Artistic Sharing

I enjoyed and appreciated reading online this written presentation of artist Kesha Bruce discussing her work that was actually presented to a live audience in France...ummm, I wish she would have thought to tape it and upload it to You Tube...but then it would have been in French, so ex-nay that idea for the monolingual (but bi-dialectical) me.

I Survived Being Being An Artist in France!

What Happens to A Dream Deferred?

It is not often that I actually sit down and watch 3 hours of television but I was hyped about the new A Raisin in the Sun that aired last night.  The time seemed to go by quickly which translates into I was pretty enthralled.  The cinematography was fast moving which I think helped to conveyed the intensity and the life of this family, The Youngers, living in Chicago in 1959.  Two of my mother's siblings relocated to Chicago from the south looking for better wages and a better life...this embodied their story and still embodies many stories of anyone immigrating to the U.S. today.

Even though I've watched the original version several times the newer one still seemed fresh...its a great story and hopefully introduced a younger generation to this classic.  Ade, my youngest, made me smile when he recited the poem What Happens to A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes as part of the intro to the start of the movie.  Up until recently, this blog turned up most frequently in searches for Langston Hughes...some time ago I posted one of my favorite poems by him.  Now my blog comes up most frequently for searches on "skin carvings".  I know that is from my stamp carving but what in the world is up with the interest in skin carving???

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Do you ever come across art that just makes you shake your head and wave your hand in the air and renders you speechless?  And sometimes you have to avert your eyes because the vision is so breathtaking?  Music, poetry, literature will sometimes get ahold of me like this and when I look at the artwork of quilter Valerie White I hear music and see poetry and literature.  Yesterday I received word that she has finally established her place on the web.  Check out her quilts at www.valeriecwhite.com . My prediction is that Wynton Marsalis will come across her work and give her a call to illustrate the cover of his cd...I think it would be a perfect marriage of her art and his music.  Also, some talented children's writer should contact her to illustrate a story.  Her quilts would be a wonderful accompaniment to a children's story. I would predict Virginia Hamilton but she has passed already.  But this is a small portion of what happens to me when I view or hear something that gets me excited...immediately ideals start to flow about all the possibilities...sometimes I have to calm myself down. Valerie's work is exciting like that. 

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Woohoo, I love getting goodies through the mail among bills and coupons.  On Saturday I received a Pay It Forward gift from Nellie Durand . After I opened the envelope this is what I saw:

wrapped with such care that I waited a day to open it until I could get a photo.  Then when I unwrapped it and struggled over whether to save the paper for a future project, (this going green is not easy), this is what I saw:

A lovely beach scene which is refreshing here in cold Febuary.  Thank you Nellie!  It is very textured which I love running my hand across. 

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Speaking of dreams deferred...the last space I looked at for a possible studio was too small...it was a great location but wouldn't allow me to move all the stuff I want out of this apartment plus it squeezes my budget by 50 bucks. 

The space that seems perfect is in a warehouse. It has 4 really giant-size windows that run across the front and is in a very long room that would be great for viewing a design board.  The room is painted a stark bright white.  Other artists are there, but the location gives me pause...the other locations I've looked at have some measure of being open to foot traffic although they were too small or way over my price range.  This location is in a humungous warehouse that use to be a woolen mill that folded during the depression and since the 1930s through the 1960s was used as a warehouse by one of the tobacco manufacturers.  The area is a combination of residential and old commercial buildings that I wouldn't feel comfortable working in after dark.

In the same neighborhood a few weeks ago a warehouse burned down to the ground. It housed about a half-dozen, maybe more, artists' studios and living space.  A man and his dog lost their life.  This put a chill in my bones about this "almost perfect space" and I knew that if I go this route I'd definitely want insurance which would be another cost I hadn't really given too much weight to.  But this warehouse is about 100 years old or more and fixed up "just enough" and there is a glass artist who works in the undeveloped basement where there is a lot of "stuff" and dust.  I hope these second, third thoughts are a sign of wisdom trying to seep in and not fear and procrastination...   

Tasks at Hand

Here are the results of an exercise on line and shape from Dunnewold/Morgan/Benn's book on Visual Language.  What was reinforced for me in these examples was how to use line and shape to move the eye across the surface.  I'm still struggling with intentionally conveying emotion in lines and shapes...everything I start out with appears so cliche.  Maybe this is my metaphor for breaking down the wall until I come to a complete breakthrough.  I'm going to try again and I'll post to get some responses here.

I also played with the Shiva paintsticks and did a little sketching... I'll eventually add other layers to the cloth when I have more time and space to not worry about leaving a mess.

