Yesterday I volunteered with the Louisville chapter of the Embroiderers' Guild of America at the Textiles exhibit of the Kentucky State Fair. Members brought their projects to the exhibit and "demonstrated" their techniques by working on them while people could come by and watch and ask questions. It was great fun.
One of the other women demonstrating while I was there is something of an expert in color design, an area that is my weakest link in my lacemaking. So I picked her brain and learned some really important principles of color design that, I think, have some metaphorical implications (although I'm not yet sure what those might be).
I'm making a huge Romanian Point Lace mat with six butterflies surrounding a bobbin-lace center. I wish I could upload a picture of it in progress, but at this moment I'm without a camera and I don't know how to upload from my phone -- so bear with me, please.
Now, I've made each butterfly's outline in a different color, in shades of blue, red, and purple. The background is ecru, or a light beige. Now, my tutor told me that the first principle of color design is to provide places for the viewer's eye to focus and then to move about the piece easily. I guess I'd realized something like this when I first got started with the piece, because just seeing those six different colors starkly outlined against the white of my pattern really was jarring. So I had decided to fill in each butterfly with the same pattern, using a variety of colors and lace stitches. My thinking was that this unified patterning of the filled-in areas would pull the piece together. My instructor yesterday told me that I was on the right track with that plan. I used a bright yellow in one spot on each butterfly, and she said that the pop of bright color gave the eye a focus place in each butterfly, and that was good. So, I was following the first principle of color design with that.
I also have a place in two of the butterflies where there's some distortion that has crept in making some areas of those butterflies larger than those same spots are in the other butterflies -- this distortion is caused by my need to have sort of stretched these areas a bit to make the lace pattern lie flat. So in that spot in all the butterflies I used a very light, airy lace stitch and chose colors a few shades lighter than the structural outline of each of the butterflies. My thinking was that this strategy would minimize the appearance of those areas so that the distorted areas would not jump out at the viewer. Again, my tutor said I was exactly on track in my thinking and that I have been successful in using color to sort of correct for an error.
So far, I was two for two, but the next point is where the problem really was, I thought, in my design. I have been using colored threads that I just have left over from other projects, and I've been fitting them in sort of willy-nilly. Some of the colors look pretty good in one or two of the butterflies and less good in the others. But there is one color that I LOVE -- it's sort of a seagreen -- when I see it out on its own, but I think it really looks terrible inside each butterfly. I've not given it a very big space to fill, but to me it sort of stands out because it's such a disappointment placed next to each of the blues, purples and reds of the structural colors. I was thinking I should just cut that seagreen out and substitute something else.
BUT NO, my instructor explained that this seagreen functions as "the poison" in my piece and that every color design needs a spot of poison. "It helps to pull everything else together and solidifies the rest of your design so that your viewer knows what you're doing with the whole." Who knew? She said that the poison cannot take up much area in the design or it really will poison the design, but just a spot of poison is a good thing.
So, she said to leave the seagreen in and that as I complete the rest of the piece it will look like it carries less of the color within the piece and will really help the piece. Now -- this idea of a bit of poison seems to me like it has the possibility for some kind of metaphorical meaning, perhaps a lesson to teach beyond the bonds of a lace mat................................but I don't know what that might be. I plan to keep thinking about it as I finish the mat (the thing is so big that to be honest, I'm hoping to get it done by next year's State Fair so I can submit it in some category for exhibit). I don't want to jump to the obvious possibilities...........we'll see.
Anyway, my teacher gave me additional advice about "mirroring" within each butterfly so that at some small level at least the upper wings and lower wings of each butterfly mirror each other -- again to provide a path for the eye, but another possibility for metaphor.........................And my teacher recommended that I could use some colors just in the top wing and others in the bottom wing, but that most of the colors can match.
Finally, she was so horrified at the pure whiteness of my pattern showing through around the edges and within the mat that, although the pattern will be gone when the piece is completed, she said that seeing the white was giving me trouble visualizing the finished piece because white pulls color out of a piece. Again, WHO KNEW? I LOVE the color white and am actually planning on making white lace curtains for my living room as my next project. I have white trim..............I figure, why not? Well, that's a story for another day, but I have to admit that I had originally planned to use white rather than ecru as the background color for the mat, but fortunately my sister talked me out of that idea.
When thinking about allegory or metaphor that could be found in this effort at color design, the one thing I can say WITH CONFIDENCE that for me, listening to the advice of my sister is ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA. Confirmed here!!!!
