This gap in blogging should be thought of as a hiatus: a pause or gap in a sequence, series or process. So, with tea and a crumbly scone, I am re-entering my blog space. Hiatus is over.
The Quarantine/Lockdown/Shutdown requires me to stay in place, so I use what is at hand in the studio. I am grateful for family, my daughter-in-law, a nurse, and my son, who has demanded that he get our groceries for us. Two amazing humans than I am so proud to know.
The time has been interesting as a type of time, no pre-arranged schedules, no deadlines or string attached to any choices. In fact, very few choices are available now. With no prompting, I become studio-bound every morning.
I began to self-isolate several days in advance of the lockdown, so I am at day 49 with the quarantine. So many other people have commented eloquently on the effects of self-isolation that I will say only that it was easy for a while, but as the days became a month and no end in sight, I become anxious. Creating new work is not as easy as it was two months ago.
Which makes this new piece as welcoming as a wide smile. The bits and bobs are layered together with bright stitches pulled from a bowl spilling over with different types of thread: linen, cotton, silk, rayon, metallic, even some with seemingly spurious origins. Though it is difficult to see in a photograph, the various threads give the rough linen ground a very appealing tactility.
In the studio I have pinned the piece to a board so it greets me each morning. Outside the window, trees that were bare when I started this are quite full now, some with blossoms barely holding to branches as the new leaves push their way into the scented air.
UPDATE: This little piece was included in the "Piece By Piece" late summer issue of Uppercase Magazine. Beyond delighted, the piece is in good company. The issue is devoted to works that are made from scraps or that are pieced together from things that might otherwise have been thrown away. A photo from the magazine:
