Monday, July 16, 2007

Something's brewing

First of all what's a studio if you don't have an assistant? There's going to be a large window in the wall just beyond the sewing machine with a wide ledge where Jinx will spend most of her time. This pose is merely a reminder to get busy on that window. See my spiffy ironing storage back there? It's so cool even if stinky (that new heat resistant stink, heady stuff) and I can move it around with one hand because of the teflon pads under the feet. Here's the view from the driver's seat behind Big J and you are getting a good look at how the Mob Scene series is shaking out. There are at least six more waiting in the wings, most larger than these. These two on the left side design wall are just waiting for the stitching. Jim set the other design wall vertically for me so that mirror could bring the outside in a bit. Here the mob is up to more than just standing around thinking about it. That vacuum cleaner & TV set are just visiting until I find tiny, stow-able versions of both. What you are not seeing are baskets of unsorted fabrics all over the floor lined up along the walls awaiting their turn. There are a lot more still in the old studio. I never thought I had a stash problem like some fabriholics but the evidence is mounting.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

New Studio - new stuff....

OKAY, I admit it - the secret of getting stuff done while I'm in the studio is having the TV on while the Braves sweep the Pirates. I just realized that I am making one per inning.... I won't mention that I should be sorting fabric and putting things away in the closet and a hundred other tiny details of getting one room cleaned out and the new room up and running. Do I think I'm going to "use it all up and then I won't have to store it?" I'm going to scan these postcards individually and put them up for sale on the Hotcakes site in the next few days.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Monkey see, monkey do

I couldn't resist this one. Any site that lets me try on an infinite number of hair colors is going to grab my attention for at least 15 minutes. This is kinda what it looks like since I cut most of it off last week. The woman who cut it measured it at 30 inches before she started hacking away. Cool way to lose five pounds. I wanted to donate it to Locks of Love but they don't love bleached blondes. And of course, I'd love to go to the midnight show when the movie comes out but I don't think I can stay up that late.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Post Card Binge

Even though my stuff is all over the place, making a few postcards after dinner is enough to satisfy my need to put the pedal to the metal. Having the Janome locked into this new table makes it feel like a brand new machine. I had no idea how much vibration and noise I was dealing with when it was perched on a hollow-core door.

From the New Studio

this WIP was on the design wall in my bedroom so it got to go first in the new location. There will be more stitching but I wanted to do some photography with the ambient afternoon light which, unfortunately, in that room, is very green- all reflected from the lawn and trees in the front yard. The afternoon light I used to shoot with in the bedroom had a golden cast that was always something to deal with too. Guess I'm going to have to set up those lights after all. So there's an ongoing discussion on the SAQA yahoo list about RGB and CMYK and I thought I would take a look at those functions in the Paint Shop Pro program that I have been ignoring forever. Mine is V.5 and I think they are up to 12 or somesuch. I "channel split" the original image above into CMYK and then "channel combined" to get the final, large image. I can see the difference but now I have to read up on the why of the whole thing. You can almost see the iridescent paint in the final.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Furniture with history

This piece was given to us before Colin was born and served as a changing table for both kids. Jim removed the four inch maple rail that used to enclose the top and for the last ten years it has been stuffed with "important papers" and holding up the TV in our bedroom. Now I am going to staple ironing board fabric to the top for a terrific functional surface which will also keep me from piling things on top of it. Notice the little Slidey feet so I can move it around easily even after I fill with whatever. I wasn't going to paint this piece but this picture reveals a pretty lousy finish. Hmmmm.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Ta-Da!

Why is Big J smiling?

Could it be his new, custom made table! My husband insists that he can make the cords go away but I'm so thrilled with things so far I hardly notice them. Do you know that I have never been able to use the knee lift before now? What neat thing that is!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

almost finished

Cue the Brazilian Jazz.... My part is finished. Tomorrow Jim is going to cut the hole in the walnut top and build the support for the sewing machine. It's hard to back up far enough to get a picture of this thing.

