Crossing Boundaries

Busy times! Keeping me off the streets. Keeping me out of trouble. I had to edit my enthusiasm a lot, and still I found thirty-two photos of artwork to show you. Just artwork; no cute kitties or handsome husband enjoying front porch wine while the sun sets. (Weather has been a bit problematic for that, but soon, I implore, soon!)
No, the late arrival of spring has mostly kept me inside and focused. As has my loyalty to my class assignments, and the momentum that "The Year of the Giraffe" is bringing. I often stop in the afternoons for a bit of unbridled motion with my Zumba DVDs, and lust after the bods I will never again own, but generally I am grateful for my fitness and good health, and truly thankful for my daily dose of art.
Although I haven't had the time to do as much as I'd hoped so far, I did toy some more with the Sketch Club program for my iPad during the mixed media giraffe month of February, producing a digitally altered image of two of my conte crayon sketches from January/draw. I know I will eventually love having this medium in my arsenal, but right now I am back to mostly old school.

On March 1, Strathmore Artist Papers started their series of online month long workshops with something really new to me and appealing, lessons with Robert Joyner on "Abstract Fine Art Painting". Unfortunately, after the first week, and the purchase of a beautiful wood easel, I ran out of time and energy to keep up. I WILL be going back to these lessons soon. (Remind me I said this. I should say that the easel, taking up good space and sitting by my elbow as I type, keeps reminding me.) 

Week 1: Getting to know the materials

About the same time, my creative arts ringleader, Carla Sonheim, foolishly waved at me the chance to repeat some of her classes I had taken previously (and loved) for FREE! It felt like an opportunity that could not be missed because I was a bit needy for concrete direction, even though I like to go my own way within the guidelines. Good chance to start to weave my arts into one big theme: "giraffe world." From now on I was going to find a way to connect things, to cross boundaries and find my themes, my symbols, my inspiration. Trying to move from technical learning to ART. It's a process, but I'm feeling progress. First off, "Faces 101".

I made eight of these and, like a mother, I love every one.

Meanwhile, month three in Year of the Giraffe was all about sewing. For many classmates, this was a completely new challenge. For me the challenge was letting go of perfection, trying to design as I went and accept what happened. I still managed to make a character who is neat and precise and sturdy, but she is a character and I was very pleased with the results. (Maybe someday I will learn to make a "rag" doll, but  it so goes against the grain for me to sew sloppy when I've had a lifetime of learning perfection.)

We received suggestions, but mainly we designed our own patterns.

I had to learn how to make a mostly flat figure 3D by adding a gusset.

Meet my darling Stasha!

She has nose-trals and a tongue and she's somewhat flat so she only has one ossicone.

Here she poses in front of a garden painted armoire.

The second of the repeat classes was "Flower Crazy." Because Carla has the class research flower-like shapes both in nature and man-made objects to use for inspiration, I figured there was nothing more perfect than giraffe parts to fit the bill.

Spots, ossicones, and ears...

eyes and tails (in a field of bubbles).

Working on some gesso-first textural pieces inspired by my journal sketches of parts.

A swirl of leaves in the shape of giraffe eyes with long lashes.

Less obvious influence, but still more stylized than last year's .

In week three we did our painting on birch plywood and I took a break from animal parts to look for traditional floral inspiration. This change in style coincided with the beginning of the "What If? Diaries" on Jude Hill's private blog and class, where we are contemplating "white" as a design and materials source. The progression of paintings I did that week took me to a less colorful finish as I thought about the mysterious nature of white and led to a painting chosen for Flickr Explore that I am getting prepared to add to a white "What If?" art cloth.

Inspired by an antique tin ceiling tile.

The riot of watercolor is hidden under the gesso texture.

The final painting is a bit more neutral, dark and moody than most of my work, but it feels clean and exciting to me.

In week four, collage served as the basis for finding our flowers, and yet I was able to see a giraffe in the first one and some eyelash and ossicone inspired plant shapes in the second.

