some history please

I fell asleep thinking about the fact that this "new" fabric that I brought home has almost no history unlike the vintage damasks that have taken over my studio in the past year. The label says that it's imported which means it's traveled further than I have but it hasn't lived anywhere or done anything, yet. Fabrics that gets made into garments or other things of utility get to make some history but once we take fabric and make it part of art, things slow down too much. I'm half inclined to drag this piece around with me for a while. Lay it in the parking lot at work. Stuff it in the mailbox. Slam one end in under the trunk lid of my car and drive downtown at night dragging yardage behind me. Colin and Voodoo helped me with these pictures. I just went over to Judy Martin's blog and decided to add this last photo:

SCORE!

Just got back from OHCO in Covington, GA where I rescued these poor fibers for a mere $1.50 per yard. I had to wait in line for a parking space! Once I started figuring out how much fabric I could buy based on the money I brought with me, I had to stop and recalculate based on how much I could actually carry. The piece on top was unmarked so I only gambled 10 yards worth.A burn test since I got home confirms it's 100% cotton. The rest have 2 to 3 yards on each bolt. I have dyed these in the past and they Love the Color! Although dingy around the edges, everything was dry and mildew free but I will be taking the whole lot to the commercial lavanderia up the street rather than give my tired old Maytag a breakdown.

There was an entire aircraft hangar sized building where it looked like someone had used a bulldozer to push piles of fabric into long rows. That stuff was being sold by the pound (1.50 per) and I got about 40 feet of 300 count, king sized sheeting, white, printed with a .50x 1.50 beige grid...BACKING fabric for the straight-line challenged! There was also a huge piece of sanded cotton duck and another damask tablecloth.

I'm especially excited about the giagunda dimensions of some of these pieces. Big things in the works.

I dreamed that I was working on a piece that was very large - feet by feet large - and someone was telling me that I was committing Fiber Art Career Suicide by working that big. My reply "What career?"

Welcome Babu Coconut

Welcome Little Babu Coconut! I have a new nephew. This picture is to hustle his dad into taking and sending a picture to me so I can make a proper announcement!

a distraction

I spent most of the day in the studio yesterday trying to put my feet on the ground and get something going while the Notion of Motion series takes the back burners but I kept looking out the window at the freakish snow. It fell relentlessly all day long but never added up to anything more than a cold headache this morning. It will all be gone by noon. I've been hoarding these pieces of cotton for ages. Some time last summer I folded, stitched, waxed and dyed several pieces and sold all of them except this one. Once I cut the grid apart I was lost. So here is the grid again, reorganized. From here there will be more wax resists and over dyeing. For the moment, I'm just satisfied (for the first time) in the layout. (51"x24")

Something you don't see every day in Georgia

Jim hasn't lost his touch. This snow has not yet amounted to anything much more than pretty frosting even though it's been coming down fat and crazy all day long. There was deep and distant thunder too a few times. The sound reminded me of the noise that the town plows made when they were coming through the park on a winter night. The sounds were glad tidings that meant there would be no school the following morning. Yesterday I had the pleasure of a phone call inviting me to be a vendor at the Norcross Fall Art festival this coming October. I had just finished looking a some old jpegs of the velvet scarves I had for sale at the same festival back in "05 and thinking I might be up for doing it again. Is that serendipity or what?

the Anonymous Experiment....

....was a resounding success. Thank you all. I'm deeply grateful to all those who took the time to comment publicly and email me privately on the current series. I learned a great deal, had some ideas confirmed, scraped some doodoo off my shoes and was given much to think about . I would encourage anyone who keeps a blog and is serious about their art to take a chance on your readership and have an ANONYMOUS COMMENT FESTIVAL. found in a recent fortune cookie "You will be richly rewarded"

time to stop

I know it's time to stop making these pieces when I'm playing Freecell in the last 15 minutes of my shift. Now I have to spend some time going through my existing stash and planning for what materials I'm going to need to bring something like these studies to life full sized. And, Elizabeth! Who said you could be peeking over my shoulder when I am scribbling in my sketchbook? I am also reading a novel with a thrilling description of a horse race. The note says "horse parts lines".

