There is a poem with a line...

"I'm not waving but drowning...." by Steve Smith.  (title is for dramatic re-entry to blogging)

My art making focus is being interrupted by bronchitis, yet again.  I haven't even had the physical energy to take up another creative diversion this time which accounts for me not having much to yak about here.   You may know how much I dislike winter.  I've not been well through most of this season.  It was just at the end of January that I had "a bout" (throwback term there).    And sometime in late Dec./early Jan. my pulmonologist called in antibiotic and I was hospitalized in mid-December w/ pnuemonia.   Its been a very sequestered winter indeed!  My log book of ideas for quilts is jammed and I just wish I could have a long, I mean really long time frame to focus  not on ideas but making the ideas manifest.  

The unspoken threads that weave through the above are realizations that I'll capsulize: one, death is not something one "gets over"...instead it sifts through you sometime slowly and gently, other times with more weigh.  two, now that my mother is a widow, her need for support in many things is growing.  three, it is very difficult to watch young adult children get "seasoned" into adulthood.  (Deb, I really think this is what your neighbor, (was her name Mrs. Sweatt?) meant when she would say "watch a monkey bump his head").  A friend said our generation is the panini generation; slap it on, turn up the heat and we get it from both sides at the same time.  If you been there or are here now, then you know what is going unsaid; and it is possible that the frequencies of illness have not been solely due to winter (ya think?) 

On the good days I've managed to get my studio ready to continue on Crowbonics (languishing) but actual work has been going back in to re-do what I wanted to be finished pieces but in my heart knew better.  This isn't a diversion as my goal is to have 10-15 small pieces to hang in a coffee shop where I'm on schedule this Fall, so I'm calling this my coffee house period (insert low snickering chuckle).  I think I selected October.  Here are some recent desk top snaps:

both still pieces still advancing toward completion

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Annnndddddddddd, my really great news is I have a studio mate!  I started out in '09 with a mate, a sista-friend of over 30 years.  She mostly made her items at home and used the space for display, but since last summer when she moved out of state, I've been flying solo.  I had one serious contender but our combined needs didn't fit the space.  I looked at sharing larger space with 3-4 other artists there but then decided against it, looked at cheaper spaces there but the water source is too convenient and I have 2 entry doors which is a rarity for the price I pay, (I think 2 doors is a psychological comfort for people strolling through).  I gave up on the idea of moving or finding a art mate and then bam!  My new mate is Aimee.  She does daily paintings that are small enough to do on a table and wants to return to doing them now that she is close to graduating with a degree in history.  I felt very comfortable with her and she endeared herself when I didn't have to explain "Chitlin' Circuit".  Grant it, she didn't fall over herself telling me how brilliant a name it was,  but none of us are perfect, eh?  (a light snarky on my part)

Seems like there was more news I wanted to share....ummmmm, oh, the next Artist Interview is coming around the first week in April.

And now to close with an indulgence of being a Nana :) Here is the recent birthday girl!

 

Lisa Austin, Artist Interview

Lisa in her studio

Some weeks ago I spent a refreshing 3 hours in the Mixed Media Studio of Lisa Austin.  Artists who embrace Mixed Media with the pedal to the metal, full throttle down, give me wide-eyed fascination.   You see, they have serious collections of STUFF.  Unlike us who casually put together a mixed media piece simply because we can't bear to throw away pieces of thread, or buttons, or even the Dorrita chip bag...noooo, they collect serious STUFF! 

Lisa's space did not disappoint me...I hope you enjoy the interview!

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Davis: Describe how your childhood as it relates to your art making and creativity? What were your influences?  And how do you think growing up in Louisville influenced you as an artist?

Austin: I had no influences growing up. In fact, my parents and family never encouraged creativity and made fun of it. I was not influenced by Louisville at all. I began to be influenced when I moved to New Mexico in 1977 and worked on a Navajo reservation. 

 Davis:  What are some of your memories growing up with engaging art?  When did the interest become a engaging one?

Austin: Going to the Speed museum with my boyfriend every time we could when we were students. He really encouraged my love of visual art. I did get a minor in art history but never took a studio class until I was 34.

