Prompt Challenge: Replete

The word for my prompt challenge group this month was “replete.”

replete: adjective & noun.
► adjective: Filled or abundantly supplied with or with a thing or things.
► noun. A thing that is replete; spec. a honeypot ant distended with stored food.

I decided to do a very practical response to the word. I have a hard time keeping track of all my projects and (especially) half-formed ideas. There are notes and sketches pinned next to my desk. There’s several notebooks with lists and more notes. And a spreadsheet attempting to keep track of progress on various things. And a shelf of half-done books. I collected up all of these things and made a a set of playing cards, each with one idea or half-done project and some lines to keep notes. There are 50 cards, plus a couple of blanks. Then I made a box to keep them in.

My first idea is that when I’m at a loss for what to do next, I’ll pull out a card and work on whatever it says. Or I can got thru them and see what I’d like to make progress on. Or, when going through them, I’ll remember something I wanted to work on but forgot about. Time will tell if this style of organization is any better than the previous scatter shot one!

replete

A Different Palette

My friend Laura gave me a box of her scraps recently — bits of her paintings, paste papers and off cuts. As I sorted through them, I noticed how different her color palette is from the one I usually gravitate toward. Many of the scraps were thin long-ish strips. So I cut one into 1″ squares and re-arranged them into a 4×4 grid. This square looked so unlike my usual collages that I kept going and made 3 more. I put them in a debossed panel on an 8×10 piece of paper with a letterpress printed haiku below. Here they are. You can see all my collages here.

Whispered Preludes #4

Simple Pleasures #5

Spring Puddles #5

Flower #5

Embroidered Books by Michelle Wilson

Since I went to the meeting of my local thread and fabric study group, I’ve been looking at sewn books with renewed interest. Right away I found Michelle Wilson‘s hand-embroidered accordion book, Pennsylvania. She says

This unique artist book is a tribute to the state of my birth, created as I prepared to move across the country. My original intention was for this book to reveal some insight about travel and transitions. However, I was reminded that enlightenment is part of the experience, and will not reveal itself before the journey begins.

The folded sheet at the end of the book says

The place where I was born was named for a forest and a man,
my origin within its blood-red soil, my roots deeper than I know,
threads that bind me to this land.

See all her books here.

Michelle Wilson’s Pennsylvania

Michelle Wilson’s Pennsylvania

Michelle Wilson’s Pennsylvania

Michelle Wilson’s Pennsylvania