Mr. Tolson, I need your help...

I am still trying to "take back and keep my righteous mind".  I have been decluttering since 2016.  Household is pretty much done, except for books.  Remember back in the 70s how paperbacks looked.  They were much smaller than today's books classified as paperbacks.  I really should send them on to Goodwill.  But its hard to part with them for the sole reason they are African American literature and our books are the least to go into reprint or even digital availability.  Also, its hard to part with them for what they represent to me in my development as a teen-ager and young adult who struggled to be aware and conscious or as they young admonish today "stay woke".  That is an emotional attachment.  I will never reread those books (my aged eyes can't handle the print).  My oldest son reads and I have been passing some on to him.  I thought about just giving him most of them and let him pick  and choose what to keep and what to pass on.  That sounds like a sound plan...I think I'll go with it.

A friend who is a volunteer at an Art House in Louisville's West End took some art supplies.  I'm trying to keep a minimum.  Today I returned to the basementm (I had been avoiding the space for month and months), to move some things around.  Oh mercy me! More is more.  If I had my phone down here I would snap a picture and let you see all the stuff that has ended to one side of the room.  I want to go through and make a keep pile and a giveaway pile.  This pile includes more art supplies and art instruction and quilt instruction books.  No, I do not want to have a yard sale, (although, I might do Half-Price books).

The wall next to the pile in the floor is an old Elna system of wire drawers (that I found on CL for 20 bucks!  I was happier than a pig in slop!  I'm channeling my Mother with that one.(  I want to get back to quilting...contemporary and art quilts; but I do not want to keep a large stash.  Not that I have a huge stash, but I still think I can go through what I have and let go.  For contemporary quilting, I want to buy as I make and for my art quilts I want to keep a a couple of different rolls of PFD and paint and dye as I go.  I want to create more slowly and with intent.  Which means my blank art journals are definitely a keeper.  Its better to make crap in a journal then with fabric.  Restarting a journal practice can translate to a masterpiece in cloth.  Right? Just say sure and lets move on.

I want to be a good steward of the spaces I have to create in but to tell you for true, my creativity was higher and more productive when we lived in an apartment where I used the wall in the hallway and the kitchen table and cleared it up daily before my kids came home from school and we ate together as a family.  The next morning after everyone left I hauled my projects back out to the kitchen table and hallway.  To dye fabrics I rented out space 2-3 times a year at Mary Anderson Center (is that now defunct?) for the Arts on the grounds of Mount St. Francis (a peace/piece of heaven on earth).
 in southern Indiana.

But whenever I glance at the chaos on the other side of this room (I'm still in the basement) I envision Mr. Melvin Tolson placing his hands firmly on my shoulders and looking me in the eye and saying with conviction "I'm trying to help you take back and keep your righteous mind".

Until next time, Peace.

Throwback to 2009.

pages from an journal from 2009-10.  I made a slide show which you can see here on YouTube.

Some of these ideas were used to create at least 3 quilts.

Creating with Intent

Last night I cleaned up this image and tweeked it a bit.  This is not the cleaned up copy.

I'm going to attempt to blog the development of this piece and my thought processes around how it will come to fruition.  The notes I made in the margins are as follows:

• skin tones: raw umber/burnt sienna or paynes grey.
• consider the decayed urban church screened in the background or as the background
• bottom 1/3 in diamonds or hexagons-pieced-consider blue/white commercial fabrics, all different
• consider yellow-orange heart behind them, engulfing them which could give the opportunity to play with highlights, but I liked the flat appearance of the study.
• heart would have some metallic in it and/or reflective bead embellishment
• blackbirds/sparrows present one season in the town Sula and Nel lived in
• figure/male with bell, rope tied around waist connected to bell, if used, subdue image as not to compete.
• ear smaller, heads larger.
• could attempt a more complicated background in collage Romare Bearden style to suggest a village of people, if used, images fused in cubism....people combined with birds and masks and houses
• take a look at the sketch for Milkman's Journey and consider the layout for the background or merge the 2 images into one quilt....really want a quilt for each novel but the 2 sketches work well together, but could be too busy for my personal aesthetics as would the collaged background.

These are thoughts I contemplated as I looked at the outline and asked myself "where do I go next with this?". 

I was going to use a projector but I remembered the glass got broken last Spring.  So, my next step is to take the image to Kinko's and enlarge it.  I know I could do it on my printer but I do not want to tape the pages together.  

