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.

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.

Deadlines..

..have a way of sneaking up on you. Awhile ago I decided to look for mixed media shows to enter instead of strictly quilt venues. When I found TOXIC COLOR" at Exit-a gallery space in Cleveland Ohio, I felt like the organizers had been peeking into my studio. My colors have been on a berserk for some time. Additionally, this gallery has had exhibitions of fiber art in recent history including weaving and collage work. So yesterday morning I discovered that the deadline for entry had about 18 hours to go. Fortunately, this gallery was ready and willing to deal with electronic entries, even electronic payments with PayPal. Five shots for 25.00 dollars was worth the concerted effort of getting this entry page put together before noon. I haven't posted pictures of this piece before and had to come up quickly with the title "Macrophage Cotillion" (hoping I spelled it right). Coming up with titles on short notice is unsettling although I don't think there's a law saying I can't change the title until they get the wallcards printed.

California Cannibalism

Now that title's bound to draw some weird traffic but sadly, that's what's happened out in Benecia, CA in the barn owl box that I watch on the cam (see side bar). When Frieda laid 7 eggs I knew that bad things were going to happen. As the first chicks hatched and grew, the last to hatch got weaker and tastier looking. All I saw was the diminishing headcount. We are down to four. Talk about Survivors! I still haven't recovered from seeing the TX brood go all natural last spring when the Mum checked out a chick that died from the heat and then ate it in one gulp! Nature's way, I know but it's so hard to NOT anthropomorphize the critters. These chicks are a long way from cute but I can't help it.

New look and new sound

I finally caved in and upgraded to the new blogger Minima template. They still let you tinker around under the hood so my blog is not out of danger yet. Y'all are going to have to deal with my new earworm on the sidebar for a while. If I can't get this song out of my head why should you? I can live without the video but it's a package deal. The saving grace is that the young woman in the video is actually his wife. He was on Oprah the other day performing this little ditty and the women in the audience were oozing down the aisles.

WIP

Cleared up the cutlets, packed the crew off to work, turned on the game and had this painted up by the 6th inning. It's good to get back to work a bit each night. I was definitely done hand-sewing on it. Now I have to leave it laying on the kitchen floor overnight to dry . Could be some interesting cat criticisms by morning.

Audrey & Peg

This is my friend Peg and her houseguest Audrey. Peg normally doesn't name her livestock beyond "Leg'O" or "Barbie-Q" but Audrey is going to get to grow up and and experience the joys of motherhood, Peg hopes, including feeding her own lambs and not leaving it to Peg and a bottle!

more new things

Sewing sleeves on two new pieces entitles me to take another new wholecloth dyepainting out of the pile and put it up on the wall for consideration. I may be doing some discharging and/or painting to this one to bring out some value changes but not too much. I sure don't want to screw it up. Another large piece, ummm, 40x58 I think. I do know I'm going to be scrounging to build backs for this set and scrambling for coupons to get a break on more batting. Below is something I started based on the table-mopper that I made down in Florida. Someone in this blogring (help me out here readers) posted about having a craving for some texture not to long ago and I was inspired to dig up a set of spotty looking fabrics and make them dance. The huge Frankenstein hand stitching is because the baseball season has started. Someone's Mum would say "It keeps me finger outta me nose."

New work.

Thanks for the concern Peg. It's probably a lack of FIBER! Finally some progress. This is a crummy picture but I'll have to sleeve it before I can get a good shot outside. I put the pedal to the metal this morning about 7:30 and, with a break for a little yard work, got the stitching finished after the game. Don't know what to call it yet but it's big, 60"x39", and by a miracle of serendipity, the backing fabric is the exact same color as the lavender I dye-painted on the front. I started this at Focus On Fiber last month and have been stalling like mad about finishing it. Why? Didn't want to screw it up. This was the first time I ever sketched out how I wanted the stitching to go before sitting down at the machine.

Once upon a time I had something to say...

From 2005 "In response to Gabrielle's question "What drives you to create....to make art...to show your inner self or just play?" I offer this. The manipulation of light and texture until that silent, inner bell tolls is an act of anticipation that feeds a need for making order of these elements according to the inner eye. The hope that this personal order will have a degree of universal appeal drives one to hold up the finished work and say "Behold - a piece of what makes me unique". This hope is a secondary type of anticipation often tinged with fear. Those lucky, brave or smart enough to skip this second anticipation will reap the best of what a creative drive can give us. Total self-satisfaction." At the moment, the bell is silent, the eye is blind and I have no feelings about it.