You can see the steps in the progress here.

I spent a good few hours in the studio tonight, so I feel like I’m back on track. Especially because I began my artist’s journal - FINALLY. This is a smallish spiral-bound handbook that came from work and is now out-of-date, so instead of sending it to the landfill (I try not to say “throw away” anymore), I’m reusing it as a journal. I paint over the pages with gesso as I go. Because it is nothing special, I’m not tempted to hang on to it for that “perfect” time to use it. And I’m not showing it to anybody, so I’m free to screw up and experiment all I want without fear. In fact, I’m going to TRY to screw up.

Because I’ve discovered something - artist’s block is fear, plain and simple. And there’s one more thing - you’re an artist too. That’s right, YOU. You may have had the desire or the courage for art criticized out of you, but you could make art. You really could. And here’s the last thing that I’ll say on the subject today - don’t limit art. That’s how you kill it. I believe that gardening and painting and cooking and weaving and decorating and ceramics and dancing and knitting and music and raising children and writing is art. As well as anything else that requires you to put some of your soul into it.

I also wove about a foot on the fabulously ugly scarf III, but I found that my upper back hurt after about 10 minutes of weaving. So it was fortunate that I’ve got so many projects and ideas in motion. This was part of my strategy. Since I tend to have a lot of little aches and pains, if one thing bothers me, I can switch off to another.

Also this week, other than carving stamps, I finished backing and photographing the ATCs. I took a heavy watercolor sketchpad that I wasn’t using and made signatures for a 48 page book, cutting the heavy cardboard back in two pieces to use for covers. When I showed it to my co-worker who is getting married in August, musing over what I might make out of it, she said that she needed a guest book. So I’ll do a test run on this one, since it’s my first book not made from a kit, and then I’ll take her to a local art supply store that has some wonderful handmade papers and I’ll make her a nice wedding present. I’m thrilled about this. It’s good to have a focus. For me, anyway!

The only real problem that I’m having at the moment with my art is that I’m fantasizing a little too much about if only I could attend this school or make art full time or go to this retreat or conference. I’m much happier in the present moment, but not having much to do at work right time is a blessing and a curse sometimes.

Oh yeah - there will be much of this kind of talk this summer. Apparently I can’t cook and do housework and garden and do art at the same time. So the cooking and housework obviously have to go.

Wow, what a difference the new set-up of my studio makes. I think that I’ll be able to get some great work done this summer. I pinned my fabric swatches up to the curtain hanging in front of the shelves, and a cork bulletin board has bags and strands of beads tacked to it. My Lyle Lovett poster and a cheap Diego Rivera print of a weaver are on the walls. My little window air conditioner is cranking so it was very comfortable. I re-listened to one of the Oprah/Eckhart Tolle podcasts and enjoyed it. I don’t write about it, but I’m deep into navel-gazing about my artistness.

I wove on the scarf for an hour and switched to a straight twill in the middle which will make it go much faster. When I get to the last 15 inches I’ll switch back to the striped rosepath. I painted over some pages in a spiral book that I’m altering for a journal. This one will be my wild child journal that I’m promising myself will remain private, so that I feel very free to experiment and screw up a lot!

This weekend I will be playing a lot of catch-up with grocery and basic house supply shopping and mulching and weeding and housework, but I’m planning to spend at least 3-4 hours each day in the studio.

I thought that I might share a little about my creative process in doing the mini tapestries. It’s so simple that it won’t take long. Reading Living the Creative Life and The Artist’s Way made me think about this, and I figure that it’s worth sharing.

This is my current workspace in the Happy Room, on the futon that serves as a guest bed. Isn’t it a mess? But it’s really working for me, like I have a pallette of yarn.

I found that the trick to keeping my creative energy going is to always have a little cardboard loom ready. It takes about five minutes tops to warp a piece of cardboard, which I prepare by snipping slits top and bottom 4 or 5 slits to an inch. You can’t really get a lot of detail with this method, but the simplicity and limit is part of the charm for me. For more detailed designs, I use a pin loom, where I can get 8 ends per inch.

I could draw a design on the cardboard, but what I do with the mini-tapestries is that I begin with a blank cardboard piece, pick up a color, and begin. It helps a lot to have an idea prompt. I have a theme right now of “By the Sea.” As I needleweave the yarn into the warp, an idea will begin to develop. If it doesn’t, I do a solid block of color. I figure that I can embellish the solid blocks with beads, shells, embroidery, or needle-felting later, so it’s definitely not a waste of time. The point is, I don’t wait for an idea. I just start weaving.

If I’m not totally thrilled with it, it’s okay. I’ve only put a couple of hours into it at the most, and now that I’m interested in assemblage and collage, I figure that I’ll find a way to work with it later. In the meantime, I’m free to play, which is not something that usually happens with weavers. And playing was something that I struggled with so much that I even made “learning to play” a project for my “Creating Peace” class only last fall.

If I get an idea for a more complicated idea, I’ll work that out later with a cartoon (design for a tapestry). I should make notes, but I have to work on that. It’s usually hard for me to stop weaving and start writing notes! I had a dream last night with an idea for a weaving that I awoke from and said to myself that I should write it down. Of course, the part of me that wanted to go back to sleep convinced me that I would remember this great idea in the morning. Of course, I have not remembered the details as of yet. I’ve had a lot of these dreams and they’re wonderful in their details, but by the time I get to the coffee, they’re a fuzzy warm pleasant feeling. So I need to work on my methods for recording ideas.

Here’s a photo of the back of one of the tapestries. I designed these “signatures” in Word and copied eight to a standard 8.5 x 11 page, leaving a bit of space where I can attach a pin if needed, and then I used Ricë’s technique for printing them on a piece of muslin. I left the freezer paper on the back and cut them apart.