I really need a haircut...

How would you convey magical realism in a quilt?  Crystal does writing prompts on her blog and the last one she did was for conveying magical realism and now I'm pondering how to convey that in cloth...Kathy Nida, an artist in the art quilt ring came to mind and also Faith Ringgold's and Betye Saar's works. 

Fear, mystery, whimsy, etc. are descriptives that can be applied to magical realism...I would go for welcoming and mysterious...something that would make myself or viewers want to stay in the piece but yet not quite sure why or what they are seeing...today I'm going to work on creating some images and more ideas for this idea.

Living Black History

It was a weekend filled with the quilts and quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama!  In the picture is GB quilter Lucy Mingo, 2nd from the left, with (from L-R) my Aunt Shirley, my Mama, and Aunt Francis.  I managed to make a small exclusive gathering of a gallery talk with 3 of the quilters and I dragged Petra, a non-quilting friend, along to meet living history...Petra lives under a rock and only heard about the quilters about 2 weeks ago.  Then Saturday my mother, sister, 2 of my aunts, and myself attended the demonstration and exhibit.  The quilters worked on 2 quilts...one a blue, white, and black one with bold graphic lines and shapes and a blue jean quilt.  We were there for a couple of hours and just had a great time.  Sunday morning I rolled out of bed early (for me) and made it to church were the group of women I quilt with hosted the quilters for service and they were recognized before the congregation and we hosted the reception afterwards before they where whisked off back to the museum.  I felt like such a groupie and I guess I am because I was lifted by the interaction I had with them and hopefully in the next couple of years will make a trek to their homestead. For more photos, click  here.

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I wish I had a better photo of Ron accepting an award for one of his pieces in the show at Actor's Theatre but I just couldn't capture a good one...Ron is smack in the middle of the photo with his back turned.  He is building his resume and me thinks it is time that he builds a professional website.  I'm praying that his pieces sell before they come down from this particular exhibit.  He is also the featured artist at a coffee shop in Lexington, KY...I think the name of the place is Third Street Stuff Cafe.  He is also the featured artist at Southeast Kentucky Community College in Harlan County, Kentucky through the end of Feb.

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For the last month or so I've been looking at studio spaces...The 2 that excited me the most are out of my price range but I had hoped to share 1 of the spaces with a hand embroiderer but that didn't pan out.  I ran into another artist today who may possibly be interested and I waited to look at another space today that is doable alone but the person showing the space didn't show up at the time designated. All the looking and searching and hoping has opened an opportunity to set up a table to sell on the first Friday Trolley Hop free of charge.  If I do this it will be after April because my initial reaction felt like this would be a distraction.  Being the slow thinker that I am, I just need to ponder it some more. The remainder of this week is dedicated to resting.  Maybe I shouldn't say that too loud just in case drama and chaos are listening. :)

   

Well, what can I say?!

A pictorial metaphor for my life in Huntsville, Alabama.  Deb, my sister, fulfilled a dream last week by attending a heirloom sewing class with Martha Pullen.  Deb was in heaven and was at the top of her game from the excitment of sewing...she nearly finished a christening gown that is going to be for one of her granddaughters.  I managed to see a little of the city but mainly just kicked back and relaxed by reading, crocheting, or doing some of the design exercises from the Visual Language book by Dunnewold/Benn/Morgan while she was in class.

The month has been a busy one and I hope I can get through the rest of the month's plans.  Tuesday I returned home and now have a touch of Bronchitis which has made me re-evaluate some of my plans for this weekend.  I'm taking a super-duper antibiotic and steroids so I hope to make it to some of the activities related to the Gee's Bend quilters being here along with the exhibit at the Speed Museum.

   

January

I don't know why I was sweating it so much, other than thinking I had to be exact with the colours that Sharon had offered plus allowing this insurance crap to get the best of me.  I thought this was going to end up reinforcing my self-perception and declaration that I'm not a "joiner".  But after I loosened up quite a bit and asked the question "how can I make these colours reflect me?"  I first answered that it had to be abstract and my second answer was, it had to be linear in design.  I flipped through collections of images that I had and came across the decaying structure of a mud house with exposed wood and went from there.  Its a postcard and I like it.  Neocolour II crayons where applied first, followed by some wax pastels, followed by prismacolour pencils.

I respect her brilliance.

Toni Morrison, my most loved novelist, endorses Obama:

News Article

I've been looking online for the letter she wrote in its entirety, but no luck.

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Thanks to an online bud of a few years I now have the link to the letter in full which will go into my files! 

