Friday 26 April 2013

Extinguished

Hmm it is not going terribly well today. I have spent a day and a half (and thirty pounds) on a disaster otherwise known as Pudding Lane. The fantastic vision I had in my head of a felted street scene in which to stage the Great Fire of London, with 85 children's felted flames, looked kind of alright with only a small but nevertheless embarrassing dose of amateurism. It was (and at the moment still is) about eight feet long and two feet tall. Quite an effort. I had worked on it in three separate stages and had to keep rolling it up to work on it as it was too huge for my kitchen table. If truth be told, the novelty had worn off after half-timbered house number three. I took some photos to show you as I was making it. Then I thought I had finished felting it and took it over to the kitchen sink to give it a rinse and that's when it happened: under its own weight (and the weight of the pints and pints of soapy water it contained) it started developing several holes and coming apart where I had been a bit mean with the wool layers (lesson: never try to cut costs by using too little wool). I tried to salvage it with a bit more rubbing and then I was pondering whether I could machine stitch it to sharpen it up and in so doing, patch up the holes. But by this point exhaustion and despair from manhandling such an unwieldy thing set in. Who was this for anyway? Would anyone at school appreciate a cobbled-together woolly oddity they had never asked for in the first place? Was it just a sad attention-seeking exercise? It had literally and metaphorically worn a bit thin. I went for a drive to try and forget it; the car radio was spouting a lot of misery about suicide and chemical weapons and after some tears I have come to the conclusion that what I have made is some interesting pieces of pre-felt that can be chopped up and used in other pictures. The sky had been a (bad) sunset but the colour blends will be handy for something in the future. Just not today. And no, before you ask, I'm not showing you the photos.

Still there has been some positivity in a way too busy week. I have had 4 of my better pieces back from the framers, the lovely Picture Framers Chelvey. Almost everything is ready to go for Arts Week now. Here is another taster or two:-

I am really chuffed with this as I always knew my roses needed a frame to make them complete. The purple frame seems to bring out both the roses and the vase even though it matches neither. 

My dear old familiar friend here is back and looking a bit smarter. For those who suspect it might be a self-portrait, I made it just before I started doing the 5:2 diet (have you heard of it? 5 days eating normally and 2 non-consecutive days of eating just 500 calories, every week) and so far I have lost a stone. Maybe one day I will felt a slightly more svelte version if I ever feel like admitting that it could be me...and if I ever feel like felting again after today's catastrophe.

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