Monday, March 24, 2008

Quiet Weekend

Some might say "the End Times are at hand!" The bad blood between these two usually runs hot. Now I'm beginning to think the animosity they usually display is a pose for the humans. Jim spent a lot of time at the job this weekend supervising a critical phase and Colin went to Florida to meet the internet GF for the first F2F. Within limits of propriety (and nosy mom-ness) I'll let you know how that went. I couldn't even get in any good consumerizing. All the places I like to shop - Goodwill, thrift stores, HoAnne's & Mikey's - were all CLOSED! poop. Packed? No, I'm still only making mental lists.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Piddling, paddling, it's all good.

I never get tired of catfish. When I was a kid I used to feed them like city people feed pigeons. Catfish raised on Wonderbread! This almost has an Amish feel somehow. Since I don't have a traditional quilting background I know it's an echo of some technique or style but can't say just what. I just know it was fun picking through the scraps. It's a bit too studied (once again) but they are just nailed in place to the wall for the moment. I'll fiddle them around a lot before I pin and baste (you read that right) everything in place so it travels/handles well. It's all going to be hand appliquéd but leaving raw edges everywhere.I like the way the fuzzy edges look water blurry. My point in setting this treat up is so that I'll have something to keep busy with while the dyes batch properly instead of rushing things the way I always do. I might even take it to the beach one afternoon.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

We were blind but now we see

I found a scrap of silver lycra that could have come from a great Elvis costume. My little mudcats are very happy to have eyes now. After escaping unscathed through the wild weather yesterday, we settled in to watch three hours of Matt Damon being a stoneface in "The Good Shepherd". Slow but compelling. Three quarters of the way into the movie I smelled smoke. Thinking a neighbor had lit their fireplace to cut the chill and damp that had set in at dark, I dismissed the smell. A few minutes later I caught it again, this time stronger, insistent. I bolted upstairs to see if some nitwit had left the iron on my studio. Nope. A quick trip through the upper rooms and I could tell the smell was wafting in through the bathroom window and I caught an ominous glow just out of view. I dashed out the deck door to see a house completely engulfed in flames not more than a quarter mile away through the woods behind our house. As we stood on the deck watching and hearing that the firetrucks were already bearing down on that neighborhood we watched as the wind lifted sparks high in the air and carried them up over our house and the houses on both sides. We quickly went out and roused the neighbors on both sides (they were sleeping!) to be watchful and anxious with us. By the time we got back to our vantage point it was almost all over. Fortunately we found out today that no one was living in the house and no one in the houses close by suffered any losses. So frightening to think of losing everything in a matter of a few minutes.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

hand stitching for stress relief...

[[For family & friends concerned about the tornado damage in Atlanta last night.We're all good, luckier than some with no damage here. We are 29 miles to the northeast of that part of the city and lucky to only have a summer style thunderstorm pass over us. Jim is making the grocery store run right now as we are in for another line of severe storms this afternoon.]] Jude, Lately, the hand-music is all your (inspirational) fault. You and them lions. I wish I could break out and be more free with it though. My stitches just line themselves up like so many little ants. Compulsive hand stitching should be a clear sign by now to myself that I am stressed and should be treated like a minefield until I can broaden my artistic gestures and horizons again. breathe. act. continue. "dervish" (above) and "little sweetie" date back several years.

Friday, March 14, 2008

More mudcats

I've been going back and forth between these little compulsively stitched pieces and the website work. Both things are some very narrow focus kind of doings but I only do what I like so it must be what's called for at the moment. I actually tried starting with a much larger canvas but after a long while of shuffling shapes around in space they wound up congregating again in a tight little ball - all whiskers touching. Must be Spring. (click for a closer look)

Monday, March 10, 2008

website 99% refurbed

I have been at this computer all day and it's still not finished but the fun part, the glory part is done. Now for some nitpicking and some verbiage but my brain is empty. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions and comments - I've made a list and will work through it as time permits. Karen- the "next" link thing was important. Don't know how I could have missed it. Deb -I'm still on the fence about using that nav bar graphic. It's been so long since I've monkeyed around with image maps I'm afraid I'd have to go back to kindergarten to recapture the moves. There are images scattered all over the place, some okay, some have to be re-shot. I'm beginning to worry that my A-95 is having issues. Every now and then the little iris that protects the lens doesn't open all the way instantly. I wonder if the focusing mechanism could be off too. Has anyone noticed that I'm not mentioning quilts or fiber alongside the images? I plan on yakking about my methods and materials in an artists statement kind of thing but I have to think about it some. All I want to do is make another cotton & scraps sandwich, choose some threads and settle in. Jude's Lions are so inspiring. Maybe something lots bigger this time.

