One Hot Mess

When last we spoke, I had glazed Margaret's background and had selected the focal image. Here they are together.

Collage background by Margaret Orr, photo from the collection of Mrs. Inman.

The next step was to begin to integrate the two pieces. How could I express the concept I had developed in my last blog? You might recall that I had chosen to investigate the power of media in our belief systems, how and whether it causes magical thinking, and what that thinking might look like when expressed visually.

The full name of this stuff is Lesley Riley's TAP. It has serious potential, but is rather costly. (That brown stuff you see is a silicon sheet for protection against the heat.) I got my TAP from a going-out-of-business internet craft company on a deep discount. Pays to shop.

And then, because it was the hottest and most humid day of the year, and my studio is an upper loft space with two skylights and little air circulation, I reached for my iron and a material I had never worked with before: Transfer Artist's Paper. I read the directions. Simple enough. Print your image on the paper and iron it down. Ha! Being of a fine woodwoorking background, I have in my time repeated “measure twice, cut once” and “try it on scrap first” as a mantra. But we all have lapses no?

I was going for a frame-within-a frame look here, kind of a television within a television. This was not what I had envisioned, to say the least.

And this is what happens when you don't practice on scrap first. You get one hot mess. Luckily for me, I had a bunch of prepped canvases, boards, and other backgrounds lying around, so I was able to continue my ironing frenzy well into the evening. With varying degrees of success. I mean, who wouldn't want to take advantage of the hottest, most humid day of the year to run one's iron at full heat?

As for this piece, not to worry. Lemonade will be forthcoming, one hopes.