Color Group Therapy

Happy 2016!  We made it!  I am looking forward to a year of self discovery.  How about you?

Today I felt  like some color therapy and headed to the basement only to be joined by my grandchildren some minutes later.  So it was a group color session.

On my birthday I had a glass of champagne...my first taste of alcohol in over a year.  I turned double nickels, but sadly to report, that one glass made me drowsy and I went to bed shortly after.  I'm working up to a bourbon on the rocks...or at least that is what I'm telling myself.  I feel anew and I'm getting to know myself once again.  Maybe the new me will forego alcohol all together.  But I'm going to try the bourbon sometime soon before I decide.

August's N*a*k*e*d L*a*d*i*e*s

You know it is August when you see these lovelies!

I just absolutely am intrigued with these flowers!  Although this year they were not as plentiful around town as I've seen in previous years.  A couple of summers ago I planted some that were given to me in my mother's back yard.  They did not come up the following year and she has since moved into her apartment and I find myself each August since wondering if they are up.  The flowers come up over night the end of July, the first week of August and enjoy about 2 weeks of glory before they wilt and fade from the landscape. 

This week in the studio I've been listless.  Those thickened dyes  I was worried about still sit in the fridge...it felt like too much effort, I couldn't even muster interest in my Mojo paper quilts which was the creative life line that got me going last time and the few days in Yellow Springs revved me up the last 2 weeks, but this week, blah.

I attempted to just push the feeling aside and at least do something! So I drew another sketch of America Shannon using crosshatch and made some doodles (see here) that I'll paint with opaque paints tomorrow should the blah-ness continue. 

Mindless, seeking low stress and rest kinda day.

I've been enjoying getting into the studio by 7:00 am for the last couple of weeks, but as of this morning I declared it old news.  My body and bed was saying "no, don't go" but I had agreed to cover a couple of hours this morning in the gallery, so off I went and Peter dropped me off.  Most mornings there is a boot camp group outside exercising and doing what they do in the name of fitness...this morning I had to roll my eyes and shake my head to look at them so damn early in the morning when all I wanted was a bed and firm pillow.  I did plop down in my comfy chair (not as dreamy as my old comfy chair from the basement studio days) first thing and slept a bit. 

Coffee was second on the agenda after waking and since the coffee pot (thanks Uneena) is inside the gallery, I opened a little early and spent my time doing somewhat low-stress hand work.  Here is a lotus flower that I drew using water-soluble dense charcoal.  I'm thinking about quilting or embroidering this motif down the center panel of the "doorway quilt".

 

 

 

The other thing I did was cut up a previously finished quilt that just wasn't working into 3 smaller sizes (about 5"x5") and began beading on them...solely an exercise in composition and colour.  I made the quilt when I was exploring mono-colour.  Although the quilt didn't work for me any longer, I couldn't waste the beautiful texture.

 

 

After a pat on the back for meeting an exhibition deadline yesterday for a local juried show and putting the paper quilts (I've made 6 or 7) on hold, I'm not sure what's next from the Chitlin' Circuit Studio, but next week has RESTING written all over it!  

Having a party...

I lack the discipline to not share my quilts in progress.  I get so excited that I want to have a party and just hang out and drink wine...sharing here is the closest thing to doing just that in a way that provides immediate gratification among community.  Thus, my chances of creating something to submit to exhibits that prevent any form of public photo sharing seem low unless I change my ways. Something I'll ponder in the distant future...but for now...lets get down and party...

I had no intent of going in today, but my son called and needed a ride home from work after pulling a double shift, so to make the most of bathing and dressing and going out, I headed to the studio after dropping him off here at home.  The day went lovely, after an hour or so spent socializing, I finally mosied back to my sanctuary.  The front windows and glass doors needed washing, so I piddled with that until I was as close to streak free to make it worth my time...turned on public radio, rearranged some boxes that really didn't need rearranging, picked up scraps from the floor, put some fabric away, and then finally I was ready to pick up The Mid-Wife and resume quilting.  Her body is quilted and I think her face is finished or very close to being finished and then I was ready for the background...fruit, hanging fruit came to mind since she delivers babies...so I doodled a bit, see above.

Still not ready to commit to stitch, I recalled a method to audition quilt lines that Juanita had shared with me...cover up the piece with clear acetate and use a dry erase marker to sketch the thread lines.

