something large with the pieces I have chosen to work with has some limitations. Rubber bands are fairly small and to create a lively pattern - even if I have a bunch of the wide rubber bands - it will still take a lot of rubber bands. But I think the biggest limitation will be the stapler, which can only staple about 4" deep. That's why I was going to do the block design before and figure out another way to join them together. Now I think I'm going to have to build my "cloth" in rows which kind of bugs me a little because it seems more like weaving and I wanted to get away from that for this project.

I've stapled together small square chunks of bike tube to create rows, now I will start to apply the rubber bands to the rows as I join the rows together. I want to create a "forward" motion from bottom to top with a design element going upward making five "columns". My rubber bands will be creating different patterns flowing upward at different rates, but I also want the patterns to flow across the columns blurring the edges.

I'm not sure it makes sense in the description, but I can see it in my mind and I hope it will convey the moods and feelings I have when riding my bike.

The third project - again

I think I solve or figure out what to do too fast. I come up with a solution and go forward with it, instead of reflecting, working through other potential solutions.

This may be because of my work as a graphic designer with always too much to do. A lot of it is production work, just get it done and move onto the next project. Even the larger projects get done quickly. Give me the pieces, and I'll put something together for you. I'm really good at taking the pieces or parts of the pieces and making something out of it. There's very little time to reflect or thinking on how to make it better - if it does the job, great! - move on to the next job.

It's also a hassle and time-consuming to get people to redo or edit the writing or change a horible photo, so I take what I get and make it work, usually scrunching things in, rarely adding white space.

I need to slow down and think things through, examine my choices and see if they are the best they can be.

SLOW DOWN ---- but it's hard when there's a deadline and you think you won't get done.

In the past when I have recieved comments after I'm rolling along on my solution, I'm annoyed or bummed out, I just want to get it done! There's more work waiting! But if I stop and think about this new suggestion, many or most of the time the project turns out better.

I need to remember that.

Starting again on the inner tube project will only bring a better result.

I need to listen to myself, to find me.

I've been doing design for other people for so long. Even when I'm weaving, I feel like I'm doing it for unknown people - my client that doesn't exist or a gallery show that also doesn't exist.

I need to make art that feels right for me.

I know I love color.

I love color gradations.

I love the softnes of fiber.

I love making cloth out of individual fibers.

Class Discussion - the third project

I went to class feeling pretty good about my project, I was excited to get going, whereas my classmates - many of them were still trying to find materials that worked; wondering about the mechanics of doing something large; some were sort of paralyzed, not with fear, but with uncertainty; maybe feeling that what they were about to do was "wrong" in some way?

We went around the room looking at what others brought in. Some of the work I thought had really interesting possibilities - the beads and glue with its "molecular" qualities and the bamboo sticks which could turn out to be a wonderful structure.

When Layne, the instructor, came over to mine, I said the inner tubes represented travel to me and I liked to ride my bike. Well it took her about a half a second to say it was too pictorial, too obvious. So there it was... spoken out loud, my inner fears expressed. She said I should depict how I feel when I ride my bike not the situation, what she liked about the sample was the freeness of the design. I'm thinking "crap" now I have to start again, make it more abstract, more pattern. Now what? Nothing popped into my mind - slight panic - how am I going to fill up a large space with a bunch of squiggles?

Starting again... what are the different feelings I have when I ride?

The third project - "supersized" cloth

The most successful of my fabric sample projects was the bike tube, rubber bands, and staples, and of my samples had the most flexibility and possibility.

What do all the parts mean?

Bike tubes: riding a bike, travel, freedom, rhythmic, exploration, your own power, happiness, health, scenic, learning, hard, sweat, accomplishment, satisfaction, power.

Rubber bands: stretchy, colorful, widths, pliable, holds things together, close things, they get brittle, make them into a ball, slingshots.

Staples: Shiny, sharp, holds things together, fastener, metal, hard.

So on to the inner tubes - travel - bike trips... I first thought of a patchwork of tubes radiating out from a center circle, kind of like a bike wheel, putting in the sections remembrances of trips gone by. I could show Texas, the bigness, the wind, the flowers; and maybe the Gulf with it's waters in 5 shades of blue... But the empty spaces would need to be dealt with, how would the whole thing hold together? I didn't want to put it on a rectangular frame. Somehow I thought of maybe taking some inner tube circles and "chaining" them together to form a cloth background. Something didn't feel right, the more I thought the less I liked it, the "wheel" idea seemed too obvious, the "chain" structure too different from the rest, it didn't go together.

Then I came up with a big patchwork quilt idea - a story quilt. So I sketched different "vignette" of my trips and then came up with an all over block design to plan it out and work out some dimensions. I was fairly happy with the idea, it was certainly more personal than my weavings, but was it to literal? it was kind of like painting pictures with rubber bands instead of paint. Was it "The Invented Cloth" we were suppose to do?

Plant Dye Study Conclusion

Maybe I'm going going back to some of my early days in college - the color theory days when I loved the gray tones -- I did many studies using gray.

I think my love of gray was drummed out of me after living in the world of Seattle gray for so long. During the dyeing projects I have started to do lately with the jars of commercial dyes have been filled with bright strong colors -- give me a gradation from yellow to orange to red and purple and I'm a pretty happy gal.

My study of plant dyes has opened my eyes again to the more subtle colors of nature. I loved how taking one plant and adding my four mordants many times changed the color into four distinct shades, but if it was the same plant, they all were in the same color family and worked together. I would like to explore this some more, but the kind of weaving I do -- the dyeing I do for my weaving -- depends on being able to dye many colors in the same day.

I love to create gradations of color. I'm just not sure that's possible using plants. I can buy natural dyes/powders from many sources -- probably the only way I can get the red - blue - purple colors I crave -- but is that really any different than buying the jars of commercial powders in an amazing range of colors?

I think for now I'll dye a half a pound or so of the plant dyes that intrigue me and use them in some use-able product like table runners or something and continue to use the commercial colors for my wall hanging art projects, although those wonderful soft neutrals are calling me...

Joe Pye Weed

A friend gave me some joe pye weed to try, she wanted to help me to find a plant that would produce some red colors. Although the plant was very pink-red in color, as soon as I put it in the pot to simmer I knew we wouldn't be getting anything close to red. It was not a total loss however, the plant produced some very nice shades of tan, golden tan, and tan-green depending on the mordant, my favorite was again the iron, which produced a really nice gray with some green overtones.

Tomato vines/leaves

Back to a few more plant dye tests...

Leaving the whole tomato plants to finish the job of ripening tomatoes, I thinned out some of the vines and leaves to dye with. I was surprised at the nice soft baby chick yellow produced with the tin mordant, also the soft green-slightly gray with the iron mordant, that is definitely a color I would like to have more of and with the size of the tomato plants I have, that will be able to happen.

I read later that I could have possibly produced a reddish dye out of the stems. I think they pulled their plant materials after the tomato season was over done producing red tomatoes. Did this may have something to do with what color of dye the stems will produce? I guess I'll have to get out the "lab" again a little later and test the information.