Mr. Tolson, I need your help...

I am still trying to "take back and keep my righteous mind".  I have been decluttering since 2016.  Household is pretty much done, except for books.  Remember back in the 70s how paperbacks looked.  They were much smaller than today's books classified as paperbacks.  I really should send them on to Goodwill.  But its hard to part with them for the sole reason they are African American literature and our books are the least to go into reprint or even digital availability.  Also, its hard to part with them for what they represent to me in my development as a teen-ager and young adult who struggled to be aware and conscious or as they young admonish today "stay woke".  That is an emotional attachment.  I will never reread those books (my aged eyes can't handle the print).  My oldest son reads and I have been passing some on to him.  I thought about just giving him most of them and let him pick  and choose what to keep and what to pass on.  That sounds like a sound plan...I think I'll go with it.

A friend who is a volunteer at an Art House in Louisville's West End took some art supplies.  I'm trying to keep a minimum.  Today I returned to the basementm (I had been avoiding the space for month and months), to move some things around.  Oh mercy me! More is more.  If I had my phone down here I would snap a picture and let you see all the stuff that has ended to one side of the room.  I want to go through and make a keep pile and a giveaway pile.  This pile includes more art supplies and art instruction and quilt instruction books.  No, I do not want to have a yard sale, (although, I might do Half-Price books).

The wall next to the pile in the floor is an old Elna system of wire drawers (that I found on CL for 20 bucks!  I was happier than a pig in slop!  I'm channeling my Mother with that one.(  I want to get back to quilting...contemporary and art quilts; but I do not want to keep a large stash.  Not that I have a huge stash, but I still think I can go through what I have and let go.  For contemporary quilting, I want to buy as I make and for my art quilts I want to keep a a couple of different rolls of PFD and paint and dye as I go.  I want to create more slowly and with intent.  Which means my blank art journals are definitely a keeper.  Its better to make crap in a journal then with fabric.  Restarting a journal practice can translate to a masterpiece in cloth.  Right? Just say sure and lets move on.

I want to be a good steward of the spaces I have to create in but to tell you for true, my creativity was higher and more productive when we lived in an apartment where I used the wall in the hallway and the kitchen table and cleared it up daily before my kids came home from school and we ate together as a family.  The next morning after everyone left I hauled my projects back out to the kitchen table and hallway.  To dye fabrics I rented out space 2-3 times a year at Mary Anderson Center (is that now defunct?) for the Arts on the grounds of Mount St. Francis (a peace/piece of heaven on earth).
 in southern Indiana.

But whenever I glance at the chaos on the other side of this room (I'm still in the basement) I envision Mr. Melvin Tolson placing his hands firmly on my shoulders and looking me in the eye and saying with conviction "I'm trying to help you take back and keep your righteous mind".

Until next time, Peace.

Here I Am

I should be trying to get the broken needle out of the bobbin carriage but instead I'm pondering how the needle was broken.

Last Monday I had surgery to save my eyesight.  To save where my vision is now.  Looking at everything through a light gray curtain.  The surgery's intent was not to reverse the damage but to prevent it from getting worse.  Have I placed this worry at the feet of Jesus?  Yesterday I did.  But am I picking it back up by writing about it here?  I don't know.  I know that I have know way of saying if my sewing is good or if its good because I can't see yet keep trying and does it matter, should it matter.  Really, what I want to acknowledge is the fear I feel even when I'm trying to find my way yet once again.

When the needle broke I had to question if it was due to my lack of vision.  Then I even debated writing this blog entry but my words in my head felt like an essay starting to form and I thought it best not to neglect any form of expression coming through me.

But it feels like I've come full circle here...starting this blog in '04 as a way to go beyond pulmonary hypertension diagnosis.  I have indeed inherited my father's people's health or ill-health.  Something that most of my genealogical interviews never touched upon.  Yet here I am.

I sewed on my machine for the first time since my vision began fading.  I did some free motion quilting using a green metallic thread against a medium toned gray fabric.  I've spent this week slopping paint around in journal using bright bold colours.  I can see that if my creative work continues, my palette will change to high contrast.  And because I can't see dept in colours, the palette might become wild and loose.

This small quilt is a very old slow cloth that I've showed here before.  I'll share it when its complete.
Peace and Love.

Something More

There is life in this blog.  

I'm trying not to overthink matters, but instead, just relax into the rhythms of change.  (and this in no way, shape or form refers to the politics of my country, I can hear the voice of Sofia (played by Oprah Winfrey) from the film The Color Purple, saying "all my life I had to fight")

Naw, I'm talking about the rhythms that occur in my "making" space and in my creative spirit.  I started with a quilt at the beginning of the year and I'm ending the year with another quilt.  One where I'm asking myself "is it enough just to take these bits of color and sit and sew and pray them together?".

