"Hillary: 6 of Wooden Spoons (wands) in the Kitchen Tarot."
by Susan Shie Contact me
"Hillary: 6 of Wooden Spoons (wands) in the Kitchen Tarot."
©Susan Shie 2017. 60"h x 89"w. inventory #501. Peace Cozy #71.
Began10-17-16. Finished1-7-17. Many large detail images follow this artist's statement.
Materials: White kona-like cotton from Test Fabrics, airbrush paint, fabric paint, Aurifil cotton machine thread, Artfabrik variegated hand dyed perle cotton embroidery thread, one Green Temple Buddha Boy bead. Nature-fil bamboo and organic cotton batting. Various commercial batiks and Lunn Fabrics batiks in backing/border.
Techniques: Whole cloth painting. Black line freehand drawing and color areas painted with Aztek double action airbrush and airbrush paint. Small, black writing and drawing lines made with Silkpaint.com’s Airpen, using black fabric paint. Mostly machine sewn, with one row of hand stitching of perle cotton thread (on the border's outside edge.)
Statement:
I really enjoyed making this piece, starting when the Presidential Election contest was on everyone's mind, in mid October, 2016, and ending it before the Inauguration ... which we'd hoped would bring us President Clinton #2. I think the last thing I wrote about was getting ready to go to the Women's March on Washington. Though I tried to present a historical record of what happened during the election season, along with a mini-biography of Hillary, I also recorded the sadness, shock, and frustration with what was going on, because some really unprecedented and bizarre things were happening on all through this time period.
The first thing I did on Oct 17 was to choose a Tarot card to make this piece part of my Kitchen Tarot deck. It became the 6 of Wooden Spoons, which are Wands, in the classic Tarot deck. Sixes are for success, and Wands are for life energy, but when i read the interpretation for this card in Monicka Clio Sakki's tarot deck, I was worried, because it said this would be a very good time in your life, but not its highest point of achievement. I wrote that down in the top left corner of the piece, but I worried a lot, that it portended that she wouldn't become President. So I took T very seriously, and I saw how no terrible thing he did ever came close to bumping him out of the running, as it would other candidates who went beyond acceptable behavior. Well, I'm getting ahead of my story, because I want to record the types of things I wrote about on the piece, later. So read on, please.
I made this piece, starting with a 60 x 90" piece of cotton fabric, after sketching for a few days.
10-17 to 22, 16: Sketches, ending with one 2-page sketch I would reference in my painting. I drew many Hillarys, and decided to keep them all, arranging them different ways in my sketches. I had read 2 of her autobiographies, and wanted to include her whole life in my visual story here.
10-24 to 25: I began to draw the large painting with black paint and my airbrush, freehand, only glancing at my last and favorite sketch now and then. As usual, I wanted its drawing to be spontaneous, so I was using the sketch as a plan, rather than an insistance on the same exact looks and placements of the people. I heat set that black line work, and then colored the piece, over the next two days. Another heat set.
On Facebook, Edna Patterson Petty wrote me that she had figured out what the letters stand for, in NASTY, soon after T called Hillary “Such a nasty woman,” in the third debate they had on Oct 20th in Vegas. I thought her ideas were so good, I added them to my big Hillary painting, with her permission. The last letter is both her and my ideas. For NASTY: N is for Noble. A is for Aspiring. S is for Smart. T is for Tenacious. Y is for Yes, We Can OR for Yin Yang. You will see this as a great big sign along the top of the piece, above the women on the top right side, just before my writing and drawing of Janet Reno. I really love this acrnym for NASTY, and am so happy that I drew it very large in this paiting. Thanks for letting me share it, Edna!
