More ideas for new work

I’ve been frantically prepping show entries for the last week or so, but yesterday I got back to my sketchbook and began sketching up ideas for another piece about bipolar disorder. I’ve arrived at an image that I like, and I thought I’d share it with you. The tentative title for this piece is “Bipolar Prison,” for obvious reasons:

The piece is a mashup of several ideas, but the basic concept is a face dissolving into a chaotic mishmash of colors corresponding to mania and depression. Two stripes in the fabric, one blue and one red, represent the prison bars. (The background colors are drawn from/inspired by Inge Dam’s stunning work – if you haven’t seen it already, check out her website. Her weaving is phenomenal.)

This design still needs considerable refinement, but I really like the concept, and will try to do both this and the bipolar brain project on the next warp. Not sure if that’s feasible, though, as both require complicated fabric engineering. The bipolar brain requires weaving two layers of cloth (stitched together in strategic spots and then partially felted). The bipolar prison piece requires three layers, which will mix throughout much of the piece. Figuring out how to make these pieces will be both interesting and challenging! But I am really enjoying the mental gymnastics so far.

In other projects, I spent four or five days banging my head against the cat placemat design, sampling and tweaking and sampling and tweaking. But I think I finally have the design right, and am 1/4 of the way through the first placemat. If I finish it tomorrow I will take a quick photo and add it to my show entries for the Complex Weavers’ Complexity and the Convergence Mixed Bag exhibits. I don’t seriously expect they would be accepted in either show, but it’s worth a try. I’m not going to kill myself getting it done, though – B. is sick right now, so I’m staying well-rested to (hopefully) avoid catching his cold.

I am now clearly on the tail end of the current warp, so I may only be able to weave one set of cat placemats. That’s fine with me – they’re amusing, but take a long time to weave. And I’m eager to get on to the next two projects, which have really fired up my imagination.