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.

What's Going On?

I have been neglecting this blog and neglecting my studio.  I have maintained patience with myself but not I think it is time I openly explore why.  It is not as if I'm given up on "making"...oh no!  I have turned into an obsessed crochet (again) but this time it is even more compelling than in 2014.  When I first started buying yarn way back when, it was with the intent of couching it on my quilts because I love me some visual texture and that process.  I also thought I would use it to machine felt which I haven't done much of.  All my yarn fit into an over the door shoe holder and it has been sufficient...until now.  My favorite yarn to use is lace weight and I love making shawls and am ready to dive into making sweaters which calls for tons and tons of yarn per sweater.  My yarn is just beginning to spill over and I'm having to think about "organization".  I want a full blown stash...I can't afford to do it, but I want one...like a wall of yarn...but I'm in the basement (my dining room does remain empty however) and I wonder if my yarn would me a nice warm spot for spiders.

Have I given up on fabric and mixed media quilting?  Heck no!  Other than the collaborative piece (see a few posts down) I have not done much or really enough to say I'm doing anything at all.  I started making a piece I had done a study of and wanted to enlarge and designed it with fussy cut diamonds on the bottom....when I say they are a PAIN IN MY ASS! to sew, I can't get closer to the truth!  I have about nine put together of a nearly 30 something total.  I've consulted other folks, YouTube, books...it just isn't clicking how to sew them right the first time without getting them uneven...I'm sewing on the bias too! Good lord!  The thought of changing the design has entered my mind, but I can't just now as I still feel it is the right design for the overall quilt.  Soooo, I've done nothing.  Nothing.

I was drawing faces...and I just stopped going downstairs to do it.  My 500 coloured pencils where coming off the wall so I took them all down and not sure where to "organize" them so they are all just thrown in box until I can figure something out.  I didn't want to permanently attach the pencil holders in place so I used double sided tape...they held up for a long while before they began to drop off the wall.  It always happened overnight...so I'd go downstairs the next day and have to find and pick up at least 25 pencils off the floor.  Then my drawer on my drawing desk broke completely off the desk...then looking at the drawer I was getting ideas of how it could be used in an assemblage...that overwhelmed me and I have not been back to the basement since...about 2 weeks ago at least.  And I've already mentioned it was cold even with running space heaters...and the lighting is poor...I have 4 Ott lights, 1 overhead shop light, and 3 spot lights...and the iron doesn't even have to be on to trip the breakers.  I have been thinking I'll do some mono-printing on cloth, but it will be outside.  I wish I could chalk it up to remnant effect of winter leaving me cranky and irritable, and maybe that is some part of my avoidance...who knows....

\

I always have at least 2 projects going on the hooks.  I'm on a mission.  No, really...I am on a mission and each piece is an intended gift for someone.  I have a list, a fairly long list that I want to tackle so I can go on to make pieces for myself.  I wake up to crochet and before I know it the day has filled itself with hooks and yarns.  If I can't sleep in the middle of the night, I crochet.  I mentally project if I'm going to begin to create my own patterns; sometimes I ask the question of how can crochet and quilting be married; I'm considering getting customized labels for my finished projects; I wonder if I should make enough items to set up booths at local craft shows; and then I tell myself, "lets keep this purely a hobby".   If you're on Ravelry, I'm Karoda2, look me up!

My next several posts will probably involve continued exploration of why I'm avoiding my studio.  Feel free to share your own issues with studio avoidance and how you resolved it.

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

Still Here

I had to put thought into how to even write a blog entry.  I'm a month out from this blog's anniversary.  I'll be here even when no one comes...sort like the woman living alone in the woods, but I'm not that nature friendly to be living in the woods...maybe like the woman living in the basement apartment.