nomo #3

Time to restuff and restock the little ragbag that I take in to the office. Last night I went in there with no pins and no thread, but still got this one was composed flat and rolled tight so things would be in place when I got it to the machine this morning. I've been dreaming about how these are going to be made full sized- the layers, the colors, the stitching - an hoping that over dreaming a piece doesn't do for me what putting it down in a sketchbook does..*poof*

more trial balloons

"notion of motion #2" and now to take my cold for a nap.

kindling

I got an email announcement yesterday that one of my favorite painters, Hollis Heichemer ,would be having a gallery show in NY. I was almost afraid to look at the newest work, sponge brain that I am - it both inspires and baffles me. My problem remains how to create this kind of immediacy and energy with a medium that, at best, is slow as dirt?? Last night at work I fiddled with the notion of motion and came up with this. I had to machine stitch it to keep the scale in order. I'd like to think that this is a tiny study for some much large things to come in the future. And another delightful email - Del Thomas letting me know that she was highlighting "Parking Magik" (2003) on her blog about her quilt collection. It was a treat to see it again as I have misplaced the original digital files. Thanks, Del!

In the Show!

There they are! I have five pieces in the World of Imagination Showopening March 6 at the APW Gallery in Long Island City, NY. It feels good to have something out there where folks beside my cats can look at it. It may look like a cattle call but..MooOOO!...I'm fine with a great, brawling art event.

sea change

The B&W versions were all composed and assembled (if not finished) at the office but last night, as I poked through the scrap bag, the Crayon People took me over and color just had to have it's way. I've been hand stitching on the color one this morning. The sun streams into my studio right over my shoulder, Jinx and I share the sewing chair, enjoy CBS Sunday Morning and a second cup of coffee and lots gets accomplished. I've decided that I'm going to finish these four pieces by mounting them on canvas and then mummifying the fabric with a thick soaking of clear acrylic medium. I've done this before with smaller pieces and I like the outcome. Of course, the hand of the fabric is lost but that's not an issue with this sort of piece anyway.

steeping

For the first time in ages I am dwelling on my work. It's a total luxury to be able to have it with me at all while I'm at the office. I pin the piece up on the wall of my cube and just look at while I'm taking calls and think about what's going on with it. Then, between calls, I can cut, adjust and stitch, slowly. thoughtfully. only this time I'm not thinking all that much about process or technique. With this kind of time on my hands what could be simpler than honoring the grid and attending to good design elements, each one a wayward and willful sheep? I'm thinking about the cloth and the spirits in it as if possessed. The ground, of course, these antique damask tablecloths that I have rescued from rag bags and dyed, are each full of mystery and history. They came to me mostly white but I feel as if the colors that I have given them reflect something of the character of their lives and service. Some are worn through in places, evidence of what? Years of happy Sunday family gatherings? Years of straight laced enslavement to social requirements? Was this tablecloth washed, ironed, folded and fussed over by a young, Irish immigrant girl brought to New England as an indentured servant before the turn of the century? Did this tablecloth cost more than her family could earn in a year? Did her heart ache as she stood back and watched dinner guests spill wine and gravy on it without a thought? The grid elements are refugees too, all snips and bits taken from here and there. The black here is a messy-when-cut expensive linen taken from a pair of designer label slacks that were incredibly a size 2. Not much fabric here. Each piece of cloth I'm handling is speaking to me of it's origin, it's use, it's history. I hope the finished pieces will convey the fabric's wishes as much as my own.