10-27: I added Michael Moore, by using my airpen to draw him in, after watching his new movie "Trumpland." I put him right beside Hillary giving her graduation speech at Welesley College. So the people on the piece are: A row of strong women in our culture, on either side of Hillary giving that speech (Michelle Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on H's right. Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Maya Angelou, Jackie Kennedy, Rachel Maddow,my friends' granddaughter Savana, and my granddaughter Eva are on H's left, wth my friend, journalist Carolyn Robinson under Savana and Eva. My friends Pat, Rita, and I walking my dog Libby (Lower left corner) - along with my daughter Gretchen, because she and I walk Libby together sometimes, too. College Hillary is the biggest face, with her fingers laced in front of her, and young Hillary, maybe 12 (which is Eva's age right now) is beside College Hillary. Hillary now is the big face on the far right bottom side, a side view, looking into the whole painting. I think that's everybody. OH, I added Janet Reno, right after she died in December, too, in the top right corner.
10-29: I started writing with my airpen and black paint, the small, cursive writing that looks like pen work, but is really paint very carefully applied. Here are the main ideas of the entries I made in this longest process of making this painting:
10-29; Top left, I wrote about the tarot card meaning, 6 of Wands. Its' supposed to be a time of grand achievement, but not your highest. gulp. Wrote about FBI director coming out with more stuff about Hillary's emails. Nothing specific, but he sure got everyone riled up again. It seemed really weird for Comey to do this, like he was definitely helping Trump by introducing more doubt and scandal about Hillary, which T was also busy calling her Crooked Hillary all the time, and getting his followers at rallies to chant "Lock her up." THAT was so childish and awful! Comey even said they won't know if any new emails from H are on the computers the FBI has in custody until after the election, but clearly, he did great damage at that point, working on those sitting on the fence about voting. This was the election cycle of VERY dirty tricks! And sadly, we all know NOW, that they worked.
10-30: I wrote about Michael Moore's new movie "Trumpland," in which he gave a TED-like talk in the Murphy Theater in Wilmington, OH, a Trump stronghold town, like so many across the country. His audience was pretty skeptical of him at first, but he ended up with a standing ovation, after pleaing the case for Hillary Clinton for over an hour. This movie was made on Oct 7 and premiered in NYC on Oct 18, for free. He opened in theaters across the country on Oct 19. I watched the whole movie on FB, on a friend of Moore's page. It made me cry. If you haven't seen this movie yet, please watch it now. On the top of Hillary's college podium, I wrote a paragrah from her graduation speech in 1969. That was the first student graduation speech ever at Welesley, and it made Life Magazine! Down the side of the podium, I wrote about Hillary's Park Ridge (Chicago) youth pastor, Don Jones, taking her class to hear MLK speak at Orchestra Hall, when she was only 15, and she got to shake his hand. Jones also took his students to interact with poor people of all races, in Chicago's inner city, to help them become empathetic to others' needs. On the "Such a Nasty Woman" sign on the podium, I explained that reference, as being with T said about H at the Oct 20th, 3rd Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, with Chris Wallace as the moderator. The debates were full of very strange behavior by T, with H trying to stay on topic.
11-4: FBI press conference last week, about Hillary's emails again, have really hurt both H and Dems running for Senate seats, in the polls. All this reinforced by thinking that Putin is connected to WikiLeaks and Trump, who keeps talking about how wonderful Putin is, and how terrible Obama is, as world leaders. Above Speech Hillary, I wrote about her giving a talk at Kent State back on Oct 31, and how I wish we all could have been there. But I saw the whole speech on TV, and I shared it on my FB page. I put quotes from Hillary's 9-5-1995 speech at the International Women's Conference, when she was a young First Lady. That's when she first said "Human Rights are Women's Rights, and Women's Rights are Human Rights." (I remember wishing badly that I had been there. I was in China in 1990 and could imagine how wonderful it would be, to be part of women coming at once, from all over the world, to revitalize feminism and work to help women in need everywhere!)
11-5: Last night there was a benefit concert for Hillary at Cleveland State University, with Beyonce and Jay Z. Three days til the election! I also wrote about having breakfast today at The Parlor with Pat and Floyd, after Pat, Libby, and I walked earlier. And that we found the bike for Gretchen at Early's Store after that. Tomorrow will be a big Hillary rally at Public Auditorium, Cleveland, and my Mike and Eva are going. At Oasis last night, we made a big round get-well card for Sarah, out of the circle of cardboard that came with our pizza. I love drawing with friends and family! Savana Kaufman wrote to me on FB today, excited about me painting her into this piece. I did that, because Martie bought her a "Water is Life" tee shirt, about the Standing Rock protests to block the North Dakota Acess Pipeline, a protest I would have loved to be part of. (So I made my last big art quilt about it, to be my contribution.) Savana is the girl in the top right of this painting, wearing that tee shirt, in the pose of the photo Martie sent me of her.