In April, our giraffe art has turned to writing, actually storytelling, in the form of   four one week assignments that for now are including drawings. Week 1: "Giraffe Invention" is detailed in two journal pages, then illustrated below. the crossover this time is a big one. I have just joined an eight week class with Jane Davenport and Teesha Moore called "Mermaid Circus". The story below has me taking my Stasha and some beloved hippos (a lifelong muse) to join the circus. And even though the class begins with the premise of mermaids, there will be giraffes and there will be hippos in my art!

My wonderful group of textile design companions, Designing Women, took on the project last meeting to work from a favorite print fabric and "ghost" the design outward in paint and stitch. Since I wasn't totally into this concept but wanted to work on something similar that could be applied to the White concept class, I chose to explore a personal symbol of sunrise/sunset in small pieces of hand painted (with procion dye) charmeuse, and create a series of three "poems". I am excited beyond all expectation with how they are coming along, ghosting the lines from the inspiration pieces, and yet moving on to something much more complete and yet abstract. They are speaking to me and yet they are not literal, and this is something I have been trying hard to learn. I believe it is that crossing over of boundaries. Pulling ideas from everywhere that help me find what I want to say and how to say it.

The backround fabric is from a silk broadcloth shirt, the assorted other pieces and bits from a session with rust and one with flour paste resist.

In this piece and the next I am using some procion dye drawn linework from a challenge project with Melly Testa.

And finally, the "Mermaid Circus" has begun. We have had a spellbinding first week of art and friendship and stirring the pot to mix and match and look for our own inspiration. You know what mine will be, but neither of us knows where the alchemy will take it. Come back soon to see my first painted books as they progress. I promise there will be magic!

Practice Makes Perfect

There is so much to tell about my recent travels out West, but first I must catch you up on my summer of art.

I have been doing some sort of visual creative expression all my life. If you have read my blog in the past, you know something of my history of the pursuit of art vs craft. Every day there is a project (or three, or ten) that I wake up to and look forward to working on. And just as surely as I continue to "work" every day, I constantly hear from whose who do not, how talented I am, and how easy it is for me to achieve success. I use to just thank them for the complement and move on, but lately I feel the need to clarify the reality. No, it's not all innate talent, it's about passion to try and try again. And it is also about work and practice. Something over fifty years of daily practice surely will improve and refine many skills, and passion for the process as well as the results will show in the final product.

I have been a quilter for twenty years and with every quilted project I did, I included new techniques and skills. In quilting as in every other visual art, I make the project my own. This means that every time I start something, I must use my own ingenuity to figure out technical aspects, and how to best alter them to fit the needs of my vision. Above all, I strive to improve my own artistry and express something important to myself.

This first image is from a photo of my husband that appeared in one of my first blog entries last year. I am learning to interpret a photo in fabric without being entirely literal about color and detail. I show here phase one, where the basic color values in the self-imposed rule of only four gradations is maintained. Should I decide to add more details, they will be added in free-motion machine stitching. Right now I am contemplating the needs.

I am in a collaboration with the "subject" who would like to see this made into a panel of three different colorways, each building in intensity, and finished without a binding, but with something "more modern". My husband is an engineer, not an artist in practice, but he is every bit as creative, because he sees, and feels passionately about his vision.

This next photo shows how I was kidnapped by a yarn shop in Ashland, OR, a couple weeks ago. I had vowed that I wasn't going to knit this fall, but after being dragged in the door kicking and screaming and made to sit on the floor sorting out the endless choices of color in this Koigu yarn, I had to buy the pattern too, and of course, a new size needle missing from my vast collection. Even though I have been knitting since childhood, I have never done the Linen Stitch. I think the approximately 28,000 stitches in the completed scarf will give me enough practice to master it.

Here is the completed, but yet to be mounted, bordered and framed first piece from my Sumptuous Surface Embroidery class last month. I was sad not to have the time to participate as fully during the class as I would have liked, but learned so many new stitches and have acquired so many new resources to go forward, that I am glad I signed up when I did. The best part of the class was getting to design the piece from the ground up, and use a visual journal as a design tool for the first time. It now makes sense to me how to use one.

