The Art of Dating

Whew!!! so relieved that my mojo just took a short vacation!  Good actions breed good actions!  This mornring Peter and I headed to the Y (first time we're doing this together, say "ahhhhh"), then we left there and went to see the art work of G.C. Coxe at the Kentucky African American Heritage Museum.  There are only a dozen or so pieces from private collections but I'll be going back several times to study the work before it comes down in August.  It is such an honor to see his work hung together and I believe a first since his death in 1999.  This is my favorite piece, Totem Pole with Little People, (oil on canvas, 49"x64 5/8") because of the transparency and that the geometric figures in black represented "people" for Coxe in the same way the shape in the following photo represents people for me.  It made me feel in excellent company.

 

 

Below is the state of the dye session as I left it today...a screen with dried thickened dye and fabrics in reds and greens dye juice in plastic containers.

 

 

The other delightful treat was to go see Form Not Function exhibit!  I love every single piece in this year's show, but my vote for Best of Show would have gone to Units 27: Sunburst by Benedicte Caneill and my personal favorites were Letters to Myself-Page 2 by Denise Linet and Soliloquy I by Peggy Brown.  The exhibit doesn't allow photography but there is a catalog that accompanies this exhibit.  Will be making more trips to see this exhibit as well.

Accountability Sunday

Okay, before I get into the week...let me share this story my daughter shared with me about my grandchildren.  I watch them during the week until 3pm at which time I leave, if I'm going, to the studio.  Previously, the studio is a place they come to visit from time to time also.  Now when they pretend play along with all their stuffed animal friends...they play "being at the studio at Mellwood".  Sometime Anaya will read her books, Carter will colour or diagnose and fix an ill stuffed animal friend and ask for Anaya's opinion all while at "their pretend studio".  Can I just say it makes me all gooey and drippy with love on the inside! 

Sopping up the oozing Nana love, I'll get to how my week has been...

I forgot to add up my hours yesterday but I was there 4 days this week. 

The paperwork was mailed off!!!!!!!!!

XX quilt is 1/2 way quilted.

Mid-wife is finished (but I want to add about 5-8 more babies)

Going Home (GH) quilt, which my sistah-friend Penny said reminded her of a totem of spirits, humans and animals, now has prarie points sewn on and bottom section and was re-squared.  I did decide that it would receive a border of some kind that emphasizes the geometric shapes (triangles and whatever that is called when a rectangle is wider at one end).  I wanted what is the doorway to me to be more surrounded structurally.

(incoming: while typing this, Anaya just gave me a shot with a crayon...told me "it will not hurt you but will make you feel better" and after the shot, she rubbed the spot and said "now, all better" and ran out of the room)

And I did cover Saturday hours at the gallery and right before I got there, someone purchased one of my small pieces!  I was going to send it to Kweli Kitwana who opened Art Shack, Baby! in Harper's Ferry, WV to place in her shop.  Unfortunately, the couple who purchased had left before I got there.
Don't you wonder where people are going to hang your work and what about it appeals to them?

*****
My studio mate Aimee informed me that she will be closing shop at the end of March.  I hate to see her go but I definitely understand since she hasn't been there much with her attentions given to a handsome newborn son which is her first child.  But what really took the wind from her I believe was receiving a letter from a firm supposedly representing Fiestaware.  Her favorite items to paint are toys, broken toys and vintage items.  She had a painting called "Fiesta" of a cup of coffee on a saucer and a spoon.  It was a big stretch in my opinion! if anyone would like to see it, I'll send a picture of it via email since I am now the owner of it.  She is having a 40% off listed prices at her Etsy Shop.  I'm going to miss seeing her paintings so I did get 2 pieces...the piece in question above (which I thought was a very weak case) and a piece showing scissors, thread, and a vintage cow sugar bow...or maybe it is a creamer.  If anyone would like to see The Cup of Coffee on a Saucer in Dishes that Shall Not Be Named, I'll send a picture of it via email since I am now the owner of it.