more hand music

(14" square) Little mudcats wrangling over fruit. I am besotted with hand stitching raw scraps onto a thin sandwich of muslin and batt.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

webwork

By demolishing my index page I've committed to updating my main website. With nearly a dozen new pieces to add from 2007, I though it needed an entirely new look. What that look might be is just dawning on me. Clean, simple and to the point. It's got to be about the art. To keep cobwebs from growing in the studio, I keep pulling UFO's out of the closet and at least turning them into something functional. Idle fiber is the devil's playground? Just look what can happen. This little number will actually keep a small person warm and company soon.

And to remind myself what a lucky woman I am, here we are 31 years ago standing over our wedding cake- a giant strawberry shortcake that I baked myself earlier that morning. I whipped 3 quarts of heavy cream with curlers in my hair as the first of 120 guests began arriving at our home for the ceremony.

There was a piece left over big enough to cover a dinner plate and I think I ate the whole thing for breakfast the next morning.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

a dark day

Nothing like dyeing with a mystery black to pick up a dark mood. But for starters, I worked on one of my PIFs last night to see just how happy my Janome was after a tune-up. I highly recommend it for anyone who is in the sewing doldrums. It feels like day one and now I remember just why I was so hot to go into debt over this machine three years ago. I had been dreaming of a design that required a great expanse of dark fabric. There was a bottle of black dyestock in the deck fridge but I fiddled with it by adding some of this and some of that. It looked very neutral on paper. So I threw caution to the wind and hung some fabric just to see what would happen. What happened was my crusty shower got visibly nasty - nice that it cleans up so well. Jim will wonder what came over me. The results were worth every minute of scrubbing. There are three feet draped over the back of this seven foot rack.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Hand work continues.

Waiting on the storms. I took Big J to the sewing machine wizard yesterday. It's been cranky lately probably due to the fact that it's never had a professional cleaning or tuneup since I bought it late in '06. I'm worried he's going to report me to someone somewhere for machine abuse. Still, he did offer to carry it to a more convenient location for me to pick it up at noon, or will They be waiting to take me into custody and put Big J into the sewing machine foster care system?

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Caesura

It's time for a little hand music. Something to do while the mind is elsewhere. My mind has been like a rabbit on the lam lately and I won't go on and list all the things I should be doing instead of this but know that I have a list and I'm checking things off one by one. I haven't gotten an email regarding my Visions entry (another person has heard) so I'm assuming that I didn't get in. After reading the fine print on the prospectus which informs that the piece will be gone for a whole year, I'm kind of relieved because the three pieces that I submitted are a set thematically and now I can post them on my website, finish my portfolio and set about the mission of getting into a gallery somewhere. I am gearing up for some real tasty rejection, not the "We don't want you for this exhibit" kind - the "We don't want you HERE" kind. Yummy. addendum - from the Visions website - "March 1, 2008 NOTIFICATION SENT to ARTISTS of preliminary quilt selection or nonselection" so since I have not heard either way, No news is Good news - one of my parents favorite sayings.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Done & done

Here's the big reveal! And no nicks, cuts or scrapes this time. Just blurred vision and a few stab wounds. No blood on the fabric though. Well, the verdict is that I'm happy to have gotten this stuff out of my system and there won't be any repeat performances anytime soon. Making them is kinda like eating Marzipan or Cinnabons - it seemed tasty at first bite but by the time you were finished, you were sick of it. I'm going to re-shoot and measure everything and move it all over to the hand dyes for sale so I can get back to working on things that actually move me beyond the moment. Then again, I might try this one again.It has promise as long as I remember to change the stitch length on my machine.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Pell Mell to Hell

Did I just invent an expression that means "here's what happens when you are in too much hurry to read directions or think through processes." On the surface most of these pieces have turned out pretty good for my first time folding, stitching and otherwise torturing perfectly nice fabric. But look at all those stitches that have to be removed. My eyes have given notice that even this computer is more than they want to deal with for a few hours.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Dye Day!

