I had a PMC paper class today and it was exhausting, in a good way. The technique is simple, just like weaving regular paper, and I chose a basket weave to do something a little different. Virginia, the instructor, was a little surprised and said she had only ever seen plain weave. I showed her a basket and twill diagram on the white-board and then I had that giant-bell-inside-my-head-is-ringing feeling. I came up with about 10 million ideas in the space of two seconds, and that was the exhausting part.
The teardrop is the pendant I made today, it still needs a hole for a bail. The quilted lentil bead on the left is from the PMC bead class, I didn't have enough time to finish it that night so I added the final touches and fired it today.
Whoops, got the paper a little too wet when laminating the weaving to a plain piece of clay. The two punched squares cover the worst of it.
So here's my initial research on one of my ideas. I was thinking something figural, and my first idea was Mayan textiles. I haven't gotten very far, just a few things from my collection of books, which is weak in this area because I don't like the hot red used in Central and South American textiles. Some of the deities are creepy too.
I would have stalled at this stage in the past, I love to do research. The hunting and gathering, coming across other interesting bits along the way, but I've found that if I read too much about a technique it takes all of the fun out of trying it. I'm also feeling a little wary of this because it's picky, delicate work. Just the sort of thing I'm trying to move away from as a reforming perfectionist.
Maybe just a tiny bit of picky delicate won't hurt.
These images are close, but not quite right. I ought to just choose something, break out the graph paper, and draft an image myself.
Tomorrow, photos of the bottle tree house in Palo Alto.