This week I finished several pairs of hands. I stitched and stuffed this one’s legs and sewed some decorative stripes down them. She blinked her eyes and whispered something in my ear just as I was attaching her final hoof. The moment they come alive never ceases to stun me, thrill me. How bits of clay and cloth transform from some intention I only held in my mind’s eye (a wavering and shadowy imagined thing), into a real and solid manifestation of an idea. I am always WOWed by this alchemy.
Antler Efforts
I resisted my urge to branch out into other shapes; the curving rippled horn of the Dahl Sheep, the dangerous dark spike of the Texas Longhorn, the elegant, spiraling regalia of the Impala. I wanted to try each of these. How would I bend the copper and stitch the fiber skin to render each miraculous horn shape? My curiosity will have to wait though. I am committed to deer for now, and where there is one deer there are always more.
stitching eyeballs by the fire…
The phrase “I’m all ears” comes to mind when I reflect on this last week of hand stitching. Each eye felt exciting and compelling. What small variation in eye color and pattern will I make this time?, I’d ask myself as my needle began the path of ringing an iris, defining a pupil. It is so wonderful and unpredictable somehow when I stumble into a creative task that I can’t get enough of.
Circling back
My deer people (see their heads in my previous post) will all need adornments. For instance one of them will look fetching in the collection of bright red silk circular patterns. She will be me, remembering my recent circle making complusion, that I may not yet be out of. This is certainly not my first compulsion. I was reminded of that tuesday when I discovered these groupings of odd stitched shapes in a basket on my work table. I made them without really knowing their application. How wonderful to discover my deer people’s costume needs have already been addressed!
A face off
This week I sculpted faces for another collection of sewn and ceramic figures. I think these will all be antlered, a herd of deer people. Imagine hiking in some remote summer wilderness and coming upon them, grazing in a high mountain valley. I wonder, would deer people graze on four legs with their mouths to the turf, or would they crouch to pluck a handful then straighten up and gaze around while feeding themselves, hand to mouth?
This weekend!
Still Circling
I’m working on number 9 of these hand stitched circular experiments. I plan to show them all at the Art Chics sale in early November (see info below). Hand stitching is tedious, time consuming, delayed gratification work. I am ready to begin a new series with more high speed sewing involved!
