Knowing

I've always said there is knowing, and there is Knowing...actually many levels of knowing.  In preparations for the exhibit in September, I've learned some things:

1. For collaborative exhibits make sure everyone has in and has ownership.
2. In estimating time to prepare, figure it up and then double it.
3. In estimating cost, figure it up and then double it.
4. Know the gallery and clarify what work is un/acceptable.
5. Family...you got to love 'em.
6. I'm not ready for a solo exhibit.

There may be more lessons to come before it is over, but these 6 bits I've taken to heart and soul.

August has been all about hand and machine quilting.  I haven't been able to use the summer for any dyeing or breakdown printing or any surface design of cloth at all.

Minor but significant challenges have centered around how to hang a few pieces that are mounted to rag paper without running up the cost.  Joann's gave me an estimate on one for 110 dollars and that was without glass and with the 50% off.  I have come up with 3 other options but haven't settled on any of them.

Material Remains(c) hanging on the line in my studio

The gallery for Ron and me is owned by a religious organization and they prohibit nudity.  I knew that going in but my idea of nudity varies from what gets defined as nudity.  Here I am thinking "nudes" as the man/woman splayed full frontal for all to see.  Here is one of Ron's pieces that was eliminated.  One that I love a lot and just didn't figure in my equation of nudity.

Untitled by Ronald "UPfromsumdirt" Davis 

I'm going to offer it along with another one of his pieces that is more like a cartoon drawing which was also eliminated to The Kore Gallery.  It might be too radical for The Kore also, but I have a relationship with the gallery and I'm going to present Ron's work for their voting procedure.

What a relief!

The conversation across the nation is about weather in some form or another.  After a 10 day run of temps in the high 90s and over 100, it rapidly dropped along with the humidity causing scattered rain storms, but what a relief, I tell ya!

My hours in the studio are awkward. Today's hours were from 6:30pm-11:00pm.  I could have stayed longer but I had reached a point that I needed to rest and think about the 2 pieces I worked on this evening. When I push myself to go forward at the point of uncertainty, I usually flub it up.  These 2 pieces couldn't be any more different...

The top one being an abstract landscape. It is heavily layered with mixed materials and is evolving intuitively.  The bottom piece is Oliver Lewis, the first Kentucky Derby winning jockey in 1875.  I keep drawing him over and over in different ways using different media. (you can google him to see the reference photo I'm using)  With this piece I'm more conscientious by being more deliberate, moving with a slow hand, and thinking more about value, light and shadows.  When I ask myself which one is most representative of my spirit, I answer the top one...but as for the processes both are very representational of why I enjoy doing what I do.  And the transition from one piece to the other was a smooth one.

Auditioning Threads

When I left the studio today I resolved to use the subdued threads to allow the image to get all the attention but looking at the photo now, I'm having second thoughts.  Trying to be true to what I think this quilt needs, I'm going to hand quilt it.

I layered another piece today that is ready for some couching and machine quilting.  It is a landscape piece that has paper lamination.

As I've been pulling unfinished pieces together I'm thinking how unrelated my work appears one from the other.  Yet they all feel like my work...like pieces of me.  Even though I always intend to work straight through on a series, it hasn't happened like that.  I tend to work in circular rhythms, moving from one unrelated piece to another, eventually moving back around to a series.  What patterns of creativity have you noticed about yourself?

Power in the Chitlin' Circuit

Yes, yes, yes...thank you Lord (stomping feet, head bowed, right hand held high, left hand over heart)...yesterday I was feeling the power, (I GOT THE POWER...hearing the voice in that song that I can't name...anybody???).  I held up to a long day at the Chitlin' Circuit, my studio, and made what felt like progress.

Untitled at this time but finished.

added the color...since this is of an boarded up storefront church, I'm thinking hand quilting, but I might succumb to machine quilting.

another toilet paper insert fabric...my intent was to go with subdued colours...then i changed my mind.

One last thing and then I gotta go...but Enchanted Arts Studio has this hanging outside their door...it is a work in progress.  It took me by surprise when I saw it.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next...paper maiche, clay, fabric...all of the above

Let the Work I've Done Speak for Me.

I've been rolling along since coming back from The Crow Barn.  I've joined the Y with Mo, my daughter, and am exercising 3 times a week.  Remember last summer it was me and Adrian, my oldest son going to the gym at the Family Life Center (affiliated with the church where my name is on the roll but my seat is vacant).  We did that for 4 or 5 months...well I'm back at it again and trying my semi-best (working up to my very best) to deal with diabetes as well.  

Dye painting has been my focus with the exception of a week spent to make traditional quilt blocks in felt to be used at the Speed Museum in their children's area to coincide with an exhibit of traditional quilts.  That was sweet to be able to do for them on commission.  

