Loving Life...

The months June and July 2013 will go down in my personal history as an emotional smorgasbord.  I already referenced June in the post about my cousin visiting and selling 2 pieces of art.  (a couple of posts below) 

With my Mother, children and grandchildren, we visited my father's gravesite on the 3rd anniversary of his death.  For me, it was my first visit.  So many thoughts were tied into the visit...looking at a headstone with my Mother's name on it even though she is still with us while being present with my children and grandchildren made me think of hope and dreams, dreams materialized, un-materialized, and dreams on the way of becoming.

Then there was the verdict.  The verdict.  The verdict.  It sits in the stomach. 

The end of the month we took a day trip to the Children's Museum in Indy.  Seven of us, four generations riding in a van. 

Indianapolis Children's Museum

I also married my Partner of 27 years!  I couldn't have done this 25, 20, or even 15 years ago due to my perspective on marriage as an institution combined with my own hypocrisy I experienced from my first marriage at the age of 20.  I think somewhere I read, heard Ms Maya Angelou say, a woman isn't fully grown until she is at least 40.  The last 13 years has been an opening of clarity about what love is and isn't for me.  This was the year the conversation changed for us both...instead of "we'll get around to it" it turned into "let us do this and do it now".  And although I can't name it now, it does feel like we're seeing with new eyes and wearing new skin since we jumped over the broom.

We took a brief getaway to Yellow Springs, Ohio with stops in Athens to see Quilt National 13 and Cincy to Saint Theresa's Textile Trove inside Pendleton Art Center and Krohn's Conservatory, and to the Air Force Museum in Dayton.  The breath of fresh air had me itching to return to my studio. 

National Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio

Krohn's Conservatory in Cincinnati, Ohio

Studio work July/August 2013



Ties that bind...

The cold weather slows me down considerably and I'm trying to work out my winter schedule for studio time. My goal is to at least get in 2 days each week and 3-4 if the temps are mild or unseasonably warm.  I'll return to a daily journal practice and might consider setting up a corner for beading on the graffiti-scraps...I have about 30-40 of them that I'm not sure I'm even going to layer since it is a heavy canvas.  I'll also return to working through digital design as it relates to quilting.  And the Market to Access program should also help keep me focused.  I tend to get a little surly when I go more than 3-4 days without any hands on creativity.

I have 2 juried show that I want to submit work to but I'm infamous for missing deadlines but I'm going to plug a schedule into my calendar as opposed to steadily working and then diving in at the last minute to rush to finish the quilt, get it photographed, and budget for submission fees.  I've gotten to old to rush at anything. I've been 87 years old since i was 24, or so I've been told. That is another way of saying "old soul". Well my body has caught up.  A few days ago I had to laugh at myself for the way I'm wearing my hair...sectioned off with 10 plaits.  I use to plait my great-grandmother's hair up the same way...oil and massage her scalp and plait up her hair and that is the way she wore it...opting to put on a wig for church on Sundays.  She was in her 70s when I had that duty...I'm in my early 50s

Here I am in my studio showing my very first quilt to Linda Ospital who was interviewing me for a state archive project.

In this photo I can see my father and my great-grandmother.  I started this quilt in 1990 and completed it in 2003...it is all hand sewn except for the binding.

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!

Deconstructing

Someone asked me today that I hadn't seen in a while if I was still writing and I took too long to answer until I remember yes! I've been writing a blog for seven years! I added a brief intro to my textile work into the conversation.  Do you have difficulty explaining what you do and how you do it?  Textile work is so process driven before one gets to the final creation and I still haven't found a way to describe it when in casual conversations.

I have a demo coming up this Saturday.  I was going to make silk paper but can't put my hands on my supplies which has thrown me for a loop.  Then I was thinking about doing freehand cutting and strip piecing, but now I'm thinking about bringing the slow cloth piece and showing hand quilting.  But for viewers that might be like watching molasses pouring.   How about making yo-yos?  But I'm not sure where my yo-yo makers are...I'm also deconstructing my sewing space, a.k.a. The Basement Workshop, and have slowly been breaking it down the last few weeks and fitting what can fit into the Chitlin' Circuit studio and the rest will go into storage.  Painting cloth and dyeing will be my main groove for a while longer.    Here is some of this week's results:

3 different deconstructed screens on 1 piece of cloth

the beginning of something...see below the sophisticated tool I used 

 

I wonder if Beauford ever heard the whoosh?

