Such Great Vibes Today

I was in the studio today from 7 this morning until 1.  I started out by unmolding my gel plate.  It is damp feeling but seems pretty tough.  I was expecting it to feel more plasticized and not as malleable as it is.  I'll start some mono-printing tomorrow.  I also will try another recipe to compare the "feel".
Do you have a recipe that uses glycerin for a semi-permanent gel plate?

I did a daily zentangle this morning and pulled a ufo (unfinished object) off the design wall and made a decision about quilting.  I will not tell you how long it has been waiting patiently for me to return, but I was surely joyful that I felt on top of my vision to get with it.  I decided to hand stitch it to go with the folk/other worldliness vibe that it gives off.  I will do some light machine quilting solely functional to secure the 3 layers.  I'm only hand stitching through the top and a light-weight stabilizer. Here are some snapshots.

This is the thread I am using for her hair has been a booga bear to work with but it hasn't got the best of me!  

After homework and dinner with the hub-man and the grandkids  I hope to return back to the basement and work on some crochet and do some exercises from the crochet workbook. (see previous post).

Oh, and the studio music today!  Everything from Alberta Hunter to Zydeco....B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, Fela Kuti, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Art Tatum, John Legend, Gil-Scott Heron, Anita Baker....its been awhile since I flooded my space with such great vibes.  Today, life is good. Peace...or Karoda out (drops the mic)....okay, I'm not as cool as our President...but wasn't he absolutely the best at the WHCD?

fat quarter enhancements

Revelations

I woke up knowing that this piece is indeed a study.  I named it Together We Keep Watch.  but the visual story is incomplete as it stands now and I now know what I need to add.   I work so slowly that I really wanted this piece to be finished, but I will do a 2nd one.

As I see it now, it is about hearts and minds being in sync and of one accord.  If this is about keeping watch over a community, the landscape, being witnesses, then I need to indicate that.

Have a glorious day!

Because She Can

I'm aware that something is going on with me physically that I cannot quite name...at first I contributed it to the never-ending winter coupled with the extended care of my grandchildren and my mother paired with a couple of bouts with bronchitis. I've not been able to quite snap out of the lethargy and am riding the wave of up and downs.  I'm keeping my docs in the loop and there have been some changes to my meds, but thus far, I feel like I'm still pushing boulders up hill with some spurts of energy and enthusiasm along the way.  I'm happy to say I think my Mother is doing so much better and my daughter's schedule has changed and now I get to go back to be fun loving Nana.  My 4 year old granddaughter called me "boring" 2 days ago.  When I asked her what boring meant she said "its when you don't want to go anywhere".  That was said in reference to me not being ready to leave the bookstore.

Yesterday, my spurt of energy came from a visit from two friends; one, Mary, is walking across the 31 states east of the Mississippi River...she is taking a reprieve here in Louisville.  I will not seize to be amazed that I know someone who is so bold to undertake such a venture!  She started October of last year in Boston and has 19 more states to walk through before she returns home to Boston.  Over lunch I sat asking questions and listening to her tell stories in that Bostonian patois about the people she has met and her experiences.  Mary has a facebook page called Because I Can where you can follow along and read about her positive experiences on the road.

I used the spurt of energy to further progress on #2 in the series of Morrison quilts.  Here is the progress thus far on Fallen Through the Crack (working title) based on The Bluest Eye.

Quilting should begin on this piece sometime next week and the next quilt in line will be based on Tar Baby but I'm still working on composition.  I see 2 shared elements in the first one I did and this one...before I name them I'm going to see if they will continue to show up in the quilts to come.  There will be more encaustic pieces in between.

Peace,

Captured thoughts...

I received the Kentucky State Fair catalog and while flipping through the sections on Craft/Hobby/Fine Art/Antiques...I realized I could submit in all those categories.  I'm going to aim to submit a crochet shawl/scarf, an encaustic piece(s), and a textile art piece.  I might get it together and submit one of my great grandmother's dresses or the one I have that belonged to my great great grandmother.  I need to do something to keep them better, they are beginning to dry rot  .I've thought about putting them in a quilt, a shadow box or in an airtight vacuum bag.

I picked up 3 more birch panels for encaustics and also 3 small bottles of the Golden High Flow acrylics that I'll use for marbling sometime in the next few months.  I decided that I would only work in one size for encaustics, 8"x8" panel with 3/4" or 1" (can't remember) deep.  Did I mention the Shiva sticks play well with the beeswax?  Everything I create will go on a wall here at home until I decide what to do with them...the same with the Morrison quilts.  Don wanted the one I've completed to hang in the gallery.  That didn't feel right...I'm not about production.  I want a group, a body of art, to make a statement...not a quilt one, hang one, quilt one, hang one, etc.