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Writing process
I seem to be using this blog to gather my thoughts and writing that I'd originally sent on email to my family and friends. I am noticing something about my writing process as a result -- first, I notice how amazingly LONG my posts are. I've posted twice and have a really long stream of words here -- and I know that it isn't the best writing to be so wordy. It would be better if i were more concise, but I seem to be using these posts to pull in my impressions and thoughts relatively in the moment and I want to capture the details. As such these posts are sort of first drafts that I am keeping if I ever want to revisit them later. I'm assuming I would severely edit them at that point.
Second, I notice the difference in tone of the writing I do FOR THE BLOG and the writing I do for friends and families. I don't like the generalized tone of the writing FOR THE BLOG -- it seems cold and flat whereas the writing I do in emails to specific people seems more dynamic. I've taught writing at several colleges/universities and I always insist in my classes that the best writing is done to a specific audience. Clearly that truth is evident in this blog already. So I'm going to try to keep the generalized posts to a minimum or even to avoid them completely.
We'll see how it goes.
Second, I notice the difference in tone of the writing I do FOR THE BLOG and the writing I do for friends and families. I don't like the generalized tone of the writing FOR THE BLOG -- it seems cold and flat whereas the writing I do in emails to specific people seems more dynamic. I've taught writing at several colleges/universities and I always insist in my classes that the best writing is done to a specific audience. Clearly that truth is evident in this blog already. So I'm going to try to keep the generalized posts to a minimum or even to avoid them completely.
We'll see how it goes.
Getting a tire fixed and other adventures
I took the car in to Goodyear Tire Co. yesterday at 9:30 to get the tire
fixed, and they said that it "would be hours" before they could get to
it. So I decided to take the bus to the main library downtown to pick
up two books and to sign up as a volunteer.
WRONG.
Our Louisville public library system is incredibly under endowed with books. I was SHOCKED that they didn't have Mary Austin's LAND OF LITTLE RAIN, a minor classic of American Literature -- she collaborated on it with Ansel Adams, and the book has famous essays by her and amazing photographs of the American West by him. They had none of her novels, none of her short stories, none of her poetry -- I mean it was pathetic and I was really surprised.
In addition, I asked about volunteering and was told that they don't use volunteers at the main library. They let me sign up, but by the time I got home, someone had called and confirmed that they don't use volunteers at the main library although they do at some of the branches. So, I'll check in with the library at Mid-City Mall sometime soon and see what they have. I don't actually feel the urgency of volunteering, but I know that eventually I will want to be doing something.
Anyway -- back to the experience at the library. What to do? I had my heart set on reading something by Mary Austin since hers will be the next biography that we read here at the condo, so I decided to hop another bus and go down to UofL to get books from their library. Which of course THEY HAD. They had that book and about 10 of her works. I studied the photos and checked into her essays in the book I'd originally wanted and then chose another more fictional book.
It was like heaven -- it was what I've been used to for 19 years working at UofL and never thinking a thing about it -- having at my fingers anything and everything I could possibly want to read -- and if I didn't have it the very minute I was there, I could get it in a few days through inter-library loan. Absolute heaven. I also checked out a murder mystery that I could have gotten at the public library, but why check it out at another library for 3 weeks when I could get it at the same library as the other book for TEN weeks? And I ordered from inter-library loan a novel by an author who sets all his works in Bratislava. As I said -- heaven.
On my way home I had the most fun-on-a-bus ever. I do love a nice bus ride, and this one was GREAT. it was AIR CONDITIONED, PACKED, SO DIVERSE with people coming from and going to the Kentucky Refugee Ministries, young mothers with babies and toddlers, old women KNITTING, young people working with their phones, a person in a wheelchair, women in saris and women in Muslim veils, older men in dirty, heavy workpants, a young woman in heels and a dress...............you get the picture. It was unbelievable. The atmosphere was just great -- friendly chatter, cooing over babies, laughter, helpfulness (during the overcrowded time of the journey, one middle-aged black woman repeatedly offered me her seat, for example, and a woman in the back kept announcing, "there are seats in the back!!!"), and a blur of languages bubbling through it all. There was respect -- when about a dozen people from KRM came on together and made their way to the seats in the back where I was perched, I noticed a young man jump up from sitting next to where what appeared to be an older Asian man had sat down and move to sit next to me. The young man evidently noticed the flash of startle on the older man's face, and he reached over to assure the older man that he had moved because his seat had become too crowded. The older man smiled and nodded his head.
