This is the image that came to me in my Twilight Sleep. Well, that's what I call it anyway, because something is "dawning" on me!!! In previous posts, I have written about changing what I'm doing and getting back to some of my creative projects that require constant adaptions.... With that decision on my mind, I'd been thinking about doing this piece (for a couple of YEARS!) and it finally came to me how I wanted to begin.
Do you see it? It's mountains with a lively sky above, full of clouds and wind and the cool, dry air of the high mountain desert....and this is right outside my east side studio windows.
Now, you see the plain, area at the top? That's the part of the sky that I wove yesterday. If you look more closely, you can see that every art piece is handwoven fabric from my yardage. Some were woven to create my fabric flowers (but never did) and some are purposely cut to depict what I see. Now these fabric strips are just laying around and, needless to say, I've done a LOT of work with them since, and the piece is much more refined.
The next photo here is a sneek peek at the hair of this piece....
Okay, did I just write HAIR?
Let me elaborate on the physical fact first....each one of the threads and yarns was introduced to the surface of my fiber art piece one at a time. Yes, here are hundreds....but you do what is needed for art, right?
To elaborate further, this is the hair of
"Morning Sky Woman". I've been very busy creating her world and then putting her in it....copied from my world....and such a lovely world it is, too...
I must interject here that I have been classically trained in many art media and I am rather proficient in some of them to this day....but....this is the first art piece that inspired poetic words to come repeatedly into my mind and not leave me alone until I wrote them down. So here goes....
Morning sky woman
Gift of first light
A moment-lived vision
On the edge of the night.
Morning sky woman
Ends twilight sleep
With promises of wonder
And magic to keep.
Morning sky woman
urges me awake
Born of light...of clouds...
And the breath of daybreak.
By Cat Brysch 2013@
Since I wrote these words down, they have guided me on with every stitch of this piece and I have put thousands into it.... so far. I don't want to show more because she will change over time. I had hoped to enter her in the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta happening in May of this year, but the deadline is too close and she needs more time to 'grow'. I was racing to complete her enough for a photo, and I noticed that ideas stopped flowing and I never could have done her justice, if I had continued to try to rush. I still am so very disappointed that I cannot show her this year at this event....the next is not for another two years....I am sad, but I must delay her presentation.
She is a part of me now and will take as much time as she needs.
Which brings me to another subject....my Twilight Sleep....it's an early dawn dream state that I enter. I solve all kinds of problems while in it, I find lost items while in it, I work out ideas while in it, I find peace and comfort with heart-breaking things that have happened while I'm in it and it's a magical realm to me that I totally respect. There is no predicting what I will "know" each day....I've learned over the years to just go with the flow. I'm never surprised by the revelations ~ Twilight Sleep doesn't happen every day, but it does seem to happen just when I need it the most. I am so fortunate that I can 'go' there...... hmmm....or does it come to me.?
I think Twilight Sleep is the very best part of a creative life. I know it's not new...people say, "Let me sleep on it and call you in the morning...". It works for all of us, if we become more observant, more receptive. It is worth the time to live with it and see what might come to you...if you only listen....
I have often said, when asked to describe art, that art is result of the soul and the heart speaking to one another and the mind, wise enough, listens and obeys....
Happy Dreaming and I am sending Miles and Miles of Smiles, Cat B.