It is generic fruit, buds that haven't come to fruition yet.  I also have to decide how and where I want to sew on the 40+ teeny tiny baby dolls that will embellish this quilt.  If I go with this hanging fruit, I'm thinking the babies will fill the empty spaces from top to bottom.  She will also get a necklace of pinkish/purplish pearls.  Oh, and I also came up with a full title, She Who Sees and Touches the Future.  By the time I got this far, the synapses was firing off and that led me to pulling out the praying crows and thinking about a background and story for them, (see them in the botton right corner on the photo on the left side?).

All this will stew for a few days and hopefully I can return over the weekend.  Now pass the wine and turn up the music!

On Tuesday...

Missing more than 2 consecutive days from my studio results in discombobulation when I return.  So this week hasn't been as productive as I envisioned it would be last week.  I've finished the top for the Oliver Lewis quilt and am working on a 2nd quilt top (also of O. Lewis) that will be done in Dye-na-flow paint.  I applied No-flow to the cotton top today and hung it to dry.  No-flow prevents the Dye-na-flow paint from wicking on the cloth.

I pulled from my pile of unfinished pieces to audition threads for this piece.  The size is about 24" x 36".  I thought it was going to be easy peasy tight straight lines but after a closer look I'm thinking not....

the bottom is cut off.

This is wipe up paper towels collaged and laminated to white cotton.

auditioning threads

Auditioning threads

Auditioning threads

  To consider some wonky geometric thread lines I doodled and played around with color...

 Tomorrow is a health advisory due to heat and high ozone...Other than going to the eye doctor with Peter, I'll be at home tinkering with digital images.

Lizzie's photo is highly prized.

I am blessed to have some old photos of family born in the late 1800s.  This is a rarity for African Americans but due to the traveling photographers and the interest in imaging oneself and working for income it was an important thing to do in claiming one's own identity and sense of self during the period of so-called Reconstruction.  Although this image was taken in the 1960's of my 2nd Great Grandmother I do have one that was taken in and around the turn the 19th century.  I only recall meeting her when I was around 5 and was frightened of her as she seemed to be sooo old and feeble and "witch-like".  When I met her she couldn't talk but loved to reach out and hug young children.  It was only in my young adulthood that I held appreciation for at least having meet her.  This is my sketch of the photo printed on heavy cotton fabric.  I think I'm going to attach it to a mail bag (that I've yet to make).

I concentrated on all the darker values to make this loose sketch.  I think this would be cool to free motion embroider on a white or unbleached cloth.

It is cold here today but daylight is stretching out longer and longer by the day and that is encouraging.  In a few hours I'll brave it to go gather my supplies for the workshop that begins tomorrow with Jane Dunnewold on Screen Printing at Univ. of Louisville.  She is speaking tonight at 6pm at the Chao Auditorium at the Ekstrom Library on campus.  I have every intent of going to hear her speak but since will actually make the judgement call once I'm out and about.  

I need to go see a man about a horse...

My mother says this when she is asked about her destination when she heads out and it is her way of kindly saying "none of your business".  Carter has picked this up from her and says it sometimes when he is getting his coat on to go out.  Carter is 2; my mother is 83.  

I'm a babysitting Nana...yes I am.  Its me and Carter these days.  Mo is looking for another child care center and in between time I'm filling in.  He is spending the night with us and Mo is here after classes each evening.  He has tons of toys here and I'm once again evaluating children's programming.  I find myself singing without reason "there is an animal in trouble..." and I think the Backyardigans Rock!

In the photo you can see one of my  "highly prized" cups that I showed as a sketch in the post below.  The set up above is my sequestered winter art spot on the kitchen table.  When I need to clear the table, I turn around in my chair and pile it in the corner behind me...

The winter has warmed up in the last few days but I think ice and snow are being predicted again this weekend.  I'm sketching and collaging away here.  Strathmore selected the collage, Finding Peace, (post below) to feature in their eNewsletter, blog, and FB page.  Only 4 were selected so I'm pretty happy about that.  Here is the one I started this morning...

It is keeping me half way sane to participate in the Sketchbook Challenge and the Visual Journal Workshop.  I find the collaging much more intuitive and didactic in process than sketching.  I mentioned this on Liz Plummer's blog and she shared that her reaction was opposite.  Anyone else care to weigh in on this?  I'm curious to know.   I'm also going to participate in this year's One World One Heart Event for Bloggers.  I've never participated before but have always enjoyed the blog h0pping in previous years...if you're curious, click on the logo in my sidebar under "Dig This".

