It's raining today and too overcast for stitching. This past week I began a new embroidery. I try to stitch the beginnings of my tapestries when the sun shines indoors brightly. Sometimes, I'm really picky and won't stitch too early in the day when long shadows are cast or too late when the sunshine has a rosy tint or there's just not enough of it. Artificial light just won't do; not even a fluorescent on the left and an incandescent on the right. They're just not as full-bodied. A vitamin A pill is not a carrot.
I'm careful in this way because much of choosing the right colors and values of threads depends on what color the thread will be placed next to. Yellow looks more dynamic when it's next to purple than when it's next to beige. If there aren't many (or any) threads already placed, it's hard to determine if the thread is light enough, bold enough or washed-out and subtle enough. As a result, I usually start by guessing badly and have to pick the first threads out when progress makes mistakes plain. At Cooper Union, I took a class called "Psychology of Perception" that provided invaluable lessons on the effects of colors placed next to one another. There, colors were all compared in rectangular formats with no representational elements. If you read about the work of Josef Albers (Bauhaus), you can find out the mechanics of it. But nothing takes the place of experience and experimentation. Sort of like love; you can imagine how it should be but even the Buddha had to work hard and long to achieve an understanding.
Anyhow, it's raining; a beautiful, noisy rain that forms puddles on bright green grass and Mississippi red earth. Aside from Rascal (the cat) and Puppy (the you can guess who) and even though I have relatives and neighbors living on the same block, there's not a soul in sight right now. And it occurred to me how useful rainy solitude can be. I love to work; there's nothing like having something concrete to show for the passage of time but since there's not enough light, I've decided to use this time to rest, if only to be more efficient and creative later. Yep. There's a future art piece in here somewhere. Maybe it'll be colored a warm gray.
I'm careful in this way because much of choosing the right colors and values of threads depends on what color the thread will be placed next to. Yellow looks more dynamic when it's next to purple than when it's next to beige. If there aren't many (or any) threads already placed, it's hard to determine if the thread is light enough, bold enough or washed-out and subtle enough. As a result, I usually start by guessing badly and have to pick the first threads out when progress makes mistakes plain. At Cooper Union, I took a class called "Psychology of Perception" that provided invaluable lessons on the effects of colors placed next to one another. There, colors were all compared in rectangular formats with no representational elements. If you read about the work of Josef Albers (Bauhaus), you can find out the mechanics of it. But nothing takes the place of experience and experimentation. Sort of like love; you can imagine how it should be but even the Buddha had to work hard and long to achieve an understanding.
Anyhow, it's raining; a beautiful, noisy rain that forms puddles on bright green grass and Mississippi red earth. Aside from Rascal (the cat) and Puppy (the you can guess who) and even though I have relatives and neighbors living on the same block, there's not a soul in sight right now. And it occurred to me how useful rainy solitude can be. I love to work; there's nothing like having something concrete to show for the passage of time but since there's not enough light, I've decided to use this time to rest, if only to be more efficient and creative later. Yep. There's a future art piece in here somewhere. Maybe it'll be colored a warm gray.
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