And she's off....

to the studio and readying for Derby Dye Fever!  Today I prepped for marbling, dye painting and screening, and will add painting on silk in my experimenting for the month of May.  I made 3 strengths of sodium alginate thickener, 1 for painting, 1 for screen printing, and another for breakdown printing should the weather outside get hot enough this month.  I also made up a batch of Alum and marbling size using metho-cyl.  Last year I used carrageen for the size and had a time with getting the paints to float and I used everything from fluid acrylics, inks, air brush paints, to prepared paints for marbling.  I did get some good results but still had a lot of loss of paint that sunk to the bottom of the tray.

I use a blender to mix my urea water and thickner.

3 strengths of thickener from sodium alginate (seaweed derivative)

 

Since my fabrics have been sitting for awhile, I decided to scour them again to remove dust,...a combination of various pfd (preferred for dyeing) silks and cottons.  The silks are washing as I type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week I was at the studio and gallery for a combined total of 19 hours.  On Saturday I did a demo for my ART Going Postal(c) postcards while gallery sitting.  The visitors were few but I enjoyed the company and conversation of fellow artist Dennis Shaffner. 

 



 

 

I haven't made new postcards in years.  I used designer silk fabrics from a sample book.  I'm going to make these as warm-up exercises on a weekly basis until I exhaust the fabrics.

Poetic touch stones have filled by day...started last night with Proclamations of Forgiveness by Estella Majozo.  This morning Cherryl Floyd-Miller shared the link to this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. And the radio show On Being posted this poem on their FB status and I ended up listening to the podcast.  I'm still feeling strong and joyous...gonna ride this vibe as far as I can!  Peace!

Accountability Sunday

or should I say 'back on track'.  One fourth of the way through this year and I was thrown off track by the move of the studio, illness, and a busted laptop where I tracked my goals for the year in Excel.  I'm feeling well, studio is in place, laptop still busted.  Oh, and so far, the only casualty from the move is a misplaced iPod. 

I gallery sat for 10 hours and was in the studio for 9 hours sewing on bottom sleeves on some quilts for more stability in hanging.  Here are snapshots from my space...

comfy chair

curtain of shells

front room rearranged already

print/cutting table/ironing/shelves

stabilizers/wax papers/fusibles/freezer paper/ etc

misc.

Some of these quilts will eventually move over to the co-op gallery.  When I unrolled what I'm calling the doorway quilt, I realized it was too small and underwhelming.  I was able to catch the IQS-Cincinnati on Saturday and the SAQA exhibit Seasonal Palette wowed me.  For one, the impact of the size and the consistency of them hanging hit me!  They all were 32"x78".  For a passageway to have it's impact on the viewer, I want to offer the feeling that you can walk through it and unless it is a doorway for small children, of which it is not, its not working.  I'm going to complete it though and try to recreate something similar in the fall.  The doorway quilt in on the far right in the snap shot below.

This coming Friday is the Derby @  Mellwood and Schalfy Trolley Hop for FAT Friday.  Come out and park your car at Mellwood (plenty of free parking) and check out the Male High School trios and over 200 pieces of art throughout the Center. Chris Mudd will be playing light jazz on the keyboards inside the Kore Gallery and Jisun Mudd, his mother and one of the featured artists will be present also.  See the update here.

When May begins, I'm going to begin dyeing, marbling, printing and painting fabrics for the summer as my main focus.  The quilts that I'll make will be small ones that I'll wrap about a canvas frame.

Beginning Today

Setting up in the new space has felt like I was working under the evil eye of Evaline...you know, Evaline, from The Wiz, Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News Evaline.  Yesterday I threw a bucket of water on her and she is still melting, so I'm just an nth from shedding this skin of drudgery.  I kept getting ahead of myself over what needed to be done now to what I ultimately want to do which made the task even more laborious.

It looks nothing like this now.  Next week, I anticipate being ready to stitch something.  On top of continuing the move, I've dealt with soar throat and chest infection, changing schedule for watching the grandkids, taking Ade to work and picking him up, Peter had another eye surgery, my own health appts., and I've gained weight.  Uneena and Don covered gallery sitting for me at the Kore except for last Saturday.  Being able to sit and read for those couple of hours only interrupted by talking to the occasional visitors was the most amount of calm I had in weeks followed by a quiet Easter Sunday where Peter and I just chilled and caught up with one another's thoughts.  I'll be returning to a conscientious slow down beginning today.