Collage, a Retake; Sketch, a Debut

This is for the Strathmore Workshop by Pam Carriker.  After I did this one I thought it would be enhanced with stitching.  I'm working both sides of the paper in this journal.  If I decide to explore it with stitch embellishment, I'll make a copy and collage it down onto water colour paper and go for it.  You can see the way it looked prior to this stage by clicking here.

and from the other sketch book, here is another highly prized coffee cup...the ones up 'til this point were my tea cups.  

 

Mixed Media Collages

What I learned today:  the cheapo gesso i picked up almost 2 years ago is a pain to spread...I really need a palette knife with this.  I'm not going to use the Golden (I think that is the other brand I have) which was easier to spread for this stuff---

The other thing I learned is that I'm not that swayed to use charcoal for direct application or for details.  the sharpie, the pitt pens, and just a plain old sketch pencil worked better for me.

I'm going to contribute the inability to get the oil pastels to blend better to the low grade (cheapo) brand.  I used my fingers and also a blending stump.

 

The other thing I'm questioning is if I'm more drawn to the photographic image over the cartoon image.  I do believe I am.  

Even though it is not cloth and thread...I can loose myself in the processes of doing these mixed media collages.

Okay, okay, I'm as green

as guacamole, but since the impromptu reception I just held with family held hostage, in attendance just fizzled out, I'm counting on you, dear readers, cyber ole friends of mine to give me accolades share in my joy of Highly Prized Cup #3 that I just finished.   This makes me just slap happy...why, because in my experience all of the 7 days, I'm beginning to believe there is something to this "drawing everyday" practice.

Highly Prized Cups

Patience.  Is this the number #1 skill required for learning to draw?

I filled in the first drawing with colour and am still sketching cup #2 which was a gift from my BFF (I read the other day that this was voted in the top 10 phrases that needed to retire but since I've never used it I wanted to get in on it before it was gone to see how it felt...I'm underwhelmed by BFF).  

Back to the cup.  Kelly, who I love and adore, made this cup.  She is a creative but I'll always think of her as a potter since that is what she was doing and teaching when we meet 10 years ago.  I love drinking tea from this cup.  She dug the clay up herself!  It was a bit challenging to draw.  At the time I was really tired and the kitchen table was a mess and it was late and and and...but here it is.

 

Here is the first one with colour added:

 

Learning Curves, Week 4

Learning Curves is getting back on track after Thanksgiving week.  I made it to class (class is how I'm referring to each book I'm working with in the Learning Curves) but not on the days designated.  Like today (Thursday, 12/02/10, the day of this writing) I'm working with all 3 books on digital art.  I have continued to reference Visual Language (Benn & Morgan) in creating lines and shapes.  The 2 images above are small cloth samples.  On the top one I cut out random shapes from book-cover plastic (similar to contact paper) and stuck it on the fabric to use as a resist and then dye painted over it. The image directly above is with the plastic removed and then dye painted in the white areas.  The cloth sample has been washed out and dried here.

The Image Transfer Class (McElroy) didn't go this week.  I did order the Transfer Artist Paper and its on its way and succumbed to a Lutradur purchase.  I have 3 weights of it and the extra light offers the highest appeal...I'm thinking it would pair well with silk organza in a statement on transparency or where transparency could impact the overall visual.

********

Jane Dunnewold will be here the end of January and will have a show at the Hite Gallery on University of Louisville's campus and is preparing new work for the show.  Here, on Jane's blog, you can see how she has written and defined the parameters for her forthcoming works. Here is Jane's schedule for her Louisville agenda. 

When I'm stuck on a piece, I pick up a journal and begin to ask questions and provide answers while actually sitting in front of the quilt/fabric.  When I first started doing this I was going to dedicate a journal by year, then by the series, then by location...but what I really do is just pick up whatever journal is close by, thus loosing continuity in writing about specific pieces and making it difficult to have the writing become reference material because my notes are spread throughout journals.  The one dedicated journal I have is a technique journal that I glue I glue samples into rather than how the designing of a quilt and the message of the quilt are related and what I did to get there. 

 I washed out the last of the fabrics I've been layering (images directly above).   Dunnewold limits the variables in order to self-impose focus and I'm going to join her in this journey for the next couple of weeks as I return to Crowbonics.  My next post will go into details.