A month ago I called another artist which I hadn't spoken to in a few years but a sister spirit all the same I and I was describing the space I'm in and where I am pondering the question.  She started replying and as I so often can forget when two artists begin talking, energy rises....spirit wants to run, leap into explode into the next quilt, quilt as performance art even...

 There was joy in the quickened impulse and the vision...but will my body let me do it?  I mean will it physically sustain enough energy/air to move into a full blown project?  I intentionally started working slow, even when I'm fast, I'm slow.  Although, I've had a few close calls, I've only had one hospital stay this year.  Crocheting fills that space.  I do not think non quilt makers know how physical making a quilt can be.

These hexie are addicting, but not only that, sewing them together by hand places me in that quiet space I live for while simultaneously producing that something more.

Until next time, Peace.

Collaboration and Co-signing

I've read articles about women who began their artistic life past their 40s, 50s, and well into the Crone years.  Although I began way before those decades of my age, I am thinking over how my creative life has changed and wondering if it's post-cancer, over 55, or living with illnesses or some combination of all three.

Unlike some cancer patients, I couldn't engage in my own artistic endeavors and once again found crochet, following patterns created by others, as a way of staying calm and relaxed.  My own art is on-going decisions and questions and physically engages my whole body and being.  I gave myself a pass last year and was alright with that....but kinda imagined myself going gung-ho (I wonder where that term originated from) in my basement studio.  My days creating remain hit and miss as the basement is colder than I anticipated, even with a heater, and the lighting, even with supplements,  is sub-standard.  But I've been getting a little something done and thankful for an opportunity of a collaboration, I completed my first art quilt of 2016.  

THE COLLABORATION 

This collaboration really highlights the beauty of the internet and social media.  Some years ago I was interested in doing a group art project with a few girlfriends and was looking for short term art retreat spaces and contacted the owner of A.I.R. Studio Paducah.  The retreat didn't pan out but he became a reader of this blog and we became friends on Facebook.  Hi Alonzo Davis!  He was invited to create a piece with The Smith Center for Healing and the Arts...a Center he was familiar with...after we had a phone convo and looking over the call for the exhibit we knew this was something we could create as a team instead of the invited artist interviewing someone and then creating a piece based on the interview.  The medium that all the artists were given to work with was a wooden cigar type box.   Alonzo had the outside and I did the inside.

My process was first to flip through my sketchbooks.  I found this image based on a poem I wrote in the late 90s or early 2000s and the poem was based on an African folktale I read back in the 80s. Getting in my groove, I adapted the sketch several times, played with different ways to transfer the image onto cloth....

and the weather was unseasonably warm during this time too!  

The poem and the drawing illustrate the ability to change, adapt, camouflage if necessary for survival and growth ...my great-grandmother would say "if you don't change, life will sho' change you" and this was always co-signed by my grandmother and my mother.  My very good sistah-friend, Estella Majozo, use to say in reference to writing (and life) "it's all process, all process"  Living with chronic illness and then coming out of cancer has me co-signing with "Lord, yes!" to both of them.

After I mailed my small 8 in square piece to Alonzo and he mailed me back the photos of the finished piece, all I could think to say was I want to buy it now..:)

It was a beautiful experience with a beautiful outcome.

If you live in the D.C area, you should consider attending the opening and acquiring this piece....it is the only one that was the collaboration of work by two artists!

ALCHEMICAL VESSELS 2016

We Rise, again and again and again and again.....

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.   ---excerpt from Still I Rise By Maya Angelou


Let me just say this blog break was unexpected.  Not to bog the blog down with details, I'll summarize the important stuff, the highlights thus far of the late spring and early summer:  

Mo and I have been 2nd hand shopping for furniture and just short of dumpster diving we've been out nearly every day scouting furniture for her new apartment for a new phase in her life.  (God be with us.) The furniture finds filled my studio and we ventured with her leading the way into painting with chalk paint.  

We'd go at nights to paint so we could  pull the furniture out in the hallway...(and the AC was out in the building, luckily enough, the nights were cooler and somewhat tolerable).  The other furniture pieces are still in storage.  A couple of dressers, a headboard, and a buffet left to go.

Mo's car completely died leaving 4 adults to depend on 1, ONE car (feels really retro, but we've adjusted quite well given the circumstances).  And she is now without a job related to her continued knee issues and asthma.  But being the hard-headed determined woman she is, she is rising.

