March 27,2006

OK, the date looks like the AA2A is over essentially. But it isn't you know. If you look at the AA2A website, you'll see reports of new shows by former AA2A artists who are still following a thread they began while on AA2A. That's going to be me. It's a funny thing, but I just now feel like I'm headed down the right path. I now know what I'm going to do with the woven pieces, the woven pieces that were not experiments, that is. I'm going to cut them in quarters so that four segments that are the same fibers, simply dyed, or otherwise treated differently can be mounted on a single background sheet for contrast. This will mean lots more hemstitching before the segments can be separated, and that is hard for me to find time to do, because new ideas demand expression. One aspect of art in which I probably will always be less than perfect is in finishing up cleanly and completely. i still need to dye one of the overall piecew with woad. And I just got the burn-out to emphasize the difference when the cotton is removed from the weave.

I also just finished spending the last of the materials grant. I got more wire. That's where the AA2A will go on and on. I have really gotten a handle on using those colored wires in textile techniques. It's mostly potential, but I know where I want to go with it. I always knew my work centered on structure, how a single strand or single elements can build to a cohesive whole in which the single elements almost disappear, or appear and disappear in an intriguing manner. Seeing some baskets on the web that are made of this wire blew me away. I'm going to need to build jigs to get the supporting structure I need. I've been hunting like crazy for those banking pins that are somewhere in my studio. There are so many fiber techniques I have learned that are mostly used in basketry. Finally metal has enough colors for me.

The necklace I'm building will, I hope, be beautiful in the end. I hope the flowers I build will be too. I'm still figuring out how to use the machine knitted wire. The random net I build on the pins is just so much more attractive to me. OK, I'm rambling now. I'm tired. I organized all my yarns in the house according to color. More later.