Friday, June 29, 2007

My Legs! My Legs!

arrived all safe and humble via Fedex a mere one day after I transferred payment. Through the great storm last night I dreamed of transforming them! It will only take a minor spell to teach this table to Tango or Samba even though I ran out of gold paint.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Three White Walls

So what would be the point of any pictures. Before anything gets moved into the studio, I'm going to take advantage of the white wall and reshoot some recent pieces indoors with proper lighting. There's a another deadline coming up for a mixed media show that I'll tell more about if I get juried in. In case you thought I was laying on a beach someplace, I spent some time uploading pictures to a rather cool artist's resource - another free place to get one's work out into the public eye even if it is digitally. The Irving Sandler Artists File is a digitized image database and artist registry that is open to the public. The Artists File is not curated and there is no fee to join or use the service... Oh, and by the way, there is no category like textiles or fiber so I listed myself under mixed media which is technically correct anyway. When you click on "artists portfolio" you get a birds-eye-view of up to twelve pieces. I put mine in the order that I made them and the continuity (omg - could it be VOICE?!) is interesting. It makes me realize that I need to redo my main website gallery and do away with the cutesy little cropped images that lead to whole ones and show them in some kind of order created and there are things that need to be relegated to "older works". I'm pretty lucky in that my name starts with LAC. I get listed on the first page of the "L"s. Now I wonder who goes in an looks at this site. Time will tell I suppose.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Too hot out to be out

Another UFO unearthed and diddled with. This was from an experiment using alginate to thicken the dye and I wasn't thrilled with the loss of color intensity so I painted over it with Setacolor transparents. A little overexposure in the pool yesterday and the paint fumes combined to make me sick as a dog for most of the last 24 hours so it was supposed to be good for me to work outside on the deck painting this piece except that it was easily 90 out and muggy. I feel like a bowl of overcooked noodles.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

What light through yonder window breaks?

Well Juliet, it's the east and a damn good thing I'm an early riser. Thing is, the old room had the very same view but as you can see, I rarely looked out the window. I also never took advantage of a perfectly respectable closet. Chaos and Mayhem and I used to battle to a stalemate but as I've given in to the desire to work larger, C&M have driven me elsewhere, usually out on the picnic table and recently as far away as Florida. I am taking my workspace back. In the process of looking for backs to build some pieces that are just dying to meet a deadline, I have uncovered vast acreage of dyed & painted fabric that, at one time, I thought had potential. This batch is stewing in a dark dye pot right now. There, with the dark painted circles, was a sister piece to "Rubric". No pangs and no heartache over reassigning these UFOs to a useful existence tells me that the direction of my work has left this path behind. I wonder what else I'll uncover as the shake out continues? Stay tuned and look forward to a fiber give-away on a grand scale in the near future. I have plans to divest myself of a LOT of stuff. I'm also thinking about doing a little investigating into some basic Feng Shui before I start putting things into the new studio. Does anyone have any research recommendations? I know nothing about it beyond that I have no intentions of sitting with my back to the door.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

the Mob Scene series

At the moment the piece that's on my design wall has it's back to me, literally. For lack of table space I built the layers right on the wall and it's waiting to be pinned and trimmed, a dark over-dyed disappointment assigned a new and useful life as the backside of this piece. <--This one, my favorite from last weeks dye fest, will be the first up on the wall when the studio is done. The fabric was pre-soaked with soda ash solution and then allowed to dry out before I started dye painting with no thickeners. The little creepy business that happens where the colors meet but don't mix is interesting and something I want to work on making happen again. Dry fabric and nearly dry brush with fairly concentrated dye and no auxiliary chemicals at all.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