juicy days

Yesterday was a fine day in the mines! They's choking at Chucky's, puking at PF's and boffing in the bathrooms at El Toadies. (The names are all changed to protect the guilty, of course) . I may never eat out again! All this goes on and on and I get to be the electronic priestess listening, nodding, murmuring agreements and keying it all into the void and all the while struggling to keep a straight face and not bust out howling with laughter. I'm sorry but tales of guests stabbing one another with forks for dibs on the waitress is right up there with Craig Ferguson's best stuff. If you can stay up that late, you deserve giggle fits. I kept my self-promise to wallow more in the music and wore my Ipod headphones on the drive over to the office (arrest me) and got a great dose of Box Scaggs and John Mayer, both live. Add a dash of Joni Mitchell and for dessert, some Sting. Music like that makes me miss a longer commute. Things were slow when I got there - the river of Whining was running slow as sludge so I was able to get a new small piece of hand work underway and it's developing in a very satisfying way. If you've ever worked in a cube farm you know how it can be very self-contained and isolating but I've chosen a seat in a corner lot that no one else seems to want, the southern light filters through pines and a wall of glass over my right shoulder. It's not like working in a dungeon when I can sit there. It's interesting working on a piece when you are sitting on the corner of Main and Exit. Folks pass by, watch for a moment. Not the place or time for discussion but I can tell they are wondering what I am up to. With a tip of my pointy hat, I'll call it "jude scratchin'#1". Until I can work arms thrown wide again, I'll have this personal investigation into the nature of cloth, the grid, of course, and the spaces left where the warp and weft do their dance. So's not to rush a good thing, I set it aside at the stall point and started a new book."The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy that appears to have been written with the artist's eye in mind. Just wonderful visuals at every turn and I've hardly gotten to know the players. This day has been a feast for the senses. Not bad for a cube rat.

camera woes

There was a lovely box of inspiration on the doorstep this morning including some lightweight cottons bound for the dyepots as soon as it gets warm enough. I was inspired to root around in the studio and start rounding up everything and anything that will take color and found quite a pile! Now all I have to do is grind my teeth and wait a month or two. I mounted "Alligator Dream #1" on a 9"x12" canvas and finally got this one trued up and stitched down tight but spent two wasted sessions trying to get it and few others photographed. I'm going to take my CanonA95 someplace and have it cleaned or whatever can be done for an aging and well-used digital camera that is just not doing what it used to do. I wasted another hour online looking at what's new and reasonably price in the way of digital cameras but looks like I'll have to go back to school to catch up on all the latest jargon since '05 when I bought the one I've got now. All suggestions, reviews and wisdom are welcome.

brewing

With the clock ticking I was able to cobble together this little flag yesterday. Must be the anticipation of the weekend spurring me on. There were lulls between calls last night and some notions actually made it into the sketchbook. I'll have to force myself to drag them out of it this time. Good ideas have been few and far between for me lately. Winter blahs without any snow or ice are insidious. One thing I'm sure of...I have to bring music back into the studio. TV is beginning to sicken me. In the break room at my job there is a set that seems locked onto CNN with the volume set at impending disaster level. There seems to be no relief from the perfect idiocy of most of the human race. I am absolutely sure that good, purposeful people everywhere who are working to help or make a difference come home from work, kick off their shoes and yell "you STUPID @!*&$!!" at the ceiling. Then, I hope they can have a dish of ice cream, smile and get a good night's rest before starting all over again the next day. ADDENDUM ((beeep)) " Thank you for calling the Common Sense Hotline. I am not a doctor or a lawyer but I wasn't born yesteday and I have been paying attention...what is your issue?"

new cards

I finally took the time and money to order some new business cards. Graphic design is not like riding a bicycle. If the analogy was true, I'd be dead in the street about now. I decided I wanted more art and less information and this snip from "Up on Wheels" and all of "Hopped Up" remind me what I like best about what I do with fabric dye and paint.

Yes! Spring!

Can't you just hear him complaining about my dirty, empty birdbath? ( A word of warning about the sound link above - two of my cats rushed the monitor and speakers!) This charming fellow is one of Nellie Durand's fabulous creations. And for a little more delight for your day, try here: http://www.adobecards.com/ Thank you, Tristan!

