I'd hoped to get this up last night but Blogger wouldn't cooperate. I spent much of today "visiting" France. A French friend is in town so we went to a local French bistro with another friend for an amazing lunch (La Petite Folie--not to be missed). Then we spent some time looking at wedding pictures (one of my friend's children got married this spring).I had potato-leek soup and a wonderful chicken salad with asparagus, artichokes, olives, and just the right amount of feta. One friend had the same, the other had a crab salad and an heirloom tomato salad. (those few words just don't describe at all the luscious dishes and their various components.) We had to have dessert. I was good and had a compote of berries with lemon sorbet. Yum! The others had a chocolate bombe and an apricot tart. Luscious!
Lunch and the nice visit left me feeling much more in balance than I have been lately. My vertigo is improving and with it my attitude. I think my piece this month shows some of the lack of balance I've been feeling.
The background is my take on an inkblot--I did a yarn painting--the kind we did in grade school where you coated a piece of yarn and placed it on half of a piece of paper, folded the paper over and pulled the piece of yarn out. I wanted to do an inkblot but realized that the heavy paint from that would be hard to stitch through. All along I had been thinking white fabric and black ink but at some point the image reversed and I got myself some black fabric and used white acrylic paint I had. (I think part of the choice had to do with the white paint being to hand.)
A yard of upholstery cording was the yarn. I pressed and precreased my fabric, poked the cord into the paint bottle. I used a chopstick and the rim of the jar to squeeze out excess paint and then "artistically" draped the cord onto half of the fabric. I folded over the other half and then pressed a cutting board over it to keep the fabric flat. Then I pulled out the cord. For some I did this more than once.
Looking at them live they looked to me like flower petals. Looking at photos of them, they look more like x-rays. Other samples on on my Flikr site.
I chose the one I did because it reminded me of twirling, of the inner ear bits that are giving me fits, and the heavy line reminded me of the kind of balance staff tight-rope walkers use. I liked the layered effect.
I used a piece of the cording (dry) to wrap the tightrope. I used wools that I had on hand. I began to wrap neatly, this fine line we all walk to keep our balance could at least be pretty, but then decided, well, it's not. I'm not quite sure if the dangly threads are obstacles or things to hold on to. Most likely both. The ends are frayed and not attached to anything.I backed the painted fabric with black stiff felt and then couched on the cording. I added a backing of white stiff felt. The last of the yard of painted cording is looped for the page binding. Done.