Since the end of July I've been on a creative high but yesterday in The Basement Workshop it just wasn't happening.  I forced myself to finish quilting a "practice" piece that bottomed out when I attempted to add another layer of painting after I finished quilting it.  It is somewhat of an abstracted landscape.  I brought it home with me to continue pondering to see if it can be saved...even though it is a practice piece for free-motion quilting, it still was discouraging to have ucked it up in the last stages.  I could hear the flushing of my time going right down the commode.   Of course logically I know that even the failures are investments toward skill, but emotionally I heard that long whooshing sound when all felt in vain. Here is a sectional view of where it went all wrong-

Actually, I know it can be redeemed, it's just going to push me harder to wrap my head around colour control and painting technique.

Weather wise we are catching a big break this week.  Cooler temperatures and low humidity.  I'm staying home today but will enjoy the weather from the balcony.  Will try to finish the bio on the artist Beauford Delaney.  Peace,

Altering Quilts and Awards

This quilt belongs to the poetry series but I wasn't happy with it when I completed it and over a year ago. I'm still not happy with it.  For one, I've ironed the heck out of the middle section at the bottom and that crease will not come out.  Two, the vertical seams are not straight and that bothers me for this piece. Third, the horizontal strips need to be narrower and the colours are slightly off for what I intended.  Maybe if they had been narrower they wouldn't distract me.  What I love about the piece is the fabrics I created  (with the circles and writing) and the colours of those. 

These are the thoughts I have: One, cut them into three individual pieces, (see below). Two, cut it into postcards; or, three, make my first journal covers or small purses.  Since I'm not attached to this piece I'm open for suggestions.  (There is prolly someway to add a poll feature, but I don't have the time to investigate).  Leave your ideas in the comments...and peace :)

Postscript:  The above post was a draft I wrote yesterday for posting today but since last evening, my fantastic news that was announced at the LAFTA meeting is my quilt, Urban Egression, won the LAFTA award in the Fine Arts division/Constructed Textiles category.  The jurying process was a blind one with 3 jurors from the organization.  I haven't attended a meeting in months so it felt like divine guidance for me to have the energy and inclination to attend.  I instantly had goosebumps from head to toe.  I have the image upon my FB photos, but I'm on a different computer right now and will upload the image later.  Again, Peace...and have a super fantastic weekend!

Meet my youngest son

He is the spitting image of his father!

Ade, Mo, and Carter were in The Basement Workshop with me yesterday.  I worked on a design project and did the stitching and fusing on it today.  It will get a few seed beads and a stone (when I can find the ones I'm looking for).  This is the 2nd one...I'm calling it 2304:2...or thats what I'm calling it today.  If I stick with the title, then the previous one will have to be titled 2304:1  I could call it *therapy work.   

Ade took this picture of me working at The Beauty of Holiness Studio on Wednesday.  My art making time is regular sporadic snatches of time.  I walk in and look around and ask myself what can I do...I think I'm getting more done this way or at least if feels like it.  Today before I left the basement I soaked fabrics in bubble jet and another few pieces in Golden digital ground and hung them to dry...if I was actually working on "goals", taking the time to soak these fabrics or doing something like 2304:2 would have been pushed to "another day".

He signed up to enter into the Nature category in photography at the state fair.  You go man!  Okay, I'm off to dream land!  Go out and do something fun thhis weekend!

 

Crowbonics 2

Lucky for me, my washing machine went out and yesterday I went to my parent's house to do a couple of loads of laundry and thus had an extended time period at The Basement Workshop!!  I auditioned fabrics for what will become Crowbonics 1.  It will include one of the laminated fabrics created at the Crow Barn.  I found the perfect medium gray fabric and I'm thinking about doing a little bit of discharge on it to get some subtle colour change and movement behind the laminated sheer.  Discharging is a technique I personally do not want to use much to avoid health risk.  Jacquard's discharge paste is my tool of choice whenever I do.  And up to this point I've only used it to experiement with and then used it to create a design on a 1/4 yard of fabric.  I've seen a colour remover by Ritz but have not experimented with it to know anything about it.  I'm needing to remove just a little colour without any hard edges in order for the gray fabric to work for me.

I also spent some time quilting the piece shown at the top of this previous post.  There is still 2/3 of it left to quilt but as B.B. King sings "better not look down...just keep it moving".  One day I'll look up and have a plethora of quilts I love and will not know what to do with!

Here are 3 more laminated pieces that I did while on retreat...pieces that I hope will become focal pieces in the Crowbonics series.  (I have at least 3 series that are on going and just flow in and out of them depending on where my mind and heart are and what my body can handle.  If you create series work, how do you go about it?)

 Please keep in mind that these are all in process or experiments and not viewed at completed.

Yesterday I started burning into the piece below which is where the white shows through.  The white is from the lid of the scanner.

 

Lesson Learned...