Mama, age 85 and her Great Granddaughter, age 4

My creative making has experienced a boat load of interruptions this year.  Considering how it grounds me and centers me, there has been a lot of groping through the light and the dark this year.  I feel it on my skin.  I've done my best to be adaptable, nurture and hold on to faith, and just be without over thinking which I've have a tendency to do...and by God's Grace, I'm standing and holding my own.

view into the studio window

We were anticipating moving by the end of October, which included my studio as well.  So far, nothing has fit our needs.  The plan is (God stop laughing), as I was saying, the plan is for this to be a last move.  So it needs to "fit", otherwise whats the point.  My studio is in disarray and my strong inclination is to let go of household "stuff" and simplify simplify simplify.  But Peter and I cannot see eye to eye on what is or is not "practical".  Like beauty, its all in the eye of the beholder.  But this is the least of my concerns.

An exhibit deadline is fast approaching making me aware of just how little I have completed this year.  I'm not going to meet it. The photos below were taken by Mr. Bud Dorsey, The Urban Photographer here in the city.  This was the opening reception and panel discussion held in September at the Kentucky African American Heritage Center for a group exhibit.  I have 4 pieces in the show.  It is one of the hallmarks for this year.

Still Here by Langston Hughes

Been scared and battered.

My hopes the wind done scattered.

Snow has friz me,

Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done

Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--

But I don't care!

I'm still here! 

Honey, I Love*

okay, So in my crazy mad crocheting, I thought I was ready for a sophisticated Interweave or Vogue pattern...(never underestimate my delusions)  I'm not quite there yet, but I could create a yarn bomb explosion...on you if you stand still long enough.

Also, I told myself a lie...because I'm going to have a small yarn stash, nothing massive or anything like collecting fabric (although I've noticed this could become competitive between yarn vs. fabric). 

I started another scarf tonight.  This is my 6th project in less than a month.  I'm going to block these made with this fine microfiber yarn just to see what that will do.  What I can gleam so far, there is a debate among the yarn heads, to block or not to block.

wave pattern



window pane pattern

 



Also, at the moment, as in the last few weeks of moments, I'm leaning toward blowing all the creative goal setting.  I'm going to walk into the ethereal realm creatively speaking and see what I leave behind on the trail of time. 

What I want to do hasn't changed...it is the pace in which I will do it that will.  In the slow re-read of Beloved I have been so struck by how LOVE is a force, energy, power, action that it has reminded me and shifted me...in the midst of this is the almost daily care and life with 2 small children (I thought this was all behind me) and the experience with my mother (early dementia) is showing me that at any age, all ages, change is truly inevitable, change that you can sometimes control and change you have no control over at all and at the end of the day none of it matters but that which is in LOVE, that force, energy, power, and action of existence.  This is what I'm choosing.  (remind me down the road lest I forget). 

So I think from here on out on my blog, among the artistic pursuits, I'm going to wax off my tongue and just talk about whatever I'm led to say.

*title is a reference to a poem and book by Eloise Greenfield.

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,

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



Passion, Enthusiasm, Coffee & Pie.

I'm sitting here this morning reading blogs on enthusiasm, drinking coffee from a Kimberly Moore design mug, and having a slice of derby-like pie for breakfast.

Thinking over what I'm enthused about as a 52 year old African American woman...and one of the things that makes me lose my sense of self in a good way, in a way that goes straight to "Spirit" is talking about the whats, whys, wherefores, hows of creating my art, your art, their art, our art, standing face to face, eyeball to eyeball with another person or group of people.  Another thing that jazzes me is to sit in wild long brainstorm sessions being creative. (This coffee is soooo good this morning) in a small group.  These are times when my spirit just lets loose and I can feel it instantly and it makes me feel immortal and free.  (does that sound dramatic?   but it is true and I love the feeling!).

I'm passionate about writing here, although my enthusiasm rises and falls.  Sometimes, I think I'll return to writing poetry...I've never left sitting on the edge looking at the poetic pens of others, but I can't figure out, no, maybe that isn't quite correct,...I'm a little unsettled by how absorbed I'd become with my passions and knowing how long my mind, spirit, body takes to travel from one to another and can't imagine a routine that wouldn't shut out family and friends and make me a true recluse or at best an introvert.  Let me explain further...when I'm at my studio, the idea of having a large warehouse live/art space is validated...when I'm looking at genealogy resources, it is an absorbing interest that one looses track of time (but can be made to be social able when doing oral interviews), writing poetry-a day can get lost drafting a line or stanza, etc., down time is spent reading books related to the aforementioned...and then one manages to squeeze in the physically sustaining needs and before I know it, I would be a happy recluse...although as a recluse I could skim on the physically sustaining needs, eh? Oh, and you know how time absorbing it is to learn some new software or technological hype (trying to figure out the rhythms of Google+). 

