On loom printing

Printing residue

Working on the loom. Weaving and printing.
 
It took a moment to resolve some technical issues, but now I can concentrate on the thump and rhythm of weaving. This is meant to be a test-run - for a series of new works.



For now the 'debris' of the printing process is much more photogenic than the work in progress itself, see below.




 

Drawings in the sky

White&black

At the moment I'm walking my life not star- but tree-gazing. The weather during this dark time of the year has been mild and often sunny, leaving the air and the bare branches of the trees bathed in this soft clear light of the wintry sun.

Black&white

Traces of light

The trees look like drawn into the sky, it's as if each species had its own handwriting. On my daily walks I captured some as mobile-pics; no close-ups, just black&white, sometimes turned into white&black.

Now the weather has become cold and wintry, with a dusting of snow and it's fine to sit in the studio dealing with this machine that I've been loathing.

Otherwise in the studio, play-working on different issues; sort of: "one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration ..." ;-)
More later on.

'Between the Years'

Leap
(Burned orange juice 
on paper)

A new beginning (it is a leap-year by the way; pun intended), the days becoming lighter.

Time seems to fly, while standing still - life suspended in slow motion, yet flying by.

So am I. There are plans, not fixed. They linger in the atmosphere, like an energy waiting to reveal itself - or to dissolve. - It is nice.

It's these days 'Between the Years' [as one says in German], this time-gap between the lunar and the solar year, the twelve nights after 25 Dec.

Time ...

... to watch, listen, smell, read, think











'Silence is the soul's oxygen' CM

Skinned Moon

(Post scriptum)

right

rear

front

One of the fledglings made in September (see last post).

Thin silk threads, dark-blue, with a white half moon and a hollow spherical shape at the bottom. It's hard to capture as photo  ;-(
[click images to see better]

Shown at Cupola Gallery, Sheffield, this Oct / Nov (Artificial Light) ... and it has found a new home ;-)

'Repotting'

Dark blue silk 'hair'

I've moved my studio and dug out the screen print equipment I didn't use for ages. All the substances and recipes to make the printing dyes were like waiting to be retrieved.

Made some prints on silk for small 3-D work ... and now my work space looks like at a hairdresser's. Layers of fine silk organza are reduced in matter. It's like sculpting a thin substance.

Thinning out seems to be the motto of the moment: cutting threads out of printed cloth - and taking dead wood out of trees.
Oh, it's a treat to be able again to work in the garden and to climb trees!

A year later

I've been away for a couple of months on some kind of journey. Last autumn I went to see a GP and came back home a month later, rather small. This doctor took me serious (third time lucky) and much to my surprise sent me to hospital (not so lucky). There eventually it emerged why I had felt like 'riding a bicycle with a flat tire' for some time...

Life as an English patient was new territory to me. All of a sudden I found myself excluded from the world, like a fish in an aquarium, only my fish tank was noisy and hectic 24/7; it was a (cultural) shock. Through the window I could watch the country being submerged by snow, while around me - and within me - all kind of drama took place.

It took a month and high doses of antibiotics to cure me. What I possibly had to learn in hospital - and during subsequent months of convalescence on the continent - was to Let it be.

Thanks for the thoughts and treats I received from friends during this time. They were my lifeline!

Mobile-phone video-sketches (recorded while recovering)

Journey   (Triptych)                                  Light shadow

Inversion / Dawn / Reclamation

Once upon a time,

...in another life, I made this piece. It's woven with hair-thin Nylon, cotton thread and tissue paper. I loved making it, that's maybe why I remember it now - and there's an affinity with the cloud images, see last posts. - By the way I remelted the images of the slide show in last week's post into a video.

Currently I'm making small steps at a snail's pace. Maybe it's time to stop the usual 'agenda forming'. I recall that within the last year I've written numerous proposals and worked towards four or five shows/events which all looked serious. In the end two events materialized, the rest was mirage, except for time and effort ;-( 

So, while gathering bits and pieces I hope to sometime find the thread to complete unfinished work. Along the way I'm slimming down the studio and tiding up the website*. And to lift my spirits I read one or the other interview in this online art magazine.

*Aire-Wave (video) and Globe (images)