The subject for the next Iowa Art Quilt groups meeting is Creativity, and where does one draw it from? Timely question as I struggle to push out my next zine, it's about rust dyeing. I keep finding myself cutting it down, taking out all of the fun stuff until it's nothing more than a piece of technical crap!
I struggle with the nagging question of "does anyone really care about where I get these ideas from?" Do they look only at the pictures or are they reading the text as well? Will they think I'm a flake if I share with them my passion for sitting on a creek bank catching and playing with crawdads, sometimes I think I just might be more cat than bird? What does that have to do with rust dyeing you might ask? Well it doesn't unless you count the myriad of rusting objects lying about the stream beds in my part of the world.
Creativity where do I draw it from? As a visual artist I can't help but noticing everything around me! How to break the world down into parts so one can focus just long enough to create is a challenge in and of itself, focus the dreaded "F" word. Well I'm one who tends to think themeatically (sp?) and maybe not in the sense that most think, but its definately a theme.
I have three themes I work in (or bodies of work), two styles (most probably), and at most three color palettes which depends on the theme. Btw it took me about 10 years to notice this about myself, I noticed it quite by accident, after dh kept asking me why I was making sculpture I"m a quilt artist! Well that's just one of the things I "have" to do, I can't not make sculpture but I don't have to do it "all" of the time. Sometimes the subject just begs to be 3D, it'll never work for me in a quilt format, it HAS to be 3D.
That's nice, so what does this last bit have to do with my rust dyeing zine? Nothing really and everything actually. It has everything to do with creativity which is what my latest zine is, an exercise in creativity on my behalf.
More later
I think I'll make some attachments with these silk organza fabrics, they have all been dyed with natural dyes. Somewhere in this mess I have some silk ribbons, yarns, etc. that I dyed at the same time that'll also look good on the surface of my latest baby. I also have some raw handspun muga silk yarn that'll do for branch defintion, can't seem to find my brownish raffia I had on hand - it was a weird coffee color that would work really well for branch material.
