not a lazy suzen

So, rather than stressing myself out any further with things that clearly do not need stressing about, I’ve moved on to something completely different. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Historical and scientific stuff about icebergs and tidal waves. It’s super fascinating stuff. Here are some iceberg facts that I can whip out at the top of my head:

• By the time an iceberg reaches the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, it has been travelling for over three years.
• Icebergs can founder unexpectedly making them pretty dangerous things to be around.
• Icebergs are made up of fresh water that is up to 15,000 years old which means that its the purest water around (and great for making vodka!)
• A growler, the smallest of the iceberg categories, is often the same size as a grand piano.
• Icebergs can travel 48km per day while a glacier travels about 7km per year.
• When an iceberg breaks from a glacier they call it “calving”.

I guess my interest in icebergs right now is linked to my general infatuation with loose foundations and home. Icebergs break off from large glaciers, spend years drifting into coves and harbours, sometimes getting grounded into place but most times they drift along with the current toward warmer water where they melt and shift and break apart. They visit but they never stay because it is geologically impossible for them to. It would be a little cheesy to say “I am like an iceberg” so I’m not going to make that my official statement. I will say that I am fascinated with the image of a house bolted onto an iceberg and wonder often what living on a berg would be like. It’d be a constant state of tension, I think, between the serenity of floating in the sea on your own private island and the anxiety of flipping over at any moment. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.

This imagery is fairly new to me–a house on a berg. I have to do a bit more drawing to figure all the details out but the bare bones you see above is essentially what I’m envisioning. I have this inclination to translate this imagery into hooked mats, irregularly shaped and maybe even with other non-hooked elements. I am working on a test piece right now just to see if the imagery will work in this format. I have a pretty good feeling it will but want to be sure before I bite off way more than I can chew.

For this test piece I am working over an old piece of burlap left over from last semester when I was teaching myself how to hook. As a result, pretend the heart shape isn’t there. And also pretend that it is flipped to the left 90º and has a house latched onto it. Since this photo was taken a lot of things have been drawn and added to it. It’s like a big jumbly mess of Sharpie lines that will all make some kind of sense in the end.

Last week I ordered a new rug hooking frame. I’ve been dreaming of this frame for months now and I cannot wait to add it to my collection of studio equipment. No longer will I have to struggle with large wooden embroidery hoops that have the potential to destroy the rug as I am working on it. No longer will I have to keep screwing up my posture to balance the frame between my stomach and the edge of the table in order to work. Soon I will be free to make as irregular shape a rug as I want! Boo-ya!

In the meantime, however, I’m stuck with the hoop until I get that lovely box in the mail.

Ever hear anyone say that your environment is a reflection of your mental/emotional state? Well, I think this photograph explains a lot. This was taken at 11:30pm last night as I was getting ready to leave the studio for the evening. This place is a bit of a freaking disaster–which is normal for this time of year when I am scrambling to tie up loose (and fraying!) ends. Let me walk you through a bit of what you’re seeing…

On the front table, which I had originally used as a writing/research table at the beginning of the semester, is a pile of random samplings. Embroidery hoops, empty shopping bags, books, hats and scarves, and a dish filled with slices of three different chocolate cakes (although, you can’t really see that since it’s wrapped in the red and white dish towel). On the table in the middle are a bunch of dirty dishes that are all filled with soap and water but just haven’t been rinse and scrubbed out yet. There is also a coffee maker. I’ve taken to brewing a pot of coffee and parading around the 4th floor with it, offering coffee to anyone with a mug. On the floor is a makeshift napping area I’ve conjured up to meditate and nap on. Because I’m stressed and drinking lots of coffee, I tend to get a little uppity so I need to have self-imposed “timeouts”. This is proving to be quite successful in regard to my work productivity. It’s remarkable what 25 mins of quiet time in the dark can do to settle shaky hands.

On the back table is the latest drawing I’m working on. It’s hard on my back drawing like this but today I’ll be placing it on the wall so I can draw the rest. Here are some photos:

I’m working from an image of an abandoned house in Tilting, NL. This drawing is a quite a bit larger from the last one I did, the house portion is about twice the size as the one before it. I felt like such a nerd when I was sketching this out because I remembered to use the proportion rules I learned in my first drawing class at ACAD. Rulers and calculators, people. Thank goodness this image is very geometric and easy to upscale.

Now, as with the first househauling drawing I did, there is a ton of intricate pattern detail. I have no idea why I keep doing this to myself. The roof alone took about 3.5 hours to draw. Ugghhhh.