The hub-man and I decided to house hunt for a rental and after weeks of looking we were 2, TWO, days late given notice to our complex and the best the apartment manager would do was to give us a 3 month lease because missing the date BY TWO days automatically locked us into a year lease.  And we came close to deciding on 1 of the 4 we had viewed...a 3BR, 2BA ranch, wood floors with a basement.  After five years of having a studio at Mellwood, I'm ready to bring it home and am envisioning a basement studio  So you see, looking for another place is the key. But as it stands now, October will be our deadline to move.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, I had 2 bouts with pneumonia but didn't require a hospital stay, but did do time home-bound with rest.  Also, several significant people in my life made their transition and passed on, a good friend who was my best friend in junior high; a neighbor, one of "the mothers" on the block I grew up on; and my God Mother who was my Mother's oldest, dearest friend, Ms Trudie Mae Wickliffe.  She was 98 and in her right mind.  (Thank you God for the blessings)

Ms Trudie and my Mother arrived in Louisville around the same time, sometime in the late 40's and worked at the Brown Hotel together while staying with a cousin of my Mother's who lived by the racetrack whose husband was a horse trainer.  They eventually moved out together and shared apartments sometimes with another friend, Grace.  But it was Ms Trudie, 14 years older than my Mother, who remained a staple in her life and later in my life growing up.  One of the most important affirmations I received from her when I as a young woman who left a marriage after just 1 year...she got me without me having to over-explain or apologize to what appeared as irrational to others.  She later gave her understanding of me wanting to live outside of marriage with my now husband (of the 28 years we've been together, we've only been married this last year).  It may not sound like much now, but back in the 80s, in my family, it was still a dramatic thing to do and cause for too much talk.  

Maya Angelou's passing was a moment...to have one so significant in my culturally relevant formative years leave this plane jolted my eyes to open to examine how i'm living and how I've used my talents and re-evaluate how to move forward.  I love this photo of her dancing with poet Amiri Baraka taken by photographer, Chester Higgins dancing on top of Langston Hughes' ashes buried under Rivers: African Cosmogram created by Houston Conwill (a native Louisvillian).  Now, the photo itself says JOY, but when I let all of the above just marinate for a minute or so, that JOY just intensifies and I start laughing out loud!  Living is a beautiful thing!

The last of May ended my time with the co-op gallery.  More of a financial move for me since my lower priced work is depleted and my direction is not to make more right now.  It is what has sold.  I do not want to devote my efforts to "what is selling" right now.  

The piece that had been in Form Not Function 2007, Negotiating Territory, was donated to an auction at Spalding University to help with establishing a scholarship for African American students.  But then a month later, I turn around and miss a deadline for a group exhibit of African American Women Artists at a local gallery.  Even though I have a tinge of regret, I have to believe that all things work toward good in my life and its okay.  

I'm still crocheting, but not as with much gusto since I'm no longer on steroids, and I missed a friend's birthday for which this shawl I have on my hook is for...but there is always Kwanzaa, Christmass, Valentine's Day, or any other day to celebrate just being.

Reading. I've been reading a lot and I simply must tell you about 1 of 2 books by Estella Conwill Majozo (sister to Houston, see above).  First, Sister,  Please, Can You Stand A Little Honesty.  A collection of sermons that Majozo has presented over the last 10 years or so to various faith-based audiences. Each chapter is a offering of faith-based and culturally relevant steps we can take to keep our souls intact and not just as individual women but in a community of women.  I don't know about you, but I require certain thoughts and feelings, as oxygen, that speak to me, my soul, in order to ward off the numbness that grows as a result of stress.  The offerings in the book, helped and will help me to facing forward, nurture the desire to spring high and rise.  I've been carrying the book with me when I go out and re-read parts at night before going to sleep.  The 2nd book I'll talk about in my next blog post.  It also holds personal meaning for me and my family.

And finally to ward off the melancholy that occurs when I'm unable to be in my studio space creating something, I've picked sketching back up...specifically sketching faces.  A face a day is what I'm doing and then I upload to my personal FB page.  

Until next time, peace....

Craftual Healing, Wake up, wake up, wake up*

Winter hasn't driven me mad, but nearly a month away from the studio has turned me into the mad crocheter.   I've been home resting and recuperating from a bit of bronchitis.   I am taking a steroid and it mucks with my sleep, meaning I'm up most of the night and take cat naps during the day.  Sooooo, I had a notion once again to learn to crochet.  I purchased 2 how-to books on the Kindle,  ordered hooks, picked up some yarns and away  down the rabbit hole I went.

This is the start of my 5th project in a week, week and a half.

a spring scarf with light weight cotton yarn on a 4mm hook.

 

I am a bit compulsive with this...I find with the attention and constant hands in motion, that my thoughts are at rest and listening with intent is improved.  Mostly I'm here at the desk, in front of the computer, listening to a podcast, or the news on TV, or music. (Moth Radio Hour and Democracy Now are the podcast and Valerie June is the songstress).  And it dawned on me while listening to MSNBC why I've decreased following the Mon-Friday evening shows...The shows spend too damn much time keeping me informed of the so-called conservative that they are indeed giving them way much more air time and coverage then they really need.  Don't get me wrong, I believe in knowing what the enemy is up to, but the coverage  doesn't go in depth of what so-called liberals or progressive movements or thoughts actually stand for.  The weekend shows do most of this with round table discussions with various povs by people who are self-respecting, intelligent on subject matter by way of study and/or activism...the weekend news and information is more civil in tone and engages me as if I'm in conversation. 

