Plan Z

With apologies to Plankton, I felt like I was reverting to evil plan Z this week. After several different attempts and ideas for my Alaska Fiber Festival Wearable Art entry that were just not gelling, I finally found an idea that I could run with. Thank goodness. I’m showing you just a sneak peek for now… Frustratingly, there is no "on demand create” switch on my body –though I wish there were. My first couple of ideas for my entry were shot down (by me) after doing some reference image searches, I came across images of similar designs that had already been created –DOH! One early idea was a dress in the shape of hand painted, Tyvek sculpted butterfly wings I wanted to call “Mariposa Metamorphic”  -already done. Then, my idea for the “Read Queen,” a play on the Red Queen reinvented was going to be a red and black dress of sculptural books and magazine pages was just NOT structurally working as I had hoped. After sewing numerous pages from books, dying a thrift store wedding dress as a base in my NEW LG washing machine (I was panicked I was going to stain the machine using the Black RIT!) came out old lady lavender instead of BLACK, arrrgh, so I finally gave up that idea. Even after seeing that one of my original ideas had already been done I stubbornly kept at it and ground it right into the frozen ground until it died a slow depressing death until it was no longer fun. Then while feeling sorry for myself and farting around in my studio it came to me! I changed my thinking to try and create something that I LIKED MAKING instead of something that I HAVE TO DO or a piece that NEEDS TO WOW. Sounds easy enough, but sometimes I get so focused on the wrong direction and intention, like the JUDGING and the CONTEST portion of the Fiber Festival that I easily lose sight of the best part, the CREATIVE PROCESS and making. I put way too many self imposed high expectations on my entry even before I began. Fearing that my entry wasn't going to be "good enough" started to derail my ART MAKING even before I started MAKING the ART, silly me. I'm back on track and LOVING the direction my new piece is taking.

-P.S. There is still plenty of time for YOU to make something, entries are not due until February 3 and is open to all mediums! If you are out of state and would like to participate, I'd be happy to help coordinate the delivery of your piece. For for more information and entry rules visit the Fiber Festival web site.

Oh, and did I mention there is $2,000 in prize money up for grabs?!! 

The find of the week was my VINTAGE dress maker mannequin! Isn't she just FAB! 

She was immediately put to work fitting my Wearable Art entry for the Fiber Festival.

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Check out the entries from the 2011 Show for a little inspiration at  http://www.alaskafiberfestival.org/