Wall of Inspiration  

Davis:  What led you to your choice of medium(s)?  And what/who were your influences in those mediums?  And how do they relate one to another, if so?  What other mediums have you attempted?  What does it mean to be a mixed media artist?

Austin: I was a studio potter for twenty years and got arthritis in my neck and had to retire from that. I hated having to do that because I was at the top of my game. However, I always knew I couldn’t keep dragging around hundred pound bags of clay much longer and always said I would quit when I was 60. It happened when I was 50. In the back of my mind I thought I would be doing fiber…it reminded me of clay, very tactile and flexible.  I love color but when I tried to work with fiber, I really missed the third dimensional quality, A LOT! I had been collecting cool stuff for years and as I looked around at the mixed media being done I knew I could do better, started and never looked back. I love Ed Klienholtz and Joseph Cornell. They make such contrasting things. Ed makes whole rooms and Joseph did small little boxes back in the ‘30s but they speak volumes. I had the great luck of seeing a Kleinholz retrospective at the Whitney several years ago when I was in NYC and I went nuts in there. I was talking to myself and running around. I did not look like a sophisticated New Yorker for sure. I saw the largest collection of Cornell in Chicago at the Art Institute a few years ago and was so disappointed. They looked dusty and beat-up.

Austin continued: What it means to be a mixed media artist is you get to be insulted a lot. I hear “I could do that” more than I care to and I think to myself “go ahead. You can’t.”  It is much, much harder than it looks. There are lots of people out there who get magazines and get “inspired by them” but I can tell who reads which ones because their work is often very derivative. But they think they can do it. The problem is: they frequently don’t do it well and there is not much very original about it. People who have junk lying around think they can too but usually it just looks like junk on a piece of plywood.

 Davis:  Describe your daily art making practices.  Include how your approach to design and what inspires you?

Austin:  I work almost every day on my art. At least five-six days a week. But I never stop thinking about it and being open to things that interest me. I keep a journal of words or concepts that intrigue me and I often turn to it for inspiration. I am always writing down new things in there. That probably comes from my background as a professional writer back in the day. I like to work with a theme since it makes sense to me somehow to work that way. My approach to design is really intuitive. I go with my gut and one of my greatest compliments was Jane Dunnewold asked me how long I had been a designer?  Then a graphic artist?  She was really surprised when I said neither. 

only a smidget of the cigar boxes stacked and ready to go

Davis:  Artistically speaking, what challenges do you face and how to you (plan to) overcome them?

Austin:  I probably work slower than I want but that is because I am very particular about what I do, what I use, how it is done, etc. So it usually takes me a good week to make one piece. Rarely, does it happen quickly and sometimes I will tear it apart and do it over because I am not happy with it. I must like what I do first before I hope anyone else does. I have no plans to overcome this. It just is how I am. I do not want to make mass quantities of something so it takes more time.

 Davis:   Do you work in series? Or does each piece stand alone?  Share your reasons for either approach.

Austin:  Usually I work with a theme instead of a series. However, each piece is one of a kind. It seems to focus me. I would be even slower if I didn’t do it this way!

the lazy susan method for button storage

Davis:   Share the milestones that mean the most to you as an artist.

Austin:  The first award I ever got many years ago as a potter. The first time I was in an international exhibit. The first time I was ever featured in a book.

Davis:  Whether it is the intent of an artist to become an entrepreneur, artists are thrown into the role the first time someone wants to purchase something they’ve created.  What advice can you share that speaks to the business side of art?

Austin:  I have several things I guess. One is: if you get “precious” over something and you can’t bear to sell it, keep it. If you are keeping too much then you are getting too precious about your work. Two: price what you think it is worth and then price what you want for your labor and consider what the market value is of your piece. Often they are far apart. If they are too far apart, you need to consider a more efficient way to work or else consider the fact you will have these for a long time until they sell. Three: if you are selling too fast, you are selling too cheap. Four: this IS a business, make no doubt about it and always remember that. Keep good records. Promote yourself. Be business-like and professional with your customers. Be on time and keep your word.

frames hanging from the ceiling

Davis:  What are your future goals and what should we be on the look out for you in 2011?

