The Space Between

This morning they sucked up the last of my gathered fallen leaves, clipped vines, and denuded brown stems, to cart them off to the community composting field. I watched them earnestly through my front window until finally satisfied that I had put the garden to bed for the year, and could now move forward to welcoming the winter break.

Once again, my surroundings feels stripped clean and new. Sunsets are more intense this time of year, maybe a change in the angles and the clouds, or maybe they just appear that way because their competition is on holiday. In any case, I treasure the occassional showiness of the earlier setting sun as a sign to stop and appreciate what is given freely by the world. It makes me turn a critical eye to the inside clutter. Time to divest, clean, and think about a new fresh color scheme.

The fire of a November sunset echoes the emotions I feel
 toward the new year to come.

This year we are simplifying our holiday celebration. We have decided to welcome the dark with lights both indoors and out, but dispense with the tree. Instead I created an evergreen display in the urn by the front door. It has already drawn notice, waves and good cheer, and that is the real purpose of this time. Connecting with others and our own personal gratitude.

Preparing for winter solstice with a bit of evergreen and bright red berries

Having recently written and thought about the successful conclusion of my "first" year in art mode, I have been pondering where I go from here. It is so easy to fall out of habits you try to establish when there has been more time in a life not doing than doing something. And yet each day only has so many hours to embrace the myriad goals and pursuits I enjoy. The one thing that stuck me most strongly in this evolution of my creative life is that I need to work on giving up the guilt. I need to fully embrace the philosophy of not owing anyone my time or life. That I don't need to be doing anything that doesn't bring me joy or fulfillment, or why I am doing it?

 Let me be clear here: we are not talking about responsibility to family or society, this is purely about my personal life goals and pursuits. As much as I am loving learning to draw, I came into that mode with a purpose: to give up the guilt about not doing it! To get passibly good at it so that I could use drawing as a basis for designing textiles and jewelry when it served me. Finding out that I loved to draw everday objects and scenes to document my life, or that I could actually draw passibly from imagination, well so much the better! But I was starting to feel that I could not just sit and meditatively stitch one loop into another because that was not "creative enough". Says who?

A new wardrobe of bead crochet bangles 

I decided it was okay to set aside my pens and journals for a break and return to some of my other obsessions like bead crochet, bead weaving and knitting. I also have been continuing to engage one of my larger goals from the past year, which is the development of my embroidery skills. I have taken three classes so far this year that were partially or fully about developing story and design through hand stitch (with or without applique). Thanks to Jude, Arlee and Sharon, and please check these links for the their wonderful new year's class offerings.  I will be continuing with all of their teaching and inspiration in 2012 as well.

In Arlee Barr's "FrankenStitch" class we have learned
 to embrace textural embroidery. 

My buttonhole stitch sampler is still at a stage far from complete.

The straight stitch sampler has made some progress, but will continue to be layered and developed.

This place I inhabit between my reality and my goals recently took inspiraton from a trip to visit family in Philly and Jersey. As I am normally too far from these people to see them more than once a year, it was so wonderful to have the opportunity for not just a visit to the close circle, but a bigger life event that drew cousins to celebrate a rite of passage. At once I was trying to accept the issues of the narrowing possibilites that age and age-related infirmities may impose on our options, and on the other, the endless opening doors of youth into adulthood. A cousins' eldest daughter was called to the Torah, and with the family and community gathered about in an inspirationally beautiful sanctuary, and with the help of her spiritual advisors and the cantor's angelic voice, she proudly and admirably took her place in the world of awareness of the "other". Her Bat Mitzvah project was involved with feeding the hungry in her own community. In addition to raising money and awareness for her local food pantry, she had collected donations of food that, made into beautiful gift baskets, served as centerpieces for the celebration that followed, and a reminder to the guests to be gratedful for our personal bounty. I thoroughly enjoyed my family reunion and danced my tush off.

Still life with party favors

Since returning home, I have completed my knitting project and pulled from the stash of UFO's a "blingy" wonderful bracelet with seed beads, rivolis, and drop bead fringe. I did some further work on the two machine quilting projects that I hope to complete before year's end, and pulled out the silk kimono from Jude's "Magic Diaries" class to work on. I was inspired by Melly Testa to join a December challenge project in "Rockstar Boro."

The linen stitch knit scarf truly looks hand loomed.

This bit of bling has been waiting patiently for a year for me to return. I think it will be finished this week.

