I felt the challenge

Okay, time for some more words, a new post. This image shows the silk piece still pinned to the 4x8 padded table drying. To get it framed in the camera screen I took the shot from the balcony above. The piece isnow steamed and washed but not ironed and where will I find a large enough wall to take a photo of it? The piece is 45x72 on paj silk and is an enlargement of a collage I did a while back and posted on this blog. Working through Flickr I placed the image of the vertical collage in a horizontal space which produced a large painting affect with 3 viewers seated before my large painting and my friends in flickr challenged me to paint it large for real. Well, I didn't have a large canvas or the space to paint it, but I did have a sunny day and a large piece of silk. Now working with dyes is so very different than working with collage, torn elements of paper composed upon a surface, embedded in wax with some lines scratched upon the surface with oil pastel. Collage is a build up, an exploration. A discovery. Silk painting is movement, water and flow, and when on a large surface, a lot of dyes mixed to cover in a brief time because drying and change is occuring rapidly. It is intense and absorbing. To copy a small piece only 11x14" vertical to something large 45x72 horizontal is a real challenge and exciting to attempt. I am grateful that I have a group of artist friends who are seeing my work through images and making comments and challenging to me to surpass my own intentions and go for a challenge. What do I feel about the result? So many feelings, and that I haven't even ironed the piece and really looked upon it puts the result still into the future. Some of making art is the concept, some the process, some the challenge. That I have no large spaces to spread my art is a discouragement to making large art, but perhaps another challenge is before me--to find some large spaces.