Ms. Morrison's letter to Barack Obaman

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For the last week and a half I've had the insurance provider blues with hound dogs on my heels (inflection of blues patois) and have been buried in anger, frustration, and good ole' pissivity.  Next week I'm leaving town for a week, going to Huntsville, Alabama.  (Any art/textile related sites I need to see while in Huntsville?)  I'll post my Take It Further Challenge tomorrow or Thursday.  I'll return in 2 weeks with entries. 

Magnify the Sweet

Cleaning out my files I came across these photos.  These are of a round robin I was in somewhere around the late 80s with a group of quilters who connected through an African American quilting forum on Prodigy. Sadly, my quilt top is now in a suitcase with some other unfinished projects from that time period.  I guess I get it honestly...I had an aunt who worked on one quilt for 30+ years...thinking now, I don't know that she finished it before she passed.  It stayed on the floor frame in the back room of her house. My top is at the bottom on the left side.

Yesterday I carved the last block I had. I prefer the Staedlter MasterCarve material over the Speedball brand.  It really does cut like butter.  I'm going to get some more next week and start on stamping these on fabric. 

Also, I received work that the KMAC artist-in-residency grant deadline has been pushed back and that the age limit is flexible!  And the day before that, sheerly by coinkydink, I looked at another potential studio space that has 2 options...the most affordable option is better than what I have now (I'm back on the kitchen table), but the space is too open in a shared environment and isn't large enough. Its only better because I wouldn't have to take down my machine and set up so frequently but being in an open space I'd worry about safety of my sewing machine.  The 2nd option really got my juices pumping, so much so that I didn't fall asleep until 3am thinking it over.  The space would be shared but only by a few. It is more enclosed and secure.  I'm negotiating the fee for the 2nd option PLUS the organization needs 2-3 more artists to commit as the 2nd option would be an expansion for them.  I came home and made a phone call to another artist and placed a post on a yahoo group for local artist, so hopefully I'll be out of limbo soon over this. Patience is a virtue...I'm working on it.

After four attempts at trying to find the Feb. issue of Quilter's World on the stands, I finally found it at a Kroger last night.  If you don't get this magazine, go get this issue just so you can read about quilter Valerie White.  It is a great article that captured Valerie's wit well!  Her quilts are so unique and different.  She works on whole cloth and even seeing them up close its hard to not believe they are not pieced or applicqued.  Congratulations Valerie! Your time is here, now, and forever!

I'm participating in the Take It Further Challenge sponsored by by Sharon at In A Minute Ago.  There are 2 options...working in a specific colour pallette or do a work about someone who inspires me or I look up to.  My first choice was to do some embroidery stitches in the colour pallette and then I realized the colours turn me off.  If I go with this option it will be in a 4"x6" size.  The 2nd option makes me feel like I need to do something pictorial in order for it to be undersood by a viewer and meet the challenge criteria.  Once again, my self-awareness declares that I'm about texture and colour in either abstract or geometric.  If I take the 2nd option I'm going with Ida B. Wells (maybe I'll think about someone contemporary) and I wondered what her favorite colour was and then I thought maybe something in black and red since she was a very strong in reporting on lynchings of her day. 

Speaking of abstraction, the Form Not Function show leans heavily this year with abstract and geometric designs.  Its amazing to me how each year the show is different from the previous ones in spite of the same group curating this show.  Thats speaks highly to their uniqueness.  The quilt that took my breath away was by Jae McDonald entitled Red Center...it can be seen at the link above.  It is not nearly as breath-taking on the screen as it is in person.

Not one guess on what I walked out with from the yarn store...well, yes, of course yarn...but nine skeins, a book, a crochet needle and a plan...I'm making a felted bag! I haven't crocheted since I was a teen-ager except for a seasonal winter stint in the 80's when I went crazy making baskets out of strips of fabric.  Now remind you, when I entered the store it was for the sole purpose of filling time between appointments!  It was definitely an impulse buy which I'm not prone to anymore at all and have recently become a convert to the Stop Shopping Movement.  If you get the chance to see the documentary What Would Jesus Buy?, take the opportunity.  (Yeah, yeah, I've been informed that it all seems a little extreme and over the top but isn't that the way all movements start that bring about moderate changes even? And after all, IT IS performance meets activism). The docu follows around a performance-based activist group from New York to California in the weeks leading up to Christmas in 2006.  You may have seen Billy Talen, the head-liner being interviewed as his character "Rev. Billy" on tv.  I first saw him on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and googled him thereafter.  I saw the documentary in the one week in showed here with Petra and Mo, my daughter, who is on the cusp of being a shop-o-holic and often buys impulsively.  I took her along because I'm trying to save her from the Shopocalyspe. 