11-6: Two days til the election. Last night in Reno, guards whisked T off stage, and it turned out to be about people in the audience attacking a Muslim man, who was just standing there. T incited the audience to attack him! That man had no weapons and was NOT being disrespectful. He had a sign that said "Republicans against T." It was a photo op for T, I'm sure calculated. His sons called it an attempted assassination. Hillary had a rally last night in Philadelphia with Katy Perry. SNL last night's cold open skit had a bunch of guys coming at a debate, to ask T if he needed anything. One was a KKK guy, another was Putin. T kissed each of them. They kept the debate focused on H's emails. SNL is being VERY political, more than ever before, and we all watch it more devotedly than ever. FBI's director Comey came out yesterday, saying they didnt' find any new or illegal emails from H on the laptops they've got in custody, but even that announcement gave more credence to her being guilty of something. I signed a petition to demand he step down, because he's acting politically involved.
11-8: Election Day began with Dixville Notch, NH, being the first to submit all their votes for President, a record they try to hold onto. Of their 8 votes submitted just after midnight of that morning, 4 were for H, 2 for T, 1 for Johnson, and 1 write-in for Romney. (I wrote about this in the lower left corner, between Pat's legs.) Our newspaper talked on the front page today about Ohio's 18 electoral votes. Historically, if you win Ohio, you win the Presidency. (Except 1960, when JFK lost Ohio, but won the Presidency.) I wrote about an interview Stevie Wonder gave the Guardian, a liberal UK news service, in which he fully endorsed H.
11-10: And then the Nov 8 election got counted all evening and all night, and got called around 3 or 3:30 AM. We went to bed around 2 AM, VERY upset, because T was winning all along, and the polls had all predicted H's win. He won the electoral college and she the actual popular vote. The radio says the Russian Duma, their Congress, burst into applause, when T's win was announced. Now that is really weird! Back on Tuesday night, at 10:20 PM, Ohio was called as going to T, and just before 11 PM, the AP called FL for Trump. In NC, a judge ruled that some polls had to stay open longer, due to voting machine problems. NC went to T just after 11 PM. Problems were also reported in AZ, FL, GA, OH. In Broward County, FL, menacing people turned back some voters. Almost half of FL voters voted before Electon Day, as did many of us in the rest of the country. PA went to T around 3 AM. That's when he was declared Prez. We're all in shock. Eva and Savana, with this being their first time to really get engaged in Presidential Election politics, are devastated, and I think most of us are, with them. I wrote selections from H's concession speech on her face, in the hottom right corner of this painting. She gave it around noon on the 9th, and she looked in shock. I also wrote the letter that Eva wrote to her a day or so later, on H's face. Eva drew H and then wrote the letter below that, and Gretchen helped her send it to H. I really hope she got that sincere letter from her 12 year old devotee. I also wrote the ominous tarot card definition on her face, that I had written in the top left corner, when I began this piece. I had tried to think it meant that something even more wonderful would come to her later in life, after being Presidnet ...
11-12: Sukey wrote me that H now has 200,000 more votes than T, with a million yet to be counted in CA (Later, they'd settle on almost 3M more popular votes for H, as the final count! The most ever, for a person losing the Electoral College.) I wrote on College Hillary's face, the biggest one on this painting, that if I had known her when we were young, and if we'd been neighbors, with her being 4 years older than me, I would have followed her around and looked up to her so much! And would have become her penpal, when she went off to college.