I started out using an embroidery needle to make these seed stitches and after a very short time my palm started to hurt and stitching was painful. I switched to a sharp and the pain subsided to the point of being gone.  The fabric is cotton painted with acrylic and the backing is a heavier canvas which is also painted.  I thought the embroidery needle would be better because it was stronger than the sharp...the sharp is thinner but goes through the layers with more ease.

Basting

Basting, it has to be basting. When I ask myself what is the least favorite thing about quilting...I believe it is basting.  Its important but tedious...tonight I went with 505 temporary adhesive paired with saftety pens (pins?).  Quilting the stones is my favorite pattern for the texture it creates although here on the screen it looks flat...could be due to the circles not being tight enough, thread colour too close in value to the background, or that the middle layer is commercial felt instead of batting, or all of the above.  

This working intuitively with little to no pre-visioning on the outcome is working for me of late.  It might change again sometime and I might go cerebral at some point but just flowing when I am here in The Basement is working.   The painted fabric (above photo) is one that was eliminated from consideration for the Crows.  Its my aim to have this finished by the last Friday in the month for F.A.T. (Frankfort Avenue Trolley Hop) Friday which is designated as the Derby Hop.  I'm not sure if Mellwood will do anything special but I'm expecting that they will...a tenant's meeting is coming up next week and I'll get the scoop then.  I'm feeling a little gutsy (or just crazy enough) to hold a "Grand Opening" that night which gives me three weeks to plan.  I spent yesterday, pretty much all of yesterday, trying to recall how to create and merge layers in Photoshop in order to produce one mock 4"x6" postcard...if you click on the page heading for The Beauty of Holiness you can see what consumed me in time and energy....darn near an entire day squeezed into a 4"x6 piece of paper!!!!

 
(sectional view) 12"x12"

Sorry, Ade, but I'm not going with Languid for a title.   Try again.

Peace...

Gel Transfers using ink-jet images.

The transfer technique using gel medium is too unpredictable. I transfered onto paper, cotton, and a stretched canvas.The application of gel medium leans toward a thicker application then I expected in order to get a better transfer.  In this case, for the outcome, the use of materials seems a waste.  This technique gets moved over to altered books, fabric postcards at best.

I'm now trying a similiar image with a magazine page and a toner-based imageon paper and the stretched canvas.

Scraps of Splendor...

sunshine, and warmer temps (it hit the low 60's today!!!!) makes keeping the faith a whole lot easier!

These dyed silk scraps came from wearable artist Laverne Zielbelski from Lexington, Kentucky.  Laverne had a booth set up this weekend at the Kentucky Crafted Market which I attended for a few hours on Saturday.  I met Laverne over 20 years ago when she lead writing circles and reconnected after discovering last year that she is also doing textile work for creating her poetic line of clothing.  Laverne is also doing Nuno felting and using the FeltLOOM created by the owner of Lan Mark Farms near Lexington.  It is a machine that takes the rolling out of Nuno felting.  The University of Kentucky Art dept. is looking into purchasing one of the machines...I wonder if UofL's Fiber Art dept. would get one????  Slim chance I think due to budget cuts in the last few years but one never knows, right?!

I worked about 2 hours today at The Basement.  I spent about 30 minutes cutting shapes as an exercise from Finding Your Own Visual Language and will work some tonight with mark making on paper using a variety of inks and pens and brushes.  I spent about an hour working on the quilt in honor of Crows and thinking about James Audubon.  Many times an idea will hit me and I can see it and I think "how brilliant that will be if I can pull it off!" and then weeks later I think the design has morphed into something "too simple" to reflect my ideas and I'm heading for the path of least resistance.  The conflict comes in when I create a focal point...when I create an image, in this case Crows, I loose the emotion for a piece.  I really like my backgrounds so much better which I describe as emotional abstractions.  The questions I posed today are:  Should I go for narrative?  Should I make the Crows larger? Should I make the background smaller?  Should I make the Crows out of felt and sculptural?  What if I wanted to return to a total abstraction about Crows...what would it look like?  What are Crows attracted to?  Should I make the background reflect an urban setting?  A practice I took from the Benn and Morgan Workshop back in '08 is to write the answsers to the questions down when I'm stuck...this is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. 

Peace,

Just remembering what I was doing in pictures before what I'm doing now...

My lungs are clearer than they've been in a very long time! My doctor released me yesterday from being house bound and I thought I'd return to The Basement Workshop today but the temps have dropped below freezing and after yesterday's running around I found myself good for nothing but sleep when I returned home. 

