Finding Freedom, Fun and Myself in Waterford

Ever think of yourself as an artist? I struggle with it and it can be a horror. Maybe if I studied fine art in college or if I was selling my work ... But the truth is at my very core I am a person who needs to express herself - in visual arts, song, or words - and what is that but an artist? Finding that core was my salvation during my many years of therapy many years ago. Nonetheless, I can get so caught up in the expectations around the word. I found a definition of artist at dictionary.com as a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination. That simplifies it some but the emphasis is still on the product. I am working on my own definition: someone who opens herself to the world and expresses herself with abandon. Not an easy thing, abandon requires a letting go which is both process and goal. [My definition skirts the issue of discipline and technique so I'll just say it presumes them.] My key ingredient is abandon, letting go, and play and they are the wings on which artists soar!

Yesterday was the annual all-day gathering of the Fiber Art Study Group at a beautiful colonial farm estate in Waterford, VA. Every year this group of fiber artists [primarily] get together for a meal and a long Show & Tell. But I had to surmount a large obstacle before I could leave for Waterford; I had to deal with the debilitating feeling of not belonging in the group. So, I opened up to a dear friend and fellow fiber artist; I told her exactly how I felt. She listened and reminded me of 3 things: that it is the Fiber Art Study Group - emphasis on STUDY; that even my puttering around projects lately have been in fiber [having a great time lately playing with decoupage] and finally, by asking me a critical question, she reminded me that I am committed to what I do. She also told me that she and our friend and sorta-mentor respect my work.

Eureka! After that I not only wanted to go but felt I needed to go to make myself part of the group. [Important to note: you will not find a more welcoming group of women anywhere!] It also became clear to me what I needed to take for Show & Tell. As I said to the group: I brought 2 fabric collage pictures: one I'm proud of, Cranes Crossing is a collage using commercial fabrics involving a more complex use of color and the other which is the real me, Snoopy Joy, an embroidered Snoopy character [cut from a commercial sweatshirt] with cutouts of stars from many different commercial fabrics and paper and painted stars and the words joi de vivre . All 3 of us were well received! One woman, someone I know and respect, told me that Cranes inspired her. Another woman, one of the many teachers, who had impressed me with her contributions said a couple times how she liked Snoopy. Two women each spoke to me privately about appreciating my putting myself out there. One said next time she was going to talk about her alternate projects. What a kick! What a validation! It's all about opening up and putting yourself out there!

But that was only the beginning; there was the listening and watching with wonder as the artists shared their work and experiences. It was tremendously inspiring!

There were art quilts: one was a large pieced quilt primarily in earth tones; one was a creek complete with glistening "water"; one was a tree inspired by the microscopic picture of a tree cell; one was a still life of a large onion complete with roots; another was a beautiful abstract in blues and rusts based on the photograph of the weathered door of an old pickup truck; one was a black and white [bleach discharged] with subtle embroidery in primary colors.

And all that diversity was only in the quilts. In addition there were many other fiber media! Falling in the arena of surface design: one woman having spent 3 years in Mexico City brought yardage of fabric she had designed and printed in beautiful colors and intriguing designs. There were silk paintings: two women had worked with silk organza in totally different ways. One had painted an orchid on regular silk and on organza and then framed it in such a way that it was dimensional. The other transferred photos of rocks and sticks on individual squares and painted other squares and stitched then together like window panes and hung it with all its transparency on a dowel. There was applique: one woman made collages of "curious animals"; another's was a lovely scene through an unusual window of a European dome.

A medium I had never seen before was machine embroidery on top of unwoven silk and recycled silk threads - The result is extraordinarily soft and beautiful. Another woman transfers old photographs on to cotton using sepia and yellow-with-age colors and embellishes with old buttons to make what she calls postcards.

Then there was the cat! A life size large house cat; the artist made the underlying metal armature, the ceramics for the nose and toes, the crocheted legs and tail and the felted body! Another woman makes memory dolls - soft sculptures sometimes of real people using photo transfers of their actual faces.

Another woman who often makes books has been doing outside installations and has taken to painting on tar paper. A really dramatic effect. She recently did an alley cleanup and beautification which included children painting Pollock-like on tar paper. The paper was then cut into strips and woven through a chain link fence! That was only one part of a truly creative project that greatly benefited a community.

One woman is doing a series of painting and exceedingly fine machine embroidery on canvas based on the alphabet [not working in order]. Her present work is W: From wood to water with woodpecker and whale. The wood grain and water ripples span from each side of the canvas blending in the middle. Our hostess, a weaver and collector, is presently knitting scarves with unusual fibers and the scarves look like beautiful boas! Another woman, one of the several who also teach their skills brought felted bags she'd made to teach beginners. One woman brought in a work done mostly in cardboard.

This is a not an all-inclusive list of the Show & Tell. Some brought pictures of installations and large projects. Others brought reports of working with various techniques and machines.

The most wonderful and ephemeral aspect of the Show & Tell was the artist's attitudes and experiences. Remember the art quilt in earth tones? It's creator spoke of how she felt while making the quilt: lumpy, greasy, pudgy [not verbatim]. She wound up writing the word grease in the quilting throughout the piece. At the end she named it: Middle Age! What fun! Lots of laughter! Another woman told of how she changed the direction in which a picture is hung because the original way was too Georgia O'Keefe and explicitly revealing! One of the most well-known in the group, spoke about doing one half of the piece of extensive machine embroidery over 2 times: she did it 3 times in all! I know that tearing out stitches is part of the process; but the image of someone this respected spending hours un-doing! Now we know why she is so respected.

So, that's how I found freedom, fun and myself in Waterford; It was a marvelous day with wonderful welcoming women!