In the last few days I was reminded of why I started this blog...life is bittersweet...I wanted to magnify the sweet.

   

Carving and Bloggers Who Make My Day :)

I've been carving almost daily since I started this last week...I will have to replenish my stash of carving supplies soon.  Commentor, Sacredartist, sent me this link, McClain's Printmaking Supplies.  Printmaking, I glimpse, has it's own culture, similiar to Quilting.  The danger for me is I do have a fairly addictive personality that has been tempered by my growing will and discipline with age.  Ah, but there are moments when I succumb, out of the blue, for no rhyme or reason, just as I did one day last week when I wandered into a yarn store solely to fill time while I was between errands and guess what?!  No, guess...I'll segue-way back to my carving while you guess.

These are my attempts at representational, or somewhat rep...the stamp on the left was inspired by an older sketch I did of the artist Willie Cole; the one on the right was inspired by a photo of my cousin, Sterling. (Rita, if you stop by and read this, leave a comment cuz!)  I'm going to try another one of my cousin.  I attempted to take the photo and filter it through Photoshop first as a guide to carving the image...somewhere along the line I became confused about whether I was carving the dark or light areas and then thought it would make an interesting image to mix it up...but would that confuse the gaze?  I'm not sure.

Deborah sent me the link to Elin's blog,  Will Love Logic, where she is documenting a stamp a day for 2008!  Very fantastic!  I'm going to attempt a couple at least a week up until April at which time I'll have a month of studio time at my favorite place on earth.  (Oh, for anyone who orders pfd fabric by the 100 yards, just how big, as far as dimensions go, is it?  I'm worried about storage space if I order that much, but I want to get the cheapest rate per yardage that I can find also.)  100 yards should last me a very very long time since I'm a slow worker.

MAKE MY DAY AWARDS...

Gerrie nominated me for her Make My Day Awards:

Here’s what the guidelines for this award say: Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about Blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on.

1. Cherryl



2. Juanita



3. Kyra



4. Gerie and Acey



5. Olga



6. Sonji



7. Jude



8. Deborah



9. Kristin



10. Judy and Judy

This could have went on and on...but its noon and I've scheduled my lunch and a lesson in Photoshop.

This is only the beginning.

Later today I'm going to attempt to carve representational images.

Up-swinging

Life is good...life is process...and in spite of everything I'm joyful.  The energy I'm riding on today was generated from breakfast and gallery hopping yesterday with Juanita and Valerie.  After I left them my mind and emotions begin racing around over what I was going to work on when I came home.  This or that, or how about....sooo I had to slow myself down and ease back into my daily life by stopping by the art supply shop...but lo and behold, Juanita had the same idea and we bumped into one another there...it felt a little surreal since I claim Juanita as my quilt guru.  I just knew I had to go home and get my hands "doing".  Picked up some erasers and carving blocks and a sketch pad and black construction paper at the shop and driving home I was feeling pretty confident.  So I walked through the door, handled the mail, checked email, spoke to Mo on the phone, looked up info on glassmaker Stephen Powell and checked the website for Kentucky Musuem of Art + Craft and discovered they are offering a program for artists to be awarded five months of studio space with the approaching deadling of January 15.  I had a small art spasm...but it was just as quickly deflated as there is an age limit which I'm over by 5 years.  I've called KMAC twice to inquire but had to leave messages both times...still, with the delay in actually talking to a person to see how hard and fast the age limit will apply, I'm riding high on the possibilities that lay ahead.  KMAC is located in the heart of downtown and I can just see myself even with my physical limitations working out of a studio that has public access for 20 hours a week.  I don't know if I'm being overly-optimistic (can there really be such a thing as being overly-optimistic? I mean, really?) or sentimental but what harm can there be in giving it a chance. I've long given up on waiting, waiting, waiting for everything to be just right before one takes action...the lights are never green or red all at the same time.

Back to "doing" art...yesterday, I didn't...never got arountuit.  When all was said and done I crashed and have slept most of the day today...but, oh, yeah! when I finally did get out of bed (for good) I was still pumped, yet, more focused.  This is what I'm doing...carving rubber stamps for later use on cloth.  Digging the fluidity of the lines and curves  contained within the block shape in the ones I've carved so far.   

I'm going to continue to wheeze (insert pulmonary humour) right along, so I'll catch you on the down swing or the next elevation of life ;) Peace...