New Studio

Here's some before shots in the earliest stages of conversion from what was a teenaged boy's den of iniquity into my new studio. The walls are all patched now and the first coat of off-white paint is scheduled for tomorrow. There will be a big,brand new window in the north wall, a huge mirror on the facing wall to pick up more light from the existing floor to ceiling window and one whole wall a floor to ceiling design wall - I just haven't decided which one yet 8x8 feet, perhaps more. There is going to be a solid walnut sewing table with a cut-out for my Janome, a some wire basket shelving and maybe a wing back chair and ottoman by the big window for handwork. All this - the sweat, scrounge and skill - a gift from my biggest fan, my husband Jim.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday and today is our 30th anniversary. Did I mention that in August of 1976 I came home from work to find the Last Good Man sleeping naked on my living room couch? We celebrate both days because of a clerical error. We had our wedding at home and when the Justice of the Peace got to our address to perform the ceremony he found that he was outside of his jurisdiction. He took his honorarium anyway and went through the motions for the guests but we had to report to his office at town hall the next morning at 8 am. The only problem with having your wedding party at your house is that folks are having too good a time and don't know when to leave. So after being up half the night we dressed in our crumpled wedding finery, I took my nearly dead flowers and we headed out for town hall. The judge met us on his way to a baseball game and performed a speed version of the wedding ceremony dressed in a baseball uniform and thoughtfully giving Jim a second opportunity to change his mind. We both said "I do" two days in a row. Last night we had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant and I had to bring my flowers to work today so Jinx wouldn't eat them.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Craft in America

After coming home from work at 3:30 and going straight to bed until 6 pm, I spent the evening doing handwork and generally attempting to restore my sanity. The PBS special "Craft in America" came on and I got sucked completely in watching every minute of the three hour-long segments. It was completely engrossing but I was a little disappointed in that mention was never made of how artists and craftspeople everywhere have to struggle and compromise to support themselves. "I just decided to quit my job an do it", oft repeated, seemed disingenuous to me, almost irresponsible. I will continue to think about how the show made me feel and perhaps watch it again. What did you think of it? There will be a full moon tonight, the second one in May, and tonight there will be ritual! The Full Moon in Sagittarius is an invitation to bask in the light of some good old-fashioned Jupiterian optimism and joy! This Full Moon represents the union of the physical and the spiritual in the search for knowledge

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

O TV

Sometimes the commercials are even better than the show...the wait is killing me. Click on the picture to hear My Chemical Romance's take on life in the Mob. Hilarious.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

new wip

This piece came from the dyefest on Saturday. The black and metallic gold paint was added afterward and there will be more painted elements as it develops. 43x53. Another one of what's turning out to be the "mob scene" series.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Memorial Day

My Dad, Charles H. Useted, 1943 at his graduation from the Great Lakes Naval Academy just before he reported for active duty aboard the USS BRAINE - DD630 My husband of almost thirty years, Jim Lacativa. I often think about how your sacrifice and service made you the people you are. America salutes you. Thank you Daddy. Thank you Jimmy.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Dyefest al fresco

Perfect weather for a dyefest. But after a little while I felt like I was working at the gates of hell. I really hope these colors hold up to the rinse & wash. PS - They sure did. "Spankin' Harsh" as the younglins say.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

New work in progress

40-something x 60-something. Another Mob scene. This piece is on the design wall now. I'm going to be treating it as whole cloth and don't as yet have any plans for altering it too much ...but I'm just studying on it for now. The design is a continuation of the series I started down in FL. Since I have a good shot of it's Birthday, I thought it would be good to track this one on my WIP section....after a little more progress of course.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Summer has Arrived

You know summer has arrived in Georgia when the kids start saving on haircuts. Now, of course, Jake's hats are all too big.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Look Elizabeth - More Willies!

I've started going through more of the pieces that were started in Florida back in March. It's good that there are pictures around that remind me of them because my studio is in such turmoil that I couldn't find some of these things on purpose if you paid me. I go rummaging through boxes and things keep turning up. And when things get too hot out in the outdoor studio I take the plunge.My oasis has come a long way since this was posted. Actually the water has been so cold that after five minutes you're numb and don't care. Now that I've gotten a lovely rejection email from the Exit Gallery, I'm free to scramble and get slides made in time for Art Quilts at the Lowell.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

New Toy

I've been resisting becoming a PODHEAD for too long. For Mother's Day my sons saw to it that I submit like the rest of the civil?zed world. Once stuffed with your favorite sounds, the little Nano sits like a tick down into one of the headphone earcovers. No wires, no worries. The only danger is getting caught singing along.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Night Visitor

