Water Bill, River Bill, Rain Bill: Felted Collages

I always have a project so I can procrastinate the project I'm working on. Last week, instead of finishing the neighborhood of HOUSEWORK, I had the urge to make felt, which led me to these collages.

My working title, the title of a poem I wrote last summer is "The Back Side of Make," which was something of a kaleidoscope or collage itself. But, in reality, these demanded the following titles.

Water Bill

River Bill

Rain Bill

 

Some of the imagery is playing off of a quilt I'm working on called Pipeline, part of a body of work I have in mind called Water & Power. Some of the scraps are from cloth I printed for the HOUSEWORK project.

What's going on here: wet felted white wool with black or red in-between the layers; needlefelting from the front; needlefelting from the back; sewing machine stitching; hand stitching; original printed fabric (my design) from the front and from the back; clear vinyl; needlepoint mesh; sticks picked up on my street. Security-lined business envelope reference with abstract cancellation marks; thinking about water in the context of billing or owing. Zoom in to read the texts.

Last summer's poem:

The Back Side of Make

this see-through piece
of paper held with tape, its

four letters seen by window light
formed by opening a mouth,
a pencil box, typewriter case,

a dusty cutout of a woman, seated,
bent over something frayed and

silky, a tangled silver thread of hair
eyeing the needle on the table
pointing to fingers

glued in place
her face

turned over, it’s mirrored,
translucent, no longer human
save the shape

I just want a word with you,
its meaning clearly made.