Category Archives: Process

Making It Work

There has been so much to write about in the past weeks that I’m just now realizing it was all the way back on September 19th that I last made any reference to the piece that is currently in the works. Time to bring you up to speed.

Progressing from bottom to top

The various issues that were dogging me in the beginning have since ironed themselves out, so I’m at the point now where it’s more a matter of putting in the time to get the piece done. I will undoubtably be circling back to polish up this first side, but for now I’m roughly halfway to the finish line and hope that the piece as a whole will progress more quickly. But that said, hand-stitching is not speedy work.

I’ve used this stitch a fair amount. I like the way it fills a space without letting it become too static. For another example, look at my banner photo above.

As is often the case, fortuitous discoveries tend to develop out of necessity, and this piece is no exception. As I was methodically stitching the main figure of the chess king, it didn’t take long to realize that I wouldn’t have enough of the colors I’d chosen to complete the checkerboard pattern within it. Whenever my work is going smoothly and I’m on a roll, I really hate interrupting the process to go out for more supplies. Therefore, I’m much more likely to search for (in the words of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn) a “make it work” solution that will allow me to keep going.

Now that I’ve told you my secret about the color variety in this central figure, don’t be surprised if you see me using the same device again.

So what you’re seeing above are the results of that hiccup. Rather than just the two thread colors originally planned, I’ve used a variety of six. And frankly, I think doing so has brought life into the figure that would have been missing otherwise.

Onward and upward — the queen will soon be appearing within the blue arch.

You can’t arrange for these kinds of issues / solutions ahead of time, but they do seem to regularly present themselves. Invariably that’s a good thing. To a large extent that explains why I try not to plan a piece too far in advance or to be too married to a particular outcome. Kismet is often much smarter than I am.

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Words to live by:
I just started reading Carol Marine’s Daily Painting. Although I haven’t gotten very far into it, I like it very much so far. In Chapter One she talks about writing a letter to portrait artist Michael Shane Neal for advice. He wrote her back with a lot of helpful information, but finished the letter with what Marine characterizes as the best advice she’d ever receive.

“The best way to improve your skills is to do some kind of art every single day.”

The Missing Ingredient

It’s been a frustrating week with this latest piece. In my effort to get it off the ground, the easiest (and most fun) part — aside from initially making the stitched-resist arches — was going to my favorite thread store to choose colors.* But doing that was a bit like having dessert first, and everything beyond that step has been an ongoing struggle.

Thread Choices

My first problem has been size. The chess pawns that will appear in the background are so small that it took me until Wednesday to figure out how best to stitch them so that they didn’t just look like amorphous blobs, completely losing their definition once one stepped back from the piece.

The second issue has been color. It should be a no-brainer to stick with light-valued thread so that the image has contrast and definition against a background of red and black squares. But the pawns on this side of the piece are going to be black, and I quickly discovered that simply using black thread not only zapped all the life out of them, but they soon became lost in their equally dark background.

I had hoped to keep things simple with just a running stitch outline. But it was too simple, and though I don’t have a picture, once I stitched in black behind this pawn, it became completely lost.

It took me a while to figure it out, but compromise was the missing ingredient. All week I’ve been trying different stitch patterns and different colors, wondering how in the world I was going to get these pieces to sit confidently in their red and black background while conveying that they are the darker half of the chess set.

Another failed attempt – but I’m getting closer by branching out to other colors.

The answer is twofold: artistic license and letting go.
Using a deep blue, which has more richness than mere black, has been both an escape hatch and my saving grace. Pairing it with a variety of other colors has allowed me to make a stab at fine-tuning the definition of a pawn, breathing some life into this tricky part of the image while still conveying the impression that these are the darker pieces of the chess set. The other solution is to let the red dye stand in for the red squares and only stitch the darker squares. Why bother to restate the obvious?

Here is my solution after countless stitched and re-stitched attempts.

I’ve only just begun, but it feels like I’m finally on my way. Time to leave this hurdle behind me in order to get ready for the next one.

*The Wooden Needle in Stowe, VT has a vast selection and variety of beautiful threads. It is really worth a trip if you’re in our area.

Safety Net

I’ve been sifting through my Evernote files in order to do a bit of digital housecleaning. As tasks go, revisiting the diverse array of items collected there can be both enjoyable and interesting because it often results in new and unexpected ideas.