 

 

Before this need to rest began, I did bring the projector home for the purpose of enlarging the Sula inspired quilt on a white vintage table cloth.  But where I put it down, it still sits.  To paraphrase artist Kevin Cole "making good art is about making a series of intelligent decisions".  To enlarge the quilt would require intelligent decisions and a "flow" that I can't muster.  The crochet patterns and the counting, the either it is right or wrong that goes along with it, is a strong branch to make my cocoon right about now.

 

Peace, *title is reference to what song by which artist?

 



Cold weather, foggy mind...

My time in the studio as already slowed down due to cooler to down right cold temps.  A month earlier than what I expected.  This year has been a good year thus far.  (no hospital stays! yeah babee!)

My goals have been a guiding force for the year and I've held to them even though I didn't achieve everything I set out to do.  I move slow but steady.  I know at least one thing I need to let go of for next year....being a office holder in the artists' group at Mellwood.  Artists are hustling trying to make art and hold jobs and attend to family and health and studio turn over is too frequent to keep momentum going on projects.

This was a year I immersed myself in reading marketing books geared at artists.  I kept thinking I was missing something in the Access2Market program with its emphasis on wholesaling.  Two or three of the books I've read take a tone of slight arrogance and too expert-y which comes across to me as a 'hustling books mentality instead of living what is written about'. 

The exception, the one that reads like real talk, is The Artist's Guide by Jackie Battenfield.  I don't regret reading the other books which I'll not name.  I seem to constantly need the affirmation that I do not want to be a "business" in the strictest sense of the term, yet I'm serious (as defined by absorbed) with creating with cloth and I'm joy-filled when someone even inquires about my art and when someone purchases a piece I really can't feel my feet on the ground!

Kore Art Gallery

 



Most of what I do for the co-op is online and my winter hours will reduce my gallery sitting to 4-5 hours each week and about 8-10 hours in the studio...maybe 15 in a good week.  My body started to rebel a few weeks ago.

My major focus for next year will be the Novel quilts...at least starting the first one and possibly continuing with a smaller series like the Poetry quilts or paper quilts.  I'd like to take on 2 or 3 workbooks...but I always fall off the wagon about 1/4 of the way into the year.  My real challenge is not to fall into the rabbit hole of surface design.

I returned to the book Spirit Taking Form tonight.  Need to slow the train in my mind and find artistic clarity.

Peace,

Blues with the blues

With the dip in temps and the ice sleet that started this evening and the car troubles that faced me yesterday morning and the pain in my muscles and joints, I started fighting the blues today.  In asking myself what I need to turn my mood around, I'm longing for meditation in colour.  While I've been looking at old and current family and friends' photos, and vintage photos from the Schomburg and Library of Congress for the next portrait quilt, I'm thinking my next piece should reflect my need for calm, balance and flow...the excavation of emotion and conjuring of ideas that happens for me when I'm lost in music or energies of some poems or the solitude of following a train of thought until it cocoons me or communing with history. Something abstract...until I can see my way clearer and feel joy and gratitude. I have some fabrics in grays and blues that I dyed 2 years ago and a warm rusty colour that are calling me and I'm thinking about lines and shapes that arch over as if I can pass through a portal to feeling better in spite of these earthly demands on me.

the green fabric at the top is hemp with a beautiful drape

Celebrating life

Today was a celebration of life! After 5 days away from the studio due upper respiratory infection...(I quickly got a z-pac) I felt good to go today and was back...didn't do anything taxing...just socialized, had visitors that came with great vibes, and did a little dabbling on fabric...see...

A daughter of a friend I've know since elementary came to hang out with me today in the studio.  She is reviving her craft and art habits after graduating from college and facing a chronic health challenge.  She is a beautiful young woman and I felt honored that she shared her embroidery and jewelry that she makes and was interested in seeing who I make my cloth.  Art can heal and connect people, in turn creating a vibrant community, yes it can!

I should be in bed now, but I'm hyped...I could have just stayed at the studio all night and messed around.  Tomorrow I'm scheduled to be interviewed by a professor from UofL...she is doing a project of African American women artists in the state.  I don't know what to expect but I'm going to have fun!

Basketball, Art, and Breakthroughs

My weekends are anchored by little league basketball. Both of my grandsons, ages 3 and 5, are playing. Before it turned cold (although today it was 61 and sunny, reasons for it be damn, ya know I wasn't complaining!), I was taking the 5 year old to his bus stop in the mornings and after his bus arrived, I would keep on going (most days) to the studio.

I took much of December off and January's days were filled with more Nana duties in the day and evenings with the other 2 grand-delights.  As much as I love them, there is a very good reason for menopause...50something year old women should NOT have day in and night in care of small children.  But we now have daycare!!!!!!!! (and the crowd goes wild!!!!!!!!!!).  So now Nana and Papa just have the evenings with them. Ahhhh, much better.  

