Intense Pattern--The Opus

Today is a red letter day and that red letter is D. D as in Done. Yes, today I am finished finally with Intense Pattern and I am getting ready to teach it tomorrow for the first time in pilot. This class has been a year and a half in the writing, but a half a lifetime in the making. I have studied and done blackwork from the late 70s. I researched it in museums (notably the Victoria and Albert in London), from books, from pictures from museums, from articles, and from other people’s work. I have about twenty major, framed pieces, about half a dozen blackwork samplers, a 4” binder filled with samples, minor works, and experiments I have done over the years, and I have another 4” binder filled with papers, research, articles, and blackwork miscellany. I have the texts of all the classes I have taught on blackwork (maybe ten?). And, above all, I have this powerful urge to pass on my learning to others.

Marie Campbell who in 2008 was head of ESP classes asked me to write a class for her. She mentioned blackwork. ESP stands for Extended Study Program and is sponsored by the EGA. An ESP delves deeply into a subject, more deeply than even a national class might. ESPs can be held anywhere and anyone, even non EGA members, can take them. I knew I had a rip-roaring class on blackwork in me ready to escape. So I wrote up a proposal a couple of weeks later and sent in to Marie. Intense Pattern was born with national board approval.

A non-original blackwork pattern, octogon and square. This pattern is widely used both in Western embroidery and Eastern embroidery. This is a detail from one of my Mastercraftsman Color works, which were mostly done in modern, colored blackwork.

I like to do original work. More than that, I insist on doing original work. My blackwork compositions are all original and I like my most of my blackwork patterns also to be original, even though there are dozens of books out there that are filled with blackwork patterns. A blackwork pattern is the counted pattern that is used to fill and shade blackwork compositions. There are an infinity of blackwork patterns that can be developed--or if not an infinity, at least a number larger than I could ever count.

Voids, tessellation and bats. All original patterns from my work called Japanese Ribbons. The patterns in this were all adapted from printed kimono patterns.

So with the first step done, the second was to decide how the class would run--what exactly would I teach. Patterning theory, a little-known aspect of design theory, has always fascinated me, so I started there. I have had one class on patterning theory that I took in Denver at its 1995 national seminar by Tom Lundberg called Pattern Design for Teachers. From that class I started keeping a notebook on design theory. An invaluable resource and one of the most important tools I own for artistic compositions and classes.

It was in the Tom Lundberg class that I learned the basic networks of patterning. A little later, through researching books on the subject, I found the basic manipulations of patterning. For Intense Pattern, I squashed the two together and that was the basis for the class. Well, the networks and the basic manipulations were just the skeletons. To that I added other concepts that a blackwork patterner would need to know, things like counterchange, voids, diaper patterns, and tessellation. That was the second step.

Basic manipulations and other concepts from the first

Intense Pattern sampler.

The third step was stitching the sampler for the class--before a word was actually written and with just a rough outline. Ah, that sampler. People got very tired of seeing that sampler. I carried it everywhere and worked on it all the time. When I finally finished it, it was a sight to behold, bold, crazed, and packed with information. I was done with it, but I wasn’t quite satisfied. I needed another to demonstrate color in blackwork. So I started work on a second, smaller sampler that has some splashes of color and a few other concepts I had been toying with. They were like Thing One and Thing Two in my life. All I could do was think about them and wrestle with them.

The fourth step was actually writing the class. An easier step than you might think--I already had it all stitched out there in black and white (and red and purple on the semi-colored sampler.) This step was completed a year and three months after I sent in the proposal. I finished the samplers last year in the late summer and early autumn.

Color in blackwork, the simplest mode--just exchanging the black threads for violet ones.

This motif demonstrates voiding and also emotion in patterns.

Who wants bugs crawling all over their leaves?

And then the fifth step--the hardest step of all--was getting the kits together and writing the lecture notes. Yesterday I finally finished the lecture notes and printed them out. Today I put the linen in the kits and they are ready to go. It has been a long voyage and path of discovery. But I think this is my personal-best class ever.

Thanks to Jane, Ellie, Marie, Mary, Patricia, Bert, Nancy, Ann, Peggy, Jo, and Neenah for being my pilot class and for being the ones to suffer through the tweakings and false starts. You guys are the best.

Intense Pattern, the first sampler.

The vine of leaves at the bottom right section of the sampler gives it

a lively look and gives it a place the eye loves to go.