With complete freedom, little gets done, we become paralyzed by options.

When provided with a problem to solve and limited materials the artist is forced to come up with creative solutions. Artists often create their own rules and limitations forcing themselves to push their work to a new level and to literally think outside of the box.

Piet Modrian created works of art by limiting himself to primary colors, plus black and white and 90 degree angles. And Twitter took off by limiting it’s users to 140 characters.

As an artist I’ve always set rules for myself. The rules usually had to do with limitations on the amount of yarn that I  was allowed to purchase, forcing me to play with new color and texture combinations . While there have always been rules behind the scarves that I create, I’ve never shared them, perhaps because keeping them a secret meant that I could change them if needed. For the new collection the curtain is coming down, I’m sharing the rules .

This collection will be focused on the remembrance of everything good about my grandmother. Last week, I left work early and drove home to see my grandmother for what will most likely be the last time that I see her alive. ( Now before you all have tears flowing down your cheeks as I do at this moment I will move forward with sharing the rules for the scarf collection, but am sure that stories of my grandmother will be shared as I share the story of the creation of each scarf.)

The Rules:

1. each scarf will be monochromatic ( this is a great departure from how I have been working)

2. Each scarf will have an element of sewing, using my grandmother’s Singer Sewing Machine

3. Each will have an element of embroidery, a skill that I learned as a small child from my grandmother

4. Each will have an element of chenille. My grandmother ( and myself) loved everything soft. As I visited her for the last time, I watched her rub her hand back and forth, over and over the smooth surface of the table in front of her.

5. Each will have some surface design created with discharge paste

My Vision:

Saying goodbye to a loved one is hard, it is not something that is done in an hour , a day , or a week, it’s a process of remembering and letting go. Of healing and breaking, healing and breaking, remembering and letting go.

When losing the physical presence of a loved one we turn to objects that remind us of them. We turn to photos, images, things that hold the story of who that person was and what they meant to us. This collection is one that will hold stories, memories, and most likely catch my tears as I work, to then be passed onto you, the customer. When it passes from my hands to yours, it will  carry your stories hold your memories and catch your tears. The scarves are both part of an art collection, and a collection of stories.

 

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