When I last left you at "Art Camp," with Carla Sonheim, I had completed week one of "Imaginary Creatures." Week two was even more exciting as we had a super intense practice at drawing faces. "Faces 101, " was literally drawing at least 101 faces in five days. Practice Makes Perfect! (Or at least it begins to free you and take away the fear of what you can't do.) I loved drawing faces so much I can't wait to get back to it. Each day we would warm up with expressive lines and then move on to two complete and different techniques and mediums.

One liners are "ten second" sketches you do by not lifting your pen from the page. They capture the essence of your subject.

Cheater blinds are blind contour drawings done with just a little bit of looking. We used two sizes of felt tipped pens, and no erasing. These are from pictures of high school teachers in my yearbook.

These "eraser faces" are drawn with the finger and a kneaded eraser using pastel powder: lay down the colors with your fingertip, then erase in the highlighted potions of the face. Repeat as necessary. Just a couple minutes for each.

Ink drawing done with the dropper from the bottle, and blotted with toilet paper. Wonderfully fun.

Extra Credit: Tea box drawing. We used gessoed tea box or other packaging as a base, and drew in markers. My first experience with Copic markers (the grey shades). I'm collecting them now.

The final week of art camp with Carla was the "Junk Mail Artist Book". This was an opportunity to create the paper media for a storybook from gessoed and watercolor painted junk mail, and then draw a storybook of about five two-page spreads with a front and back cover. All in one five day period!!

While creating the physical book we practiced the technique of creating interactive drawings: drawings that connect from one page to another.

My tied together book with offset pages  waiting for the story.

A look at all the page spreads before they had the story added. Some of the papers were bubble wrap liners of envelopes. Some had plastic windows. Some printed ads. All sorts of colors and textures showing through the layers of water colored gesso.

The completed front cover.

The completed back cover. I hope you will take a look at the rest of the book and the rest of the faces by checking out my photostream on flikr.

And so it was an intense and productive month. Practice may not make perfect, but it will lead to self-discovery and wonder.
The things we can do when we just: Do It!

In the Summertime When the Weather is High...

The creative life presents such a quandary. To be creative you have two paths to follow. Practicing your craft is the most obvious: drawing and painting, photography, stitching, time spent designing and recording the parts of your world into interesting new manifestations of your perceptions and feelings. And yet there is an essential and primary path to being an artist: knowing how to be alive in the world. Being both an observer and a participant in the order of things is where you find the meat of your creative vision. There are many ways and places to do that interfacing, but for myself, the recharge comes best from direct connection. And in the summertime that means just go outside and plug in to life.

Looking at life through the canopy of a Japanese maple.
 What was planted as a spindly leftover that lost one-third of it's bulk the first year is now a beacon for my house from down the street.

Life and inspiration are everywhere right now. Sunlight and shadow, soothing breeze and violent thunderstorm. The constant movement of birds and insects across my path. The drone of mowers. An endless stream of golfers in carts and golfers addressing their shortcomings. 

The cool spring was perfect for abundant long-flowering of my azalea.
The garden hippo approved.

Ah, but the birds. They have been my constant companions lately. The drama of the territory and the building of homes. The whole birthing cycle with me as enemy of the peace (sometimes the squirrel gets chased from her new nest). Hey everyone, it's a big tree and plenty of space for all. But in reality, always the sad realization that some will be found lifeless in the grass and others too slow in the streets, and the hawks ever circling and watching. On my walks across the end of the lake, the swallows dive and swoop around my feet as if I weren't there, but the lone great blue heron will be threatened and take off across the water. I haven't seen the trio of swans yet, but they are probably nesting in a cove. At sunset, the entire population of seagulls takes to the sky and circles the big lake, always moving counterclockwise. I don't know why.

One of the backyard nursery occupants. She shared the gazebo with me on a couple occasions (until Mom and Dad wised her up about the ways of humans.)

The last of four to leave the nest. Never leave home during nest building, or robins will take all your favorite spots!

