The other side . . .

. . . of my art coin:  FIBERS!  I love fibers more than I can express—and definitely as much as I love my brushes and paint tubes.  Here are some of my handspun yarns—fresh from my two beautiful JENSEN WHEELS made right here in Wisconsin.

I love to wear hats, scarves, vests, leg warmers, and wrist warmers which I have knitted with my handspun yarns—lately a combination of Merino and Corriedale wools, and Tussah silk*.  Everywhere I go, people (strangers!) comment on my creations—I think because of the stunning colors I blend on my spinning wheels, not because of my knitting prowess which is intermediate and not striking in today’s world of over the top fantastic knitters.

So they comment—things like, “Oh, I LOVE that scarf” or whatever.  Then I mention that I made it from my handspun yarn, and 1) Eyes glaze over and 2) The person’s face goes blank and the conversation ends.  Many folks out there just don’t get it!

Here is my large, Saxony style wheel.  The JENSEN WHEELS come in several sizes and two basically different styles—Saxony and Irish Castle, but the mechanisms are the same; the bobbins are interchangeable, and all of the gorgeous wheels are made from cherry wood—that warm, antique-y looking Prince of Hardwoods.

The fibers you see in the basket (which was crafted by my incredibly talented daughter-in-law, Cheri Been) are Tussah silk and Merino (the chartreuse from LIVING DREAMS via AMAZON PRIME) and Corriedale (the bright blue from THE WOOLERY’s online store; the lighter blue is also Tussah Silk and Merino from LIVING DREAMS.

Actually what the folks with the glazed over eyes don’t realize is that we fiber people are a formidably ubiquitous sub-culture comprising a stubborn slow-lane backlash to fast-lane Corporate America.  All over the USA, one may find huge gatherings of fiber people (woolly characters that we are) where vendors sell their fleeces from their fleeced flock of really woolly characters—those allegedly stupid critters called “sheep” to whom we humans are compared in God’s Word, the Holy Bible.**

Also at these Fiber Fairs are yarn vendors and sellers of fiber dyes, spinning and knitting paraphernalia (I’d have to start a fiber blog because it would take forever just to list and explain the odds and ends in my home, pertaining to spinning and knitting).

Most Fiber Fairs will include food consisting of lamb as the main attraction (why don’t more people realize that lamb is the most yummy of meats?), workshops in many aspects of spinning and knitting (again, an ongoing blog would only begin to cover those aspects), pens with ewes and their adorable long-legged babies, classes on critter care—often including the raising of other fiber source animals such as llamas, alpacas, Angora goats for mohair, etc.  (I have spun a lot of dog hair combed from my decades of beloved collies).

Here are a few more shots from the fiber studio in our living room.  My painting studio is in our bedroom; obviously I have a beautifully tolerant and accepting husband, but don’t feel sorry for him; he has an entire room all his very own, for his computer and a Lazy Boy chair for watching his sports.  (I join him in there, to watch THE FIVE, SPECIAL REPORT, and THE ANTIQUES ROAD SHOW).

The model in the first pic below is Pinkie.  I believe Pinkie appeared on this site a couple of years ago—anyway that’s what she remembers and she has been begging me to go public again because she loves wearing and displaying my creations.  The things at Pinkie’s feet are wristlets (fingerless gloves).  I couldn’t quite manage getting them on the model’s hands.  Maybe feet?

Next, my other JENSEN WHEEL—the Irish Castle Wheel style.  This one travels well.  When we lived up north in the wild woods, I used to secure the Castle Wheel in a seat belt next to the driver’s seat in our van, and drive from 15 to 30 miles to attend a monthly spinner’s afternoon of refreshments, chat, and sometimes even some spinning.

Finally, more yarn.  Fibers forever!  I began my woolly life in 1980 and raised a small flock of very silly sheep for 18 years, on 3 acres in a country subdivision.  Some neighbors got weirdly uptight about my sheep,  It was a neighborhood of HORSE PEOPLE, and HORSE PEOPLE are a bit more trendy and upscale than SHEEP PEOPLE,  But we managed.  We simply moved the sheep to our backyard with our chickens and geese.  Then the neighbors couldn’t see them, although they could still hear them.

 

*Tussah is wild silk, gleaned from silk worms who munch and lunch on wild plants—as opposed to Bombyx silk cultivated in the controlled environment of a silk farm and fed only mulberry leaves.

**All we like sheep have gone astray”—true, but there is an ANSWER:  our RISEN SAVIOR, The LORD JESUS CHRIST.  It’s almost Resurrection Day, so I just had to get that in.  🙂

Margaret L. Been — March 24, 2018

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Don’t quit making art!

Have you ever noticed the plethora of paintings that abound at garage sales, resale shops, and sometimes even in an antique mall?  These works, often created by people like you and me (home-grown, everyday artists as opposed to those who are world class or at least widely known) may be sold for anywhere from $15.00 to 75 cents by the artist himself or some family member who simply doesn’t have space (or an inclination) for “Grandma’s art”—or whatever else it might be.

I have purchased a lot of these works at rummages, and I’m always happy to make room for them in our home—even if it’s a bit of floor space against a cabinet or desk.  I marvel at the skill represented in “rummage art”, and always wonder why it’s up for grabs at a ridiculous price rather than adorning someone’s wall, or standing in the studio of its still-producing creator.

Perhaps in many of these cases, the artist just quit making art.  Somewhere along the line he or she lost interest in the process—while quite possibly thinking:  “I’ll never be “good enough”; so why bother?”

Most artists (whether well known or otherwise) agree that given an absolute passion for making art and access to good quality materials, anyone can be an artist!  Of course along with the passion and the materials, one must be willing to devote time—lots of time—to one’s chosen medium of expression.