This space between the years is filling up fast. Almost no break at all. But then I don't really want one. My years are too few, my loves too many. The colors of sunset are in that scarf, the colors of spring in that bracelet. I plan to fill the clean quiet space of winter with the color of joy.

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Today we celebrate our arrival at a full year on "The Journey." What a great year it has been. Yes! Yes! If you weren't here with us, you can check out where we began.

Sunrise on October 28, 2011
 A fresh new day in a fresh new year of art and journaling

Technically the journey started about ten years ago when I realized with great certainty that a change was required. That something important and necessary on the road to fulfillment had been left behind, that I'd been languishing on the wrong path.


By the time 2010 was halfway through, and many false starts abandoned, we reached the point of heeding advise from a fellow traveler on the creative quest: quit waiting for "retirement" to begin studying and making art, do it now! And so, I discovered my first online class, a very beginning exercise in color theory. There was very little interaction with fellow students or the instructor, a well know and talented quilt artist who paints whole cloth quilts, but still and all there was paint on paper, a fine text to reference, some "aha" moments, and a first step down the road.


Just in time for this new resolve, a brand new mixed media retreat was fashioned and brought to Chicago, "Create" by the magazine, "Cloth, Paper, Scissors." Knowing nothing of visual journals or mixed media, I was drawn to attend by the promise of something different than a quilt show, and the perky personality and designs of crossover artist, Melanie Testa, I signed up for a full day class in visual journaling. This was my breakthrough. I felt an instant connection and camaraderie with Melly and the type of art she did. I could understand how all my years of textile art experience could only be enhanced by learning to draw and express my own visions on paper first.

Pokey Bolton captured this photo of me making my first ever mixed media journal page in Melly's class. I later discovered I was the "poster girl" for the registration page for a number of Create retreats.

Melly offered her help as mentor to my next step in the process: using the blogging world to find my community and record my journey. Her ready assistance and support made it possible for me to begin attending a stream of online drawing and design classes in both textiles and mixed media, while starting this diary to chronicle the trip. It has been not only a way to reach out to others, but an invaluable reference tool for myself: to see how far I've come.

My earliest and most favorite drawing and painting explorations have been with my furry friends as inspiration.

So what has this year of blogging and art brought forth?

 A record of my travels so far.

 An appreciation for my own abilities (a bit of the self love I was lacking.) 

Expanding the skills to record what I see, create and share a story (visually and verbally), connect with strangers and through that connection become friends.

A link with the broader world of creativity and exposure to new artists and ideas every day.

Connections with lovely people from all corners of the world, from the next town over to places like Australia, Finland and Tunisia.

My growing stack of journals and sketchbooks, including handmade storage boxes and folders.

Some statistics will wrap up the activity of my year--

The blog by the numbers:

32 blog posts hit over 7700 times

65 public followers

A visual record on flikr:

a photostream with 23 sets, 297 images, and over 19,000 page views

The formal study of art and design:

at least 20 classes and workshops with 8 different artists

The media in which I record my art:

8 different journals/sketchbooks started

2 recycled paper storybooks created

2 collections of small watercolor paintings (totaling 32 pcs.)

2 boxes, 1 folder, and 1 journal cover from painted canvas 

2 lutrador hippo themed story books

Some of my favorite projects have involved drawing in my handmade journals and books.

 Textile art:


3 machine technique quilts (in progress)


3 embroidered panels (ongoing)


4 mixed media pieces (ongoing)


9 hand technique textile panels (woven-based, embroidered and quilted) (two completed and sewn to jackets)

My most recent painting, using a never-ending inspiration: my garden.

Looking back on all this mountain of productivity has both amazed and delighted me. It has shown what I am capable of, what I want yet to do, and where my next year is likely to go. And yet, if you asked me a year ago where I thought I'd be at this moment, my modest answer would have been that I hoped I'd be able to draw passably well. But life has brough me so much more than that. I wouldn't want to jinx anything by trying to define the future. I'd rather embrace it with anticipation and delight in all its surprises. I'll see you there, my friends!

Scattered

Today's Forecast: Warming toward life, but chance of scattered brain activity.


The Man got called into work in the middle of the night last evening. For us, one a.m. is the middle, since he usually rises at 4. I was worried about this emergency, because I hate when he misses sleep, and there was a wind and rain "event" going on outside where he had to drive and also face the "crisis." Finally asleep again, I was awakened by his alarm at 4. This time a pill to help me under, and when finally resurfacing this morning, way past my usual rising time, of course there was dizziness and discombobulation of brain waves. I tell you all of this to illustrate my general state of mind lately. I'm the one who has the good fortune to go back to bed, yet I am the one who always seems out of focus.