11-15: Pat had a fall this morning on her walk to get Libby and me. Pretty banged up, but no breaks, sprains, or concussions. I wrote about her fall on her image in the bottom left corner of this piece. Gwen Ifill died yesterday at 61, of cancer. She worked almost until her death, hosting one of the debates. She was a PBS anchor and political reporter. I wrote quotes about her by Obama and her news partner, Judy Woodruff. This is the day that I finally found out for sure that I have a seat on the bus going to the Women's March on Washington! The bus holds 55 riders. I'm really excited, and know I'll know several of the women going on the trip, and hope to make more friends on that day's adventures together.
11-20: On Young Hillary's face, I wrote the quote from the Methodists that she likes to say a lot, that begins "Do as much as you can, for as many people as you can ... ". Today is our friend Victoria's 64th birthday. Jimmy's is on the 26th!
11-30: Wrote more on Young Hillary's face, about her Youth Pastor, Don Jones.
12-1: On Young Hillary's collar, I wrote about her first job out of law school: with Marian Wright Edelman and her Children's Defence Fund. In 1973, H became a staff lawyer for the CDF. She had heard Edelman speak at Yale, when H was a freshman there in 1969, and got an internship at the CDF in 1970 for the summer. She studied migrant workers' kids. Later Edelman sent her to the South, to check on discrimination in the schools in 1972. The CDF was formed in 1972, and H was one of the first hired for it. H did research for them about the plight of yonng poor children of Black and Hispanic families, and also about why 2M children weren't in school. For this she found that poverty and disabilities were big factors. Some children had to stay home, to watch over younger siblings, while parents went to jobs. She also studied how many children were living in adult jails. These research projects had lasting influences on H's attitude about needing to help America's poor people, minorities, and children. This was the day I wrote Eva's letter to Hillary (after she lost the election) on H's largest face, on the lower right side of this painting. I first got Eva's permission to put it there.
12-4: I started writing Charles M Blow's 11-23-16 NYT op ed letter about not accepting T's apology at the newspaper, after months of T bashing the paper. This is in the bottom lower corner of the painting. Then we went to the Beck Center in Lakewood, to watch Eva dance in the Nutcracker.
12-5: I continued Charles Blow's op ed letter about T, and ran out of room. So I went and wrote on College Hillary's big hands about it.
12-7: PussyHats! I wrote about this new symbol of our Resistance to T, on myself in the bottom left corner of the painting. Pussyhatproject.com has the patterns, so we can all make our own protest hats to wear at the Women's March on Washington. Obama shut down the NDAPL pipeline project today And then the 2,000 veterans who'd gone up to Standing Rock, to protect the protesters from the police, got together and held a kind of Truth and Reconciliation meeting together, pledging forgiveness for all the wrongs done by whites to indians and vice versa. I watched it online, and it was amazing and very sincere. Lots of people were there. Beautiful service!
12-9: I'm doing a big heat set again, to make the paint I've been writing with be permanent. All fabric paint must be heat set - I iron the painting from the back side, using a very hot iron and no steam, and I wear a respirator, because making the paint permanent involves chemical changes in the paint, and crud is released. You can't smell it much, but it's very unhealthful. So you need to wear a respirator and have good ventilation.
Then I did a big new, final painting project with my airbrush: I wrote what looks like graffiti all over the painting, but it's all positive messages about our democracy. I was feeling super protective of our country and our freedoms, and I knew it looked like I was vandalizing my own painting that I'd worked so hard to make. But I had to get this desperation I felt inside out of me. I wrote things that uplifted my spirit. They are the large words in colors, all over the painting. Then I heat set the piece again, the next day.
12-26: After Christmas, I started to make the backing fabrics panel for this painting to be sandwiched with, to turn it into an art quilt.
12-27: I sewed the parts of the backing panels together. I was happy to have gotten some new batiks from Lunn Fabrics to include in this backing. I always wish I was making a bed quilt, at this stage, because I love the backing fabrics together, so much!
12-28: I sandwiched the 3 layers of the quilt together, pinning them close together, so they won't move out of place while I'n sewing them together later. I love to listen to more book reading than I normally have a chance to, while doing this quilting part of making a piece. I think I started sewing it late that night.
1-1-17: I finished the machine sewing. I had a tight deadline for the WAGE show, so had to sew a LOT each and every day!
