Sunday, May 05, 2013

Looking for Sheep

There is nothing like a few hours of sun (we got about three)  and a win for the home team to improve my mood. A herd of sheep is in order for the front yard.

I spent the better part of the morning picking space herpes out of my son's laptop. It remains to be seen if the surgery was successful.

Finally,  to the task of the day, finding out just what I had by way of white goods in ever hopeful preparation for a few consecutive, warm sunny days so I can officially open the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx. It's been propagating in the closet like bunnies or wire hangers.

There is such an amazing array of cloth, most things I don't even have a name for. A little cloth bag made of cotton so fine and delicate, I think it was a five pound flour or meal sack. Huck tea towels, thick damask dinner napkins, a 14 foot wide round tablecloth that is a blinding white with lilies all woven  through it. My arms got tired of folding.


So I put a few pieces of color up on the wall just to see what was making all that noise in the baskets.

After a little bit of rooting around I felt the need for some warmth so I took sample chunks from  many of the larger pieces and set them out in some home brewed butternut special.

I can wait.

Saturday, May 04, 2013

rainy day doings

I am testing some natural remedies for the tinnitus that has been plaguing me for a while now. The list of prescription drugs that have been trialed for the purpose is frightening - evidence of how far people are willing to go to solve this issue. No doubt many of the researchers were sufferers too. At its worst,
 I have the stereo sound of jets preparing to take off inside my head. Quiet contemplation is a distant memory.


It's raining so hard here that much of the state is under a flood watch and the power keeps flickering. We are going to have to hire a flock of sheep to cut the front lawn, it's gone so lush. My Goodman is cooking chili so there was nothing to do but push cloth around for a while....

Friday, May 03, 2013

On todays menu - WORMS!

Ah there's nothing like a big fat rejection email (five pieces "not invited") to further deepen the ditch of creative inertia and frost the cake of a creative funk.
This would have been a local show so I went all out and entered five of my most recent large pieces springing for the extra entry fees reasoning there'd be no shipping costs. No kidding! No gas even

"But I like worms" I tell myself. I'm in the right line of work to get plenty.


What I need most is a sunny day so I drummed one up for myself this morning without even thinking much about it. (water color crayons)





Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is nearly finished (is that me swatting at a severed head?) so I think I will just set the whole cloth mess  aside for a while until the spirit moves me to something other than teeth gnashing and tail lashing. 
You know it will eventually.


Thursday, May 02, 2013

drear

It's chill and damp again, but I flew in the face of the elements and painted/dyed that great expanse of vanilla that has been moaning on the design wall for so many days now. I mixed the dyes with warm water and hoped for the best. The least I could do is leave it overnight so no pictures yet. But here are the cleanup cloths!


 I don't know how much is dye and how much is dirt because before I could start working I had to clean up after the deck gardening.

Grace, these are yard square chunks from one of the large tablecloths that arrived yesterday. Wait until you see my Naughty Amish Cap!

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

starting over

Nothing from me but the blank wall where it used to be. It was on the fast track to Aggravation by way of Boring so I've taken it all down and will put it away for a while. My head is all mushy from hitting it against the wall.

I'm going to break out the crayons for a while today and sniff around for the spark.

And speaking of fresh starts. {{SNAP}} take that WordoPressors, Arlee is up and running beautifully here.

I am wondering aloud here if her alleged TOS violations had anything to do with her vociferous complaints lodged against that den of thieves who coyly call themselves "pinners".  Could it be that WP and pinshit are in bed corporately?

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

still shuffling and WTF Word(OP)press!


Gonna let this one perk a few days before I consider adding any color. It will come but at the moment I am both burned up and anxious.

Arlee Barrs blog has been suspended by Wordpress for some imagined TOS violation. If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you probably follow hers too and know she's not some kind of sleazeball entrepreneur pill pushing hacker, or whatever they are trying to brand her.

Like me and many other artists, she primarily uses her blog do document her process. Imagine one morning trying to log in to your blog and finding it GONE -NADA-ZILCH..with no explanations, warnings or easily apparent appeals process.

Makes my stomach roll over just thinking about it and I will spend several hours later today downloading my entire history here, just in case blogger decides to get its knickers into a knot over some imagined shit or other. All I can  say is WTF?

