My Art Apron

Our art club is tonight and I can’t wait to see what everyone has done with the bottle bib. When I saw it, I didn’t have a clue what to do. But this challenge really proves that given a task and a deadline virtually anything can be transformed.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, my idea for this project was fueled by a dream. It doesn’t look anything like the image I saw, but the basics are there: an apron on a torso. At first I was going to use a bottle, but then I remembered that I had this miniature dressmaker’s form and thought it might work.
What I was after with the bib was a kind of record of the mess you make when you’re painting something. A few years ago I took this great workshop at the Japanese Paper Place where we painted on washi. I had some leftover scraps that had a fabricy feel, and I decided to collage those onto the bib. But it looked too minimalist even for my tastes, so I added the painted head and wings.
Looking at it now, I can see this image is a kind of cross between Winged Victory and what I imagine to be the spirit behind the apron a Mason wears. I’ve always liked the idea that making art is like belonging to a secret society. You just keep working away at it and eventually everything starts to come into focus.