A small scale dye day underway due to the constraints of my kitchen. Can you imagine - I had to do the dishes first! This piece has been folded, stitched and had hot soy wax applied before the dye. I want to know just who is going to pick all those stitches out. And just a like a kid at Christmas I talked myself into opening just one present on the Eve instead of waiting until morning. Who can wait wait with a color like this?

nudge, nudge

My brother just gave me a long distance nudge indicating that he's a regular reader (and where's the latest and greatest post?). After three weeks of having a cold I just spent 24 hours waltzing with the flu and today feel great for the first time in ages. Wait, it's early but there's fabric stewing in soda ash waiting for me to make magic. Rob - here's a sneak peek at a blankie in progress that will fall into your possession, maybe not in time for the house warming but I'm working on it. And here's another sneak peek at a PIF in progress. Let's just say it's just the right size for a catass.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

A Great Saturday

Gifts in the mailbox came first - Nellie Durand's PIF arrived and I am the proud owner of #52.2. in her amazing "Lake Series" series made especially for me. Does this classy packaging tell you what a gem was inside? I'm inspired and reminded that one day last week was the anniversary of my 4th year of blogging. To celebrate I'm finally posting my own PIF declaration: "I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this "Pay It Forward" Art exchange. I don't know what it will be and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week but you will receive it within 365 days. The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your own blog." Later in the day I attended a meeting of the Georgia chapter of the Surface Design Association at the home of artist Leisa Rich (go here for some fabulous eyecandy) where we were hard at work plotting a group showing someplace in Georgia so we can all get a taste of that Whine & Jeez!
Here's the contents...my camera does not do it justice

Friday, February 22, 2008

OMG!! My Gills Are Quivering!!!

SWIM WITH GENTLE GIANTS

Reserve your spot today to swim in a 6.3 million gallon exhibit that houses thousands of fish including zebra sharks, sawfish, leopard whiprays, bowmouth guitarfish, humphead wrasses and schools of tarpon, pompano and cownose rays.

Swim Program Description: Swim with Gentle Giants is the only opportunity in the world where you are guaranteed to swim with the largest fish in the world, the whale shark, in Georgia Aquarium’s Ocean Voyager exhibit. Guests will swim at the surface with an air supply with the following equipment provided: mask, fins, air supply, booties and wetsuit. Personal masks are permitted.

Cost: $190 for non-members and 10% off for members. Price includes admission to the Aquarium, all equipment, the swim, certificate of participation, t-shirt and souvenir photo.

When: Six spaces available daily at 4:30 p.m. The swim portion will last approximately 30 minutes, and participants will also view some behind the scenes areas of the Georgia Aquarium.

Who: All participants must be ages 12 and older. Guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a participating adult. No diving/snorkeling experience required.

Cancellations: The Aquarium does not offer refunds for the program, but will reschedule your swim.

next?

The "what next" for this piece woke me up at 3:00 in the morning. I should have gotten up and done my mental thrashing in the studio but this lazybones stayed abed tossing, turning and accidentally waking Jimmy up hours before he needed to be. Sorry Darlin'. Somehow I envision lots of texture and dimension happening and what started out as a Queen's collar is looking like a ship's wheel. There will be a stab at trapunto , appliqué and paint. I don't want to get lost in the woods of technique on this one so I'm glad that there's a lot of other stuff to do today to keep my greedy, speedy paws away from it before the groundwork is thought through. Somewhere in the studio (funny how you can't find things when you don't really want to be reminded of failures) is another thing I started and trampled to death a couple months back. yuck.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Working in the Mines

What a day! What an amazing response to my hand dye sale. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and just had to have what I was selling. I can't wait to see what you all make of this stuff so don't forget to send pictures! I have been running up and down the stairs all day alternating between the ironing board, the design wall and the computer. Apart from selling off fabric that I will never, ever (I keep telling myself that as I iron and fold) and making the money I need to go to Florida in April, I keep uncovering these jewels that got squirreled away without a backward glance! Time passes and the things I took for granted or even common have come back to some kind of new life. I have a growing pile of inspiration for new work and the closet still looks full! Does fabric breed in the darkness like rabbits and wire coat hangars? More about the Yellow Rabbit another day..........

