From my mother's house

 

Making art is like life, unpredictable. You never know how things will turn out or even what you will find interesting and absorbing.  This time last year I was in the midst of cluing up the closure of my mother's house as she prepared to moved to an assisted living home. If you are old enough to be involved in such life changes you already know that they are bitter sweet. One of the positives for me was finding all sorts to objects that had meaning to my mother and  family.

 While I had many ah ha moments, I was quite taken with Mom's collection of doilies.  Of course they are white (my current obsession) and  many were hand crafted (very important to me).  I couldn't see donating them to a charity, so I bundled them up and away we went. Since then they have been in my studio in a bag - I knew they were destined for art; only the what, how and why remained elusive. I'm moving along with them.  Here are my first creations:

Doily #1 (2014) encaustic on cradled panel , 8 x 8 in. Margaret Ryall

Doily #2, 2014, encaustic on cradled panel, 8 x 8 in. Margaret Ryall 

  Both works were created by using a doily as a stencil.  I built up a bed of natural white encaustic  in four layers.  Then I warmed the surface and pressed a doily in lightly so it wouldn't move about.   A final layer of encaustic was added  and after 2 minutes I carefully pulled the doily out to leave its impression .  The impression was enhanced with a light application and buffing of   R & F pearl pigment stick.

Where do I go from here?

This work seems to fit nicely in my current white series  that I've been working on for over a year.  Doily #1 & 2 do not need colour for interpretation.  They exist and are readable solely by texture. The small square format will allow me to present them in grid format as a sampler.  Fitting given the topic.