Austin:  I have a show coming up in March at Tim Faulkner’s Gallery in Louisville that is called “The Art of Seduction” and it is vintage female nudes. I hope to start a wall hanging of my trip to Africa in 2006 and spend the summer working on techniques I have learned from Jane Dunnewold. I have half-screened stuff laying around that I have never washed. That is terrible but my knee replacement, this summer’s horrible hot weather, and then work has gotten in the way of my experimenting more with fiber. I am DETERMINED to work on that next summer so hopefully you will see more fiber work coming from me

touch the Buddha wall for inspiration

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Lisa's show, The Art of Seduction is hanging at The Tim Faulkner Gallery and will run through March 30th.  The opening reception is this Thursday, March 10th from 6pm-10pm, 632 East Market, 502.381.1314.

Emma, by Lisa Austin

Lisa Austin's Website.

 

Stitching Woman Gonna Work It Out

I've been going back to older thought-it-was-completed work.  The crow was just a study though that Valerie White said I needed to complete when she saw it last year.  Can you see where I'm going with this?  I had no idea I would release the crow from the rectangle...it was impulsive on my part and while cutting I thought this was the seed from Penny Sisto that was beginning to bloom.  The crow doesn't work against this blue but I have a orangey-red silk that I think would work as a surrounding back ground.  I'm just not willing to sacrifice the silk if I don't have a clearer picture of what is happening with Mr. Crow and until I do it will sit yet again.  

 

This is 'Round Midnight.  I blogged about it over a year ago, but knew it needed something more.  I added the red circulars but failed to check value before stitcheing 3 of them.  It is the brighter section of the varigated thread that gives some contrast.  I think I have a solution but I'm going to stitch 2 more circulars before attempting to work it out.  

The motivation to go back into older pieces is coming from an upcoming display in the fall at a coffee shop and I want more coffee house friendly pieces...about 10-15.  

General State of Affairs

Forthcoming, 2 new interviews with artists coming this month.  Both are members of LAFTA.

As for my own art making, I'm somewhat back on track.  The warmer teaser we had weather wise a few weeks ago helped but I started feeling "puny" (as my great grandmother would say) over the weekend and  the firbro is flaring today.  I had good sense enough to bring home some hand stitching to keep my momentum up.  I'm hanging in there and I know when I'm feeling better I'll do more.  

Another series started calling me when by accident 3 pieces of cloth fell together while organizing to get Crowbonics going again.  I'll show it when I actually put it together.  It is a small piece so it should be up sometime this month also.

 rearranged my front window display.

Available Postcards.

Boogie Adventures

The soundtrack for this post is Boogie On Reggae Woman by Stevie Wonder.  

The weather began to turn over the weekend and I made use of Saturday and boogied over to the studio...spent a couple of hours with the help of Ade putting some semblance of order to the place and today I was there for 4 hours!  I ironed cloth, I stamped cloth, and I stitched cloth!  Yes I did!  In between, I spent time writing about the Crowbonics  Series and the beginnings of a poem fell out of my mouth too.  I read a few pages on the categories of design which helped me clarify what I'm trying to do with Crowbonics; and I also did a couple of exercises on texture from Finding Your Own Visual Language.  I am renewed!

Looking at this now, I'm thinking I'll restamp the light circles for more colour.  My first response was the uneven depth of colour kinda vibrated more.  This cloth is soooo unfinished so know this image is about process.

This piece was started over a year ago, maybe closer to 2 years.  It even has a binding on it.  But I knew it wasn't finished in spite of me.  The red thread marks were added last year and today I started the black thread mark.   

Today's boogie adventure was also spurred by seeing Etudes: A Daily Practice at the Hite Gallery yesterday with Mary J.  Jane Dunnewold created 48 wondrous Art Cloths for this exhibit.  It was my first time seeing her work in person and I could have stayed there all day and went back for more.  I only had 2 hours to go through the exhibit so I was rushed.  If it had not been for Lisa Austin telling me that yesterday was the last day for the exhibit to be up, I would not have had the 2 hours.