Man alive! I stayed in the studio last night and refused to leave until I finished the house. Sure, there are little things I’ll probably adjust but it’s done. What you’re seeing here is the top of the drawing. As I mentioned previously, I’m going to pin this to the wall today so I can continue the drawing in full view rather than having to roll it up in order to work. The house will be standing on a series of wobbly stilts that will look a bit like a forest of white birch trees. I’ll be including a little mini-Suzen in there somewhere but that’s something I still have to negotiate.

While I’ve been working on this, I managed to listen to the entire reading of Gil Adamson’s The Outlander on CBC’s Between the Covers and that really made the drawing go pleasantly. I really loved the story and Anne Marie MacDonald is such a talented reader (unlike the chick that’s been reading the Twilight series on Audible. I had to stop listening because a) the story was terrible and b) the reader spoke in this weird teenagery monotone). I recommend downloading the podcast episodes of The Outlander if you’re into audiobooks like I am. Each episode is about 15 minutes so it’s great for quick listening while you’re in transit or doing housework. I’m probably going to get a start on listening to Lisa Moore’s Alligator. I started to read this in normal book format a few years ago but never finished it. And upon listening to the first episode, I’m happy I’ll be listening to the book rather than reading it if only because the reader has the same St. John’s accent I had when I lived there.

In other news, I should show you the rug that I finished hooking! I still have to hem the edges but here she is in all her glory:

(This detail shot makes for a great desktop picture, FYI!)

Hemming the edges on this is going to be tricky but worth it. I’m going to have to use a lot of bias tape. I’m also thinking that I will be keeping the mat on the wall but I’ll be painting the wall a colour that isn’t gross gallery white. I’m thinking a warm grey and maybe I’ll paint outlines for the lake to sit in? Because, you know, I have all the time in the world to do these sorts of things. Heh.

And with this, I will leave you. I have so much work to do that I’m almost delirious (I initially typed “delicious” haha).

So, in a bit of a temperamental rage, I did something dramatic that caught many of my studio peers off guard:

I sliced up the hooked mat I’ve been so diligently working on. I didn’t even think twice about it, I just whipped out those scissors and didn’t look back. Why would I do such a thing? Well, it was after a studio visit with a prof and fellow students when we all kind of decided that the imagery was really restricted by the frame of the mat. It just wasn’t vast enough–not nearly enough tension. So, out came the scissors. I still don’t think it’s all that successful but it’s a helluva lot better than it was before. At least now I can play with perspective and tension.

While my actions were a little rash, some good did come out of it. I’ve decided that for the time being rug hooking is not suited for this kind of exact imagery. My skills with a hook aren’t nearly up to par to achieve the results I’m happy with. Plus, in order to get the scale and tension I want so badly, the mat would have to be like a million feet long and I don’t have the time to invest in something like that. I’ve come to realize that hooking is much better for other things.

hooking quidi vidi from suzen green on Vimeo with “Fireflies” by Jenn Grant.

Like interpreting drawings from months past!

Over the summer I did a tiny series of drawings entitled Pond & Lake where I sketched bodies of water around my hometown and wrapped them in yarn. Now I see the drawings as a great jumping off point for a larger series of things, more specifically hooked mats! I really think that the nature of rug hooking, especially with wool yarns instead of fabric, suits this better than the househauling imagery I had attempted earlier.

So I’m using all shades of blues and purples to give Quidi Vidi Lake a watery, stained-glass feeling. I think the reason I am loving this much more than the other hooked rug I was working on a few weeks ago is that I feel like I am drawing with the yarn. It’s a lot like embroidery. Unlike the mat before, hooking lines to give the illusion of rope is exactly the same procedure as drawing. Thin, delicate lines that overlap and collide. When the mat is finished, I’ll be hemming the burlap so it can be hung on the wall vertically. It’ll have this strange body-like quality to it. Ambiguous is what I’m aiming for.

Needless to say this thing is taking me a little while to do. I’ve been breaking up the obsessive task of hooking lines with drawing in effort to give my hands a rest. Unfortunately, I believe drawing is worse for my hands than knitting and hooking combined! Oh well, the pain was worth it:

I’ve decided that the househauling imagery is better suited for very detailed large scale drawing. I’m totally digging the results:

I think the scale definitely works with this. And! I’ve gotten so excited about it that I already have two more drawings sketched out and waiting to be pursued. The tricky thing, though, is trying to figure out where to trim the paper and how to hang the drawing without causing too much damage with pins and clips. Plus, I really don’t want to distract away from the delicacy of the drawing with giant metal clips. I’ve never had to figure this kind of stuff out until now. In the past, I’ve always done sculptural/installation/wearable stuff, avoiding the wall as much as possible but now I’ve become dependent on it. My, how the tables have turned!

Anyway, that’s my little update for now. I’m hard at work from now until Dec 9th and then I’ll be breathin’ easy until Christmas. I’ll update some more once things get a little further along