And in closing, I'll just share a small thing I'm really passionate about...comfortable shoes, shoes that love your feet...and my go to recommendation for the last 10 years or so has been Ecco shoes.

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...

Rainy day ponderings

On the drive back home I was rolling over whether the eye trains the hands or the hands train the eye for visual artists.  My approaches vary on how I create and I think the hand and eye are interdependent in informing the image.  September time in the studio has been given to freedom and exploration and play.  As I've experimented with marbling and returned to mark making with thickened dye with no expectations of outcome, images for future quilts begin to form...so in that case, it is the hand that informs the eye.  Other times as with the Oliver Lewis quilts, I see (or hear) something and think, 'how can I form that in a visual', which is the eye informing the hand.  Like a dance, the eye and the hand.

I set-up a new "size" for marbling tomorrow.  And have a cotton scarf under plastic that I stamped with dye on the print table.  The Boku-Undo inks came today that Carolyn Abbott suggested I try.  They float on plain water without the need to mix in the carageenan. There are periods of waiting between steps for the marbling...the fabric has to air dry after soaking in the alum, the size has to sit for 12 hours before it can be used, the marbled fabric has to completely air dry after it has been marbled.   I mixed up some thickened dyes as something I know I do well...sort of a resting spot between in the learning curve of marbling.

marbled fabric

Creative Dissonance

Some days ago I was trying to imagine how my work will look hanging at the Wayside Gallery in September and started to get a little bluesy thinking my work will appear too disparate in tone and voice and not cohesive. Until a few hours ago that belief was still rolling in the recesses of my mind.  I'm reading The Hearing Eye and an essay about the work of Norman Lewis shifted my perspective.

click on the book cover to go to Amazon...this is the Kindle edition

Lewis painted abstract expressionism but because he seemed to be exploring through re-contextualizing styles of artists who came before him, he couldn't be pigeon-holed as a solid abstract expressionist and thus critics wrote somewhat dismissive of his work in the mid-40's.  The authors, however, suggest that the critics may have been limited in understanding Lewis by trying to understand his work comparatively to his peers who became well known and the definitive artists for the style.  The authors submit that Lewis' work needs to be understood in reference to Jazz beyond just a subject matter and if the critics of the time could have had that understanding that Lewis would have rightfully held his own or exceeded art recognition.

What is submitted is an understanding of Jazz as confrontational, experimental and traditional nature of the music.  Confrontational, in that it challenges the audience beyond mere entertainment...in that it builds on traditional chords, but rearranges, add, subtracts, to create creative dissonance in sound and in performance.  Experimental and traditional in that one of the innovations was to take previous tunes and analyze the chords and layer them with new chords, rearrange the chords, take out chords, etc.

Hearing about dissonance described this way and applied to visual art just made me breath a lot deeper and placed what I have done in my own art in a perspective that is both comfortable and challenging at the same time...comfortable in that it describes the way I work and challenging because there is always that push to stretch traditional quilt methods/tools into new forms of expression/use.  I've already acknowledge the discovery that I tend to work circular in building a series...from one piece to another are different series until I come back around.

pieces started 18 months ago or longer and came out of 8 months of storage, excited me all over again...I was like "I DO like my work!"

This particular chapter has been so right on for me in multiple ways...so I could not just hum right along as if I was only being informed on a cerebral level...I was again, recently reminded, to take it to the spirit to really know whats up ;).  And that's whats up! (a phrase that references my oldest son).

500 pencils on the wall, take 1 down, pass it around, 499....

click image to go to website

By the start of fall...I'll have all 500 pencils!  I read about the 500 pencils some years ago on the QuiltArt email list.  It took me months of hemming and hawning but I broke down and ordered the 25 pencil/month plan.  By the start of autumn I should have all 500!  It was the collection of 500 colours which is alluring.  I would love to collect 500 solid colour fat quarters of fabric the same way!