I've written to WP on Arlees behalf..if you want, here's the link for you to do the same but if you are a WP user I'd worry that the bastards are casting some kind of net...

Monday, April 29, 2013

monday wipping



little by little, gnitaerc< >creating the current WIP. As much as I loved all that gold edged lavender, it just wasn't working here.

more in a bit...sleep overtakes me.


Friday, April 26, 2013

big bad voodoo daddy


I'm having a good time with this one as pesky as it's been. There is no batting because most of the elements are a very open damask which is prone to bearding when you stitch with doubled six floss.

There's no freebirding this one..it has to stay locked in the hoops or the pieces wander all over despite the basting.

I may tuck the basket into the trunk of the car tomorrow and bring it along. If there's poker game and no room at the table, I'll take myself outside for some wilderness stitching.


WIP update


This one  has been peering over my shoulder for a week now and it's not making a good impression. It's time for radical dismemberment. First I focus on the passages I like and ask myself  "Why?" These will be saved. Then I go after the parts that I actively dislike and again question self.



There's rarely ever any middle ground.

Then I get out the Big Knife, er, I mean, scissors...



We will be away from home for most of the day tomorrow...there's a big housewarming party up in the mountains. This one will have to wait.



Thursday, April 25, 2013

rejects and rescues

the motley crew of the upper deck garden 

I don't know whether to call it a hobby or gambling - it's not really gardening.

I buy the plants that have been pronounced dead by grocery and big box stores. They have a high mortality rate there and a lot of plants wind up in a heap and marked down to a quarter. 

I bring them home, put them in fresh soil, give them a little water and sun and hope for the best. More often than not, they come around. The bleeding heart was a bag of dried sticks that never made a peep or showed a poke of green at all last year. I thought they were truly gone. This year, flowers!



This lush beauty is a bougainvillea and I suspect the entire shipment was not really intended for Georgia. I have never seen them for sale here. The wiki info makes me think they may take over the way Kudzu has if given half a chance and I put one up by the mailbox - the desert of dog piss and neglect. Some thrive, some don't.

The magic invisibility cloak revisited


 I've been doing a lot of hand stitching these past few days and spent some time looking over the Magic Invisibility cloak to re-clue my eyes and fingers.

My stitch repertoire is limited in the first place so I didn't want to miss any tricks and keep from getting bored with the current project.

I wear this often and some of the elements have suffered and need some attention.
The base shirt was a very worn, thin chambray workshirt. I'm thinking I may have to salvage the elements I like the best and relocate the onto a sturdier base..maybe something in a smaller size.



Monday, April 22, 2013

Book Review!


If you are a regular reader here chances are you have more than a dim notion about how to go about making an art quilt but how many times have you been asked by the uninitiated to explain what an art quilt is and how you actually make one?  Now you can point them to a valuable resource.

Some of us know that grabbing fistfuls of cloth, clenching scissors in your teeth and running howling into the woods at night will not get the job done. Like any endeavor worth pursuing, it's good to have a guidebook written by a master.

I'm please to have been asked to review such a book. “Inspired to Design – Seven Steps to Successful Art Quilts”, by Elizabeth Barton, is a comprehensive overview of the process of making a successful art quilt written in a user friendly voice with clear emphasis on good design.
Petergate (36.5"w, 53"h) 

The first time I saw an art quilt was at a solo show of Elizabeth Bartons work hanging in the gallery at the Hudgen's Art Center. I had been making crazed bed quilts and I was stunned by the idea of textile art being afforded all the respect due any painting or sculpture in a contemporary art gallery. I was hooked hard then and have been fumbling my hopeful way every since.

This book is a distillation of her years of experience and success as an internationally recognized artist and teacher. Liberally illustrated with selections from her amazing body of award winning work, “Inspired to Design...” will do just that  and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a light on the path

You can buy an autographed copy direct from Elizabeth for $35 (which includes priority mail delivery inside the USA)  by emailing her directly.  
You'll thank me later!

A Summer Day, Long Ago (46"w, 28"h) by Elizabeth Barton

Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Sunday stitchery




I spent the morning working on the little piece that Sweetie was sleeping on yesterday after sticky-rolling her fur off of it.

It's clear to me that time spent with my hands busy at something familiar and comforting like this leaves the mind free to think about other new things from different perspectives.
 






There was also this very timely post about size  by Altoon Sultan