 I'm in dire need of a hair cut but as always when it begins to grow out I entertain the thought of doing something different with my hair other than my signature cropped close to the scalp afro.  But I've turned into such a really LOW maintenance chick that the thought of keeping any sort of regular appointments with a braider or beautician makes me go NO WAY! But I really could do a little better.  Wish barbers made housecalls.

Remember the art journal I had lost?  Well I found it buried under some things at the Studio. This is a page from it for materials to be used in the above piece.  Looking at it now, it feels like it will be a "safe" piece...no risk taking here. 

Today will be filled with reading.  Yesterday I picked up the latest SDA journal, Studio, and Legacy magazines. I've started another book by Zades Mda, Ways of Dying with the same protagonist, Toloki, the professional mourner, but this one takes place in his home country of South Africa.  Also I'm continuing to scribble and work with colour in the design writing that I began while in the hospital...all this should keep me out of any trouble for a day or two...

Hurry up Spring!

Small joys; Great happiness...

Most of my handiness goes into the making of art that when it comes time to get it properly photographed, hung, and even submitted to exhibits, I find I'm left deft and confused and tired.  Multi-tasking has never been my strong suit and in fact I find it over-rated.  The ability to focus and concentrate deeply on several closely related tasks is my gift (although in the last few years this has been challenged).  I'm a slow thinker...it takes my brain a while to shift when its time to move on to another topic, task  especially when it is a shift from generating creativity to pragmatic matters at hand.  Thats the way I'm wired but I keep trying to learn to re-wire some parts that will allow me to complete the cycle of productivity.  I don't know why I'm talking about this here other than to say I've spent most of the day thinking about how to display 4 small pieces.  I want them matted and framed but without glass covering them.  From there I think "I should learn to mat and frame my own pieces".  From here I jump to "but damn, thats just another thing to learn and there is only one of me".   I know, I know, I make myself crazy this way...but it always comes back to the thrill of the process of making the art and this is where I want to use my time and resources and all else let come what may and I'll deal with the consequences. Its is especially sweet and its own reward when I create pieces I love such as the pieces below.  I forgot I had a 12"x6" series going back in the summer...it gave me joy to uncover them.

Crossroads

Sunset (how cliche a title?)

 
Copper Sun

Kindling

Peace,
 

Laid Back Sewing and Design

After clearing off my paint/cutting table, which didn't take me that long, there was no need to wait until Monday to start sewing.  I meditated first and then selected some blocks that I've had for some time and dibbled and dabbled with for a few years.  I purchased these hand-dyed 2 inch squares from Wendy Richardson at AQS in Paducah.  I loved them so much I came home and ordered another box of them.  I used some of them to make placemats for a girlfriend who was having a show of her hand-made dinner works in clay,...but that was at least 3 years ago if not longer.  So these gems have been around at least that long.  Over the past summer when I hung out for a day with some quilt buds I sewed them together in a 4-patch just to have something to sew.

What was important to me today was just to work calmly and steadily and sewing the squares together provided me this.  Once I started arranging them, it became about colour and value...nothing more.  Then after I was satisfied with the arrangement I wanted to introduce another fabric which was a soft entry for me to start thinking about design.  Here is where I left it:

b/w filter applied to check for value placement
 

I'm not going to make any plans for it before I return on Monday but will design in the moment as I go and see what occurs.

Peace,

Muddied Mind Needs a Good Cleaning.

Monday at my workshop I did a lot of piddlin'.  I couldn't open up a clear path of thinking on what to do.  I had cut stencils over the weekend but wasn't focused enough to work with them...I used up the rest of dye paint that was left in a screen from last year but no pizzazz...the colours ended up as muddied as my mind.  I did remember to get the gelatin mold out and was really surprised at how solid it formed.  I thought it would be slightly mushy but it felt rubbery.  My reference books for the gelatin printing were Rayna Gillman's book, Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth, and one from the library, Making Monotypes Using a Gelatin Plate by Nancy Marculewicz.  I managed to ignite enough brain cells to do these fabrics but afterwards my brain went to sleep so I followed suit.  I used Jacquard's screen printing inks and regular block printing ink and extender with the screening and gelatin mold.  The glue resist worked very well, so I'll be investing in more blue glue and gelatin powder...does anyone know if Costco or GFS (restaurant supplier) carries gelatin powder?  

top-bottom: gel print, gel print, screen print

 

both fabrics gel prints

When I return I'm going to be about damage control on the red and green graffiti panels shown in the previous post.  I wasn't thinking and what I did to them on Monday showed it.  I've invested too much time in them to just chalk it up...hopefully the super hero within will come to the rescue.

I rested all day yesterday...my concentration was still poor and this morning feels the same...but neverless, I'm going to venture to my workshop for a little while and see what I can do...hangeth in people!

 

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.