Or not so raw. I went to a fiber festival today and found the materials at least as seductive as the finished products. There was a lot of knitting and weaving, some gourds, some sewn objects…and lots and lots of wool and silk and every fiber in between. It was a feast for the eyes and hands. I was there only a bit more than an hour, not nearly enough time to soak it all up. There was also a gem and mineral show, which I mostly zoomed through, with a few pauses at mica and some granite with round blue inclusions of azurite.
I bought some wool to use in art pieces — three kinds of sheep fiber. Mostly curly, un-dyed. I like the natural stuff best, as much as I like color. Now I will pet it and hold it and stretch it and pull it and poke it until I decide what to do with it. It’s just a few ounces, so it will be incorporated as accent — into I don’t know what!
How interesting that you pick out something you like, and later decide how you might create something with it. My mom was a dressmaker, and her other two daughters are quilters. I never liked sewing or doing anything like it. But I so love seeing how others use fabrics. I love handmade things that I can use, like purses, clothing, even things that I can hang on the wall. I especially love color, especially blues, purples, and pinks. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.
Sometimes the materials are just seductively suggestive! A lot of artists buy things that appeal without knowing where they’ll end up. When we moved from Kansas, I had to divest myself of collections of all sorts of things acquired because “that’s interesting, I’ll use it somehow somewhere somewhen!”
But the urge to have a stash is hard to ignore. I just try to have smaller and fewer stashes. I have lots of yarn to knit with so I didn’t buy any. What I did buy I might use in art quilt/mixed media pieces. It was a small investment in space and in money, so it was permissible!
We made lots of our own clothes growing up. My mother was an accomplished seamstress and tailor. But the joy of sewing was a communal one (with my sister also) and I no longer enjoy it on my own. I also prefer to use my hands more directly, work closer to my body…thus the sewing machine has less appeal. I do use it for a few things that it does so quickly and easily…
Color is a whole nother subject! What I love in color in clothing is different from what I like in interiors and different again, always changing, in my artwork. Black and white is also a favorite, especially in photography…despite all the color in this blog!
Oh yes, I love black and white photography. I have a favorite book of photographs taken by photographers from The Christian Science Monitor which is from the 70s or early 80s, I believe. We ended up having to give a lot of fabrics and yarn and such away when my mom passed. She was a real collector of those kinds of things, too, but not as often purchased as given to her. I like what you said about wanting to do things by hand rather than at the sewing machine. My mom was always doing some kind of handwork while sitting. She would go stir-crazy if she didn’t have something to work with. Perhaps it was the need to be busy, or to be creative. I’d never thought about it as being the latter until just now. That’s actually rather cool.