Last Friday was an art reception for Hope and Healing. Twenty-one artists donated work to a non-profit that serves women, men, and children who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.  I sent Urban Exodus (formerly Urban Egression) on "permanent loan".   (excuse the bad photography, it's the camera's fault ;D )

Carter and Anaya and my Mother went with me.  I could not have had two toddlers in tow without my Mama's help!!!  Here is Anaya saying "look look".  This is the only quilt she responded to...It is a Penny Sisto quilt.

Carter was going through the exhibit saying "wow, wow, wow".  It was mostly abstract work that he liked...the few he said he didn't like were realism in landscapes.  Here are snapshots of the two that "wowed" Carter the most.  

The work on top was created by Keith Kleespies and my apologies to not remembering or being able to find the artist who created the work on the bottom.  

Negotiating Territory is now hanging in the newest gallery at Mellwood, The Kore Gallery.  It will be there until the end of March or April.  

I'll be returning to some semblance of what passes for normal at the Studio.  I was there today for 6 hours...5 of which I hand embroidered 8 of the boats for a total of 13 completed...only 164 more to go.  I have to mentioned a breakthrough I had while stitching (Obama is going to beat the pants off of ANY republican candidate! okay, politics aside).  My breakthrough was this...I had been isolating embroidery thread colour within colour segments on the boats...and then I thought, why not use the thread across colour segments...use the thread to bridge the segments...here is my breakthrough in a picture: 

Tracy Pennington, Madcap Mosaics

 

photo by Deborah Stanley 2011

 

1. Share what you do and WHY?

Tracy Pennington:  I make mosaics. During a difficult time in my life, a counselor suggested I do something artistic as therapy. I wandered around Hobby Lobby looking for something to do. I walked out with a beginner's mosaic kit and some stained glass. I thoroughly enjoyed the making of that first mosaic, and felt a new awakening in my soul. I realized that not only did I like making art, but I MUST make art. I love the mosaic medium because it is a slow, reflective process. I can think and feel my way through the work.

2. Where was your studio located prior to coming to Mellwood? and how do you describe your studio at Mellwood? and what do you enjoy the most about it? (I know this is kinda 3 questions in 1)

Tracy:  I worked in the guest room at our house. The room was crammed with stuff I picked up off the curb that "I was going to do something with", and little shards of glass were flying everywhere while I worked. I also felt guilty when working at home, like I should have been doing housework or spending time with kids instead. My husband suggested I find someplace else to work, and we were thrilled to find Mellwood! My studio is MINE! (said by the mother of 6 children : )) It is my place to come and create, reflect, and listen to my soul.

3. So I take it that upcycling and refashioning are a big part of what you do. Do you look at a curb find and then create a design for it, or do you create a design first and then look for a curb find? How do you go about pulling it all together? (and you look wonderful and peaceful to be the mother of 6!)

Tracy:  It bothers me to see reusable materials going to the landfill, so if I see something I think I can use I pick it up. Sometimes I start with the material and design with it in mind, but more often the stuff just sits around waiting for inspiration to strike.

I have a sketchbook where I get everything off my chest. Some designs never become anything, while others nag me until I follow through. I find a base for the design, prime it, and sketch on it. Then I glue on tiles, glass or wherever else I'm working with. Sometimes I pry them off and rework it. Sometimes I let a half done piece sit around until I can figure out what is wrong with it. When I am happy with the piece, it gets grouted, cleaned up and hung up.

4. What do you want from your art? What would bring you the greatest joy?

Tracy:  My art helps me process hopes and disappointments, trials and triumphs. I want my art to mean something. It is my soul reaching out, asking for understanding..."Do you feel this way?"..."Am I alone in the world?". I feel the greatest joy when I see others connecting with my work...that is the greatest validation to me.

5. What question would you like me to ask the next artist?

Tracy:  I'd like you to ask the next artist....How do you define 'success' as an artist?  

Thanks Karen! Some difficult questions....

To view more of Tracy's artwork and workshop offerings, go here.

A Confession...

I am not an artist.  Surprised to hear me say that?  Let me tell you why I'm taking this stance...

Some people I've met, who like myself, have such a deep abiding love for the role of artists in our world that they speak to me as if I've arrived or as if I know intuitively the sacred magic that artists must have that they do not.  

My confession is that visual art is not something I was acclimated from birth...I didn't spend hours locked in my room drawing or looking at pictures as an adolescent, but reading and writing.  It was poetry that liberated my spirit.  My young adulthood was spent philosophizing around the written word and with others who knew the joy and pain of carving out a phrase into syllabic play that was larger than the words on paper.

It wasn't until 2004 that I began this visual journey, although my love of quilting goes back a couple of decades.  What I do is attempt to learn and experiment with the goal that the knowledge will become just as intuitive in my soul as the poetic drive once was.  So I continue to plug and forge ahead because I cannot not do so. This journey is impelling and I don't spend a lot of time asking why it is so because I know to trust the process.   The need to touch cloth and understand colour as a way to explore my personal limitations and sense of freedom drives me to keep trying to be "that artist" and to share and be open about what I've done and am doing with anyone who stands still long enough to listen.  Even if it takes me 'til I'm 99 for the light bulb to be rewired from over my head to in my heart, I will not regret one single day of this journey.

