reopened at Big Cartel

 
It seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up so I reopened a store for some of my recent work at Big Cartel. I'm still fumbling around with their user interface but I named the store "Go on and touch it. You know you want to". Could garner some unusual traffic.

still celebrating summer!

Even though we are finally coming out of a week long winter freeze, I am going to celebrate summer again today and refuse to look at any winter pictures that the web is rife with at the moment.

This bundle of glory is from Marie Z.'s blog which is a constant source of sunshine and inspiration - back to you lady!

While rummaging through the files I came across this piece and wondered why it never got posted to the main gallery. Large, 60"x40" give or take, this is "Giraffe Crossing Against the Light" (after much group debate).

This was one of the pieces that I designed and completed with fabrics on hand and painted while I was at Mary McBride's Focus on Fiber at the ACA in FL where I had one of the most productive weeks of my life. I really, really need to go back again. Something to save for.

Last night I had one of those amazing, problem solving dreams where you wake up not remembering the fuzzy details but the lesson was clear, well founded and remembered and resonates with the work of the moment:

                      "Loosen up, be free and don't call it work."

detail from "Giraffe..."

ah summer....

The iced-overness continues here and looking back to summer dye days is so nice.

Melissa put a a really nice reminder of how good things happen unexpectedly when you dye your own.

something new

I took out some scraps to shuffle around a see if anything stirred and it has. I think I know what hound dogs feel like when they are on the trail and find the scent!

my crew

A while back someone remarked on the piece that could be seen hanging over my worktable. I couldn't find the image anywhere until this morning. For lack of anything new, here it is, something from my "gestures" series.

I have had another on my mind for while now but I have not even been able to draw it much less create it somehow with cloth. It's nothing like this one but still, a gesture. I'll keep trying.

the fun sort of work

We are snowed in today - a rare treat in Georgia. Now that the snow is tapering off we are in for 12 hours of freezing rain.  As long as the power doesn't go off we will be the snug rug bugs.

The boys are both in staying put mode at the respective GF's homes, and have made promises to drive nowhere.

All this gorgeous cloth? I have hand picked all of these for their "stitchability", that nice needle and thread, hand friendly feel that some cloth has.

These are all from my hand dyed, painted and/or discharged stash and include cotton - muslin, gauze, huck, flannel, lawn and damask. There is some silk, vintage sackcloth in several weights, a silk/rayon and all rayon scarf and a few hand picked commercial prints

I'm going to be cutting these up into fairly small pieces and grouping them into 3/4 hand bundles. You'll have to trust my (some have said) good colorsense - I won't have time to spread them out and photograph the individual pieces as I have in the past. Be assured each one will delight me before I name it and wrap it up.  I hope to have some up in the store by noon...and each bundle will include a treat until I run out of them.

winter storm

That's my dye studio out there! Even though we are out of practice for getting snowed in, we did a good job yesterday.

A big pot of beef stew got made, Jim went out and bought a couple of bags of sand to throw around on the walkways and I went out with my friend Janice to socialize, make plans, see a film and generally enjoy the day before the storm hit.

Now we'll spend the day looking out the window as all this gets worse. They are promising a day's worth of icy rain and freezing temperatures to continue - let's hope that the power doesn't go out as the trees start breaking down.

on the wall

I finally painted out that ghastly yellow I put around "Lavenderia" .Now I can come in here without getting aggravated.  It's been too cold to spend much time in the studio so I painted at the kitchen table this morning, toasty with stew cooking and the oven going.

Now I'm going to brave the cold outside and get out a bit before the snowstorm they are predicting for the area.

more studio archaelogy

More tiny treasures uncovered while I think about what and if, is next for me as far as the cloth goes. A little rummaging in the archives revealed that I have been making these little hand stitched pieces for a long time -  before anyone was taking any kind of notice or paying slow stitching any special attention. It was what you did when there was no sewing machine and had the time to do it.