And my garden. Built on twenty summers of love and careful attention, and it's own will to return, expand or contract, give and receive. It has grown mature and lush, and I am continuously startled to know it is mine. And yet it is not, for when I move on in retirement, it cannot come with me, and those who come to stay in my place may abandon or remove it. I cherish it while I can, and try not to feel sad to move on.

Early growth in the formal herb garden: Echanacea and Sweet Woodruff,  plus an interesting planter that will hold mint.

My favorite clematis produces a major cascade of these lavender colored blooms.

Cranberry iris: a week or so of glory, and gone.

Oh yes, summer can fill you up before you ever gather friends to the grill, or head to the beach. So art has slowed down for me on this first summer of my declared art life, and yet I am happy and at peace. More often than not, I am pulling out the camera instead of the sketchbook. I need to record the constant changes of color and light and growth, and I need it to be quick, and not a major project.  In fact, I am beginning a two-week class to improve my skills a notch. Photo Silly is being offered online with Steve Sonheim (and a great assist by Carla). I am excited for the assistance and the feedback of the forum. I am learning to love this ongoing connection to other seekers of the creative life.

This practice assignment involved looking at light sources to begin to understand their effect on the subject. Then we ate the meal and shot the changes. What would life be without peanut butter and jam?

Because flowers are here for the picking, it was a good time to try eco-dyeing this past weekend. I'm not sure I have the big passion for it, since I started studying silkscreen printing last year and expect to return to that after the photo class is over. I like intentional mark making and graphic, bold lines which silk screen can easily reproduce. But it was fun to try after Jude showed us some delightful purple from petunias. I gave it a go after realizing everything was at hand, including a copper mixing bowl I had the foresight not to give away cheaply at my yard sale last week, some gorgeous dark eggplant petunias and grape purple pansies, a bit of habotai silk leftover from my recent shibori class, and some cotton twine. The resulting cocoon sat in some water in the copper bowl for a day and produced a seemingly tight connection between fabric and purple (with a tinge of green and some green cotton string.)

Copper Magic

The cigar is a roll up of habotai silk and flowers. The green comes from the copper bowl.

About twenty hours of contact between flower and silk. Rinsed and ironed.

Because I'd rather stare out the window and daydream, I have resumed a pleasant UFO from the late '90's to complete. It needs much rambling stitch for a ribbon effect, and them some simple free motion quilting. The blank powder room wall has been waiting two years to receive this quilt, and I will soon enjoy looking at the Finished Object every day.

"Almost" as good as being in the garden. (Not really.)

Machine embroidered ribbon detail.

Another set of curves.

I am also continuing to practice telling stories in stitch by embroidering a woven piece I started just prior to becoming a member of Jude Hill's cadre of slow cloth storytellers last winter. I loved it mightily before the stitching began and it is very difficult for me to use it as an experimental learning place, but how else can I make art or learn to be better, except to do that? I recently shared the story with my SEW forum buddies. It involves years of self doubt stemming from childhood. You see, as a kid, all I wanted to do in life was be an artist. But family and teachers without my vision steered me from this path, and onto none in particular, wasting a lot of creative time trying to fill the void. Before the Internet, a person's world was considerably constrained to family and friends of a local nature, and sometimes that wasn't a wide enough support group. So this piece is entitled "I'm Tall Enough to Do This Work" (a reference to other's unfair stereotypes laid on my shoulders.)

In the just pinned stage. The piece is currently being hand embroidered to continue the story.

The weave is built on the shortened hems cut from my jeans, and many types of hand painted cottons, recycled kimono silks and a bit of linen napkin.  The journey to today plays out from left to right with childhood in fresh green, thwarted by black through some muddled and diffuse middle years, and on to a time of upward growth and warming self-acceptance on the right. This piece came to me in a flash--probably my first stab at conceptual art. It started my journey.

A sculptural teak root bench on the front porch.

This summer I will absorb life, and I will practice new skills. I will think about how far I have walked in less than a year. I'm going to "chase right up and touch the sky."  And then maybe a picnic at the beach.