Now I'm back to the fabric.  The next piece in the Crowbonics will be The Sperichil (The Spiritual).  I'm listening to an interview with Joe Carter as part of my research for the piece.  The 2nd piece that I had going morphed into a study instead and where I'm at now is working with the image of the crow, a trumpet, an adinkra symbol and marks from African alphabets/syllabaries and my own writing and symbols to go into the sheer lamination and on the background fabric.  I'm still on search for a local source of very very sheer silk or polyester organza.  Claire and Leslie bring some from the UK that is amazingly sheer and now that we only have the chain fabric stores, I've been disappointed in what is available.  But I have one source to check in Shelbyville, up the road from Louisville.

I'm going to make a transition in the train of thought here due to my mother just calling me to tell me a beloved Great Aunt passed away yesterday.  Aunt Doll was married to my Grandmother's brother.  She was a well spoken, well coordinated, soft toned voice, strong opinionated woman with proper leanings (somewhat of an exception in my rather loud leaning, shut your mouth, sarcastic bent family).  The last time I saw her was last summer when she sang at my father's funeral.  

Directly related is that Crowbonics is about my ancestors and how we communicate.  I'm really trying to express the nuances of communication between and across generations.  It really isn't tangible and sometimes isn't valued and sometimes is suppressed to the point of invisibility.  Aunt Doll is apart of my cultural transmissions as a woman and artist struggling to abstract, cultivate, and manifest, (like some archaeologist digging in dirt 1000s of years old), these phenomenon.  I just want the work I've doing to speak for me.

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.

 

Talking myself through the dark...

Yesterday I set up a test for the 3rd quilt for Crowbonics because the internal eyes and hands were working on it in spite of me wanting to do something else externally.  The 2nd-2nd quilt (second attempt on the second quilt) is not close to being finished but that didn't seem to matter to my internal eyes and hands.  Not having the energy to protest or object, this is what I started:

 torn papers layered under a sheer after medium applied but not yet dried

It is a small sample...about 10"x17".   I left it to dry yesterday and tomorrow I'll soak it in a bucket of water and scrap off the pieces of paper that didn't adher to the fabric.  The result will be a fractured image.  I applied more medium and more pressure on the faces.  I want less fracturing on the faces. If it works, I'll repeat with a larger sheer that will be a part of the actual quilt.

I also worked with redeeming a failed sheer lamination by cutting out the pieces I liked and then sewing them together.  I also wrote over the laminated sheer with a fabric marker as I'm thinking about what it would look like if the same images are repeated on all 3 visible layers: the paper, the sheer and the cotton fabric underneath.  I know, I know, I'm rattling on and talking to myself and not considering how tedious it is for a visitor to my blog to make sense of what I'm talking about...but a part of what I do here is like talking myself through the dark...

 

Standing Again

I returned to the studio last Friday for the first time since my father passed.  Being there gave me back the feeling of standing on solid ground.  I did a sheer lamination that put the be-bop back in my hip-hop.  I used the same Adinkra symbol for law, order, authority, balance that went into Crowbonics:The Scroll and screened the medium through the design in soy wax. 

The cloth underneath is a Jacquard that Peter brought back from Nigeria some years ago.  Not sure if it was made in Nigeria.  I'm recalling a documentary that discussed African fabrics being manufactured elsewhere.  Peter pointed out that the jacquard is much more valued than the adire cloth I asked for.  Adire is considered a "common cloth".  (Being the peasant woman that I am, that figures.) I will put some hand-writing/symbols on the jacquard.  I'm leaning toward this one being called The Songbook or The Hymnal.

I had "ummm moment" last Friday when I was in the studio.  Two of the coolest women stopped in and enjoyed looking at the work I have displayed.  One was a quilter from Columbus, Indiana and the conversation was uplifting and affirming.  I invited her to come down and dye with me when she thought she was ready to start.  I get pumped talking about my processes more than any other aspect of conversation about my art.  I'm really not set up or focused on selling from the studio, so when she asked me how much for one of the 6"x12" pieces, I shrugged my shoulders and said "make me an offer" or something in that vein.  And yeap, she thought it was just as strange reply as you're thinking it is right now.  I've been thinking about my response since and I know I need serious help to get to the business side of all this, but I've said it before, my energy is limited and what energy I have, I'm devoting to art making.  Its not that I don't value my completed pieces, I do, but its the process of making that is more relevant to my well being and it is a conscious choice. 

There is an organization here that supports artists with disabilities and I've spoken with them back in 2008 when I was looking for space still.  They've since moved and are closer to me and near Mellwood and I'm thinking I'll return before the year is out to see what marketing services are currently available. 

This week I've been pushing boulders up a moutain...in the midst of a fibro flare and yesterday was the worst I've ever experienced.  I had to use a cane to get up the steps.  It humbled me.  I had to miss a meeting I was looking forward to at the library for feminists artists.  Its so rare to be able to hold discussions about art making and what factors come to bear as I live trying to be the strongest me possible. 

Other than the lamination sheer, I spent time finishing up these postcards with beads.  I'm undecided whether to complete them as postcard art or small art only. 

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