Sunday, February 17, 2008

hand dyes for sale & new works

I've spent some time rooting around in my closet pulling out pieces of hand dyed fabric that I made a year or two ago. It's time I let go and put this things out where others can take a look and maybe bring them to fruition. The pieces are big and the prices are low! And, I started something completely different

Saturday, February 16, 2008

dye day preparation

These are just some of the stitched and clamped resist techniques I'm going to be experimenting with. There are also another half dozen pieces with soy wax on them ready to go. Now all I need is for the weather to warm up just a few degrees. In the meantime, I'm busy digging through past pieces, re-shooting them and posting them for sale on my LikeHotcakes! site with the object of raising the money I need for FOF08- it's a Send Deb To Art Camp Sale! As the new hand dyed pieces emerge from the dyepots they will be going on the block too.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Valentines Day

Here are a few more images of my "slow cloth" work that show the wonderful way that vintage cotton or linen damasks will take dye. This was the last of a piece I called "Tomato Freckles" now in the body of a giant horned newt. Old cotton cut-work doilies are great finds too. I wonder if they take the dye so well because they have been washed so many times or because they were made before the processes that prevent a good dye job? Any notions? The white fabric is lawn cut from an antique Italian wedding trousseau. I wonder when I'll know there's enough stitching on this one. Maybe when I can't lift it anymore. Oh, and by the way, I failed a studio inspection this morning. Voodoo only comes by once in a great while to hurk on something (last time directly into my clever little bobbin holder) and be critical. This morning the criticism was about an empty food dish.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Exquisite cloth!

There is nothing like coming home to a package that was an impulse buy that you had forgotten was coming! I won this incredible embroidered Irish linen tablecloth on Ebay for little more than a song and some postage. It's so sumptuous. I know I'm going to be hacking it apart and dyeing it all manner of colors but for the moment the snowy acres ( 82"x80") has me completely intimidated. Look, Dijanne, it's Banksia! The embroidery runs all the way around the four sides. How to color this stuff? What a problem to have. Can you imagine what the lady of the house would think about my plans for her finery? {{{boo.boo.boo.boo.boo}}}

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Ancient Beings & New Fabric

Between coughing fits and lie-downs I'm finally cleaning up the guest room and I came across this old photo. When Colin was about 7 we lucked into an old Super-8 movie camera and I made this monster from clay with the intention of making stop motion films. There was once a complete cast of characters but Jake decided that they were more fun to play with than look at. So much for our film venture. I did manage to fool with the soy wax and some dye a bit yesterday. Again a strictly experimental process, no surprise that the turquoise is so pale - the mix was cold and it was chilly outside. The white shapes came from pouring soywax over a set of glass cubes and discs. The metallic gold dots were painted on an heat-set with the iron. 23"x37".

Saturday, February 09, 2008

the daily shout out

Good Morning! Melbourne, Westcourt, Tallin, Vilnius, Zebbug, Eyguieres, Dewsbury,Illescas, Rio Branco, Hallifax and everyone in the US from Honolulu to Portland! As a person who hasn't had the privilege of traveling outside of the United States (or inside it much, for that matter) I am fascinated by the placenames and imagined lives of the people who visit my blog. I'm quite likely to wind up paying to continue using the NeoEarth widget that appears in my sidebar. Imagine, someone from Malta has dropped by recently. I have become a computer chair traveler. Someday, I may just get a passport. Many years ago I was telephone operator and I always loved the opportunity of getting someone an international, person to person phone call. How many of you even remember having an operator handle a call for you? Many of the women I worked with had a great deal of stress from that job. I faced the fact early on that nobody calls the operator to tell her to "Have a nice day!" so I rarely took the daily quota of abuse personally. When I was moved into the customer service and sales arena it got a lot worse. For a long time after I left that position I missed conversations that started out with "BITCH!". I'm one of those lucky persons who was blessed with a good phone voice so I took each confrontational caller as an opportunity at lion taming sans chair and whip. I usually won the toss. Yep, the board I worked in 1971 looked just like this one. Hello World!