I know I took up the practice because I was away from home for ten or more hours at a time, working at a job that was mostly "watch and wait" where nothing much ever happened.
 My grandma always said "Idle hands are the devil's playground". When I was little I always wondered where this damned playground was. On this job the saying was never more true -with a few bored keystrokes I could have disrupted telecommunications for everyone east of the Mississippi. Best I had something else to occupy me in the idle hours rather than any self-directed on the job training.


This is "Small Comfort" from early 2005. This was just one of a  whole long series of pieces I called "Rothko's Puppies"

Ah spun gold! My magpie brain is so dazzled by a little bit of sparkle. This is the bottom side of one of the cusspots that I dyed and painted last summer.




I uncovered the whole basket of them in the studio the other day. Unfortunately most of them were more like bottles with the necks too small to stuff with scraps. A few were perfect little vessels.

good starts

I picked up the thread with this one last night and carried out my intention to make changes to using the Shiva oil sticks A. sent me some time ago.

I like the very slow, controlled results from using very little paint on a dry stiff brush, sneaking up on shapes and creating depth and definition. Must take care to go slowly and not screw this one up. One false move with this stuff and you are stuck with a mess.

You would laugh to see me back my car out of what can be sometimes tight parking in our driveway. Think about the Queen Mary pulling away from her berth.

Happy New Year!

I've put this and the last of the stuffed cusspots up for sale in the Random Acts of Dyeness store - I cranked this one out last night between customers and, for the first time, had an inkling of what carpal tunnel feels like. I can do without crocheting for good while!

There are new books to be read and I don't anticipate a busy evening although holidays have a way of bringing the wackos out of the woodwork. Since I'm working until midnight anyway, I've offered up my services as a designated driver so I may be out and about after dark this New Year! A first in many.

sometimes you just must

Gallery Updating

The studio lies fallow, but that's ok - it's that time of year for me. There are things on the design wall, in the sketchbook and the back brain burner that will all come into being in their own good time.

Until then it seemed prudent to review so I spent the morning updating the main gallery and being so bold as to post prices again instead of half-hearted and hopeful messages of negotiation or barter.

Here is my work. I am well satisfied.

Sweetie's first snow

Sweetie has been acting so strange since it started snowing last night, running around the house (she sounds like a herd of ponies) and going around with her hair all up.

Then I remembered that this was probably her first snow. She joined our family last year and spent a good three months sequestered  upstairs, recuperating from being a feral waif, a minor surgery and keeping her from the rest of the crew. I'm sure she missed the brief snowfall we had last winter.

It was hard to get a good shot because she was doing that foot shaking dance cats do when they step in something they don't like.

Merry Christmas!

A lovely day. Everyone got gifts both unexpected and welcome. Jake and Missy are here, Colin had to go serve the movie going public and we are hunkered down waiting on the first Christmas snow in the ATL since 17 years. The real worry is the potential for ice.


Yes, the pie tasted every bit as good as it looks and the lasagna will be at it's best tomorrow.

quiet time

The quiet time took me be surprise last night. I was prepared to be inundated with the complaints of every inept malcontent and miscreant up and walking  last night only to have long minutes of blessed silence between brief, businesslike "let's get it done" calls.

My scrap basket was just within reach so, with my eyes closed, I felt out the pieces of cotton that had the same soft weave and started hand piecing them just for something to do. This is only about 3"x5". Maybe I'll grow it a little more later on. Hand piecing is not a favorite pastime as I seem to stick my self often ...some of those red spots around the edges are NOT dye.

Looney Eclipse

When will I learn that the time to learn about  proper camera settings is not as you stand on the deck in your slippers and nightwear shivering? The moon was dead overhead so I reckoned that putting the camera on 10 second delay and laying it on it's back on the picnic table would be a good thing to try. Then the cloud cover started racing by. You can even see Venus I think.

The clouds parted for just a second and this shot came out pretty good.  No, that's not my finger...I threw those shots out with the other forty odd that I took.  I even sat up in bed reading the manual for a while. Better than a glass of wine or a pill.....


the one below is my favorite. who knows what the camera settings were?

