Ellen Anne Eddy's Thread Magic Studio

Friday, September 3, 2010

Musings:Art Outside the Box:Embroidery, Art and Truth

7:24 PM |

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I love this 5 minutes of truth and what is true. Truth and what is true are not the same things. They are often foreigners to each other. We are too used the the courtroom in Law and Order, Perry Mason, and the who, what, why approach to the news. We are obsessed by the actual numbers, the correct dates and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.What is true, is that they perpetrated a fraud. But the truth is that they created a view of the world as we would like it to be.

There is a wonderful truth to be hoped for here, in a world of people dancing together. Real or not, it's something that may not be true, but it offers that which should be. Somewhere there could be a world of people dancing badly together, in harmony and joy. And why not? Truth is so much more strong than what is strictly true.

I was raised with an Irish American view of all of this.My mother's maiden name was Mulligan. She was a brilliant story teller. She never sewed if she could help it but she could embroider a story to perfection. The facts were often suspect. She told a story about herself as Margaret the African Violet Killer ( seven in one blow) that I really doubt actually involved her punch line about giants. What she did was take the truth, spin it slightly and show it to you through her eyes. And gild the edges, just a bit.

Was it true? It was way too silly a story to be true. But she was truly awkward and bad with plants. Her not so true story had a heart based in truth.

Perhaps all affirmations are a bit like that. I've sat with bad children and told them that they were good. They weren't getting any better believing they were bad. If I told them I saw them as good, then there was at least a reason to try.

Most recently, I find myself in a room with women trying to do free motion for the first time. I always tell them that they're brave. Are they? Well, bravery is not how we feel. It's how we act. If she's scared and she's not under the table, she's as brave as a tiger. And it helps to tell her so.

Years ago I was visiting Glacier National Park and someone took me up a ski lift. It was summer. As long as I could see the ground I was grounded. But when we were hanging just in the air I noticed I had a touch of agoraphobia. I was terrified. I had my hands over my eyes. My friend leaned over and said" So brave!" This was something I'd said to students the whole week I'd been there. It's amazing no one had hit me.

But it made me feel braver.I managed to look through my fingers to see the mountain below me and an eagle circling above. Was it looking for lunch? We'll never know.Was I truly brave? I didn't fall off the lift.

I quilted this quilt of the mountain below me and the shadow of the eagle above.
While we report what is true, I think we create our truths. We declare them, prop them in place, and help them happen, declare them as we put them in process. That in itself is an act of creation. It's an artistic process as fine as a painting or an tapestry. It's an affirmation. It's a story told well. And it's the recreation of the world as it should be, shown through our own eyes.

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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Musing: Art Outside the Box: Who are you?

9:39 AM |

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I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Emily Dickinson

Caterpillar: Who Are YOU?
Alice: This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. I--I hardly know sir, just at present--at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then
Alice in Wonderland

Gloria Hansen, quite truly one of the quilting goddesses and a winner of many quilting contests and shows, recently posted on Quilt Art Digest a curious interlude she had at the Walmart. She met some women there who were collecting quilting fabric and told them she was going to be selling some of her fabric off and would they like some. They told her they only quilted with Quality Fabric. Essentially they said:"Who are YOU?" The sadly funny thing is if they'd known, they might have crawled after her down the isle for her scraps. I don't use anyone's fabric but my own, but I'd spit nickels just to look through her stash by way of a cultural artistic experience. She's a brilliant quilter, who's made her amazing fabric and quilts for decades.

The quilt world is an odd and lovely place. We honor our best quilters, but to the main, famous quilters live very quiet lives outside the quilt world. Their neighbors don't know or don't understand. Their kids may not too.It's a world populated by moms and grandmothers and has a civility to it I believe unfound anywhere else.Privacy is honored as well as honesty and fairness. And, to the main, it's a place where strangers are greeted as angels unawares.

I love quilt conferences. It's one of the few places I know where you can simply sit down with strangers and they'll greet you as friends. In a way, I take it for granted. It's only when I walk outside the gentler quilt world, I get reminded of the rougher edges.

Recently I've had a small town cultural experience with my neighbors. Basically, a garden war. And in effort prove I'm not the crazy lady they've claimed I am, I've come out of my quilting closet, and shown myself.

