Being creative is the part I’m driven to, and once working, usually ideas keep flowing until the work is finished. However, most artwork starts with an empty page, blank canvas or in our fiber world, often with a piece of blank, most times white fabric. The dreaded Blank Canvas Syndrome is a familiar feeling.

It is hard to break the clean surface, hard to overcome the fear. No matter how high flying my imagination is, as soon as I stare at this empty piece of white, it scares me to make the first mark.
What if it is the wrong move? Then, I remember my days of watercolor painting: Put something down! Splashing random soft colors, with an extended arm, often not even looking at the actual surface to paint on can break the spell.

A few years ago, we established a deer-safe veggie garden on our property, and while digging holes for fence posts, I unearthed a wild variety of rusty items: a shovel head, pickaxe, nails, screws, iron stakes, but the weirdest was a rusty and squashed trash can lid. I felt a bit like an archeologist in the previous owners’ patch of earth.

Last year in September, a dear friend invited our small group of fiber artists to play at her studio with dye and paint. But what really caught my interest was RUST on fabric. What a transformation! The oxidation of iron is fascinating, and I utterly embrace how little control there is over the result.

Since then, my collection of iron tools, garden art, horseshoes, pipes, springs, and chains grew. Friends started supplying my stash of rusty iron and so did my collection of fabrics with rust markings.

Now it’s time to work with these, – precious to me, rusty-brown stained fabrics.