Then I made hemmed backs of a watercolory-looking blue fabric to fit the back of each tapestry (using fusible webbing), fused those directly to the back of the tapestries, then peeled away one of my muslin signatures and fused that on top of the blue fabric.

Here’s the (un-) funny thing - I decided to use fusible webbing for many of my sewing tasks to save my hands some stress and because I am such a klutz that I stab myself with needles and pins all the time. Well, here’s this fabulous alternative, right? I bought a little craft mini-iron that has a long rod handle and a little flat iron tip that I could use for little areas and corners where I might need more precision. So what was the first thing I did with my fabulous new tool yesterday? I mindlessly grabbed it in the wrong place and burned the hell out of my right index fingertip. If I don’t learn anything else from this hobby, I will learn mindfulness, the hard way if necessary.

“By the Sea: Wave”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, cotton weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

“By the Sea: Tidal Pools”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. I drew on memories of Sunset Beach and Tubbs Inlet for these seascapes. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

The next two will be pins:

I’m not done embellishing the one on the right - I plan to bead an edge around it.
Left: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches.
Right: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 1/4 x 2 5/8 inches.

“By the Sea: Overcast Low Tide” - I think that we’ll keep this one, as it is too big for an ATC and I’m rather fond of it. The wool for the sky was space dyed leftovers from a weaving years ago. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.75 x 2.75 inches.

Here are the first two small tapestries of a series of four. This is “Earth” and “Fire.” Guess what the other two will be!

I took a piece of the cardboard box that I used for my tapestry bag and decided to work that part of the design in different colors. The loom is just string wrapped around a piece of cardboard with slits cut across the top and bottom - nothing expensive or complicated about that! I used some of the multitudes of leftover scraps of wool yarn that I have hoarded over the years.

These are 4 x 6 inches each and could be used for fabric postcards if I wanted to go that way…I think that I will mount them together as a wall piece though. The challenge is getting them mounted and maybe framed. Once I’m done weaving, it is very hard for me to follow through on presentation. Maybe I’ll do a simple one-color quilted square to mount them on.

I still need to sew together some of the slits from the back and probably will fuse a backing to them.

I wanted to show you my little seascape tapestries, but I can’t seem to get a good photo of them. I’ll keep trying.

My goal today was to complete a woven artist trading card, and I achieved that goal! Well, almost. I have to put a backing on it, but I think that I’m going to wait until I get about half a dozen woven and back all of them at the same time.

Earlier this month, I wove two other little tapestries which I meant to be artist trading cards, but the size was not quite right. The only two restrictions for an artist trading card is that it can’t be sold and it must be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Think baseball card. So those two will be pins. When I hit the size right, it will be an ATC, and when I don’t, it will be a pin.

The theme of Art & Soul is “By the Sea.” From what I understand, most of the attendees carry with them lots of little handcrafted goodies to trade. I’m weaving these tapesties on little cardboard squares, and they are doing double duty - they will be trades and they are studies for my next tapestry bag.

Weaving these little tapestries is one of the most relaxing things I’ve done for a long time, and it is so easy. Taking photos of the little weavings, not!!!!! Also, I planned to do a lot of beading on my collages and art quilts and fabric journals and weavings. I might need to get my bifocals first - it is definitely ten times harder than it used to be to thread a needle and poke it through those tiny little holes. So, to recap, weaving = fun! Photography and beading = frustration.

I started a project that’s been on my mind ever since I received the book Artist Trading Card Workshop. I want to make my ATCs out of fiber and recycled materials when possible. The section that appealed to me most made nests of fibers on the card and melted them together with embossing powders and fusible webbing tape.

So I have been weaving tapestries from thrums and discarded warps and dyeing mistakes, and now I have a way to re-use the thrums from the thrums. It feels like, I don’t know, like I just found the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Ahhhh. It drove me crazy to throw those thrums away. Usually I give them to the birds or toss them in the compost heap when there gets to be too many.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with. Backgrounds for four sets of two cards each.

I had no freakin idee whut I wuz doing. I just played. If you were around in September when I began to have my meltdown, you know that this was a major goal for me. I’m a planner. It’s my personality. Weavers generally have to be. I needed to learn how to play. Squirt had a lot to teach me about that in his last year. He became more playful than he ever had been in his middle age.

I was so afraid that I had lost my mojo for good. Now I’m in the middle of four projects! Whee!

First there was the photo, taken at Healing Ground in Oak Ridge, North Carolina.

Then there was the idea and the cartoon…

Then there was a long period of dithering because I couldn’t decide between two approaches. One was to make the “path” blue, the maze white, and sew on buttons or smooth worn pieces of shell.

The other was to use all these little samples of handspun, natural or naturally dyed wool that were given to me along with the used loom I bought eight years ago, and make it more realistic.

I decided to start with the more traditional tapestry, and if I’m hungry for more, weave the other one.

Update:  I’ve added a place near the top of the sidebar where you can see the latest progress on the tapestry.

3.5 x 2.5″
cotton yarn, cardboard, brown paper, shipping label, ink

See this post for the story behind it.

I jammed up my printer playing with this brown paper and I think that I killed it! But I do like the effect it made on the words. The “prettier” side is actually the back of the card. It is supposed to have my contact information on it and I have to figure that out. I have a blue gel pen at work that might do the trick.

This is my first artist trading card. There are only two rules for ATCs - they must be 2.5 x 3.5 inches (baseball card size) and they must be traded or given away, never sold.

This was a lot of fun and I think that I’ll keep it up. Hopefully I’ll have plenty to trade when I go to Art & Soul in early May.