Reaching Trees in the Mist

Barely taller than a handspan, I made these tiny trees hidden in mist. It was a practice. I had bigger plans. I needed to know if it was going to work. There comes a time when you just need to try the Idea in your mind.

That‘s the sticking point though, isn’t it? You just need to try the idea, but once you’ve tried it, if it doesn’t work you have to give it up like a dream that will never be. I remember hesitating to try. It wasn’t because I didn’t think it would work. In my mind’s eye it was just as I imagined, the layers of silk holding the reaching trunks, even the hint of woolen greenery. In my mind’s eye it captured the vision.

But what if my vision was wrong? What if what I could see inside wasn’t really possible? I was working within limits I hadn’t set, or if I had, I had set them in the past when I had other plans or a different vision.

There is truly no help for it but to go ahead. The tension between the idea and the worry becomes more than I am willing to tolerate. What do I have to lose except the vision of what might be? I finally begin.

I work mostly in solitude, mostly because my life these days is solitary. When I share moments and possibilities all my friends cheer. They admire my work, my art but they can’t help me with the drive, the need to make, the pressure of a vision that just might not work. It is silent in my office.

The silk is strange, crispy and loud. I only have a small piece of this pale oddness. I can’t remember where I got it or when. Maybe it was in that phase where I bought everything that was natural fibers. Or maybe when I was buying to hopefully match that one print. It doesn’t melt with the hot iron, but it doesn’t really smooth out either, the opposite of silk in my mind.

The trunks don’t stay put, their light sliver nature entirely overcome by the static that draws them out of line. I lay them out and they reach up as I try to set the next layer in place. It’s annoying so I stick them down with the iron. I worry about the heat. The peeled paper backings cling to my hands when I try to throw them away. The static is worse but the end result is better if I press them down one at a time. Slowly. One at a time. Layer by layer.

The reaching foliage springs up in an entirely different way. I chose it for its loose malleability but the spring in it is unsuppressable. There is no simple smoothing into place. I press it down with my hands but I need those same hands to set the next layer. The next sheer layer puffs up above the wool in its greens and grays, hiding and revealing. Silk will show pin marks but there is no help for it if I need it all to stay still.

I can see the image in my mind overlaid on this lumpy mess, the image coming through only around the disruptive pins. It is there but unlovely.

Once the layers are secured I move into the processes I know better, slow swirls I have practiced before. At least the quilting will be even, right? Tight and delicate, I seal all the layers together stitch by stitch. I pull out the pins as I work from the center out. They scratch and prick me as I go, but I need things to hold, to stay where I put them.

When it is finished, bound and prepared for hanging because why waste all that energy, I look down at it on my table. It’s so small, the trees only as tall as my hand. The expenditure of energy was so much greater than this tiny thing. How can I tell a buyer what it cost me? How can I say this pale beauty is worth so much more because I was afraid, because I dreamed it before it existed? How do I set the price for this piece that was only a stepping stone to big art, only a confirmation that my mind’s eye sees truly despite it all, only a handspan of silk and frustration made into trees? How do you set the price for anything?