Working on PilgrIMAGE - our all-nighter

So pre-show momentum continued to build on Wednesday -- I made even more trips to JoAnn Fabrics and Staples and had the whole piece of fabric for the curtain (PilgrIMAGE) out on the dining room table during the day, and met Jennifer, Edith and her husband and Michael at the gallery in the evening to hang the rest of the work.

PilgrIMAGE, at this point, just kept growing. I needed more fabric and some kind of fringe to make the piece with and I was still choosing, scanning and printing photos and bits of text that Linda had brought. It was also becoming clear that it would take a lot of printing, ironing, sewing, stitch witchery and hours of labor to get this thing together. I never at any point was able to refine the specifics of how I wanted it to look and work toward that goal because I never found all of the materials until the last days of work. And I have never imagined myself a textile artist, so I did not have the force of vision that comes when I am working on something that comes out of my own creative imperative. But this piece seemed to need to look and act differently. It was a Hollywood piece -- busy and ornamental and about content and appearance more than process or contemplation. And it seemed to need to be a fabric piece. I was stuck making do with what JoAnn's had to offer, though I wish I had gone to one of the "serious" fabric stores over in Hollywood or downtown. But it was too late for that. So I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and trying to get it done. A lot like sorting through my mother's house, actually. Sometime I will do a post on the Pittsburgh experience.

By Friday, I knew I wouldn't be able to fabricate the piece alone. I still hadn't chosen all of the images -- in fact, I had barely accomplished laying the thing out and getting the structure set at that point. It all took an enormous amount of time, which I didn't have. Also, I really wanted to be true to Linda's vision and sensibility, and working on such a hard deadline seemed to be pushing me away from that goal. No time to mull things over, try things, feel my way to the correct choices for the piece. So I called Linda, and she came over on Friday evening to help get the thing finished. We ended up staying up until 4 a.m. -- the first all-nighter I've pulled in maybe twenty years! -- and it felt much truer to the piece to have her actively involved in making choices and putting the thing together. We listened to music and had some good conversations and kept each other going as it grew later and later. Olivia and Michael couldn't believe what was happening! I am usually asleep on the couch by 9 p.m. I ended up finishing the machine sewing on Saturday, and hung the thing with binder clips (!) at 5 -- just when the opening began. Whew! Here is the way it currently looks in the gallery. There are still some things I would change. Maybe I will if we hang it again. It is truly a collaborative piece, and I learned a lot by participating in that process.