My lungs have been junky, necessitating the need for a course of steroids and anti-biotics...with the dropped in temps, I haven't been to The Chitlin' Circuit in over a week...with only 1 trek out to test improvement in my lung capacity.  Surprisingly, I've kept the anxiety in check over losing time but have kept myself close to the hearth and entertained with pinterests, facebooking, blog and e-book reading.  Since getting the Kindle Fire, my book reading is back on!  I've read more books in a month then I did all of last year that were non-art making related!  And now that my library offers e-books, there is less threat to my budget.  My current author crush is Tayari Jones and it is my book review blog thats getting most of my action now.  

My two favorite boards on pininterest are DIY crafts and Food.  I've spent the last couple of weeks cooking dishes I found there...I tried recipes for thai noodles, brussel sprouts, zuchini boats, chicken salad, quinoa patties.  This cake is cooling now...but it is from Allrecipes.com, my go to food site.

apple cake

One of my studio neighbors has hosted Pinterest workshops which is "lets get together and make something we find on pinterest".  I haven't attended any but how clever an idea!  

 

 

 

Honoring Valerie & Robert White

Our Police Chief, Robert White, is leaving Louisville for Denver, Colorado.  The 2.5 years before he arrived were horrific ones marked by vigilante police justice and poorly trained officers that resulted in 10-11 deaths of suspects...one while incarcerated, one while already handcuffed with his hands behind his back, one mentally retarded man, and so on.  When I think how I've used my own dogged strength (to reference W.E.B. DuBois) from being torn asunder and that my anger and outrage eventually succumbed to brief periods of feeling like my life, and those of my children, had no value in this city solely based on the fact we were a Black People, I understood once again how those with less resolve and survival skills and consciousness fall prey/victim to enemies and the powerful.  Even as I write this and reflect on those 2.5 years, my stomach has knots and my skin is crawling.  Chief White turned the police department around by holding Accountability, with a capital A, for members who took the oath to serve and protect.  He embraced ALL of the community and updated training and focused on community policing.  Still not a perfect system, but SUBSTANTIAL progress was made and it made a difference.  I can't say I'm not apprehensive about who will replace him.

dignified 

With his leaving, the other loss, is to the artistic community.  Valerie White is married to Robert White.  She is a supremely intelligent and talented and gracious!  She is a blessing not only artistically, but makes me, as a woman, want to nuture the best part of me more than I do.  For that, I know she will always be a part of my soul-circle, but the gift of peeking into her artistic process from time to time will be sorely missed along with her critiques and assistance in my own work.  Valerie has held several shows while here and her imagery and craft never fails to leave me breathless!  No one is doing work like Valerie and it is extremely refreshing!  One of my treasured memories is her riding shotgun to my first time at the Crow Barn where we hooked up with Juanita Yeager, another Louisville artist and treasure who no longer lives here.

story-telling

Valerie and Robert will leave huge holes in the soul of this city...

Another sign of the times...

When we are in and open to visitors, we hang our "shingle" out. Here is mine with some added bling.

 

 

This article on craft techniques' influencing art made me reflect on my own self-critic on the pace I create.  I do work slow and sometimes, mainly when I want to do a series, I get frustrated that I can't move more swiftly.  By the time I finish one or two pieces, something else has caught my imagination and thoughts and I bemoan not being more prolific as time has passed into months.

This inclination to over think and make life more difficult than it needs to be is rooted into my need to have control and thinking I can "will" what I want into existence. (musical backdrop for this post, Helen Reddy singing I AM WOMAN).  I'm always in some stage of endless flow of accepting and pushing my personal self-imposed (and 0ther-wise) limitations of can and can't do's as measured by my ability to make art.  After reading the NY times article, the part of me that says, it really doesn't matter how slow or fast I create, as long as do as much as I can when I can and do it often enough to appease my soul is what truly matters to me.

 

 

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.

