The excitement of starting my new course in Textile Art is turning out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. I'm thrilled at the opportunity to learn and explore. On the other hand, it's a whole new world and I feel profoundly ignorant. We did very little art at my Primary school. In my first year at Secondary school, there was one session a week of Art: painting in first semester and working with clay in second semester. It was great, but practical work rather than theory. And that's a long, long time ago. From there on in, my education was almost exclusively science-based.
What to do when confronted by my profound sense of ignorance? Hit the libraries and start reading! I've picked up a couple of basic text books and some more specific books on topics relevant to what we're doing in class.
I'm trying to skim through and put an initial framework of knowledge in place, rather than getting tied down in too much detail. And I'm trying not to panic.
I dropped in to see what I could find about silk painting. The Community Quilt project I'm working with will involve some silk; and we're planning for the women to decorate scarves for themselves. While I was there I checked out the catalogue for anything on Indigo dyeing. That drew a blank, but I did score several books on colour and a dyeing manual. By the time I'd picked up some groceries for tea and driven home via one of the other branch libraries to collect their contributions, the day was done. I didn't actually read any of these books last night, but just having them on the table was a boost.