They say it's impossible to prove a negative. It's true. I can't prove I'm not a crazy lady. All I can do is prove I'm a famous crazy lady. Admittedly I planted my whole yard in so I wouldn't ever have to mow. My neighbors are past offended and somehow think plants bring mosquitoes and rats. I didn't start by demanding my neighbors cut everything in their yard down. But they have mine. It has been entertaining watching just how crazy my neighbors look while they're making their case. Sort of like a very sad comedy.

Of course, the difference between comedy and tragedy is largely where the story ends. But it's very about how we treat something other than ourselves. For them I am the stranger. And I have no idea what to do if they get stranger. So far, I've had to check the yard for rat poison and odd drugs (yes, we found those) and I find things like my car dome light on in the middle of the night (something I never do). I'm not that wise. I have no idea how to make either them or me less strange. As Alice said, "I hardly know."

My friend Rebecca Dorian Brown reminded me yesterday that all the great religions pretty much hold the same line on good and bad behavior. It's not good or bad behavior because of some rule book. It really does create the difference between heaven and hell in our lives. Almost every culture has a story about the angel or fairy out of no where who looks like a beggar, or the old woman who, if you help her, leaves you with diamonds, and if you hurt her, leaves you spitting out toads.

The truth is the either human life is valuable in itself, or it's not. Everyone has moments of fame and moments of quiet existence. Are they different people at those moments? We start as a squalling infant. Who knows who that child will be? The kindness we give to strangers creates the kind of world that is kind. We really give it, not to strangers but to angels unawares. And in the end, it's what we give ourselves.

You'll find Gloria's amazing work at gloriahansen.com She's one of the quilting goddesses and amazing expert in the internet and digital imagery.

You'll find my wise and lovely Rebecca's work at her site
rebeccadorianbrown.com.She's an inventive and brilliant artist with a wisdom well earned.

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Trees Speak!

10:16 AM |

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Are books dead?

My first impulse is to grab every child I see on the street, bake a big batch of cookies, sit them on my porch and read to them. Reading is the window to the world. Can you tell I came out to teach primary? Well, yes.

It's actually deeper than that. My mother taught school and was president of the library board. Both she and my father read to me nightly. Of course she read me The Little Gray Squirrel. My father read me whatever he was reading. It ranged from the Jungle Book, to Argosy Magazine to Gods Graves and Scholars. I was around three at the time. I can't say I understood it all, but it cemented my love for books. I can't imagine a world without them. I can't go to sleep without one either. The smell of ink, the touch of paper, glossy and full of color and impact, still is electric for me. The stories are often my only company for days.

Technology often scares me. I went through a phase where I refused to learn how to use my voice mail. It was childish, but I felt overwhelmed. My ten year old neighbor is teaching me how to text. I'm not a quick study.

So when you tell me books are dead, my panic starts to rise like sap up a tree. I have images of all of us rushing into book stores and saving the books!

But books are not just paper and binding. Really what a book consists of is a story told, an event explained, a technique discovered, a life explored. Books are information! Information is always holy and always needs to be preserved.

Having written several books, in the current age, I can tell you that they are completely set up digitally now. When I finish a book and it goes to the printer, it goes simply as a PDF file, electronically sent and received. The printed form is simply one of many ways it can be distributed.

Technology changes. As daunting as I find technology, I no longer rush to my herbal books when the dogs are hurt. I go on the internet. The search for information is eternal. The formats will change in time and space. I have an image of monks rushing a printing press saying that it couldn't possibly produce the kind of books they had over the years. They would have been right. The printing press a huge open door they could have never reached with a pen in their hands.

Lately I've discovered Audible.com. You can download books to an mp3 player and listen. I'm in love. It's as if my father is back reading to me. My player holds around 20 books at a time. And my mp3 player fits in my bra. How many books can you carry in yours?

Wrapping it up:

The technology changes, but the need for information is eternal. Books will go on and speak for ever.They may just not be made of paper any more. And since digital storage isn't anything like a library full of books, they may well be much more available for longer periods of time and in ways we can't imagine.

You'll find MP3 books at Audible.com

You'll find more of my books at Amazon or on my web page at

www.ellenanneeddy.com

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The Trees Speak!

10:16 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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Are books dead?

So when you tell me books are dead, my panic starts to rise like sap up a tree. I have images of all of us rushing into book stores and saving the books!

Wrapping it up:

You'll find MP3 books at Audible.com

You'll find more of my books at Amazon or on my web page at

www.ellenanneeddy.com

1 comments

Monday, July 12, 2010

Color Theory for Thread: Basic Shading for Embroidered Appliqué

9:26 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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When I embroidery images,every so often someone will say to me, "Do you really need all those threads?"Well of course!

