Workshop with Nancy Crow

I’ve been in Falera in Switzerland for three days now, taking part in a workshop taught by Nancy Crow.

This is the view from my working space:

However, anybody who has ever taken part in one of Nancy’s workshops knows that there is really not a whole lot of time to enjoy a magnificient view!

On the first day you usually start with sewing various – and rather numerous – sketches within the topic. Our topic this time is “Lines, Curves, Circles, Figure and Ground”, and we began with lines. Now that is just the right thing for me, since I have been working on that series „Play of Lines“ for three years now, and I don’t have the impression that I am done with it yet.

Thus I spent quite some time trying to figure out, amongst others, the most interesting arrangement of three lines to each other, which were not allowed to touch each other. Let me show you only a small selection of the various arrangements I laid out before finally sewing one together:

In the afternoon we were allowed to use some neutral colors as well. This is a first stage in the design process for that exercise.

In the evening we then received the first exercise in which we were allowed to use color. I first thought this might be an exercise that would leave me with another UFO, a workshop-piece that I would not want to finish. I then decided to interpret Nancy’s instructions in a rather liberal manner, which is something I have learned to do over the number of workshops that I have taken with her. If you can argue convincingly why you did not follow the instructions to the point, and the result is convincing, too, that will be fine.

So now I am sewing according to instructions, sort of. It will be interesting to see whether it will be a UFO or a completed piece.