While painting today the ghostly figure with changling blue eyes...I thought of a woman who I knew back in the 80s who thought she appeared white after she sprinkled herself with white baby powder from head to toe.  She wore wigs that were bone straight or bone straight and blonde.  My contact with her was only a few weeks before she returned to prison for prostitution.  I had not read about Post Traumatic Slave Disorder back then, but now, I see her as having a very extreme and severe mental disorder.  What comes of someone, a woman, who is so disconnected from her own story, truth, mind?  It was the quilt for The Bluest Eye.

I'm So Excited

And I just can't hide it, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it... (disco ball, black lights)....

Michael A built the frame to size and Mike K spray painted the edges with enamel.  Thamks guys! 

This will support We, Together, Keep Watch, 15 7/8ths x 10 1/4th. 

It isn't adhered to the support yet.  Need to investigate which adhesive to use and see what I have on the shelf.

Some questions I am posing to myself about this series are, do I want them the same size; if not, what by way of construction,  technique, or/and imagery will unify them; do I want to do cloth studies for each one. 

I have the cartoon sketch for Song of Solomon complete, but I think to do it the same size will crowd the space (I might do it anyways just to see).  The themes I see in the sketch (and the book) are masculinity, a coming of age/walking the crossroads, vulnerability,  violence, and escape.  I aimed for showing the tension and constant sense of drama in the narrative.

My friend Bev will be here soon...gotta go.

We, Together Keep Watch

Michael is making a wood panel frame that this will be permanently attached.  This piece was inspired by Sula by Toni Morrison and is a study for a larger piece that I will start on next week (if the creek don't rise and the winds don't blow). 

I named this small piece (16"x10") We, Together Keep Watch.  It speaks to the friendships and connections of women and knowing ways of some women. 

 

 



a scarf for my Beloved.

This will be a scarf for Peter when its complete.

 

 

I'm reading Beloved...Sixo is holding my intrigue.  At some point he decides there is no future in speaking English.  And I'm trying to SEE Sixo, a man the color of Indigo with a red tongue, muscular in my mind, moving against the horizon of a September sunset.

 

Last week I began quilting the Sula study.  I used a variety of thread weights and types.  King Tut looked the best. At some point I considered the overall look with some finer threads sinking into the fabric, coarser threads sitting above the fabric and some laying close to the surface...the visual diversity could perhaps serve as metaphor for the community of inhabitants within the novel.

 



Keep Swinging

Here it is the first week into February and I've not committed to goals for 2014 for the Chitlin' Circuit Studio. I've ruled out taking any major workshops this year even though Dorothy Caldwell and Jane Dunnewold will be giving workshops here locally.  I know, I know.  How fabulous...but it is not showing up cowrie shells, or tea leaves.

My focus is getting through winter and I must recognize that I'm doing better than previous winters.  My granddaughter is back in the hospital and has been there this time since Monday of last week.  She is 3 and quite spirited and mature for what she is experiencing.  The medical team is quite encouraged by her energy for the pulmonary diagnosis she has.  I'm encouraged and can't wait til she is well.  In March we're, well she, will start ballet.

Back to this goal-setting.  The first quilt study inspired by the novel Sula is prepared for quilting -

the heads have since been painted in.

I'm not sure I will do a study for each one...the next one up is The Bluest Eye.  What I'm hoping for this series is to teach myself to narrow the focus of the techniques I use.  But to recognize my own growth to this point, the idea to do these quilts came to me way back, like in '06 or '07, but didn't feel at that time I had the skill and confidence to go beyond just thinking about it.  I'm now at the point where my confidence is not intimidated by attempting it and I hope to learn something about myself at the end of this year.  My goal is to have 3 or 4 finished.

I will continue with this series as my main focus for "making" but will have other works going on between these quilts.

For my learning curve, my focus is doing Zentangles.  I've been looking at the zentangles and quilt lines of Nysha Nelson for awhile now and thought I've finally get down to trying them myself for the purpose of broadening my free-motion quilting ideas.

this is Day 1, working through the book One Zentangle A Day (6 weeks total)

My reading material will be continuing to read and re-read books on art and marketing to assist with the co-op gallery (current book is New Market for Artists which focuses on online markets) and do 1 day a week for gallery coverage.  I'm also, re-reading the novels of Morrison (Beloved is the current book) and will begin reading through the books that I have from the David Driskell Series (started the one on Keith Morrison last week).

And lastly, in light of missing a recent deadline for a juried exhibit, I want to submit to 4 shows (yet to be identified) this year.

In the words of Hank Aaron, I'm going to "just keep swinging".

Peace,