Can't hardly wait until the sun rises tomorrow!

LOL Funny

my first laugh of the day

time...travelling

Yesterday we (Ade and I) finally got my supplies back into the studio.  The weather improved over the weekend but its predicted to turn nasty on Tuesday.  The studio is a 240 sq. feet of MESS! but it felt soooo good just to be in the space even though I wasn't there even long enough to take my coat off.  On our way out I ran into a new tenant, Don, and chatted his head off.  I'm a fairly reserved laid back person but there is something that happens to me when I'm inside Mellwood...I have these spells where I become a chatty cathy...when it happens I'm totally comfortable, but it always makes me notice myself because it is out of the ordinary for me.  Anyway, Don is a painter, who has a corner studio with wonderful natural light.  Mellwood has started a blog.

I also made it to hear Jane Dunnewold give a juror talk (she juried the LAFTA exhibit there) at the Patio Gallery in the Jewish Community Center with Mo and Petra in tow.  It was a great crowd but not so much so that it prevented me from introducing myself.  I identified with her perspectives on art-making and I have my fingers crossed that this will not be Jane's last visit to Louisville.  She is teaching her second workshop today and tomorrow on lamination.  I didn't feel the need to take that since that is what I did last year at the Crow barn and that is what I've been doing since my return.  The exhibit itself is one of the most well selected exhibits I've ever seen and had me questioning my relation with colour...no answers...but it is a "bright" exhibit and I see my own work as "subdued".  But I'm always reaching for intensity in colour which I don't think I've achieved yet.

As for making a prediction to returning to doing what I do at either the basement or the studio, I'm refraining.  I'm going to try to be loose enough to go when the weather is less threatening to me health-wise and be satisfied with that 'til the season breaks.  I'm still collaging and sketching and working through some of the exercises from The Learning Curve Curriculum here at home.  Now that I'm home alone during the day I've been spending a lot of time travelling the 'net on all subjects that interest me, genealogy, furniture painting, junking, cooking, photography...whatever strikes my fancy for the day.   Here is a recommendation from my travels: The 1st Annual of Iranian Contemporary Art.   My personal favorites from this collection are the works by Hamed Behrozkar and Raheleh Filsoofi.

Peace,

"Art thrives in constraint but dies of liberty." - André Gide.

 

 

How to speak of disappointment...

Internal dialogs are sometimes complicated.  Logic and Emotion speaking to one another.  It starts out slow, one listening to the other and then each vies for the last word forgetting they are not the separate entities that they think of themselves to be.  Forgetting they reside in one dark body...making the host exasperated.  

Since Wednesday night, the above reference has been me.  I'll just say it started on Monday for the sake of sanity.  I ran a short errand and the weather was not as cold considering it was in the low 40s...but it didn't matter, I still came in with a scratchy throat but not feeling really "sick".  Took some aspirin, sucked on a lemon, drank hot tea, rested, and stayed in on Tuesday.  Wednesday, my soul/sole goal was to gather supplies for the 3-day Screenprinting Workshop w/ Jane Dunnewold and hopefully attend her lecture.  (the back drop since the previous weekend has been a stream of annoying, not too serious, issues with our cars.  Pair this with the cold and you can fill in the blanks).  While loading up the last of the supplies, I could feel the pain settling in my lungs along with fever.  I was still thinking, "when I get home, I'll relax, do breathing treatments and go to bed, I'll be go".  Peter kept asking me how I was feeling (yeah, I knew it was showing) which annoyed me, but it was pushing the thermostat up past 80 and still complaining that I was cold (everyone else was too warm) when he finally came out and asked (I was thinking it but not wanting to admit it), "do you think you should go tomorrow?"  It was the answering out loud that helped me make the wise choice and forfeit my spot in the workshop.  Say damn! 84000 times.

My beloved Doctor called in all the necessary scripts, Peter is riding in my car that use to be his car with all my workshop supplies, and I'm home...will probably be here until Spring.

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.