I'm between and betwixted if I should find another studio mate or move my items from the storage unit OR just move my studio altogether!   Uneena and I went to The Cavern's first 3rd Saturday Open Studios last night.  The Cavern was started by 4 artists who use to be at Mellwood.  They are expanding and jurying in other artists.  I'll just cut to the chase and say one of the spaces is PERFECT!!!!  Two walls of kitchen counters/cabinets, good indoor light, and a steel double sink with a catch area will be installed!  and I could bring all my quilting supplies out of storage!!!!!!  Especially my 2nd folding table...without it squaring up work has been difficult! 

But with every perfect thing comes some concerns.  There are two artists who work in wood.  Industrial ventilation has been installed and a wall could be built to close me off more but the dust with wood can be overwhelming and for health and fabric reasons it is of concern.  The other concern would be leaving my "art family" at Mellwood.  There is a core group that has formed naturally and we do support and encourage one another and get along very well.  My life is pretty limited to family and studio time and although sometimes I feel the weight of being so restricted with getting out and about more, I also know that I'm richly blessed with having an outlet of self expression as an artist.

Cavern's location is very close to the University of Louisville and I'm digging close access to the art library.  I will not leave Mellwood until after the April Trolley Hop since I'm committed to giving it what I got to make it the best April hop in order to make it an attractive place for Derby visitors to the city to come to!  But with all that said...what a wonderful dilemna to have, eh!

(incoming:  Anaya returned to paint my nails with a green crayon and I even got a cuticle massage).

Next week's goals:

• Complete 2 chapters in Hansen's book and 3 zentangles (1 for Nysha) (between M-W)
• Select, cut fabric, and make block for The Lynching Project (LaShawnda Crowe Storm)
• cover 3 hours at Kore Gallery---sketch or sew or read while there
• Quilt to at least 3/4s on XX
• Give at least 2 hours to reading camera manual and snapping photos
• Order filters for camera.
• check preparations and deadline for next exhibit submission.

Thank you for stopping by the Chitlin' Circuit blog and reading my updates...

A hard day's night (and some Praise)

 and my body is telling me so but I wouldn't trade it for anything because look what I've been up to...

My loot from Tickled Pink Memorabilia Mall, the best vintage-y store in the city!
The welcome sign, the young boy day-dreaming, a floral table cloth, and 9 linen napkins

improved the presentation of this 6"x12"...it is glued to a canvas and then recessed down in a frame

reference images for the drawings and transfer below

I'm drawing him everyday until the quilt is made.

ink drawing over the top of transfer image.  front/back.  I like the back the best.

And in between I'm hand quilting.  Tomorrow I plan to sleep in and head over to Mellwood in the evening for Trolley Hop Night.  

And let me close by raising my hands as a witness to the Grace of God!!!!  The challenges seem to never cease, but through it all...yes, through it all!

A day with angels...Lauren and Penny

Last Saturday I met up with Lauren for breakfast at Toast and after some great catching up conversation we drove over the bridge to New Albany, Indiana to see the Form Not Function Exhibit.  Just as we were arriving (and unbeknownst to us)  the end of the juror's gallery talk was going on and we were able to hear the last comments being made. Tomorrow is a family workshop on freezer paper screen printing from 10-12.

These are just my general observations from a first time viewing, but it appeared that fewer quilts were selected compared to previous years and that the lowest percentage was representation art compared to previous years.  I'll make more trips to the exhibit before it comes down in March.

After we left FNF, we went to The Gallery on Pearl where Penny Sisto has her latest solo exhibit, ANGELS.  I would have missed this if not for the mention by the Director at the Carnegie.  Penny has a diverse community inside of her and she expresses them so beautifully and hauntingly in her art.  She is giving a gallery talk tonight that I had planned to attend but the temps have dropped down into the 20s with a below zero wind-chill factor and Mama (meaning me) just can't cut it.

Penny honored me by using one of the fabrics I made at the Crow Barn as a background fabric for one of her Angels.  I didn't have a clue and would not have known if I hadn't seen the show.  Here is a photo:

Penny is among the angels in my own personal journey.