Spring?

What a great combination - the Ace of Cups and a nearly full moon. After what seems like weeks in the deep freeze, the house is open to a blazing sunny day that may see 65 degrees. Eastern Bluebirds are everywhere here, on their way to someplace else but chowing down on whatever they can find while they are here. I stitched on this through the first four new episodes of LOST yesterday. Finally I've starting to cast about for a new direction for some large work. Makes you wonder if being able to stand up straight without shivering figures into creative output. Supplies are low and I'll have to scrounge for stuff but what else is new in the life of an artist? I'll bet batting is 50% off in JoAnns any minute now. And Jinx know what to do with a scrap of batting in a sunny patch on the sewing table.

handwork

A little hand music maybe but I doubt there will be time tonight. We suddenly busy and I'm in the middle of two good books. Reviews when I get a minute. Hail Friday! Last night I found out that I can sign up for Weeks off from work (without pay of course) but still... how civilized!

Scootch closer and hunker down to

"Tales From the Cube-a-torium" ...."Your race please?..... ...What?..... 5K, 10K?....What ? training? ...No, no. I mean, who are your people? I mean.... ...The Dinwiddies of East Toadholler?? No, no I mean your ETHNICITY. ...No, no, I don't need to know about your bedroom doings, I need your ETHNICITY... you know, what COLOR you are. " ....No Ma'am, Summer is not an option here. Are you white? ....Ma'am I'm sorry about the tanning salon incident but can we... ....No ma'am "drowned China man" is not on the list. Are you Caucasian? ....No, not your religious persuasion, I don't need to know about pagan rites and such, I just need to know if you are African American, Hispanic, white, brown ...you know, RACE? ....thank you Ma'am. I'll include your suggestion to the people who write the questions. No, Ma'am. I don't think it's unreasonable to offer Extraterrestrial as an option but for right now...." OK....so it was funnier in person and late at night. Try this

The Bloody Shoe & The Quilter's Prayer

For lack of anything artistic to report this morning, I'm going with News of the Weird. Some time ago I posted this photo-shopped image of a shoe. I bought them online and sadly, the fit was wrong for me to the point of pain but it wasn't quite this bad.

Nothing like a little drama and blood to draw a crowd. There's a huge group of folks out there who seem drawn to this picture like it was an image of the Virgin Mary on a Dorito. Go figger. Have a ball guys!

And the runner up in the hit parade? My Quilter's Prayer, which, btw, didn't prevent this particular piece of hand dyed cotton from winding up in the recycle bin in my studio. Bits of it are in pieces all over the place. As a whole piece, the prayer failed it but I have often snatched up a chunk, cut off what was needed and given thanks.

Cold 'Lanta

It's sixteen whole degrees outside and not a whole lot warmer in the house. Even the furred folk are happier under the covers. To provoke Spring, I've started the handwork on my latest garden quilt. At the new job we don't have assigned seats so, gypsy style, you squat where you can when you get there. Yesterday I had a bad chair, a flicker-y monitor and bad lighting so hand work was out of the question. Pray for a window seat today.

Thanks Arlee...

My photography is not getting crappier. My camera is starting to have issues. I'm going to leave this on the design wall and stay my hand for a while. Less is more. The hole in the center where nothing lives provokes me eye. I had all kinds of snide and entertaining notions to share about the new job but, right now, I'm not feeling the comedy of things but I am feeling deep gratitude for the generosity and kindness of (almost) strangers. The Card of the Day is Strength and there I abide.

