Since lockdown I have been mostly at home, except for my daily walks around the neighborhood. Home is a safe place and we have pretty much cleaned, tidied and re-organized every room and storage space which is very satisfying!
Quite a few people have said to me ‘This is great for you! You’re an artist. You will have so much time to make artwork!!’ But I haven’t really had the energy or headspace to concentrate on making very much new artwork. What has been keeping me grounded and satisfying my artist self has been organizing all of the beautiful colored art supplies in my studio.
Bobbins
I have a LOT of fabric, collected over 25 years of quilting. It’s been sorted by color and piled into big plastic boxes. It was so great to dump each box onto my studio floor, fold each piece and arrange them by hue or tone before putting them back into the box. I cut some strips of cardboard to divide them into rows which should help keep them tidy. I also got re-acquainted with my fabric, thought about the quilts that they are now part of, and have had some initial thoughts about future work. I have been enjoying the red, black and white palette that has comprised so much of my work for the past few years, but now feel ready to work with more colors.
Messy
Tidy
Likewise, I sorted my sequins.
One of the most exciting things has been getting a rainbow’s worth of embroidery thread. I’ve not been much of a hand embroiderer/sewer over the past 25 years, preferring the speed of using my sewing machine.
One of the online courses I have been co-tutoring is Slow Stitch for Wellbeing. After we check-in, I speak to the group about a different topic each session: the philosophy of the Slow Stitch Movement, the importance of working with our hands, wabi-sabi, and letting go of perfection. Then my teaching partner shows us a hand stitch or two. Finally, we all stitch silently together.
I found a very exciting tutorial on how to label plastic floss cards! Every day for about a week I spent time winding thread onto my bobbins and sorting them by color. So satisfying and rewarding!
I am also a core artist in the Quarantine Quilt Project. I made a 7″ square which represents feelings, responses and/or experiences to the pandemic.
I arranged 16 squares of different colored fabric onto a grey square and slow stitched over most of them. The Anchor thread label represents how I have been grounded and anchored through the process of sorting and organizing my fabric and art supplies over the past several weeks. The birds represent Steve and I, unbound and unfettered, safely enclosed but with space to fly out when we’d like to.
I hope that each of you are finding whatever you need to get you through this time in the best way possible.