Work in progress © Elizabeth Fram

Tools like Evernote and Pocket make it easy to file all sorts of data and images without the burden of storing paper. I never know when something I’ve saved — inspiration, business tools, specifics about art supplies, notes from my reading, calls for entry, etc. — will be useful, but sooner or later a need invariably crops up. That said, every so often it’s fruitful to review the whole lot, culling the bulk for what still resonates.

Skimming through a series of quotes saved from various readings, I found one to be particularly apropos to the new piece I’ve begun this week. At this early stage I don’t have much more than a sketchy idea of the endpoint I’m aiming for, so I know there will be plenty of trial and error ahead on the horizon. But leaning on previous lessons-learned will help me get the stitching off the ground, and I can consider the exercise a fresh opportunity to deliberately practice older methods while hopefully discovering new ways to mesh ideas with process.

Work in progress ©Elizabeth Fram

In discussing the idea of “deliberate practice”, Joshua Foer writes in his book Moonwalking with Einstein,

Deliberate practice, by its nature, must be hard.
When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend. In fact, in every domain of expertise that’s been rigorously examined, from chess to violin to basketball, studies have found that the number of years one has been doing something correlates only weakly with level of performance. Regular practice simply isn’t enough. To improve, we must watch ourselves fail, and learn from our mistakes.

What a perfect testament to the desire we all have to keep trying. Some pieces make me feel a bit like I’m at the foot of a mountain that I haven’t yet figured out how to scale. The wisdom and encouragement of the above quote is reassuring, like a climbing harness or a safety net, lending support as I wrestle with the possibilities of where I want to take this piece and, perhaps more importantly, where it will eventually lead me.

Work in progress © Elizabeth Fram The stitched-resist dye in this new piece is the perfect example of deliberate practice. At this point I’ve stitched and dyed this pattern many, many times, but this time my goal was to separate the two sides of one length of cloth with opposing colors while still having the piece read as a whole. It’s a first shot at a seemingly simple idea, but tricky to accomplish, and one that will benefit from further practice.

Giving shape to a nebulous idea doesn’t come easily. I appreciate Foer articulating the importance of mindfully failing in order to succeed — an attitude that lightens the overall process.

If you’re interested in what Foer has to say about how important memory is to creativity, link back to this post.

Work in progress ©Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye on silk, approx. 18 x 24 inches

The Wisdom of Orchids and Octopuses

I had so hoped that this guy would be finished in time for this week’s post, but it’s been too short a week in the studio and I’m just not quite there yet. You will see the reason for this next week, but in the meantime, I’m reassured by some unexpected wisdom, surprisingly learned from my five orchids.

In process © Elizabeth Fram

It wasn’t until we moved to Vermont that I could even keep an orchid alive. I’m sure a good part of that new-found luck is due to the wonderful light we have in this house. Because they seem to be happy in this environment, I’ve been able to watch my orchids pass through several cycles of their various stages of growth.

In process © Elizabeth Fram

I guess you can find a parallel for anything if you take the time to notice. As I was watering said beauties on Sunday, fretting about how little time I would have in the following days to finish up this piece, it occurred to me while looking at the tiny buds that will gradually develop into a spray of beautiful, long-lasting blooms, that there is much to be valued in things that evolve slowly.

In process © Elizabeth Fram

Too often we’re in a rush to get “there” — for the art to be finished, for the flower to bloom — rather than savoring measured growth by relaxing into the various layers of process along the way. But there’s no hurrying with an orchid; it isn’t in a hurry to arrive, and it isn’t in a hurry to leave, which is another characteristic that makes it so special.

Hindsight is teaching me that unless there is a looming deadline, it is often best in the long run when circumstances are such that I can’t charge ahead full-speed. Forced “intermissions” provide time for reflection and the distance necessary to see aspects of a piece I might otherwise have missed.

Orchid

So with that in mind, I’m easing up on any negative sense that I am lagging behind on this piece and instead am learning to embrace the deliberate advantages to be found when things unfold more slowly.

