Start of Semester
01.26.2025
Feeling a lot more secure in my work @ grad school so far. Definitely helped hearing what was expected of me during my time here. Still wish I was working at the same pace as my peers and able to adequately fill a gallery space, but I'm having fun with my own research.
That being said my research is just me buying a bunch of spindles and teaching myself as many ways to spin fiber as possible and it's shown me a lot so far!
Right now I just have 1 top whorl drop spindle and a mayan spindle. Waiting on a dealgan, turkish spindle, charkha wheel, and supported spindle. I'm like constantly looking for neat looking handcrafted spindles. I also am v curious about the basque spindle but I need to low down and try out all of these tools as they come in to see what I do and don't like.
As much as I love natural fibers I made the mistake of buying like exclusively undyed fiber. Since I don't have a dye setup (nor the desire to learn how to do it currently), I'm just limited to white and dark brown. I'm very much searching for some hand dyed roving, and they're always like 4 week processing or has a color or two I really don't want in the braid. There is no winning!!
I'm also cataloguing some new medias that I've added to my collection, will be uploading those as I do them. It's a bit tedious, but fun to look at.
& I found more stickers to put on my spinning wheel, here's a look at one of the treadles. It's v cute, I hope to cover it more over time
Start of Year Ramblings
01.03.2025
I'm about a week and a half away from going back to school, and I'm trying to figure out what I've been missing most while away from the studio. What I've wanted to do more than anything is spin yarn and continue weaving. As much as I think I don't have a very unique aesthetic or point of view for textiles, I love the craft.
I received some pretty positive feedback about the GameBoy Color game I made (see last post) and I want to continue that trajectory too. There's something about handheld games as a medium that I'm really interested in, and I'm trying to figure out what.
Portability has always been a subconscious factor in my work. I don't have much space to myself anywhere I've lived, and I travel a good amount to NJ during holidays. It probably stems from that.
As for games themselves, I've been playing video games most of my life so I have a solid connection to them. The only thing is outside of a handful of GBA games, I was always more interested in the 3DS and switch than the GB and GBC. So why did I go back???
I think the ease of production for me being able to create and then put a game on original hardware was much more accessible as someone with no coding experience outside of this (HTML/CSS/JS) and a single semester of Java in high school. I'm very appreciative of the community surrounding GB Studio, so many resources for me to work with!!
I'm looking forward to reuniting with my tools, but I do dread the return to the studio. I still feel out of place there-- it's not equipped with tools I use or want to use, the lighting is painfully artificial, and I still don't feel the sense of community I originally wanted. I think part of that is because I felt a lot of distance and coldness early on and it kind of made me not want to try anymore
Anyways I'm hoping I get hit with inspiration soon. I know the mediums and techniques I would like to use, I just need a clearer direction. I wish I had the same fervor I did when I was knitting birettas. I don't feel much passion anymore for specific objects, symbols, or themes. I just love simple, straightforward making. Idk what changed to make me boring. I miss the cool gothic castings, but do I want to make more??? nope
tldr; same gripes, but at least one fun direction to explore
End of Year
12.16.2024
Very much loving the cold and snow the last few weeks. Practically cooking my legs like a rotisserie chicken with my space heater.
I've taken a bit of a break from weaving since I'm a bit stumped creatively with fiber. I want to be weaving with mostly handspun yarn so I'm taking the time to make a buuunch more. It's all 2-ply and fingering weight so it's taking a while to fill up bobbins, but it'll be worth it!
I'm working on making some GameBoy Color games, and I uploaded my first on on here. It's much more engaging with real hardware and a GameBoy printer, but it's still neat!
It prints out a bunch of jewelry components ( clasps, beads, chain ). You can then color it in or draw on top of it, tape or glue it together, and then have a bracelet or necklace! I was thinking a lot about accessibility to jewelry when making it. Costume jewelry and dress up and such. Check out the games tab to give it a try!
Might upload the ROM somewhere eventually if anyone wants to give it a try and flash it onto a cartridge to use with their own devices.
Home Alone (but in the studio)
11.25.2024
Just had a lovely productive week in the studio, nearly alone, as half the department was in NYC for Jewelry Week. The vibes in the department are generally weird, so I liked having all of this quiet, uninterrupted time. Looking forward to fall break where I'll hopefully be able to do the same.
I also converted my table loom into a floor loom! I now have space for my knitting machine to be out again, though I'm not feeling particularly inspired by it right now. It's still nice to know there is space for it.
I got so so much weaving done during this time, nearly 15ft I believe. Who knows what will become of this fabric. I just know the important part for me is the weaving. I enjoy watching the fabric grow with each pick (and the fact that I can watch tv, or listen to music or audiobooks while doing it)
I still feel very out of place in this department, and I think the fine art world in general. It's mentally exhausting being here, and I don't care much to work conceptually anymore, or experiment. I am satisfied knowing I have created a sustainable practice for myself. I'm doing what I love, as unimpressive or unimaginative as it is. Participating in the tradition of weaving is enough validation for me.
Grad School Update
11.10.2024
I got myself a table loom and it has scratched the weaving itch I've had for a while. I hope someday I'll have the space to upgrade it into a floor loom (this model has some pieces that can convert it into one which is so cool???)
Kinda feeling weird about grad school, but that's a much longer discussion about my beef with the Fine Arts and Academia, and Capitalism poisoning every facet of society. Also just not feeling settled in this space or fully comfortable in my department. I need this degree though, so we are powering through it.
Here are some things I've been working on:
This is allllll handspun yarn. I spent like a month spinning all of it and went through 80% of it so quick just setting up the warp. I did an alternating twill every time I reloaded the shuttle. It's cute, and gave me the confidence to cut my fabric. It's a little fugly but charming, I love it.
This is a silly little thing I knit up in response to some ring sale. I thought I'd make a bunch more but DPNs are my enemy and I could only get myself to make one right now. Would love to make more eventually with different types of tweeds. It sold and I miss it every day
This last project is just a woven checkerboard with felted pieces. I have my crit this week so I thought it'd be fun to just play games. I went to a fiber department crit not too long ago and someone had made these super cute puzzle-esque coasters and it was so fun and refreshing and I wanted to emulate that in my department.
Love a board game too, and I think that's enough to justify the time spent on it as well.