A day with angels...Lauren and Penny

Last Saturday I met up with Lauren for breakfast at Toast and after some great catching up conversation we drove over the bridge to New Albany, Indiana to see the Form Not Function Exhibit.  Just as we were arriving (and unbeknownst to us)  the end of the juror's gallery talk was going on and we were able to hear the last comments being made. Tomorrow is a family workshop on freezer paper screen printing from 10-12.

These are just my general observations from a first time viewing, but it appeared that fewer quilts were selected compared to previous years and that the lowest percentage was representation art compared to previous years.  I'll make more trips to the exhibit before it comes down in March.

After we left FNF, we went to The Gallery on Pearl where Penny Sisto has her latest solo exhibit, ANGELS.  I would have missed this if not for the mention by the Director at the Carnegie.  Penny has a diverse community inside of her and she expresses them so beautifully and hauntingly in her art.  She is giving a gallery talk tonight that I had planned to attend but the temps have dropped down into the 20s with a below zero wind-chill factor and Mama (meaning me) just can't cut it.

Penny honored me by using one of the fabrics I made at the Crow Barn as a background fabric for one of her Angels.  I didn't have a clue and would not have known if I hadn't seen the show.  Here is a photo:

Penny is among the angels in my own personal journey.

It was a smoky black indigo day...

Yesterday was a really looonnnnnnngggg day...I was out for over 12 hours straight.  After taking my oldest grandson, Adrian, to his school bus, I kept going and a headed to the studio, (by 1:00 I was ready for a nap and thought about my comfy chair which I miss).  I worked on trying to redeem my bruised ego from last week's disappointments.  I started 3 new cloths and reached the point were I was ready to steam them before going any further.   Here they are wrapped in newspaper with the ones I did last week and forming a sculpture in the window...

While I was there Petra called me to remind me of a presentation at The Filson Historical Society that started at 6 which I thought was going to be on Thursday.  My shirt was filled with dye stains. Petra lives close to Mellwood and the presentation was also not far away.  Petra agreed to loan me a shirt to keep me from having to go all the way home.  So I stayed at Mellwood until 5 and headed to the presentation...Two Centuries of Black Louisville: A Photographic History.  These 3 authors are powerhouses alone in their respective fields and the book represents 15-20 years of research on their individual efforts and 5 years of working on the book collectively.  

After the presentation Petra treated me to dinner at Smoketown USA.  A place I kept promising myself to go to but have never tried, mainly because it is not in a high visibility area.  But the food was good, the joint was crowded for a Tuesday night, and the back room is a yard sale room where you can purchase other people's junk that you don't need.  Cool.  

I'm not sure if I'm going to the studio today...the spirit is willing but the body is weak.  I might just stay home and curl up with my laptop to read a downloaded book, Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World, by Catherine E. McKinley.  

 

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.

A Day at the Fair....

Its not the rides, cotton candy, or deep fried butter...its not the horses, music concerts, or 84,000 ton tomato...for me, its all about the exhibits.  I love seeing what people make, create, and collect throughout the state.

Last Friday, I spent the day browsing and even though I was there for 4 hours I can tell you it wasn't enough time.  When I got to the quilts the first quilt I ran into was from someone I use to be in a guild with.  Willie Pride, she had 2 quilts entered.  She buys all of her material from thrift shops and they are mostly men's shirts...she loves plaids!

another Pride quilt below

Below are some snap shots of things I saw and liked...

aquariums exhibit...just loved the blueness of these fish.

walking/hiking sticks (2 have been stolen)

cake decor

and check out this cake meets political commentary

antique fine china (it was the yellow cake set that wowed me)

miniature kitchen in cross-stitch!

for Deb, my sister, you does heirloom sewing

art from recyclables (you might enlarge this photo to see the music conductor in coat hanger wire)

and art by LAFTA members

I was completely exhausted when I left there on Friday, so much so, that I was unable to make it to open studio for Trolley Hop.  I slept most of the evening and stayed in most of the weekend and Monday to recuperate...but it was worth it...where else could I see so much diverse creations in a public event under one roof???!!!!