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I’ve been so happy to see that Susan Abbott is posting to her Painting Notes blog weekly. Her posts are a wonderful combination of art history, art theory, personal studio experiences and gorgeous art — her own and that of a multitude of masters. Susan’s teaching skills (which I happily benefitted from in a sketchbook workshop last fall) shine through in her writing. Without being didactic, she shares her wide knowledge while humbly managing to sprinkle in plenty about the challenges she regularly faces as she works. It’s a great reminder that we’re all in the same boat. I guarantee you’ll not only be inspired, but you’ll walk away feeling all the richer for what you have learned.

Out of the Deep

The base stitching is finished. From this distance, it’s hard to make out the image in the midst all the pattern, but if you zoom in you will see it.

Every new piece brings its own discoveries. When it was time to dye this one, I decided to work with high key colors rather than the deeper tones one might associate with an octopus’ habitat. The next days will be spent figuring out how to merge the two (background and figure) so that neither overpowers the other, or gets lost.

Folded, with resist stitching in place, the dyed piece looks darker when it is still wet.

This is the exciting part: seeing how the dye and pattern are absorbed into the embroidery.

These photos are a log of this past week’s progress. I can’t stress enough how many decisions take place as I go along. There are constant questions and challenges to each choice (is the outline too dark? How can I keep the stitched rectangle background obvious without overdoing it? How much of the shibori pattern can, or should, remain within the figure of the octopus?)

I am planning to use red tones to define this guy, but it will also have to include some of these other colors so as to play on the camouflage effect.

Now that the piece has been completely outlined, the real fun of blending and playing with color can begin.

Every hurdle presents a puzzle and the potential for new revelations to add to my “toolkit”. The fact that the road ahead is uneven is a big part of what brings joy to this work.

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Who, besides yourself, are you trying to please with your work? Once again, Danny Gregory lights the way in his recent blog post How Not to Give A Damn.

Back to Normal

Things are starting to feel like normal again, now that all the holiday trimmings are packed away, the thank-you notes are written, and the extra cookies are safely frozen — out of sight and mind.

©2019 Elizabeth Fram It’s a big milestone passed once the general outline of the image is stitched in. Eventually this piece will be 18 x 24 inches; the rectangular area is 9 x 12 inches. (Not sure why there is a reddish tint to this photo – it’s a trick of the eye, not part of the work).

As I sit down to stitch this week, it feels like forever since I last had my needle in hand. This octopus piece, that was begun in early December, got sidelined when I ran out of silk thread and my local supplier was closed for an indeterminate amount of time. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to replace my depleted stock, but in case you’re ever in a similar predicament 123Stitch.com in Utah turns out to be a speedy and reliable vendor. Not exactly local, but great in a pinch. And, I certainly learned a valuable lesson about keeping one step ahead of my materials.

©2019 Elizabeth Fram This time around I’m making a concerted effort not to lay the stitches in too tightly, knowing that I will likely be restitching the whole thing once it’s been dyed in order to pull the image out from the dye.

Meanwhile, as December got fully underway, I began to realize that there are only so many balls one can have in the air at once. So this piece took a back seat while I gave in to holiday preparations. I still kept my head in the game though by reading The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. It’s a fascinating book that has given me plenty to think about regarding these amazing creatures.

And once again, I’m grateful for my sketchbook because, despite all the other stuff going on, I could manage to squeeze time for drawing in around the corners of everything else. So December turned out to be a relatively productive month art-wise after all and, in hindsight, the change of pace was probably a good thing.

But now, in these expansive weeks of January, it feels great to be back to a normal routine and to start to see this fellow take form.

On A Different Note______________________________________________________________________________

I am honored that my piece “Crescendo” was featured in Alyson Stanfield’s Art Biz Success blog post on writing artist newsletters this week. I hope you will check out the post, not just to see my piece, but because, as usual, Alyson offers terrific ideas and tips. Over the years Alyson has been one of my best resources for learning about the business side of art. Aside from her blog, her book I’d Rather Be In The Studio is a must-read for any artist.

Reminder for subscribers: Despite best intentions, sometimes technical glitches occur. Last week was another of those times. FYI, I always publish my blog on Thursdays, and if all goes as planned, it is delivered at 4am the following day into subscriber inboxes. If, for whatever reason that automatic delivery hasn’t happened on a given Friday, I will send out another email with a link to the current post. Yet you can also always head directly to the site (https://elizabethfram.com/Blog) on your own. Thanks so much for your continued interest!

