I've had busy days "at work" this week, moving projects forward. Today I did some dyeing experiments with acid dyes, working with different percent stock solutions and different depths of shade, to get more successful outcomes with direct dye application and painted warps. Yesterday I got a 720 end, 7 yard silk warp (24 epi) wound up in bundles, and tomorrow I'll paint two of those yards for a first large piece. I also got 1500 yards of 20/2 silk put up into skeins to dye, to use as weft with the painted warp piece. I'm planning that it will be a woven shibori, as well.
The other project on this warp will be heavier, with doubled warp threads (12 epi) and a heftier silk weft. Also woven shibori. Possibly painted weft.
It feels good to be working on a larger scale, mapping it out at this point, anyway. There are a lot of things I know, things I've learned in my fiber work over the years, that I haven't really put to use yet. Waiting for the time and place. Yearning for the freedom from the confines of a smaller, narrower (read: scarf) space on which to work. And I'm learning that I love the risk taking of trying new things: a different brand of dye, or a different class of dye, or different percentages of dyes, new-to-me ways of applying dye, etc.
I've been thinking a lot about the process of what I'm doing, have been focusing on staying in the moment with each activity, embracing each little part of it whether it be winding warp threads or making skeins, or measuring dye powder or steaming samples. Because I've had such an orientation in the past on getting to the finished product that I haven't before allowed myself to appreciate each part of the getting there. I do like these times when in the back of my mind I am strategizing how to do things, what will work, what the probable outcomes will be. It helps that I am a visual person and I understand at a visceral level how a lot of things fit or work together.
I submitted images and info to two national shows this week, and I'm feeling good about it. It's a good thing to put myself and my work out there. I feel elevated beyond the plane of local artist just by taking this step.
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