1-4: I finished hand-sewing all around the border of this piece, which is 60" x 89", so that's 198 inches around, or 16.5 feet. I also finished writing with my airpen on the whole border.
On the border's top I wrote about the Repubs coming back after the holidays and deciding to end the Congressional Office of Ethics Oversight, and then they backed down, after a huge pubic outcry over that one.
On the Left side of the border, I wrote about how Medicaid Expansion, Social Security, and Obamacare are all at risk of being taken away or reduced a lot now.
On the bottom border, I wrote about how I got locked out of my online class last night and had to work on it from my phone, which is much harder for me to see to work with. Then in the morning, the problem had fixed itself, tho I had also reported it. So who knows??
On the right side of the border, I wrote about how Susan came to the new class after all, and how that really cheered me up. I sewed the Peace Cozy (#71) onto Rita's black dress, down in the bottom left corner, where we YaYas are walking Libby.
1-5: the biggest heat set of the whole piece
1-6: I sewed on the green Temple Buddha Boy bead, made the casing for the back and sewed it on, sewed on the D rings above the casing, and started the photo shoot.
1-7: final fussing here and there, and finished photo shoot, and took the piece to Wayne Center for the Arts, for the annual WAGE (Wayne Artists Group Effort) exhibition, this time with the theme "The Art of My Soul." The show is Jan 13 to Feb 11, and I have this piece, my "Tipping Point," and my "Cradleboard" pieces, all three being large paintings that are quilted. All three are about controversial current events.
So that's the story of Hillary's run for the Presidency, her life, and our lives before and after the election. May we all live through these sad times, when so many of our freedoms and rights and privleges are being questioned and possibly could be altered or taken away. May we work together to keep America being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Namasté, and much love, Susan in Wooster, OH. Keep the Faith, and take good care of each other. 2-5-17.
You can view my album about this piece in progress, on Facebook. And here's my album there, of it as a finished piece, with lots of detail shots.
Many thanks for actually reading all this way! There are a lot of detail shots below here, so keep scrolling down!
If you want to take a Lucky Drawing online class with me, please look on my Susan Shie Turtle Moon Studios facebook page. I teach 4-week sessions with 2 week breaks in between them. Most of my students consider my class to be like taking a yoga class: You just keep going with the group. You can find info about my online drawing classes on my website's front page, too.
If you are interested in studying with me in person, please check out my Turtle Art Camps, which I teach here at my home and studios, as well as my online drawing classes, my private art lessons in my home, and the classes that I teach around the US and sometimes in other countries, as all are listed on the main page of my website, Turtle Moon Studios
If you want to have me come teach at your place, phone or text me at 330-317-2167. I love to "teach out."
Read all about my Turtle Art Camp - how it works for your weeklong artmaking experience here in Wooster, Ohio, and see the changes I've made to the agenda. I have many large photos on the Turtle Art Camp page, to show what's going on at this biosphere-like art experience. The emphasis in this adult students' art camp is on drawing and painting, whether you choose to work on cloth or paper, or both, or even on stretched canvas. And you don't even have to try my airpen and airbrush, or my sewing techniques, if you don't want to. You can draw and paint all week! If you want to study my personal painting and quilting processes, which I've taught consistently here, I have a full lesson plan for the week. So you can go by that plan or do more of your own thing, with my guidance. I want my art camp to help you become more open to letting your art flow out, in whatever medium you want it to be in. I have even had students over the years who are mainly writers, not visual artists. I started my Turtle Art Camps in 1994 and they're going strong. See my 2016 TAC schedule on the main page of Turtle Moo, along with a link to my current online Lucky Drawing class enrollment info.
I've felt so involved in making this piece about Hillary, that I thought about it day and night, reading books, studying more in-depth articles about her life, etc. But at the same time, I was living with her and all of us, the hectic, strange period of the presidential race this Fall. Having this painting to make art about it with helped me stay grounded. It's all recorded here. I hope it will resonate with you.
Many thanks, Lucky / Susan Shie, in Wooster, Ohio. 2-5-17.
Now please enjoy all the detail images of this piece, below:
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