Pushing Forward

When I left you last week, I had no idea how I was going to proceed with the piece that I’d just finished dyeing. The pre-stitched imagery was completely overpowered by the dye and I didn’t have a clue how to pull it back into control.

As you may remember, this is where we left off last week – you have to really strain to see even a hint of the stitched image.

As with many things, the only way out is forward. And as we’ve frequently discussed in one of my art groups, the most fruitful option is often to just dive in and make a move, see how the piece responds, then make another move, and so on. Slowly and surely the elements (hopefully) begin to fall in place.
And the definite advantage to stitching is that it can always be undone.

Adding strong darks and experimenting with color help to bring the image out from the dye. Note the dark lines in the back corner behind the bowl and pitcher, they serve to push the flat surface away, introducing depth.

There’s a lot to be said for this type of problem-solving and discovery. I often think best while working; a myriad of ideas tend to pop to the surface in the midst of stitching, probably because the work itself is slow and methodical.

I also find it very helpful to take a break overnight before progressing too far. When I come back with fresh eyes the next morning the verdict can easily go either way. Often what I thought was brilliant the day before is decidedly not so — and vice versa, but the time away helps to make that judgment clearer, regardless of which way the needle points.

Drawing out and amplifying the minimal reds from the dye in the foreground (see previous picture) not only brings it forward, but ties it to the nectarines so they don’t appear isolated.

With each new piece in this series, I uncover more avenues I’d like to explore with this process. I’m learning a lot along the way, but don’t feel I’m quite “there” yet. In the meantime, despite the moments of hair pulling, I can think of no other place I’d rather be than on this particular path to discovery.

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Sweet Bowl of Summer, detail ©2018 Elizabeth Fram What was sorely needed was contrast. Intensifying the amount of stitching overall, including complementary sunset-tones to offset the blues, and adding highlights and darks to specific areas, pulls everything together. Remarkably, even though I had virtually no control over where the dye would land within the pre-stitched image, with mindful after- stitching the dye often works to my advantage (i.e. the color on the left side of the bowl and within the pitcher heighten the illusion that they are receding in space).

As the camera pulls farther away, the image holds its own. The stitching, texturally and visually, adds the necessary heft that keeps the surrounding pattern from overwhelming the piece as a whole.

On a different note_____________________________________________________________________________________

Get your weekend off to a great start with these images by Portuguese artist Luisa Azevedo. Pure delight!

Enjoying the Ride

Last July I started experimenting with a new approach to my dyed and stitched pieces.
Flipping the coin from the way I’d been working, I started embroidering the imagery with white silk thread first, and then dyed the cloth afterward using a new stitched-resist method that I had begun experimenting with at the Vermont Studio Center in April.

My hope was that the silk thread would absorb the color and pattern of the dye process, leaving the image to some degree camouflaged while still maintaining its visual strength. I wanted the viewer to be drawn in by the pattern and to discover the imagery upon closer inspection. Unfortunately, the results were decidedly unsatisfactory because the image became almost completely lost. It shows more clearly below because the angle of the photo catches the light to its advantage.
To jog your memory, check back to my post “Committing to a Process of Search” to read about my initial stab at this new process.

After working my way through the more recent lobster piece (my second attempt at this idea), I returned to the original this week with new thoughts on ways to salvage it from its ghost-like appearance.

While there are elements of the process I’d like to tweak, I am definitely making progress toward my initial objective. And more importantly, as I work back and forth between the stitches and the pattern they sit upon, I’m really enjoying the ride. For lack of a better way of describing it, there’s a satisfying rhythm to considering both image and surface, puzzling out a way to bounce between the two so that they can simultaneously work together and independently, with neither being overwhelmed by the other.

Meanwhile, serendipity happened in the form of Neil Gaiman’s 2012 University of the Arts commencement address “Make Good Art”.
The thing about a good graduation speech is that it’s just as inspiring to everyone else in the audience as it is to the graduates…maybe even more so because being older provides the benefit of life experience as a measuring stick. Gaiman’s advice resonates loudly and clearly in its encouragement to make mistakes and to keep trying.

If you too are attempting to gain some traction in your current work, give it a listen and see if it doesn’t give you a boost.

Not There Yet

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~Thomas Edison

I wish I could say, after all the folding, stitching, and dyeing of the lobster piece this past week, that I was completely blown away by the success of my results once all the resist stitches were painstakingly picked out. But sadly, that isn’t the way it turned out.