This was the frosting on the cake of my Mother's Day. Festivities over, progeny scattered and GoodMan off to work, I settled in for a quiet evening of hand sewing and serious horripilation thanks to Tony Soprano. I knew those peyote buds were a bad idea. Deep in the night come the sounds of feline conflict loud enough to rouse me from my bed to break up the brawl. I flip on the bathroom light to find Voodoo squaring off with this character. Those are MY favorite jeans he's roosting on! I snatched up two of the cats and beat a hasty retreat locking Rocky Raccoon in the bathroom. Now what? I locked the two cats in my studio and went downstairs to rearrange the sofa so the only retreat for the intruder is straight out the cat door at the base of the stairs as you descend from the bedroom floor. All barriers in place, I armed myself ridiculously with a cardboard tube, opened the bathroom door with the intention of getting into the tub and prodding my guest out and downstairs. He had other ideas. He had climbed into the open window and wedged himself between the window and the screen. Talk about ten pounds of crap in a five pound sack! I went over to the window and shut it trapping him place and giving me time to come up with an acceptable solution. Fortunately Rocky was pretending I wasn't there and was meditating on the situation quietly. raccoons can be dangerous when provoked or cornered. He scootched higher up on the screen and I opened the lower window with the intention of releasing the screen allowing him to tumble down the side of the house to the waiting trash cans. He was wedged in there so tight I couldn't pull the latch so I took a kitchen knife and sacrificed the screen slashing it wide so he could make an escape. Just as I closed the window again Jim came home early from work with a toothache. It's now going on 3am. "Just in time!" I told him. He sighed, went to the window and had the strength to pull the latch holding the screen in place. Rocky & torn screen tumbled one story down. End of excitement for all of us for one night. DID I MENTION THIS WAS ALL my fault because I left the back door wide open when I went to bed?

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Artquilts:Markings

Thanks to Katherine M. for taking these pictures at the PAQA South show at the Page-Walker Art & History Center in Cary, NC. One of these days I'd like to get to a show and see my stuff in person. Guess I'm going to have to rattle the cage on the fiberart sensibilities here in ATL if I want to see that happen anytime soon. huh. This piece did not have the wavies before it left home. I wonder what goes on in those UPS trucks? And it's nice to see how gallery lighting can emphasize the textures that we strive for by actually quilting the cloth. Oh yeah, that's why I do this stuff.

Monday, May 07, 2007

I'm no Shoe Freak (really)

and it's a rare thing when I turn the page of the New York Sunday Times and spout "OMIGOD, I WANT THOSE!" so I quickly scrambled to the web to find the details. Kork-Ease has one of the swinginest websites I've come across in a long time. Turn up your speakers and put on your dancing shoes! They DO come in my size (!) and in the original heel height, I mean these are cute but a fall from this height and just shoot me. Lessee, Neiman-Marcus, etc. Oh sure-the day I pay $178.00 for a pair of shoes will be the friggin' Rapture. For years I bought a similar style (but flat on the ground) from Rockport and then they discontinued it . Give them about a week to retool. heh, heh, heh.

Friday, May 04, 2007

tagged:::gagged

JLB, I'm afraid I have to be a stinker about playing the game where you post 7 things about yourself. I also have a horror of asking others to play. People who know me will assure you there's nothing shy or retiring about me at all. Perhaps this is a place to try and maintain a civilized front, something I struggle with on a daily basis. All you have to do is look around here and you'll see as much of my private self as I care to hang on a public line. ALSO, when prodded in these directions, my foremost inclination is to make up outrageous shit and lie wildly when the truth is much more bizarre. Then I ask myself "why" on both counts. Here's an old clue .

new business card

Vista Print has made me an offer for new business cards that's pretty hard to refuse so I've put together a new design. My old card with the image below is so old it's hard to imagine that I was deep into a series of tiny hand-stitched pieces all in homage to Mark Rothko like this one, my favorite, "Little Sweetie". Any opinions on the new design before I finally send it to VP are welcome.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

some handwork

I've started hand quilting and beading this piece and hope I won't regret it down the road although I've pretty much made up my mind that this one is MINE. The leaves? Dunno. They have started turning up in the studio and I don't know yet what is going to come of them but I like making them and that's always dangerous.