Letting Go, Starting New

For about a week before and a week after the Open House, I  realize I don’t get any studio time.   Tomorrow I’ll start putting all the furniture and all my fabric back in my studio.  It’s a time of cleaning and purging a new beginning in a way.

And I have some new ideas that I’m excited to try out once I get back into my studio.  Saturday night, after the Open House, I was so exhausted I went to bed at 8:oo.  It was still light out and I couldn’t quite sleep so I got out my sketch pad and tried out one of my new ideas in pencil.

The idea came from Jane who wrote to me asking if I would sell her the pieces of fabric that I used to practice on when I got my new sewing machine. Before that she had emailed me a link to some of Picasso’s line drawings.  One traveling line, simple and mystical.  I thought again of the cave drawings I was recently looking at.

What if I I made some simple line drawings (0n my machine)  using a continuous line.  Some incomplete, suggesting  forms, using repetition to  create movement.  And then over lapping them using different color thread.  Some words if they came.   Maybe even remembering to keep it spare if it felt finished.  Not to have to fill in every space. (known as horror vacui, “the fear of empty space” hmm, that’s interesting in itself).  Again trying to tap into losing control of conscious thought.

So on Saturday night, trying to reconcile and express what I was feeling about the day, I thought of this new idea and tried it with my pencils and sketch pad.  I was actually in the perfect state of mind for it.  In between drawing I would nod off and the words  and images would come to me.    So I was going in and out of hypnagogia (the state between waking and sleeping) just the place I was trying to work from.

It worked in that way.   As you can see, I wasn’t so successful at not filling in the entire page, and all my forms are complete, but it’s a start.   I’ll probably do a few more on paper before I get into my studio again.  I guess having to fill the space is part of the control thing.  Just something else to let go of.