ATCs

There is something very satisfying about working with a 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" rectangle.  It fits nicely in my hand, it can hold a portrait or landscape orientation, and it doesn't take forever to finish it.  I have been working in this format lately.

This is a memory of trees on the top of a ridge in Western North Carolina.  Most trees, as you move up toward the ridge line, are twisted and bent in one direction.  The twisting action comes from the force of the constant wind sweeping across valleys and to the tops of the mountains.  There is a bright horizontal line, which was the last of the daylight as the sun moved behind some far hills.

This one below is called Down in the Valley.  The fabric is a cut from clean-up piece of recycled linen in the dye studio, and it reflects my finger prints as I cleaned my gloved hands of the dollops of dye.  The only stitched parts are in the hills in the background and the trunks of the trees.  Simplicity seemed the better solution here.

I have been going through old work, and from it and the shelves of sketchbooks, these older notes and stitcheries have inspired me to develop new work.  The recent work doesn't look a bit like the old, but seeing the sketches or the realized pieces that are folded away reminds me of the time and place that helped to bring the older pieces to being.  Working from the past is the only way I know to keep up a daily practice in the Corona Virus Quarantine.