Come out, come out, wherever you are

While I’m very happy with the shibori pattern that developed, and I’m grateful for figuring out how to seat the image within that pattern, it’s a huge disappointment that the embroidered lobster image has become completely lost and is now practically invisible. It’s a ghost lobster, if you will. Somehow I have to puzzle out how to illustrate the idea of ‘hidden in plain sight’, but it will have to include the one thing that is sorely missing, the root of my misstep: contrast.
I’m headed back to the drawing board.

Ghost Lobster

In the very beginning of my shibori journey, I came up against a similar brick wall. Some of you may have heard me tell about the first piece from my Dog Walk series – where I used stitched-resist to define the silhouette shadow. I undid those resist stitches with the same level of anticipation, only to be sorely deflated at the unremarkable results.

But after letting the piece simmer for a bit, I hit on the idea to break up the space with a grid of color by layering textile paint on top of the shibori image. This was followed by defining both the grid and the image with stitch. It not only solved my immediate problem, but also started me down this path I’ve been happily following for the past several years: combining shibori patterns with embroidered images.

So, I haven’t lost heart; I’ll figure something out. Challenges are a good thing – and in the meantime the process will give me something to write about in the weeks to come.

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The most interesting thing I learned about this week was the work of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Entomologist, botanical artist, and naturalist, she was the first person to record metamorphosis, documenting and illustrating the life cycles of 186 insect species throughout her life. Her classification of butterflies and moths is apparently still in use today.
Check out the link above to get an idea of the height of her mastery.

Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate VI. 1705 by Maria Sibylla Merian

She created volumes of spectacular botanical illustrations. They were painted in watercolor because, as a woman, the guilds of her time wouldn’t allow her to use oil paints. In 1699, at the age of 52, she traveled to the Dutch colony of Surinam so she could sketch the animals, plants, and insects there. Her journey was remarkable for the fact that she was able to undertake it in the first place, and all the more so because it was sponsored by the city of Amsterdam.

Plate 1 from Metamorphosis in Surinam by Maria Sibylla Merian

Everything else aside, with the heat we’ve experienced this week, can you imagine traveling to and working in the tropics dressed in the many long layers of dress worn by women in 17th century?
And on another note, I wonder if Merian’s work was inspiration for Mary Delany? It must have been.

Leap of Faith

Do you remember this piece from several weeks ago? I am taking what I learned from it and trying again with the goal of figuring out how to portray something “hidden in plain sight” — a stitched image that is camouflaged within shibori patterning while remaining visible.

Another challenge is deciding what the shibori pattern will be so that it works together with the shape of the image, not against it.

This time I’m using my lobster drawing from a couple of weeks ago as a jumping-off point. I sewed the stitches as densely as I could, trusting their solidity would make it possible for the image to hold its own in relation to the visual strength of the dyed pattern that is yet to come.

The rectangular stitched area is 6 x 9 inches. The background stitches were added to set the image apart from the rest of the cloth, hopefully helping the lobster to stand out once the shibori pattern is in place.

In reading Young Yang Chung’s Painting with a Needle, I’ve learned that Asian embroiderers commonly placed various kinds of padding underneath areas to be embroidered in order to achieve a three-dimensional effect. Perhaps creating a relief-like form will give this lobster the oomph it needs to mingle and co-exist with the dyed pattern, each with its own voice, but neither overpowering the other.

I used both batting and heavy silk thread to pad the lobster, some areas more heavily than others. I think it adds something of a sculptural effect. The process is very reminiscent of trapunto.

The middle image in this post shows the completed embroidery. The next step will be a huge leap of faith as I move forward with the dye process. I hope what I have to show you next week will be a happy outcome, or at least a step in the right direction. For now I am cautiously optimistic.

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Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life both hold a place on my “favorites shelf”. I return to them from time to time for inspiration, encouragement, and solace. Writers may write about writing, but for the most part the wisdom they share can be directly translated to any form of creative work. It’s just that they’re, well, writers, so they have a knack for making the information both inspirational and accessible.

I will be pushing the above two books closer together to make room for Ann Patchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, which I read this past week. It has earned its spot next to the others. At 45 pages, it’s short, to the point, and so very worth your time if you’re interested in such things.