Positive, Negative, Bitter and Sweet (or Why I love Winton Marsalis)

I've been trying to decide what my "intent" will be for the Benn/Morgan workshop.  (regular readers might recall an attempt at selling this space last month...a few inquiries is all I received.  I gave it close to a month after which I decided to dig into my emotional resources and forge ahead

Here is what I'm considering:

1. working with layering transparent colour


2. working with a variety of transfer technique on paper and cloth


3. breakdown printing and using thermofax screens with line/shape designs that represent fluidity and stagnation


4. hand painting on cloth practicing negative and positive space.

The one intent I'm sure about is making the most of my time with them.  Because of on-going pulmonary challenges and trying to control diabetes,  I forsee this as my last major workshop in a long while.  (not to be grim and nothing fatal and I hope I don't sound melancholy, because I'm not.  Just trying to stay clear in my head...as a friend says "tell them so you'll know" ).  In addition to using my personal finances, much of my ability to attend the workshops in the past have been awards from two local art agencies.  I've shown my appreciation by being a good steward.  To paraphrase a quote my Winton Marsalis: Life is a two-edged knife that can cut you bitter or sweet.  And I'll add, "at the same time".

And because there has to be pictures in a blog post, here are 2 of my images I burned into screens:

 fluidity

 stagnation

Peace,

So, What Do You Do?

Have you ever gone back and randomly read your old blog post?  I did. The majorest (yeah I know its not a word) difference is I no longer share as much of my day to day thinking and doings and, also, I almost never discuss my family and friends unless we merge in some way on the art making trip.   I don't know from reading my blog that you would know I've been partnered to the same fine man for 25 years, that I have 3 grown ass adult children and 3 intelligent grand-children, or that I worked as a social worker for 21 years...you know, all that social-demographic identifiers that people use for introductions and getting to know one another.  Whenever I found myself at a social gathering of strangers and was asked the question, "so what do you do?", my standard response was "in relation to what?".  I believe that a better intro would be to ask someone what they think about something you care deeply about.  For example, "what do you think about mountain top removal?".  Even if I don't have a clue, I can say in honesty that I don't know enough about the issue and then here we have a teachable/learnable moment.  I tend to remember people who have taught me something more than by what profession they hold.  Before I got around to finding out what you did for a living, I would know how you spend your precious time in tending to the heart and soul of you...if that happens to coincide with what you do for a living, then I know its going to be a great conversation because you'd be one of the very fortunate employed people who happen to spend the majority of their time engaged in their passion.    I'd like to know first, what you dream about, what gifts are you holding on to until the "perfect" time comes for you to use them before I know about your job and what zip code you live in.   

I had no clue that the above was even on my mind until I started typing.  What I came here to write about was my participation in 2 online visual journal projects.  One is sponsored by Strathmore Journals and the other is The Sketchbook Challenge working alongside 16 groovy (I love it when I can use that word) artists.

Although both are about visual journaling, they are two different pieces of fruit in the same bowl.  Here are the 2 pages I started for the Strathmore workshop taught by Pam Carriker.

I plan to add more colour when I can get out to get my watercolours.  (Woke up yesterday with a soar sore throat and upper chest inflammation, on another antibiotic and back to staying in).  Pam's workshop is about recycling your own art work for journaling.  The woman's face I sketched some years ago and the red paper came out of a LAFTA workshop by Debbie Levine on making Paste Papers.

This is my 2nd one in process. This is all paper but the border was a remnant from Penny Sisto's  tepee that she replaced.  It had been painted and what not, but the actual fabric disappeared into thin air some years ago and all I have is the image I had scanned. 

The Sketchbook Challenge is assigned a monthly theme for participants to sketch as often as they wish for the entire month on the theme.  January's is HIGHLY PRIZED.  I spent a day thinking (really over thinking it) until I realized  I don't have to go all esoteric on the subject and just sketch something I place some value on.  When that light bulb came on I went to the kitchen cabinet and gathered my 4 favorite cups for drinking coffee, tea, and hot cocoa.  Here is the first one that came from Korea in a Ya-Ya exchange with a female solider close to 9 or 10 years ago.  I don't remember her name or her Ya-ya name but I adore the tea cup with the lid.

Here is my sketch...