Meeting deadlines

okay, I have at least 3 coming up...one in October, one in November, and one in January.  I'm infamous for missing them because I can't work as fast as my head finishes a piece and secondly, because I don't hold to a strong dictate of what I'm going to do when in the studio.  Like last week, I had every intent of picking something back up when I arrived.  The world was feeling different for me the day after Davis' execution.   Also, I was in the middle of reading a enthralling travel book on a woman's journey to West Africa in search of Indigo and it's meaning, Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World by Catherine E. McKinley.   It was both of these I believe that came to bear on a change of plans.

Now what I had observed about myself that day was I was moving slower and quietly both physically and mentally. Shortly after I arrived at the studio a certain phrase came to me and held me spell bound and I chose to follow it in cloth and ended up starting a whole new piece, and thus far, I'm very pleased with it.  The size is large, for me, and I'm wondering if I can have it ready for one of the looming deadlines...maybe I should change deadline to lifeline...meeting it could mean a whole new life for a piece of art.  

This week I played around with video taping in the studio...I think I need one of those twisty style tripods.  So far my camera man (youngest son) hasn't been convinced of all the exciting things that I do while at Mellwood and hasn't jumped at the chance to film me.   I mean what 20 year man wouldn't want to party like this!?

 

 dye painted cloth wrapped in newspaper waiting to be steamed

Shake dem Bones!

Maybe this is preparing me to go through a Georgia O'Keefe phase.  These are the beautifully unique to me gifts that I was given by Penny Sisto, artist-sistah-friend that she is.  For this city girl, these are like WOW!  

Penny lives in a rural area and picks these up on her walks and people bring them to her as well so she has a growing collection.  Okay, if I was going to pick up items where I live I guess it would be soda and beer cans because that is what people do who live in cities, right?  So not as interesting to me as these beautifully shapped old decaying cow and deer bones.

Adrian, my oldest grandson, said "cool" when he first saw them and Carter, my youngest grandson, said "ewwww, thats nasty"  A studio neighbor asked me what I planned to do with them...honestly, do I have to have a plan?  I don't think so, but I'm thinking about drawing them for awhile...I think Penny said she used a small bone in one of her recent pieces now showing at the Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Ind in a solo exhibit...Carnegie is the place that hosts annually Form Not Function.

I did make it into the studio yesterday and although I was productive it wasn't with intent...i finished the discharge.  It was killing me to stamp so orderly so I loosened up...but looking at the outcome, I wish I had forced myself to continue on with the more controlled pattern...ummm, process (right hand) vs outcome (left hand)...which will have priority next time????

That orangish glow is from a back light bouncing off a painting by Aimee, studio mate.

and this is me attempting to sketch directly on fabric...off and on for about a year or so I've been sketching faces...the seed hasn't developed wildly enough yet that any but I'm getting there...

this is the start...sketching from the photo in the collage below.

Stuff!

We, as in all of us generally speaking, have just too much of it! STUFF!  We, as in all of us generally speaking, are a disposable culture.  Capitalism depends on it.  But our saving, hoarding, collecting, keeping, whatever word makes you comfortable, of stuff is leftover from our days when individuals were inventive out of neccessity and some great grandfather made stuff by hand and made it to last through 10 generations and we inherited and utilized items of our dead relatives stuff.  But in this day an age, too much is too much...and how long do we keep hauling around our ancestor's stuff while accumulating our own stuff??  

All that to say this...tomorrow is moving day for my 80plus years young mother.  It has been long hard tedious road filled with stress, anger, relief, tears, and tempers...but tomorrow, August 1st is an what I hope will be true emancipation day for all of us.  Her new space is light and airy and I hope she will feel less burdened in it.  My brother managed to come and salvage his cassette tapes from the 80s and his primitive literary journals, my sister managed to salvage her graduation gown, drill team uniform with the go-go boots, and a beloved niece I hope will become firmly grounded as she matures into the new changes and using a 60 year old dresser drawers she is getting from my mother.  All the stuff that didn't get sold, salvaged, or reused, is going into storage.  and me?  well, all my sewing "stuff" is boxed, bagged, and rolled ready to go into storage tomorrow.   Although, I wish I could have come up with a better alternative, surprisingly, at the moment, I'm in a good head space.  

This morning I rose and got out of here before 8 and headed to the solitude of my wet studio.  I spent the time weeding out "stuff" to take to the next grab bag giveaway at the LAFTA meeting and throwing out "stuff".  I also, straightened and cleaned off my print table and just had to snap a pic, because it has never looked like this:

looks inviting, doesn't it?