Part of this loss of a direct path to goals lately is due to the usual up and down of the change of seasons. One week above normal, one below. Autumn this year had been a see-saw from summer to winter temps. I even caught the newscasters on the Chicago station saying that we were expecting the first storm of winter. Well, not really! It's hardly winter yet! But I can see I am not alone in my confusion.

The slightly out of focus view of my busy breakfast space. (The CD cover is actually in focus.)

Yesterday, David brought in two gorgeous purple clematis blooms that thought spring had arrived. This morning I was dithering over sitting down to paint them, or to write the blog, or to return to crocheting a metal bead bracelet I have wanted for at least two years now, or maybe take up my promise to myself to work out indoors since the day is definitely not one for walking outside.

Of course, there is also the new stuff to study. In our household My Guy is generally the one to research and buy new mechanical and electronic gear, and I am usually the recipient who must learn how to use it. Often these things arrive before I am ready to study them. Take for example the new car I got last May. It replaced the same type of car I had, but came with all the updated features that seven years of development will bring. Sure, I can drive it, but can I run it's computer system? Heck no! I got a smart phone almost a year ago, and that too, is still a mystery to me most days. Everything we purchase these days is a computer unto itself, only it wants to connect to all our other computers and they don't necessarily play nicely together. I hit the wrong button on my steering wheel the other day and the car told me it couldn't find my phone! I didn't want my car using my phone. Who was it going to call, the Camaro down the block?

The new Sony camera, pictured above, is another example. I haven't even taken the tag off the carrying case. David is one of the most excellent price shoppers you will find. He has a knack for finding the "returned but never used," and "display model ready to be changed out," and getting them at a fraction of their current retail price. I treasure all this opportunity to have updated technology, and yet, again, there is that manual to study, that system to learn. I think I will be giving up on ever learning how to use my "older" digital SLR. Why bother? This one pretty much does the same thing, but better.

There's also the Paul Simon CD I bought two weeks ago, loaded on the computer and pod, that I haven't listened to. When I was a kid, my brain was such a busy place that if I didn't distract some part of it with music all the time, I couldn't concentrate on reading and studying. Now I pretty much need total quiet to pay attention to really creative pursuits.

Meanwhile, I think the statute of limitations has run out on telling you about my summer vacation. I had planned to go into some more detail about our trip around my favorite Oregon places, but for now I just want to share these two journal ink and watercolor sketches from our stay at TuTuTun Lodge. It's the most beautiful and relaxing corner of "nowhere" I can imagine.

I have been somewhat preoccupied with fabric and stitching lately, but I did complete three pages in the last month, sort of closing up summer and beginning autumn.

Playing with greys and using a selective sprig to represent the entire plant in the planter of her head.

Sheer layering of the vine over the arbor. Again, just a detail of a very large and dense growth.

One day after shopping at Costco, this little leaf was waiting on my car door for a ride. I took it home, painted it, then sat in my garage and painted the reflections on the car door and handle. A lot fun to do.

A friend who admired my Junk Mail book wanted me to show her how to transform junk into drawing paper. I used the "good" gouache paints I bought nearly a year ago, and got some beautiful results. Can't wait to draw a second book.

I am currently taking a class in embroidery with a favorite textile artist, Arlee Barr. Her class is called "Frankenstitch," and she is teaching us how to work big, bold, and chunky, to achieve texture and tell a story through simple embroidery stitches stretched to their creative limits. It is very freeing, and fits my "design as you go" personality. I have no plan or pre-design. I am making what I am calling samplers, although they have potential to be finished pieces.

Here is an example of running stitch gone interesting.

This piece is using various silks I have dyed, dye-painted or stencilled with a strip off a "boro-class" weaving. It will be an all buttonhole stitch sampler.

Here is a little sample of "Frankenstiched" buttonhole as I got started.

One of my creative friends called me this week to say she wanted to stop by with a gift of Indian Corn she had grown this year that took on a creative twist of its own. Some of the ears had gone all "rainbowy" with soft pastels of every hue. In all her years of farming she had never seen this happen. It was a fun surprise, and I think I will make a simple wreath out it for the front porch.

Of course, I could paint it while it's still in the warm house. Nah, I'd better read that car manual first, before my "MAXI" starts dating behind my back. Who said she could use my phone!