 

Journal Pages...

As I typed this Martha Stewart demo'ed how to make felted soaps.

One of my favorite tunes that Cheryl Lynne Skinner use to sing when she performed locally had a line that said "i'm sitting in the house with everything on my mind, looking at the clock and can't even, can't even, tell the time". 

dig the gold by Liquitex!  

Amazingly, I'm calm and cool and relaxed even though I've not left my domain since coming home from the hospital.  I'm even letting the fingernails grow...(a little idiosyncracy about me, I clip them short because I do not like the whites of my nails to show and have never been a fan of long nails even when I had regular manicures done at salons...nail techs found me odd that way.  But this obsession with clipping them short as I do started about 3 years ago when I was going through some BS with my daugther and I just never stopped.  I also found short nails to be better for handling paints and dyes so it just made sense to continue.)

 beginning a new "design writing"

If I'm honest with myself, it will be March before I return to either The Basement Workshop or The Beauty of Holyness Studio.  The comments in the previous post boosted my spirits.  The idea to start "design writing" came intuitively without any preconceived ideas of where the lines and values would go.  I just kept changing up pens and writing anything from what I heard on tv, what the doctor said to me, something I recalled, or a slew of emotions.  The idea Mai-Britt offered to make copies and experiment with colouring them was like "a duh, why didn't I think of that" moment.  Thanks Mai-Britt for the idea.  I haven't been in Photoshop in so long that I didn't feel up to taking in sharp turns in my brain by trying to recall how to do layers, but when I do feel up to I think I'll try working them with colour that way. 

  

i got carried away

Deborah's idea to start a study made me go "wow! i'm going to do an entire journal, page after page design writing"  I dig this!  Then Acey suggested seeing them stitched and I thought "ummm, did she mean stitched paper quilts...thats cool, I've never done one...or did she mean print them on fabric, ummmm saw a quick layout in my head...then I thought a paper and cloth quilt!"  I dig this also.  The art of holiness and the holiness of art is that it is regenerative on soooo many levels, one being that it draws community, and out of community, one finds their tribe.  So thank you to all who commented, one love!

doodling faces to mimick Ethiopia artists.

The answer to the question, "what are you writing these days?"

The paper is a heavy textured cotton like paper that I just love to close my eyes over rub. The writing is done using Faber-Castell Artist pens that glide beautifully over the dimpled paper.  The journal size is about 14x11 inches. The writing I started while in the hospital with pneumonia in both lungs.  I have at least 2 weeks to be house-bound, at which, gives me time to finish it.  I thought about adding colour but I love the stark contrast of the black and white.
 

Kicking off the year!

Well la ti da, looka here, looka here...this cold fluffy stuff that is so pretty to look at but whose reality is a bit harsh finally found us...the frigid temps wasn't enough, it had to go and snow! Its only a few inches but, still, ya know how I feel about the season that shall not be named. 

But I was not daunted! No, beloved, I managed to keep myself distracted and warm and worked my plan in spite of it all! 

FME Exercises (Shinn) 

VL (Dunnewold, Benn, Morgan)

 
MM (Fritz)  

What I've committed to doing this time around with my outlined curriculum (see previous post) is to stick with the exercises, ride them out so to speak, go a little further with them, versus rushing through them in order to get to the "fun" part.  For example, take the expanded shape exercises (middle image above). Instead of doing 10-20 of them and then moving to the next exercise, I'm going to overlap the exercises and continue to do the previous exercises while moving to the next one.  This will add some "depth" to what I do instead of moving through fast.  Afterall, the purchase of books is a serious investment and it doesn't make sense to keep adding to my shelves without really getting the benefit from them.  I'm even abandoning my approach to keep my books in pristine condition.  Why? For What?  No, this time I'm highlighting, making notes in the margins...really pushing myself to engage with the efforts that each author has made. 

Other happenings this week was finding 4 painted whole cloths that was my first intended series.  I didn't even remember doing them until I saw them and one of them just might become the background for the Audubon piece.  How sweet it is to look at something with new eyes, eh!? 

And another fresh discovery for this week is observing very little dye wash-out with acid dyes on silk which leads me to the conclusion that most of the dye adhers to the cloth.  Here are the scarves waiting for a 2nd layer of something...I'm thinking of some hand writing, any ideas for me?

Looking at these colours, I must have Spring on my mind :)

 Peace,