Now, don't be silly. We know the answer to the age old question, "How many mushrooms do you put in a quiche?" The answer, of course, is" How many mushrooms do you have?"

But it's not exactly that reason. You don't pull in a million colors because you could. You do because it's how nature is. It's all about variance.

If you're going to shade something, you start with some color decisions. First we zone our design. Zones are areas that are fundamentally different colors.His tail and eye ring are one zone, his body and his ear others. His eye is separate because we'll do it in Sliver thread to make it shiny.

In each zone, you'll need a dark, medium and light value. If it's a larger piece you can have separate out your areas as having darks mediums and lights of their own. I've drawn lines to separate the areas, but they're not hard and fast. I'll just start adding lighter threads into the mix at those lines.

To weight the embroidery, I'll add a shader at the bottom of each area. A shader can be a darker complement to the color or dark blue, grey, brown, green or purple.

To lift the color and make it more exciting, we'll add a shocker right before the last color. It can be a bright complement to the basic color or orange, lime, hot pink, or bright purple.

Here's the range of colors I chose for this squirrel. He's basically orange, but all those colors go into making him shine and shimmer. Purple is my shader and the blues make a great shocker to keep the eye happy and entertained.

Wrapping it up:

Pick a wide range of colors from dark to light for each zone. Go way lighter than you intend for highlights and way darker than you might to weight the piece.
Pick a complement or very dark color to shade your piece.
Pick a complement or very bright color to shock your shades.
End with the color you want to see the most. You will.

Shading images is endless fun. Feel free to pick wild and bold colors. Thread is tiny. You can be very bold with it.

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Color Theory for Thread: Basic Shading for Embroidered Appliqué

9:26 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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Wrapping it up:

Pick a wide range of colors from dark to light for each zone. Go way lighter than you intend for highlights and way darker than you might to weight the piece.
Pick a complement or very dark color to shade your piece.
Pick a complement or very bright color to shock your shades.
End with the color you want to see the most. You will.

Shading images is endless fun. Feel free to pick wild and bold colors. Thread is tiny. You can be very bold with it.

3 comments

Friday, July 2, 2010

Musings:Art Outside the Box: Fantasy Land vs The Real Thing

2:32 PM |

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"Wouldn't it be rather a pull sometimes to have--a--to haven?" He hung fire; he wanted me to help him by phrasing what he meant. But I couldn't--I didn't know. So he brought it out awkwardly: "The REAL thing;"....
She was always a lady certainly, and into the bargain was always the same lady. She was the real thing, but always the same thing.

Henry James, The Real Thing

I often find myself caught on the accuracy issue. If your work is based in some kind of reality, you really do need to figure out how much reality you want in it. Some of this is constitutional. Some of it is artist's license. Most of it is a statement louder than words.

Realism is always impressive. It bespeaks of excellent drawing skills and a keen eye. It's more impressive when we see it outside the standard art forms. It's great to draw a frog in pencil, or charcoal or paint. It's a whole other thing to do it in thread.It's also worth saying there really are blue frogs.

But realism always falls a bit flat for me. I know it's a brown frog. Couldn't it be red instead? But couldn't it have purple shadows? Green highlights? A bit of orange around the eyes?All of a sudden that frog has a rainbow quality that is definitely not realism.

I could say it was strictly a color issue but that's not true either. What makes this frog definately not the real thing is those lovely red lips. Frogs don't have lips. So the lips themselves become a statement on how human our frog is.
And there are those moments when reality simply isn't as much fun.

Patti Culea is my favorite doll artist. She's also a kindred spirit. When she asked me if I could do a quilt for her book Creative Cloth Explorations: Adventures in Fairy-Inspired Fiber Art, I wanted to. I just was a bit unsure about creating fairies. So I asked her, " Do your fairies have a quality ride?" All fairies are royalty. It's part of their job. So they can't be going shank's mare or rickshaw. They needed the best fairy frog I could do.

Well, by the time you've put wings on it, reality has pretty much flown out the window. But the fun hasn't.

Don't be caught by the trap of reality. Like fire, it's a good servant and a poor master. Use it while it serves you and leave it whenever it just doesn't have enough luster to lighten things up.

You'll find A Noble Steed in Patti's book on Amazon.com. Her web page is at PMC Designs.

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