And I made it into the studio yesterday and finally snapped pictures of my special gifts...so this will be a 2 post blog day! ;)

 

Okay, let's have some fun...

This will be a communal creation.  A collage I started yesterday while visiting a friend.  What I do well is creating backgrounds and I gravitated to the background cloth and I could have added some stitching and metal embellishments and some writing or lettering and I would have been satisfied...But getting satisfaction was not the way to go...pushing myself was the cause for the day.  We did a lot of talking which is why I didn't get any further than this... My first suggestion is to add color on the white geometric shapes surrounding her face.  Gimme some suggestions on where to go next.  As I make changes I'll post the updates.

My friend gave me the coolest gifts yesterday!  When I showed them to my grandsons, the oldest one, age 5 said "cool" and the youngest one, age 3 said "ewwww" and backed way back.  Look for a post over the weekend to find out what they are! 

 

time...travelling

Yesterday we (Ade and I) finally got my supplies back into the studio.  The weather improved over the weekend but its predicted to turn nasty on Tuesday.  The studio is a 240 sq. feet of MESS! but it felt soooo good just to be in the space even though I wasn't there even long enough to take my coat off.  On our way out I ran into a new tenant, Don, and chatted his head off.  I'm a fairly reserved laid back person but there is something that happens to me when I'm inside Mellwood...I have these spells where I become a chatty cathy...when it happens I'm totally comfortable, but it always makes me notice myself because it is out of the ordinary for me.  Anyway, Don is a painter, who has a corner studio with wonderful natural light.  Mellwood has started a blog.

I also made it to hear Jane Dunnewold give a juror talk (she juried the LAFTA exhibit there) at the Patio Gallery in the Jewish Community Center with Mo and Petra in tow.  It was a great crowd but not so much so that it prevented me from introducing myself.  I identified with her perspectives on art-making and I have my fingers crossed that this will not be Jane's last visit to Louisville.  She is teaching her second workshop today and tomorrow on lamination.  I didn't feel the need to take that since that is what I did last year at the Crow barn and that is what I've been doing since my return.  The exhibit itself is one of the most well selected exhibits I've ever seen and had me questioning my relation with colour...no answers...but it is a "bright" exhibit and I see my own work as "subdued".  But I'm always reaching for intensity in colour which I don't think I've achieved yet.

As for making a prediction to returning to doing what I do at either the basement or the studio, I'm refraining.  I'm going to try to be loose enough to go when the weather is less threatening to me health-wise and be satisfied with that 'til the season breaks.  I'm still collaging and sketching and working through some of the exercises from The Learning Curve Curriculum here at home.  Now that I'm home alone during the day I've been spending a lot of time travelling the 'net on all subjects that interest me, genealogy, furniture painting, junking, cooking, photography...whatever strikes my fancy for the day.   Here is a recommendation from my travels: The 1st Annual of Iranian Contemporary Art.   My personal favorites from this collection are the works by Hamed Behrozkar and Raheleh Filsoofi.

Peace,

"Art thrives in constraint but dies of liberty." - André Gide.

 

 

Makoto Fujimura

Makoto Fujimura - The Art of "The Four Holy Gospels" from Crossway on Vimeo.

 

I smoked and inhaled a long-arm machine and now I'm hooked!

Autumn for me is marked by time with Penny Sisto...a retreat, a revitalization, a re-centering in the art making as healing, yes.  The day was shared with Barbara, a watercolorist and dollmaker, and Gloria, a hand quilter and appliquer.  

Me on the long-arm and Penny looking intently

This time it was all about the long arm.  My first real chunk of time using one other than a five minute demo years ago at a quilt show.  Penny was aware of the Crowbonics series, thus she had us select from a variety of Crows she loosely had sketched in order for us to use to construct our birds in cloth.  I selected these Crows because they appeared to be praying to me and my next Crowbonics quilt is called The Hymnal.  

Deborah, my sister, not knowing about the next quilt, said the Praying Crows reminded her of Matthew 18: 19-20.

The Crows are fabric snippets which have been placed on wonder under, cut out, then sewed on a background using the long arm.  I don't know if a long arm is in my future but I'm now more motivated to use one to complete at least one quilt.  