My goal was to focus on lines.  Ade thought I should do the shadow so I added it for the 2nd sketch.  I bet you'd like to see the actual cup, uh?  I'm going to do all the 4 cups and then I'll get photos of the real cups up later.

Peace,

Juba Jive

Crazy weather! Yesterday it was in the 50s...the overcast kept it cool and it was wet and gray but still I thought I'd make the best of the day and go into the studio.  Its been five weeks since I last laid eyes on the place! For the first hour I sat and and relaxed in order to get re-acclimated.  After solving all the problems of the world I then got busy doing my favorite avoidance activity...rearranging.  I reduced the display area to gain more work space.   Unlike at the basement, I have my portable o2  when in the studio which I sometimes forget that I'm wearing until it falls off a chair or I feel the tug of the tube as I attempt to move around...but it hinders me from moving gracefully (ah! like I ever did without it!) so finding the ideal arrangement is on-going.   The furniture has remained light weight and easily movable.  What I gained was a card table that I'm going to use for overflow items, like containers, paints, rags, etc. which will keep the paint/print table clearer and I can more easily lay the portable at one end without it getting in the way.  Also, I'm only going to keep one quilt up for display except for when I'm actively participating in open studios.  With the extra wall space I'll hang fabrics that I've either completed or are in progress.  

The studio space behind me that I had considered moving into some months ago is now occupied by a fashion retailer for the divas, skinny divas at that.  The shop is only open on Fridays and Saturdays so I didn't meet the new tenant.   A couple of spaces near me have become vacant and when I showed Moriah the one I would consider, she confirmed it was too small even if I streamlined.   I knew that but I just wanted to be hopeful since it would save me some cash.

I'm going to refrain from assessing 2010 but to sum it up, the first six months were great with some dings and the last six months were less than great with perks.    2011 is my Golden Jubilee year since I am FIFTY as of today, so "JUBILATION"  will be my operative word to carry me through the year.  When all else fails, express joy.

Peace,

Learning Curves, Fall, Week 2

Monday:  I was not consciously in my art mind today but when I stopped by the studio to drop some things off, I plopped down and surveyed the room I left last week and tried to think about what processes needed to be done to which fabrics.  Feeling defeated, I dug out some black construction paper and begin cutting shapes out.  This is an exercise from Finding Your Own Visual Language (Benn, Morgan).  Image Transfer is on the agenda tomorrow.  

Tuesday:  The studio didn't happen. First, I had trouble getting out of the house, damp, wet, cold weather aggravates my mobility and breathing but did make it and after taking care of some business with my mother, I headed to Mellwood.  Made 2 attempts in heavy rain to get me and my stuff (I'm always carrying stuff from one point to another) gathered up to walk the 40 miles across the parking lot, I felt defeated and came on home.   Once back home, I reviewed the lessons for tomorrow's Learning Curve and watched Ricky Tims dvd on machine quilting.  Tims' method look cumbersome but worth it when decorative stitching is a definitive element.

Wednesday:  The chapter on Color Management (Hansen) woke up lots of dormant brain cells.  I spent one hour reading in front of the computer with PS Elements open...changed my computer monitor from a bright lime green to a neutral gray background as she advised and looked at color calibration devices on Amazon.  The prices are prohibitive and although all this is leading to wanting to create digital art into textiles, I'll have to work with what I have first to see where it lands inside my spirit.  This will be dinner conversation with Peter today.

Thursday:  LAFTA meeting was so inspiring that I left there and spent and hour in the studio just to touch up on the four small pieces pinned to the print table.  The piece below I painted in the white spaces with blue and red but I think the values will be too dark.  Will consider going back in with discharge paste.

Friday:  I'm getting ready to spend a few hours working from Digital Expressions (Tuttle).  The author provides a CD of images for working through the book as an option. The Madonna and Child are from Wikipedia and copyright free and the man is off the CD that comes with the book. 

1st attempt didn't quite understand, 2nd attempt with Tuttle's image, and 3rd attempt w/ better understanding.