Green Light

Well, that was gratifying! Sharon of Granny's Hands & Quiltgranny's Shoe has liked Golden Spirals so much she's already got it into a piece in her head. I can't wait to see what she makes of it given what I've come to find out about her and her art through her two blogs. Thank you Sharon. It's enough to make one want to get out of bed in the morning provided she wasn't up coughing all night long, again. I have to keep reminding myself that I only cough when I'm lying down. I had to fold this one up quickly when it was sold because I kept finding little interesting things in it. The good part is that I know it's just the first of a series. This type of gesture is one of my natural moves - something I can do with my eyes closed I've done it on paper so many times. I used to draw spirals with my fingertip on the babies foreheads to help them go to sleep. Lots and lots of practice. And the Golden Monkey Brown was the only color recipe I ever committed to notebook. If Georgia grants me a warm enough day soon I will have a big dye day before I ever get down to Focus on Fiber 08 and I then will have to come up with a whole new game plan for that week.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Soy wax update

No surprise that I ran out of personal steam before I could take these pieces any further. In fact this is the only one I even bothered ironing and photographing. Looks like that nifty soy wax in the oven trick is a loser..you heard it here first. After 30 minutes at 300 degrees I unrolled the yardage expecting gooey pattering - what I go was a snowstorm of unmelted soy wax flakes to sweep up and comb out of my hair. I am happy that I didn't lose my recipe for Monkey Blonde! This piece is 50" long and 30 to 32 inches on the short side...a sloppy tearing job too. I shoulda stayed in bed but will post this one for sale on the Hotcakes site tomorrow. I MUST NOT ADD TO MY STASH!

art anyone

With two consecutive non-art related posts I am ready to move on. Never mind that I have a 5 star cold with sore throat & fever that cost me a dental appointment yesterday (but NOT my vote - apologies in advance to all other voters who I may have infected- mission accomplished). And never mind that we are under a tornado watch here for the same set of storms that caused such terrible loss of life in the states due east of us. It's muggy, the sky is heavy and dark and thunder mutters in the distance. I am laying out fabric for some soy wax experiments and if the roof is still on later, some kitchen dye magic. This is two yards of fabric with soy wax crumbs sprinkled between the layers. The bundle is bound for the oven for a few minutes. Fever makes me crazier than usual.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Monday, February 04, 2008

Friday, February 01, 2008

No unfinished business

I've been in New York all week sitting at my Mom's bedside in the same hospital where I was born. She is busy at the work of dying. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon. I think she is satisfied that she has no unfinished business. Then again she could fool us all and be imperiously bossing her way around the nursing home by Spring but I think not. My sisters and brother have been with her round the clock because she gets anxious and disoriented if left alone despite the best efforts of the nursing staff. I spent my shifts talking with her and doing a lot of hand stitching on this piece, more than I expected to. More slow cloth, the stitches marking out the moments as they passed. My Dad was well enough to visit with her one afternoon and she spoke to him on the phone the next day briefly.These days she always ends her conversations with "I love you." Northern Westchester is a wonderful facility and with a retired postal worker's medical insurance, she's getting the kind of treatment usually reserved for movie stars. Christopher Reeve, Superman himself, lived his last days right down the hall from her room. There is art on the walls everywhere. This installation by Kim Tamalonis is across from the main elevators on the Lobby floor. At first I thought they were glazed tiles but on closer inspection each element is a separate canvas. It's called "The One That Got Away". Much thought has been given to the needs of caretakers here. There is a center where they can go and rest, have a snack, use the internet. There's a massage chair great for having spent the night sleeping in an upright chair and a quiet room with deep leather chairs and waterfalls on the wall. There is a baby grand piano just outside the doors of these rooms and a talented man was playing something from the Standards songbook, I forget exactly what but it felt appropriate. Somehow it didn't feel right to luxuriate there but the music was enchanting.I guess I haven't been at the caretaker thing long enough. Meanwhile,upstairs, Rosalie was sleeping peacefully for the first time since I arrived. I got home to Georgia late last night and my Mom goes back to the nursing home for Hospice care today. Many thanks to all the kind folks who are thinking about us and helping first hand with this, Life's final project.