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Japanese Designs by Jenny Hermenze

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1/23/08

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The deck off my studio
Only a couple of weeks have passed since I last wrote, but as I read my last entry over, it seems written by an entirely different person.  A day or so after I wrote that entry I went to a Board meeting of the Vermont Crafts Council and asked if anyone else had experience creative blocks or work slowdowns. My naïveté was roundly laughed at. Everybody had experienced the same thing. “Oh, only every January and February,” said one artist. “Just all of 2005 and 2006,” said another. Hmm, I guess I happened upon something universal here.
One woman advised that I start back to work again on a big and interesting project, not production work, so I did. I got out a three yard length of fabric I’d dyed last summer in natural dyes - logwood mixed with iron to make a deep, sober purple - and slowly began to cut out a jacket. I’m now almost finished with it - all I need to do is install the pale apricot kimono silk lining and I think it will be a very nice garment indeed. Once I started working on the jacket, my energy began to build, and I pasted (stenciled the basic designs) onto about two dozen t-shirts. Although I sell many t-shirts, and they are truly my bread and butter, they do get tedious to do after a while so I need some prompting to get going on them. The prompting came in the form of an invitation to have a booth at the Central Vermont Flower Show in March. Did I ever need that show, not just for the income that will come of it but for the deadline that will force me to work!
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Finally settled in...


And...I am excited because I found a source for earth pigments (all shades of ocher, and combined mineral pigments as well) - a company called Earth Pigments.Com that I stumbled upon while looking for powered watercolors. In traditional Japanese dyeing, natural dyes are usually used for larger areas and natural pigments for smaller ones, and I am aiming to use natural materials for all my bigger pieces from this point on.

AND I was invited to teach this coming summer at the Fletcher School of Arts and Crafts, in late August...so preparing for that is taking a lot of my thoughts and energy.

Things are flowing again, and what a relief it is. I was in limbo ever since we first saw the new house in August, but now, having lived here for 2 1/2 months, the place is beginning to seem familiar and ordinary and to free me up for the work I love.
 
 
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