 

MY THOUGHTS ON HOLIDAYS

Next week is Thanksgiving and next Friday is the onslaught of shopper's day.  F.A.T. Friday will be an all day affair and I'm planning to be in my studio for the anticipated foot traffic.  I said I was going to do more holiday themed post cards since they move really well for me and I'll string some lights in my studio window, but honestly the holidays always feel like "peer pressure" to me and I've yet to convince Peter of retreating during them...but for me, personally, I'd like nothing better than to go to spend them in a cabin, lodge, in the mountains or at the edge of a body of water surround by nature, mutual love with family and good food, music, good movies, and an all day Scrabble tournament.  That would be holiday bliss.  Most of these things do describe what we do except for the change in scenery.  As much as I'm an urban woman, sometimes the sights and sounds are an onslaught to my senses...and I feel it most around holidays, even when I was a child I was weird about holidays.  What I remember loving the most is basking in the fun of family get-togethers for what seemed to me, no apparent reason...it was just what one did on the weekends.  I'm kinda half-way recalling a theory by John Blassingame who attributed survival through the harshest conditions and  the flourish of creativity by what occurred in the few hours of down time and gatherings in the slave quarters away from the watchful eyes of overseers.  In some strange way that makes me feel off-center, holidays feel intrusive and like those watchful eyes trying to market my soul.

Peace,

Unity in Schisms (what the what am I talking about now?!)

 The Beauty of Holiness Studio, my art making sanctuary

Odd, ... I cannot recall ever being this excited about Mondays when I was employed.  Sundays now are a signal to re-engage fully as possible with my creative mind.  Sundays are filled with thinking about the different pieces of cloth and quilts in their variuos stage of development and what needs to be stitched and the hows and wheres of it all. 

Last week I dye painted over previously painted cloth.  The cloth was not treated with soda ash and I used Afterfix on it which is used to set dye.  I've used this before and was fairly pleased with it...the colours appear to me more muted and toned down then with soda soaked fabric.  I keep returning to this method because I do anticipate, possibly, at some point I may not be able to physically handle low-water immersion dyeing.  This is the piece I'll rinse out tomorrow if all goes as planned:

 
Over the weekend I attended a state meeting of SDA members that Jennifer Reiss and Mary Nehring coordinate.  This was the 2nd meeting but my first.  My membership in SDA has lapsed but renewing it is on my goal list for the coming year.  Being around other artists and diverse minds gets me spinning like a whirling dervish and I left there thinking that its not so much the lack of opportunity that seems to describe this city/state (although the description can be dead on) it is the fact that I cannot attend to all the possibilities. 

In my own art I can say that I now have a focus, sense of purpose, and a vision...a "Karoda" way of working...but I'm also fertil that when I see the art of others my mind automatically begins to push, combine, play, stretch, mix, mingle, and so on, ideas and what ifs and I'm flying or whirling and it feels fun in the moment.  I've learned to reel myself back down...took me a couple of years but I'm good to go and can now say to myself "okay, Karen, settle yourself down".  I think many artists experience this and in turn are faced with juggling the solitude activities with communal activities and how both impact creativity. 

I also attended the tenants' meeting at Mellwood last week and Planet Janet and I will be coordinating demos and activities by the tenants who want to participate in November's Trolley Hop.  Studio spaces are getting new tenants and I hope this is some indication that economically people are feeling more daring and confident.  Many of the new tenants seem to be more retail/service oriented.  A fitness center, photographers, martial arts, florists, etc.  I hope this will not eventually increase the dirt cheap rents for the artists like myself who are solely using the space to create in, but overall, it is good to see fresh eager faces and more activity.

Speaking of solitude and communal, I figured out why I'm not partial to listening to music on an iPod.  I like my music to fill not just me but the space I inhabit.  I want the essence of the sound to rock the cobweb in the corner of the ceiling...I want the vocals to ooze down the walls...I want the rhythms to cover the floor.  This just doesn't happen using an iPod.  I can listen to podcasts on my iPod, no problem...but the music is too big to fully enjoy it that way...and I'm not talking about the volume of the music but the experience of it...listening on an iPod diminshes the experience of the music, the artistry that went into it.  Playing a cd is much more inviting for a shared experience and much more open experience.  I mean would you rather go to a museum or look at the art on a toy view finder?

Peace,