We were all witnesses to the corruption of Gloria...who prior to this day, was a NO-RAW edges appliquer and hand quilter.

And here is Barbara, the dollmaker, at the long arm.

Penny currently has a joint show with Ann Lawson Adamek at the Huff Gallery at Spalding University. Penny described her work in this show as the most biographical series she has ever completed. The quilts center on the the myths and legends that abounded on the Orkney Islands where she was born.  

And she danced off into the aether!

I'm having fun..trying to squeeze as much out of the days as I can before the season who will not be mentioned sets in.  The last five or so days I've been marinating in the memory of spending time with artist Penny Sisto in her home and studio up in the knobs over in Indiana.  Its gorgeous there this time of year and her home is a meditation all to itself...and when you add in her fun and beautiful spirit it was a retreat and vacation from the concrete and wires and metal of a city steeped in commerce that I call home.

While there Penny showed me how she paints on fabric with wild abandonment and then looks into the fabric to see what emerges...very similiar to what Mystele calls "Gut Art".  The piece below is what came for me and I fell in love with it and trying to discover just who this was going to be.  I had a general idea but it wasn't quite affirmed.  On the ride home I kept looking at it but then decided to fold it up in the weathered "teepee" fabric she had given me for a possible background.  Well, beloveds, when I arrived hom and unfolded the fabric, she was gone.  I've looked all throughout my car and around it...she is gone!  I'll employ the Saint Anthony prayer (been using it for nearly 25 years and I know it works...if its not found after I employ Saint Anthony...IT AIN"T TO BE FOUND!  I have about a dozen small bags to riffle through and I'm hoping she will be in one of them...but as it stands now she has danced off into the aether!

Another big girl fun time was attending the grand-opening of Earthworks at the Carnegie in New Albany, Inidia...Congratulations to Valerie White,Pat DaRif, and Joanne Weiss (doesn't have an online presence) on a well put together exhibit that also heightens awareness to our MotherEarth and her struggles which are really our struggles.  November 7 and December 3 the artists will give a Gallery Talk.  This opening drew some of the art heavy weights out too, sculptorEd Hamilton, scuptor William Duffy, and scholar/artist Bob Douglass.  You have until December 30th to see Earthworks...get there!

If you've been reading Seamless Skin at least through one season of winter then you might recall how I feel about the season as I do my very best to express my indelible opinion.  However, in light of the blue sky I enjoyed yesterday and what looks like another break in the seasonal reminder that winter is a'comin', I'll hold back sharing so early how I feel about winter until the bitter cold sets in.

This past weekend I took a 2-day workshop with the lovely Lisa Engelbrecht and enjoyed myself with the Kentuckiana Calligraphy and Paper Arts Guild.  The week prior I was nearing exhaustion and almost decided to lose the workshop fee and stay home to rest but I forged ahead and this week I've been taking it easy.  Lisa is a very generous and beautiful spirit and the group is very warm, funny, and creative lot.

The piece with the yellow background, top center, is mine.

I've missed deadlines upon deadlines and meetings but between finding balance in self-care and addressing The Basement (new photos added under Beginning Again album) I have some super-fantastic news forthcoming that I can hardly wait to share...but patience is a virtue and the vision needs more shaping until I can share...but its a good thing, a very good thing!

Friends and Family

Acey asked to see the beads I purchased in Athens...here is my lot along with head shots of the fantastic women I shared the trip with.  We've kicked around art collaborative ideas for years and one of these days despite the hundreds of miles that seperate each of us, we'll pull something off and it will be first and foremost FUN as well as a unique project that reflects each of us and our shared friendship going on about ten years. 

 

While in Athens I purchased af book written by Zakes Mda, a South African and a professor at Ohio University.  The title, Cion, a novel, involves a South African who relocates to Ohio, USA and travels history by way of learning about quilts.  Ron and Crystal heard him speak at the Antioch Writer's Conference and knew I would be intrigued.  After seeing the cover of the book I realized I had this book in my 45 page Amazon wish list simply because the art that adorns his books is strongly appealing.  Rudy gutierrez is the illustrator for what appears to be all of Mda's novels which I haven't started on yet.  My current fiction read is A'mercy by Toni Morrison and I'm not sure which I'll dive into next. 

