ode to te

oil pastel and watercolors on traditional gesso and silk

this post is about a package that i got from te willans not long after my last post. i traded a few of my small paintings for one of te's handmade books. or i thought that's what i was trading for! te sent me a package that was packed to the brim with wondrousness - a LOT of fabulous, dyed with natural dyes wondrousness...


this is what the box looked like when i first opened it - there were two of these wool and silk coasters...


after i'd thoroughly dug around... everything is dyed with natural dyes and made by te. here you can see thread, samples of silk and cotton - some ready to paint on with traditional gesso and some without for stitching, and a stitched cloth.


this wool was full of te's ceramic buttons...


this is the stitched cloth - it's so much more gorgeous than this pic shows, but you can see how happy the crystals are on it...

oil pastel, colored pencil, and watercolor on traditional gesso and heavy cotton

this piece and the one at the top of the post are done on two of the sample pieces she sent. one is traditional (rabbit skin glue) gesso on silk, and the other is on heavy cotton. traditional gesso feels completely different to me than acrylic gesso. the energy of everything that te sent is very earthy, and, well, very real.

so the book, yes the book! she sent me an exquisite one! i'm mostly saving it to work in when i go back east in a couple of weeks, but i've been experimenting in it to figure out what i want to do so i know what to take with me. even though i've worked in a lot of muslin books, this is the first time i've worked in a book that has fabric pages without anything on them, as well as ones with gesso on them.

oil pastel, watercolors, and casein paint on traditonal gesso and silk

a poor pic of the first page (and look how beautiful the inside cover is!). basically i've decided that oil pastels, casein paint, and watercolors work best on the gesso pages...


the second and third pages... i used plaster cloth on the second page but decided that was more than i wanted to fool with, so for the rest of the book i'll just stick stuff on the backs of the gessoed pages. i could paint on them, but i don't want it to run through to the other side, and i don't want to put gel medium on to prevent that from happening.

the page on the right is a cotton page (some are silk and some are cotton). i stamped a face i carved on it, colored it in with oil pastels, and then sewed some sari ribbon along the outside edge. i LOVE the idea of mixing up the kinds of pages - some for stitching and some for painting.


another stamped face, but this time i stitched some color in...


stamped face on paper that i stitched to the back of a page.


i've safety pinned pieces of muslin with faces stamped on them to the back so i'll have them when i'm gone.

i think i have a good idea of what i want to do in the book now, so i've wrapped it up and it's ready to travel...


thank you so much, te, for everything...

on another note entirely, i have not come to any earth shaking conclusions re: blogging in the last month. my main impression was that life felt more *spacious* without it. i do know that i'll keep doing it until i absolutely don't feel like doing it anymore. whatever feels right as the days unfold...

and finally...

* * *


Dear friends in Japan,

As we contemplate the great number of people who have died in this tragedy, we may feel very strongly that we ourselves, in some part or manner, also have died.

The pain of one part of humankind is the pain of the whole of humankind. And the human species and the planet Earth are one body. What happens to one part of the body happens to the whole body.

An event such as this reminds us of the impermanent nature of our lives. It helps us remember that what’s most important is to love each other, to be there for each other, and to treasure each moment we have that we are alive. This is the best that we can do for those who have died: we can live in such a way that they continue, beautifully, in us.

Here in France and at our practice centers all over the world, our brothers and sisters will continue to chant for you, sending you the energy of peace, healing and protection. Our prayers are with you.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, via tumblr

XO