So, I wondered -- what is it about a short journey that can meld a community so fluidly and quickly? And how long could such a community last? -- I suspect not very long, what would happen if something went wrong....like an accident or something? What builds trust on a bus -- or a plane or train for that matter? How many people do you need to build that sense of togetherness, because I've noticed on other trips in which the buses are emptier that people tend to sit silently unless they know each other. Is it the quality of TRAVEL -- the assurance of brevity -- that allows us to lower our barriers with strangers quickly? Cruises are longer, but my sister and her husband, who love cruising, report quick flash-ups of relatively close friendships for whom they have intentions of keeping in touch but then don't. I'm thinking there have to be social norms at work -- but the real diversity of this busload of people gives me pause to think that there could be something universal about the way we interact on a bus. Well -- I need an anthropologist.....
WRONG.
Our Louisville public library system is incredibly under endowed with books. I was SHOCKED that they didn't have Mary Austin's LAND OF LITTLE RAIN, a minor classic of American Literature -- she collaborated on it with Ansel Adams, and the book has famous essays by her and amazing photographs of the American West by him. They had none of her novels, none of her short stories, none of her poetry -- I mean it was pathetic and I was really surprised.
In addition, I asked about volunteering and was told that they don't use volunteers at the main library. They let me sign up, but by the time I got home, someone had called and confirmed that they don't use volunteers at the main library although they do at some of the branches. So, I'll check in with the library at Mid-City Mall sometime soon and see what they have. I don't actually feel the urgency of volunteering, but I know that eventually I will want to be doing something.
Anyway -- back to the experience at the library. What to do? I had my heart set on reading something by Mary Austin since hers will be the next biography that we read here at the condo, so I decided to hop another bus and go down to UofL to get books from their library. Which of course THEY HAD. They had that book and about 10 of her works. I studied the photos and checked into her essays in the book I'd originally wanted and then chose another more fictional book.
It was like heaven -- it was what I've been used to for 19 years working at UofL and never thinking a thing about it -- having at my fingers anything and everything I could possibly want to read -- and if I didn't have it the very minute I was there, I could get it in a few days through inter-library loan. Absolute heaven. I also checked out a murder mystery that I could have gotten at the public library, but why check it out at another library for 3 weeks when I could get it at the same library as the other book for TEN weeks? And I ordered from inter-library loan a novel by an author who sets all his works in Bratislava. As I said -- heaven.
On my way home I had the most fun-on-a-bus ever. I do love a nice bus ride, and this one was GREAT. it was AIR CONDITIONED, PACKED, SO DIVERSE with people coming from and going to the Kentucky Refugee Ministries, young mothers with babies and toddlers, old women KNITTING, young people working with their phones, a person in a wheelchair, women in saris and women in Muslim veils, older men in dirty, heavy workpants, a young woman in heels and a dress...............you get the picture. It was unbelievable. The atmosphere was just great -- friendly chatter, cooing over babies, laughter, helpfulness (during the overcrowded time of the journey, one middle-aged black woman repeatedly offered me her seat, for example, and a woman in the back kept announcing, "there are seats in the back!!!"), and a blur of languages bubbling through it all. There was respect -- when about a dozen people from KRM came on together and made their way to the seats in the back where I was perched, I noticed a young man jump up from sitting next to where what appeared to be an older Asian man had sat down and move to sit next to me. The young man evidently noticed the flash of startle on the older man's face, and he reached over to assure the older man that he had moved because his seat had become too crowded. The older man smiled and nodded his head.
So, I wondered -- what is it about a short journey that can meld a community so fluidly and quickly? And how long could such a community last? -- I suspect not very long, what would happen if something went wrong....like an accident or something? What builds trust on a bus -- or a plane or train for that matter? How many people do you need to build that sense of togetherness, because I've noticed on other trips in which the buses are emptier that people tend to sit silently unless they know each other. Is it the quality of TRAVEL -- the assurance of brevity -- that allows us to lower our barriers with strangers quickly? Cruises are longer, but my sister and her husband, who love cruising, report quick flash-ups of relatively close friendships for whom they have intentions of keeping in touch but then don't. I'm thinking there have to be social norms at work -- but the real diversity of this busload of people gives me pause to think that there could be something universal about the way we interact on a bus. Well -- I need an anthropologist.....
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