We (Peter and Ade) did an impromptu drive today to Utica, Indiana along the river to go to Hidden Hill Farm and Nursery.  It was our first time there and it is a great place to hang out and chill.  It is owned by retired journalist from our local paper, Bob HIll...he was kind enough to dig up and give me flowers that have mystified me for about a year or more...they are called "naked ladies" and are in the amaryllis family.  I'm going to plant them in my mother's yard. (ssshhhh, she doesn't know it yet).  When ever I see these flowers they always get my attention and make me smile.  I'll get a photo after I plant them.  I also picked up a new mug for tea (I use smaller mugs for tea...coffee demands a heftier mug).  I think we'll return, there was so much to take in and absorb.

Groovy People

Recall Lou Rawls singing that song, Groovy People?  It describes my time spent in Athens, Ohio and an impromptu visit into Yellow Springs with 3 good friends.  My brother and his partner, Crystal, have been telling me about Yellow Springs for a few years.  I left here on Thursday for Athens thinking that Yellow Springs was on the opposite side of Cincy and out of the way.  I picked my friend Bev up and the first thing out of her mouth was "would you be interested in going to Yellow Springs?"  A quick flash of Thelma and Louise in my head and the answer was yes.  Yellow Springs was too short but we did make a couple of gallery connections thanks to Bev come what may marketing style.  Bev is not a fiber/textile/quilter but she is a highly imaginative artist who works in several mediums.

We arrived in Athens Thursday night and just chilled out.  On Friday, Kel, clay artist who is currently working in precious metal clay, and Dee, masterful story teller and poet joined us on Friday.  Whenever we're together there is always plenty of gab and laughter.  Family, art, health, politics, movies, tv, work, books, the usual.

Friday's highlight was the bead shop Kel took us too and it was a pretty damn awesome shop with wonderful customer service (the shops here leave me cold when it comes to customer service) and the diversity of items this bead shop has is lacking in Louisville shops.  I'd have to run around 3 shops locally to find half of what this shop had in inventory. 

Saturday morning we spent hours at The Diary Barn oohing and ahhhing...After the first round of viewing Bev had us go back around and pick our favorites for 4 catergories...of course I took notes but since then, they are lost...but from what I'm recalling, I had selected these 3 for the 3 of the 4 categories (can't remember them either):  Tunicates 1 by Andree Fredette, Nothing to Fear by Susan Else, and Architectural Squares by Christine Tedesco.  As a group we spent a considerable time in discussion on Africa Scarified IV by Sue Ackerman, Ruffled by Jessica Jones, Communicating with the Past by Aaron McIntosh, Little Fish in a Big City by Kathy York, Nothing to Fear by Susan Else, Quilt Drawing #9 by Daphne Taylor, When Nature and Industry Collide by Christine Milton, and one that I thought was entitled Eating Roses that made a direct feminist statement but I do not see it on the QN page.

Bev most frequent question was "what makes this a quilt?" and pushed the question about what materials she could use to push the definition further from the center and toward the edge.  Sunday morning Bev posed the question to us about which quilt was still the most memorable and for me it was Nothing to Fear by Susan Else (at the base of my memory lies humour), for Kel it was Ontario Quest Triptych, for Dee it was Ruffled by Jessica Jones, and for Bev it was Quilt Drawing #9 by Daphne Taylor.  

I did not buy the book but I'm trying to recall 3 quilts...one was done in shades of gray and had a pyramid and a cross as motifs and the other was a close-up portrait (small size) of a friend who passed away from cancer and another portrait (large size) done in yo-yos that had been painted over...if anyone can tell me the names of these 3 pieces it would be appreciated.

