New Year

2012 was so weird. It shouldn't have been, it was setting itself up to be just like any other year: The world was bending to uncertain apocolypse, politics were astir with people no one really wanted to vote for, and my beginning of the year goals looked exactly like every other year I've ever encountered. Nothing special.

But this year, unlike my other years (which haven't been very many, I guess) I've come out of it feeling like the weather was particularly bad all of a sudden, all of my friends are depressed, wrist issues kept me from piano, drawing, and writing, my love life has become suddenly rather hopeless and I don't even care anymore, and the artist I thought I was is only about a third of what it should be. You know the feeling? It seemed like 2012 was weird all around.

But I realized yesterday, life is like stretching canvas. See, this year, I plan to be more positive about it. To be less meandering, and more loyal. I don't want to say it's a goal persay, because it's not. I think gaining attributes like being more hardworking or kinder or whatever you want to be is like drawing a line approaching infinity on a graph.  You don't need to actually draw the entire line approaching infinity--you just need to start drawing it, and we get the picture, youknow? It sort of figuratively draws itself once it gets out of bed, off the couch, and in the chair to start working.

I went through the studio and found some paintings that needed finishing, including this arabesque-style needlework. Originally I was going to hang it plain, but the thread looked like a tangle because there was too many colors. That was a shame, because I spent a lot of time on it, stitching so it looks like it floats on the canvas.

It was a real dissapointment, and I assumed my work was basically a waste. But, I thought maybe it needed some simplification to modernize it and give it a focus--so I set it aside to prepare it for stretching and gessoing like a painting.

If you're curious (since this is an art blog that was meant to be a tutorial blog that turned into a personal blog) I tried stretching it across the same circular frame I made it on, but without the outer rim.  I took the loose ends on the back of the work and sewed them together so it was very tight, and then used little clamps to make it even tighter. To stretch, I gave it a combination of water and wood glue (which is good enough) and let that dry for two coats, and then put a layer of painting gesso on top to seal in the needlework.

I like the effect of the white texture on white--I think that looks very nice, but I didn't get it tight enough (still has some ripples.) but then again, I can't tell if the ripples are inherently there from the needlework pulling on the canvas, or because I didn't stretch it well enough. Either way, there'll always be ripples and I shouldn't be so bothered by it, because most people looking at it wouldn't really notice it because of everything else going on in it. But like, every New Years, I pay too much attention to the ripples. It's about time I paid attention to the work, because life is like stretching canvas and approaching infinity and all those other elaborate metaphors and boxes and chocolates. It just needs some stretching.