Flourish continues

The time I have to do artwork is so precious all of a sudden. I spent most of this morning in the studio working on Flourish. they have an orchid feel to them although I've never given a real orchid a good hard look. They look more like creatures of some kind than plants. They sell orchids in the grocery stores down here, the most expensive things in the produce department. I'm going leave off with this now cause I've stopped feeling joyful about it - got a cold brewing I think - don't want to run off the rails the way I tend to when working past inspiration.

a flourish of progress

Stabbing myself with pins while laughing at "Two & Half Men" has become part of my routine. I'd like to say I'm going up to the studio to spend some time with this but truth is, the job got to me today and I am just plain tired and I don't want to make any commitments with needle and thread that I'll regret come Saturday. Instead of nattering about the job, I will tip my reading list to the late John Updike, rave about Slum Dog Millionaire (OH! the Textiles!) and the latest issue of American Style Magazine (featuring one of my favorite artists, Eleanor McCain) - in my mailbox 'cause I'm a 9/10ths member of SAQA. Long story for another time.

works in progress

I've been fascinated with Tricia McKellar's "Flourish" series and noticed akinship shapewise with a new piece I started last month. Tricia has generously granted permission for me to interpret her work in my medium. Yesterday, I isolated the stitched shapes with soy wax and got it into a dyebath. I wanted a neutral gray but, as any attempt at black in whatever concentration, you get what you get. In this case a rather nice dusty lavender that will work well in the long run. From here there will be much applique and dimensional work, both hand and machine stitching. Given my new schedule, some real slow cloth in the works. And finally, I finished the last of this set for another summer garden quilt. I think the border/edge on this one will be a series of overlapping leaves. That should take me through April or May.

Personal Archaeology

I started digging out our walk-in closet today. You can put an awful lot of crap in one of those construction weight black plastic bags, but then you have to lift it up. I was appalled to find that much of the clothing I was getting rid of would be rejected by Goodwill. I made the mistake of going through an old art portfolio that I have been dragging from closet to closet for some forty years. A lot more crap went into the bag. Why do we keep some things? Seems as if creatures real and imagined, dark views and riotous colors have always been part of my art heart. This was our cat Moses. Probably the only time I've ever been able to capture a real likeness.

The Wheel of Life

It turns for us all.

No, I have not "run oft" with pirates. I have lately been consumed with the logistics of returning to the rat race. I couldn't do it without the love and support of my family.

So far it's a day-long proposition but if and when I get past the training period I will have some time for the studio again.

In the meantime, I put myself to sleep at night putting the finishing touches on a few of the summer quilts and making notes and sketches for future projects.

I've reinstituted my practice of turning a Tarot card while sitting at a light in traffic. This morning - the Queen of Cups.

I have been both chastened and enlightened.

Wild Baby Blue Launching Pad

Between setting up electronic banking stuff, general correspondence and the usual ether-wandering I feel like I've spent the better part of the day on the computer. It's stuff I won't have the idle time to do starting tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to starting the new gig. Feels like the first day of school. I'll still find the time to do as much as moves me in the studio only it will be as the schedule says I can. Maybe I'll be more productive with someone else setting up the whens. I finished this little quilt off last night and gave it a good thrash in the washer and dryer just to make sure it's fit for public opinion. It is. An heirloom in waiting, I've just posted it over at my Etsy place just to see what sort of traffic it brings. I've let that little cyber shop languish a long time. There are detail shots and lots of marketing babble over there too.

Changes Afoot

The painting does not go well. A much as I wanted it to, it never did for me. I can only think of one canvas that, once finished, satisfied me. In dim recollection, it was something I dashed off as decoration for the new nursery, some thirty years ago and so had an important purpose beyond my mere need to fling colors around. All the hard edges that we create when piecing fabric become impossible boundaries when recreated in two dimensions with paint. So far,I've only painted ground colors. The need to have to fashion the effects of the texture of fabric and stitching with paint confounds me. Once the studio warms up, I'll give it another go before I gesso over the whole mess. On a completely different note, I'm delighted to have found a full time job. It's going to be familiar - when AT&T dragged us from NY to GA I spent three years of hell taking inbound telemarketing calls - but there won't be any "marketing" in this position. There's room for advancement - my IT skills and experience were noted, and so, back into the workforce we go! I am deeply grateful.