The creatures were celebrating in their own fashion - I took three dog bite  reports over the course of the evening!

"Taken By the Night" finished

"Taken By the Night"

2010


It was nice to get something completed before the year ran out. It's charmed and puzzled me every step of the way but last night it really felt finished and this morning I faced it with a piece of even sky colored cotton and called it good.

It finished out at 11.5"x13.5" and is ready to frame. $290.00 includes shipping inside the US and if I get off Priority Mail tomorrow, it should arrive in time for holiday gift giving.

go here for a clickable close up. email me if you are interested.

Lavanderia completed

Update - I just had to paint over that yellow canvas background - it annoyed me every time I walked into the rooom

"Lavanderia" was a long time in the works. I used it in the mummy making tutorial   but did not complete the process by sealing the front with acrylic medium. There was just too many fiber effects that I knew would be lost - the sheen of the damask, the definition of all those tiny french knots - so this one looks and feels like cloth but is permanently mounted to a stretched canvas.

Cusspots explained.....

Melly has posted about her recent acquisition of some of my stuffed cusspots, and the questions are rolling in.

 The name "cusspot" came to me out of the blue (like all my titles do) when I was thinking about how to name these little containers that I started crocheting at work rather compulsively. When I made the first one, I put it on my desk and put a few coins inside with the notion that the nickle and three pennies might breed like hangars in the closet tend to. Didn't happen.

Then I remembered how some offices and families have a Swear Jar that you have to put money into if you swear out loud, as a kind of punishment or deterrent to bad language. Where I grew up you got five upside the eyes for anything past "Hell" or "Damn" (and those got you the very evil eye). Of course, we swore like sailors when Mom or Dad were not within earshot.

I swear a LOT on my job, violently and elaborately, but inside my head, at my customers. I curse them all, need it or not. It keeps me from burnout. My  little crocheted container would never serve to hold a day's worth of swearing fines, they were not big enough to be real Swear Jars, they were merely CUSSPOTS.

I started poking thread ends into it instead of letting the bits fall where ever and getting more evil eyes from the vacuum cleaner guy late in the evening. The threads stuck to the office carpet like crazy and he had to spend extra NOISY ANGRY minutes around my desk once a week. In the spring, I pulled all the thread bits out and left them in the shrubs around the office for birds to make nests with.

What will you do with a cusspot? Melly is cooking hers!

Last Chance for Holiday Fiber!

I'm almost done "shop keeping" for this year....

I think tomorrow is the last day before Christmas that I could promise a package arriving in time for holiday gift giving (US) .  If you buy one at the regular price any additional bundles will be 10$ off  and I'll get them out to you by Priority Mail, lickety split. (Note: Dont use those PayPal buttons for this sale..email me for an invoice so I can work in your discount! )

WOO WOO!
Cloth for Christmas!

See the inventory at Random Acts of Dyeness (remember, ignore those PayPal buttons if you want that discount! Email me for an invoice)

Taken....

I'm starting to get that "what now" message from this piece and have twice forged ahead with uninformed, headlong sort of stitching only to stop myself and painstakingly pick the buggers out. The royal blue damask is particularly fragile.

I can see that I need to do something defining for that birds right wing and the blue moon. I've gotten too close to this one and need to step away for a while. Maybe some cooking, cleaning and shopping? Nah...

Juicy observes

How would you like to turn around in the studio and find this looking over your shoulder?

Juicy is Jake's cat and is just starting to fit in instead of spending every moment in hiding.

Although he is fierce and intimidating to look at, he's a big scaredy cat and bolts the minute anyone but Jake approaches him. Sweetie is quite put off by this incursion and has been walking around with her back fur all up in disgust.

it's Friday!!

 I spent most of my day off yesterday in bed trying to ward off a cold/the cold and working on this piece which is becoming quite compulsive.

Things going are are being revealed to me as I go.  Can you tell that I watched "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" and was quite spellbound with the costumes and wigs, not to mention the intrigues and sea battles.