But after leaving my mother's tonight I dropped off 2 boxes of "stuff" that came out of The Basement Workshop, so it doesn't look like this anymore.  But come Tuesday, I'm going to find places for the relocated "stuff" and get to doing something to some fabric heah!

Out of the mouth of babes...

WHEW!  Let me tell you!!!!!  I was be-bopping and hip-hopping in the stu-dee-o to-day!  This morning while my two and half year old grandson was saying grace over his pancakes he also threw in a request to bless my strength.  We kinda chuckled as it seemed like an odd afterthought.  While in the studio I didn't even think about his prayer.  It wasn't until I was driving home that I remembered it and I got so tickled.  His request was granted because I just couldn't stop!  I amazed myself and couldn't explain the energy.  But her are peeks to give you some idea...

 

If you use dyes to paint, scrape, on fabric or do break down printing then you have some idea of the processes involved.  If this is foreign to you and you have questions about what the pictures represent, feel free to pose your questions in comments.  

I got there today around 2 and it wasn't until 7 that my body began to crash and it took me another hour to straighten up and I hobbled on out but I'm telling ya I feel great and I am looking forward to turning in soon and getting a good night's sleep!

 

WOW! will have to be sufficient.

This is the part where I'm suppose to write something coherent about my week with Claire and Leslie at The Crow Barn.  A very rare occasion that words seem insufficient.  

I have to acknowledge that all my fears and anxieties proved unnecessary!  I stayed well and am still well!  My stamina held until about Thursday when I began to slow down but still it was a full and amazing week for me! And every personal snafu that presented itself worked out smoothly for me which added to the joy and productivity.

I really don't even have adequate photos to convey the week I had because stopping to take photos was an inconvenience and using the camera rarely entered my mine but here are a few:

This is the beginning of a new cloth and a picture of my print table. The bottom photo on the right is me presenting my review to the rest of the group on closing day.  My 2 goals where to create a palette inspired by a painting of Barbara Earl Thomas and end the week with paper lamination.  I came very close to the palette and will continue to work with it here at home.  One of the paper laminations didn't turn out. I used too much medium and I think my print table was too soft...at least it was softer then my own.  The other is destined for greatness!  

I have to give a shout out to my girl Bev, who came to my rescue.  Over an hour from home and close to Cincy, Mo calls to tell me I left my silk screens.  Bev lives just east of Cincy so I called her to ask where I could pick up some screens...and Bev, being Bev, had a friend, etc.  She met me off the highway with 3 screens that she cleaned up for me!  Thank you for the blessing Bev!

Later in the week Bev, and Kel who lives 15 minutes from the Barn, came up Thursday after dinner and I gave them a quick tour of the Barn and then on Saturday Bev (an artist but not textiles (YET)) went to Athens to view Quilt National!  The treats within the treat was seeing Olga Norris' and Judy Martin's work in person.  I think Olga captures bodily gestures like nobody's business and Judy meshes hand work and philosophy so gracefully. I identify with it somewhat but moreso, am mesmerized by it.  However the one quilt that I would have taken home with me if I could was Vera Loves Her Gun by B. Michele Maynard.  The sole factor was it's ability to make me laugh out loud and the strong narrative it held.  I stood there in front of this quilt trying to concoct a story and laughing in between.

I've almost got everything put back in place in the studio but I'm also not waiting.  I've made up 8 quarts  of print paste,different recipes and varying thicknesses.  Soda soaked fabric was left on the line to dry yesterday and I'm going in later today to over-paint with thickened dyes.  My aha moment was being able to see where already dyed and over-dyed cloth still has room to take more dye.  It was most apparent to me while ironing the cloth.

In addition to painting, I'm hand stitching Primordial. The base is silk paper to felt.

 

Love a good storm...

Its storming here.  Pot of coffee.  Ice Cream.  House work.  Books and mags.  Sketchbook.  Sweetie snoring.  Computer.  Scrabble...describes my day.  

Mo left to take Carter to the barber and if I had had myself together I would have been dropped off at Mellwood while its storming.  I don't feel up to driving in this and then having to walk across the parking lot with my rolling pink book bag while juggling an umbrella overhead.  

The end of May I have a workshop with Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan at The Crow Barn.  I had already decided that this would be my last major workshop to travel to for a long while.  Since last summer I have had the overriding feeling that I really have everything and more to create the art work I want and that my focus should be concentrating on staying in the studio as much as I possible to even begin to make a dent on my ideas.  

The first of April, however, I decided to try and sell my spot.  So, if you're reading this and have an interest in taking an advanced workshop with 2 hard working instructors with incredible insight into the creative process, or know of someone who might be, email me at seamless_skin at yahoo dot com.  Go the www.nancycrow.com and check out the workshop, Working With Intent before emailing me.

Shortly after I made this decison I learned that Jane Dunnewold will be running a year long workshop based out of Louisville.  If I sell the spot at The Crow Barn, then I'll enroll.  If not then I plan to enroll with Jane the 2nd year.