Likewise, most painters agree that every artist encounters periods of self-doubt—days when nothing goes right in the studio, and times of incriminating flashbacks where we consider a previously accomplished piece far superior to anything we are producing at the moment.  In my life-long discipline and profession of writing, this experience is called:  “Writer’s Block”.

As a writer, what have I done with Writer’s Block?  I’ve gone right on writing.  Thus, with what we can call “Painter’s Block”, I am determined to go right on painting—regardless of whether or not my chimes (or anyone else’s) are ringing over the work in progress.  There are ways to deal with the dry spells, and sometimes even prevent them.  Here are a few:

1)  Periodically invest in new-to-you colors of paint, from different manufacturers.  There is nothing like squeezing a generous blob of fresh, gooey paint from a brand new tube onto one’s palette, to give a person a kick in the rear (reminiscent of the commercial for V-8 Juice®).

2)  On “down days”, generate prints from your computer file of your own scanned-in art.  I produce lots of 3″ x 5″ prints, and affix them to artist quality blank stationery by Strathmore—a fine company located right here the Fox River Valley Paper Kingdom of Wisconsin.  I rarely buy commercial greeting cards or stationery anymore, as I have a huge inventory of art to share.

3)  Try a different technique, paint medium, or variety of art.  Periodically I branch out into gouache, and get excited all over again with its possibilities in combo with transparent watercolors.  On days when the watercolors don’t flow the way I want them to, I may move to my collage table and get atrociously messy with acrylics paints and mediums plus my bins full of saved “everything under the sun”—from Oriental papers, cheesecloth, feathers, sequins, ribbons, family photos, dried flowers and leaves, symphony programs, theatre tickets, wedding invitations, old letters, and scraps of yarn—to dog hair.

Recently I ordered a set of Winsor & Newton water soluble oils.  This is tremendously exciting, as traditional oils are off-limits to my tetchy breathing apparatus.  Scientists have discovered a method of changing the molecular structure of the oil base (linseed oil, most likely) so that “oil paints” will dissolve in and clean up with water!  No turp, no toxic fumes.

4)  Take out a dud which you very fortunately neglected to file in your trash bin.  (Some flops are worth saving, for reworking.)  The above-pictured example was a really stressed out piece of Arches 140 lb. cold press paper—apparently “ruined” on both sides with failed attempts at a landscape.  I had one more go at vigorously scrubbing* the paper, removing all but faint tints of the paint.  (Arches holds up remarkably under such abuse—whereas some other brands of 140 lb. paper will not).

Due to the scrubbing, virtually all of the sizing was removed from the paper, creating a totally different effect from work on fresh, clean Arches cold press.  Without sizing, there is no resist and the paint soaks and soaks.  Therefore any paint containing sediment is apt to look more “sedimentary” with this process; the paint soaks away and the sediment remains—along with the scribble scrabbles of fiber which surface when you were destroy your paper.  Never mind all that.  Just keep plugging along, to see what will happen!

Not all my duds are as satisfying when reworked as this one, which is called “Castle at Oban”—because it recalls a trip my husband and I made to my ancestral home of Argyll.  Scrubbing the living daylights out of paper can create a total mess, but my Scottish Castle turned out to be kind of moody.  I like it.  It enabled me to work through Painter’s Block, and the very next day I created a work that truly delighted my heart.  Here it is:  Kingdom at Sea”.  I must have castles on the brain—and probably beautiful Scotland as well!

*A fantastic aid for scrubbing out paint, is the MR. CLEAN “Magic Eraser”®.  This unbelievable product removes stains and spots from all over the home, as well as on art paper.  My husband says, “It’s just a sponge.”  But I never knew a sponge could do what MR. CLEAN accomplishes with his “Magic Eraser”!

Margaret L. Been, ©2013

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Cashmere, wool, and the hair of the dog . . .

Yesterday I washed a cashmere sweater, and my nose perked up.  It smelled like there was a goat in my small bathroom—not an old dairy billy goat, but a fresh young cashmere goat from Mongolia or wherever cashmere goats live.

I not only LOVE animal fibers, I love the smell of animal fibers when wet—either on or off the animal of origin.

A family member thinks my doggie “stinks” when he gets out of his bathtub or comes in from playing outdoors in the rain.  STINK?  Give me a break!

I’m sorry, but “wet clean dog” is a heavenly fragrance.  It it could be bottled.  I might put it on my dresser next to my trendy Este Lauder scents.  I could wear WET CLEAN DOG on days when I feel especially earthy!

I’ve always loved the fragrance of a clean animal—wet or dry.  I grew up around horses.  Horse mingled with clean straw is delectable.

But wet wool!  That beats all for an olfactory treat.  For 18 years, I raised a small flock of sheep—for wool to spin, and for just plain fun.  March was shearing time, before the lambs were born.  I can close my eyes today and recall the bouquet of freshly shorn fleece.  Ummm!  Good! 

Sometimes I would deliberately burrow my nose into the back of a wet sheep, to inhale the perfume of lanolin and wool.  I experience that delight to this day, as I spin my wool—much of which remains from my days of hobby farming.  After spinning a skein of yarn, I dampen it and weight it down on a hanger for stretching.   I burrow my nose in the damp skein, and relive those sheepy days—the scent as well as the sound, which James Herriot’s Siegfried Farnum called “the bass rumble of the ewes”.

Soon Baby Dylan will have a bath.  Those of us who are true animal lovers can’t get enough of animal smells—be they cashmere, wool, or the hair of the dog.

Margaret L. Been, ©2011

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