In a little while I have to report to the office for work evaluation and spend the day there interacting with live humans that I am not related to. I wonder if I  remember how.

found money art

Alexander Hamilton never looked so good. Melly, do you recognize this guy?

Taken By the Night continued

Elizabeth Barton's recent post about avoiding cliches made me focus on why I have not been doing any hand work for a while now. She actually had me sketching faces on paper last night!

The word "twee" kept coming to mind (and gagging me) as I tried one small composition after the next, each time with some literal objective in mind. Finally, I went back to my established way of composing - gathering small bits of cloth that work well together, color and textures, and then stirring the two dimensional pot until a  design emerges.
When something recognizable emerges, like figures, then I start to smell trouble. What is the story? How much to show? How much to leave in the wind? How far into cartoon do I want to dive.

At this point I have to rely on my admittedly limited stitch repertoire to define and refine. Faces are particularly deadly as they usually say too much. I prefer faces to be incongruous, contrary even, to what seems to be going on.
I don't want to to spell it out for the viewer.

Sometimes there are elements that have to be weeded out or brought into focus in an unexpected manner.

This piece continues to compel me.

sunday stitchin

Sweetie was annoyed that I abandoned our afternoon nap in favor of other things like bothering her with the camera and stitching in the afternoon sun for the scant hour and change that it  comes through the bedroom slider on the back of the house. If I'm ready early enough I can catch the morning sun in the studio now that the leaves are mostly off the trees in the front of the house.

sweater days

Brrrr. It's a sweater day in Georgia looking as if it could snow any minute. Spending this day chillin', stitching and watching old movies on the tiny TV. (and the occasional Lexulous move)
 Later there will be home made pizza and
"The Town" on the big screen.

just a little comfort

Waaay back when (note the date on the site!)  I did an entire series of digital images that used scans of commercial fabrics as fills. I was learning several graphic programs and teaching myself to write HTML code at the same time.

Here's one of my first websites..I did run right back to a comfort zone when I made my own gallery.

So to get out of the fiber doldrums, I did that little oil pastel and after staring at it for a while now and being pleased with the design, I'm going to try to take it back to the cloth..round and round we go!

but sometimes all we want is just a little quick  comfort.

Winter Banner

I had to take the Ducky banner down. Daily reminders of the pool at this time of year just make me sad.  Right now this looks like the back reaches of a primeval   swamp. There could even be alligators in there. You don't want to see it now.

talismans

When I read about Judy's lost necklace I felt such a pang and thought about my frog and wondered about how and why we become connected with little things.

I've had this brass casting since the summer of 1969 when I lived in Provincetown, MA. It was a frog mummy - you know how they die and dry indoors sometimes - when I found it. I was helping put away folding chairs  at the community movie theater when I picked it up from the floor all dry and fragile.

I remember thinking "Magic!" and holding it in my closed hand as I worked. And then it kicked me. No kidding. I'm sure there were drugs involved, it was 1969,
but I was impressed enough take it to a local artisan who made jewelry from shells and leaves using the lost wax method of casting. He was intrigued and dubious at the same time. He filled it in under the jaw because the skull was so thin and fragile and there used to be a ring attached to the frog's butt. When it broke off I looped a ring through his arm. Too heavy to wear as jewelry, he has been on my keys since my very first car.


close ups here and here

steps in the right direction

After adding enough to call it good, plus a black & white border to rein it all in, I'll find a piece of batt big enough and machine quilt this one and call it done.

Spending time digging into Denise Schmidt's  more contemporary designs made me wonder about long arming and I  can see how someone, somewhere decided to take a quilt off the bed and hang it on the wall just to gaze at.


I'm still procrastinating about sewing these pieces together so I started a little oil crayon study that I'll elaborate on during my shift this afternoon.

I'll also be going through the stash and selecting juicy single, one of a kind pieces of cloth to post at
Random Acts of Dyeness.
I spent most of saturday morning learning the trick of adding PayPal buttons to the offerings there.
I hope I did it correctly! Please let me know  if I screwed this up!