If I haven't sold the spot by the end of April, then I'm going to forge ahead and plan to attend.  I have to set time frames for holding on and letting go of issues in order to move on.  

and in the vein of counting my blessings...I'm a recipient of a textile collage from Marion Coleman! I finally hung it a few days ago and when I turn my head left from my desk, this is what I see:

 

And this lovely inspirational card from Carol sits above my desk at The Chitlin' Circuit:

 

Here is what I left on Thursday:

 

There is a poem with a line...

"I'm not waving but drowning...." by Steve Smith.  (title is for dramatic re-entry to blogging)

My art making focus is being interrupted by bronchitis, yet again.  I haven't even had the physical energy to take up another creative diversion this time which accounts for me not having much to yak about here.   You may know how much I dislike winter.  I've not been well through most of this season.  It was just at the end of January that I had "a bout" (throwback term there).    And sometime in late Dec./early Jan. my pulmonologist called in antibiotic and I was hospitalized in mid-December w/ pnuemonia.   Its been a very sequestered winter indeed!  My log book of ideas for quilts is jammed and I just wish I could have a long, I mean really long time frame to focus  not on ideas but making the ideas manifest.  

The unspoken threads that weave through the above are realizations that I'll capsulize: one, death is not something one "gets over"...instead it sifts through you sometime slowly and gently, other times with more weigh.  two, now that my mother is a widow, her need for support in many things is growing.  three, it is very difficult to watch young adult children get "seasoned" into adulthood.  (Deb, I really think this is what your neighbor, (was her name Mrs. Sweatt?) meant when she would say "watch a monkey bump his head").  A friend said our generation is the panini generation; slap it on, turn up the heat and we get it from both sides at the same time.  If you been there or are here now, then you know what is going unsaid; and it is possible that the frequencies of illness have not been solely due to winter (ya think?) 

On the good days I've managed to get my studio ready to continue on Crowbonics (languishing) but actual work has been going back in to re-do what I wanted to be finished pieces but in my heart knew better.  This isn't a diversion as my goal is to have 10-15 small pieces to hang in a coffee shop where I'm on schedule this Fall, so I'm calling this my coffee house period (insert low snickering chuckle).  I think I selected October.  Here are some recent desk top snaps:

both still pieces still advancing toward completion

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Annnndddddddddd, my really great news is I have a studio mate!  I started out in '09 with a mate, a sista-friend of over 30 years.  She mostly made her items at home and used the space for display, but since last summer when she moved out of state, I've been flying solo.  I had one serious contender but our combined needs didn't fit the space.  I looked at sharing larger space with 3-4 other artists there but then decided against it, looked at cheaper spaces there but the water source is too convenient and I have 2 entry doors which is a rarity for the price I pay, (I think 2 doors is a psychological comfort for people strolling through).  I gave up on the idea of moving or finding a art mate and then bam!  My new mate is Aimee.  She does daily paintings that are small enough to do on a table and wants to return to doing them now that she is close to graduating with a degree in history.  I felt very comfortable with her and she endeared herself when I didn't have to explain "Chitlin' Circuit".  Grant it, she didn't fall over herself telling me how brilliant a name it was,  but none of us are perfect, eh?  (a light snarky on my part)

Seems like there was more news I wanted to share....ummmmm, oh, the next Artist Interview is coming around the first week in April.

And now to close with an indulgence of being a Nana :) Here is the recent birthday girl!

 

Boogie Adventures

The soundtrack for this post is Boogie On Reggae Woman by Stevie Wonder.  

The weather began to turn over the weekend and I made use of Saturday and boogied over to the studio...spent a couple of hours with the help of Ade putting some semblance of order to the place and today I was there for 4 hours!  I ironed cloth, I stamped cloth, and I stitched cloth!  Yes I did!  In between, I spent time writing about the Crowbonics  Series and the beginnings of a poem fell out of my mouth too.  I read a few pages on the categories of design which helped me clarify what I'm trying to do with Crowbonics; and I also did a couple of exercises on texture from Finding Your Own Visual Language.  I am renewed!

Looking at this now, I'm thinking I'll restamp the light circles for more colour.  My first response was the uneven depth of colour kinda vibrated more.  This cloth is soooo unfinished so know this image is about process.

This piece was started over a year ago, maybe closer to 2 years.  It even has a binding on it.  But I knew it wasn't finished in spite of me.  The red thread marks were added last year and today I started the black thread mark.   

Today's boogie adventure was also spurred by seeing Etudes: A Daily Practice at the Hite Gallery yesterday with Mary J.  Jane Dunnewold created 48 wondrous Art Cloths for this exhibit.  It was my first time seeing her work in person and I could have stayed there all day and went back for more.  I only had 2 hours to go through the exhibit so I was rushed.  If it had not been for Lisa Austin telling me that yesterday was the last day for the exhibit to be up, I would not have had the 2 hours.

Can't hardly wait until the sun rises tomorrow!