read the manual!

I've had this camera forever and I just figured out how to adjust the macro setting for closer focusing.

Back to work

I continue to find things in the studio that have never seen the light of day. Photographing them and listing them at Hand Music will be a daily priority until I finally get to the bottom of all those tubs stacked around the place.    

Four "new" things added to the store today. Time for a break. 
This is Candyland





Do you believe in cat reincarnation?
I do now. Sweetie has crept out of the bedroom and followed me into the studio where she is full of mischief and needs a wary eye kept on her.

The first time she jumped up onto the work table to attack an innocent piece of string I had a chill of mistaken identity and then the warmth that can only come from kitten foolishness.

Christmas

I guess I am coming out of my bahumbuggery about Christmas .   We had a lovely, quiet little Christmas here. Jake was here for the morning and came back later for dinner. Colin took Raquel to see her family in Florida but should be back tonight sometime.

For years I have been wanting to find a place where they skip Christmas altogether and go there a week before Thanksgiving and not come back until after New Years. I'm sure the Scrooge-ness is part homesickness and part stress related. I was glad to snatch about 24 hours of peace out of the season this year. Someday I will learn from my mother's example. When I was growing up she and my father managed, with four kids and blue collar budget,  to pull off a Christmas Orgy that would put Martha Stewart to shame and she did it in stride. Her trick was to start shopping sometime back in August. Someone remind me this year, please!

Letting Go

Please know first that I am not complaining here. These sales could have not come in a more timely fashion. It's just an emotional time of the year. Normally, I am happy and proud as a parent putting a kid on the school bus for the first time when I sell a piece and ship it off, but packing up "Memories Feast" this morning put me in a strange place.

When I start a piece, I certainly don't have "marketability" on my list of design considerations. More often than not, I'm on autopilot. I didn't think anyone would ever see and feel this piece the way I did, but they have and off it goes, priority mail.

One thing I do know for sure, and anyone who had seen artwork made with textiles will affirm, everything looks so much better in person. I know that every one who opens one of my packages will be captivated by the reality of the thing they only imagined from an image found in the internet. Happy Holidays!

Color coming on

Along with the sun being just so in relationship to our ball of mud, the stars must have been rightly aligned.

This piece danced out of several scrap heaps in the studio in a short hour, re-aligned a few bits of itself and was basted in place before my last break.

I spent the last two hours of my shift just eyeballing it and thinking about stitching possibilities.  Now the challenge will be to finish it's predecessor with the same vigor and joy. I feel color coming on.

Solstice

Stitching continues on this one, I've come to love building mock floss from 4,6, even 8 strands of regular sewing thread, cottons and rayons together with a strand of metallic thrown in for pizzazz. "Chess 3" just before mummification ( I solved the problem of the process darkening white fabric!) and something new just started to celebrate the turning of the year. Did someone mention that there's a heavy holiday breathing down my neck? Jim just left to find us a tree!

Sweetie fits in

Sweetie has become a member of the household in a limited way for now.
We have kept her secluded in the master bedroom without putting any other feline noses out of joint. Our cats are free range, coming and going as they please through a cat door, but more often standing with noses pressed to the glass of the slider mentally compelling you to get up from the couch and let them in. So far, Sweetie rarely ventures out of the upstairs and we probably won't let her learn the outdoor property until Spring. She seems content with her domain for now.

in a tiz

I recently popped of to have my say at The Painter's Key in response to an article about an issue that been on my mind - working big, working small.  This twice weekly  newsletter has become one of my favorite daily reads. It's becoming more relevant to me as I move to step out of the "fiber" artist box without abandoning fiber as my medium.

And, thanks to Jude for the mention of her recent acquisition of "Mayhem", I have been scrambling to upgrade my store and commit to selling some recent things that I wasn't ready to part with. The response to her post was a great emotional lift. Actual SALES! 

There have been a lot of inquiries about the fiber fossils (thanks for that too, J) which sounds a bit more inviting than what I was calling them - fiber mummies - and I am going ahead with mounting a few other pieces in the same way.

And before I forget AGAIN have you seen this absolute wonder of a piece?
I am so proud of you Arlee!

naming names

I've finally come up with a name train to go along with the series I've been working on. This was the first and I've put it up for sale at              Hand Music. 

"All Unknowing" is 18.5 " x 16.5" unmounted - you can tussle with your own notions of how to matte and frame it - I am fresh out of those ideas. and I am pretty sure I can still get it shipped for Christmas. Even so, imagine getting a wonderful gift a day or so after all the holiday fur has stopped flying.

tracking back

I have not bothered to figure out what that means in blogeez but I have looked back over this current process and the results of this series so far and it's a comfort to discover some order in my art-work-life.

If there is nothing in my go bag to work on I start grubbing about in the studio for cloth souls that are getting along and hold auditions. Sundays are for composing the ground and rounding up the elements. There's a day of two of chess playing.

I am orchestrating the somethings, making them fall into an order, a snap shot that appeals to me.

The next step is a technical comfort - basting densely so I don't have to suffer with pins through the rest of the project which tends to make me resentful and blood spots were not a part of the original design consideration. The embroidery is a whole new adventure in design on the fly. Stitching and picking out. I have some new stitching in mind for this one to help balance and direct.  Jeez, for someone with not a lot to say about the art there are a lot of words today.

I did make a couple of changes from yesterdays post.  A couple of shifts and one addition. Today it's stronger, less wishful.

further exploration

The quickest way for me to be contrary is to put my intentions on paper.  These haloed circular elements originated back in '07 during a particularly frenzied dye fest when I was discovering the magic of discharge using dishwasher gel . I had it all over my hands and picked up pieces of fabric only to find them covered with discharged finger prints after the washout.

I shuffled this piece around for about eight hours yesterday. I had it pinned to my cube wall at the office and moved things around while I talked with the clients. It felt like I was playing Chinese checkers with myself. As the evening wore on the game became chess and I'm now satisfied that I won the match.

One of the first pieces I used these elements in continues to please me.  As I tell anyone who cares, it's a great life if you are easily amused.Below - "Hopped Up" from 2007