The bead shop is in a house in a residential looking neighborhood off the path of downtown Athens but close by a church turned art center.  Another must stop gallery is Passion Works Studio which is a studio/gallery of works by disabled and non-disabled artists.  Having been intimately involved with the start-up of a similiar group in New Albany, Indiana, I'm always most interested in artists who are disabled as well as how arts programs reach out to non-traditional audiences.  The highlight of dining was The Star of India which was right across from a Mexican restaurant that we ate at the day before.  This is the only photo that immediately struck me for a blog post since photos are not permitted of QN. 

This is turning out to be a season of opportunity...I'm considering an invitation to do some demo'ing at a gallery in Yellow Springs along with showing some of my work during gallery hop night...just have to weigh the initial investment cost over exposure and potential sales.  Also, Lisa Engelbrecht, author of Modern Mark Making will be here in October leading a 2 day workshop, and I'm going to be a resource artist for Kentucky Foundation for Women August 6 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky...for more info, go to their website at www.kfw.org . 

As far as taking time to rent studio space to dye fabric for a month, I'm now undecided...just have to repriortize.  Is this the time to place my resources in process and materials, education, or exposure???  I'm giving myself 10 days to weigh it and will then make my decision.

Smallview of Mega-Artist Date

 

glue drying in screen, auditioning fabric, gelatin plate in the making, reference books

I ended the week feeling very productive.  I did push it to the limit though but feel it was worth it every second!  I did some brush calligraphy, continued with graffiti and writing on cloth, set up some buckets of soda-ash solutions (one for over-dyes, the other for white cloth), made a gelatin plate, mixed dyes for dye painting, and set up a screen with glue resist, and held steady with 3 hours in the gym.  I increased my time on the reclining bike from 10 minutes to 30 last week.  All which has brought me to today: the hardest thing I'm doing today is rolling in and out of bed.  The humidity has increased which is horrible for me so going out I'm not!

My social highlight of the week was an artists' date with friends, old and new.  Here is Emma, Pat, myself, and Juanita inside the theme hotel 21C.  The theme is 21st century art.  The C in 21C could stand for Cutting Edge and Conceptual also.  The hotel is a series of gallery spaces.  Below we are standing between the elevator interacting with a video tech. exhibit.  When you walk around the corner there is this wall screen/camera that puts you into the image of fallilng cascading letters...the letters bounce off of you or your body acts as a blockage to the letters falling.  This is highly entertaining!!!!!!! and addicting!!!!!!!!!

This is the lobby of the hotel and the 2nd picture below is a projection on the floor in front of the hotel desk of a couple in bed trying to get comfortable.  It is in video format so if you stand there long enough you see them adjusting pillows, checking the clock, tossing, turning.

The man and woman at the desk where just as stoic as the figures above their heads, as if they, too, are figures in the art.

  The art in the hotel is not just compatible or complimentary, the hotel is more gallery space from every nook and cranny, than hotel.  Even the bathrooms provide an ecletic artistic experience with projected video words in the mirror and one way mirrors that allow you to see out in the hall ways of the hotel.

Local artists are represented along with internationally known artists. 

 

digging this white on white embroidery

one of the galleries held a solo exhibit of lithographs by Kara Walker's grotesque antebellum imagery.  This is the 2nd exhibit I've seen of her work. I've read a dissertation turned book on it and I'm sorry to still say, the full meaning escapes me.  For work to be so intense and disturbing, and it is to me, I still can't fully grasp the intent of the artist.

We also headed to the headquarters of the Embroidery Guild of America to see the LAFTA show. Here are just a few shots from the show:

 by Joanne Weiss

And sometimes it all boils down to a sense of humour! This is a bust by Alyce McDonald:

 

 

We ended the outing at the Carnegie Museum of Art and History in New Albany, Indiana where Penny Sisto's newest solo exhibit is hanging.  I'm always so engulfed and interested in her work but this show, a series of portraits of faith/religion, left me feeling mediocre.  Even hearing her give a gallery talk some weeks ago did not tie me into the work beyond a cerebral/academic connection.

I'm looking forward to returning to my workshop next week...it will be my first time doing a gelatin plate and using glue as a resist.

Peace and blessings, immeasurably.