small works in wool

Here's something I've been talking about trying for a long time -- a scan of one of my pieces (rather than the usual photo). Very interesting . . . and very disappointing. I think she looks like what one of my pieces might look like in a horror movie (my people are always quite "cute" yet with something sinister lurking that you can't quite put your finger on -- this takes the sinister thing to a new level). The lighting makes her look just AWFUL, but at least you get to see the piece I completed most recently, pre-photographer. Come see it at a show when it's in a really great painted frame and I promise (actually hope is the more accurate word) you'll like it much more!




While I'm at it (showing things that really shouldn't be put up for public view), would you like to see the sketch that this piece came from? Are you remotely curious about the process? It is a mystery for the ages that I can't draw at all, but I can make pictures with a needle and thread. I can cut a much better line than I can draw. Here's the sketch:




So now you see what I have to work from, you can better appreciate the miracle of it all (that anyone could create something from such a humble beginning). Actually, my being self-taught is probably one of the things that makes my work unique, and certainly makes it meaningful to me. I don't think I'd trade that at this point. Which brings me to my favorite Sir Walter Raleigh quote: "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangenesse in the proportion." So I'll call myself "untrained by choice". I'm sure I could learn to draw, but I guess I'm unwilling to surrender what I have to the inevitable change that learning a set of rules would require. Which brings me to another quote, this time by Adrian Monk: "Don't change anything. EVER. It's a very old rule."