What do these things have in common?

Making coffee

emptying the dishwasher

doing laundry

reading a book

cooking dinner

taking out the trash

walking the dog

checking email

brushing my teeth

taking a bath

They are all activities that are not a part of daily activity while one is experiencing a crisis. As the crisis resolves, these activities slowly come back into one's life. As each is re-introduced a feeling of celebration greets the activity. I call it celebrating normalcy. That is what my current piece is all about.

The back of my piece is made of hand-dyed silk noil in a charcoal coloration. Silk screened on top in several pastel hues are the above activities. To me they capture the essence of everyday life that slips to the margins of daily activity when a loved one is sick, a flood occurs, power goes out for days, or an earthquake shakes our world. I have experienced it a few times and have always marveled at the preciousness of those daily activities we so easily take for granted. But it is just such activiity which separates us from crisis. It is how we know life will again return to normal. It is the re-introduction of the mundane that gives us hope of life being closer to what we imagine it should be.

Today I was finally back in my studio after weeks of chasing the dime. I finally got hte quilt layered and basted and did my first row of stitching- the horizon line that runs across the middle. Aaah normal!

Ice Storm

The beautiful, the desolate destruction, the times together--

The beautiful-- Here is one of our maple trees covered in about 3/4" of ice. The freezing rain fell most of the night. We could hear the trees breaking all night long.

For nine long days and nights we cuddled around the candles and the small propane heater. I had bought the heater at an auction for Best of Missouri Hands with the idea of using it in my booth on chilly days. I didn't expect to use it to keep warm in my own house. This is my mother all bundled up to play cards.

My husband, Jon, was utterly frustrated trying to practice. It was so cold his fingers just weren't working. But we got reacquainted with the card game Kings in a Corner which I hadn't played since my kids were little-- 20+ years ago. We tried other games but this was the one my mom could recall.

This is typical of the destruction we found. Our maples were just devastated. Several of the branches still attached in this photo ( below) didn't make it until the thaw.

Thankfully this is now all behind us-- except the clean-up. When the ice fell from the trees it added about 4" of ice to the snow and ice already on the ground. Moving along......

Next post will have new work and a return to normalcy. Aah! Precious normalcy--warm toilet seats, TV, water pressure sufficient to shower, no need to wear a knit hat to bed, but alas, the cats no longer want to snuggle under the covers.

Lots of new work

This piece is entitled "Freefall" in recognition and/or celebration of both the craziness of the stock market and earmarking the season. These are gingko leaves in motion. The panels on the right have gingko leaves in gold leaf--not foil--leaf.

The leaves on the left side are done as thread lace. Except for some tuille, every bit of those leaves were done with freemotion stitching. Except for a couple of sashing pieces all was hand-dyed silk. I love the rich intensity of colors.

This piece is still in progress. There is more than one layer. The bottom later is noil that has been dyed and painted with stamps and silk screens. The top layer is divided into 2 main sections. The left is dyed and painted silk organza. In addition, I have used gold leaf to add the alchemy symbols and the woven patch. The right side is also silk organza. It is using more of the pieces I dyed last year when I dyed the fabric for the previous piece (Freefall). The sections have not been assembled with batting yet. I have no idea yet how I'll quilt it.

Here you can get a better idea of the layers. All those circles were printed using a few of my dozens of empty spools.

Another detail showing the right side. After last night's election and Obama's speech I am feeling more optimistic about life in general and especially our future as a country. By the way-- the name of this piece is "Energy of Hope".

I have no idea where this piece is going. It is made up of many of my scraps from previous circle quilts. I added a line of multi-colored couched yarn. This, so far, is just pinned to the wall in rows. I am not sure yet whether it'll be vertically oriented or horizonally. I, for sure, have no idea how to quilt it.

So, while I have been in my studio feeling somewhat aimless, I have found all sorts of directions to investigate. If has been fun.

I think I'll go back to celebrating and drinking in that warm glow of hope. I remember that feeling. It has been a while. I liked it a lot.

Jon will be home tomorrow with his CD completed and ready for publication. This is a landmark event in our lives and I expect that forever after our lives will reflect the changes this CD will have wrought.

Recent experiments

I've been spending the month of September playing around. Most of my experimenting has to do with playing around with thickened dyes and silk screen variations. The flashes above were done with freezer paper adhered temporarily to my blank silkscreen. The gingko, yoga gal, and weave were done with my thermofax silkscreens, again using thickened dyes. The pale reddish part was done with the technique of painting thickened dyes onto a silkscreen, letting it dry and then using dye thickener goop to release the color onto the piece.--deconstuctive silkscreening.
This one, as with the previous one, has been built up over several months. This is on a 100% linen that I found for $1/yd on the stack at Walmart. ( I bought the bolt) All except the gloppy streaks were done with thickened dyes and silkscreen. The gloppy was done by simply dripping thickened dyes off the end of a brush.
This is another idea I've been playing with. I had bought a bag similar to this at the Dairy Barn a few years ago. At the time I thought it was a small bag for evening use. As it turned out, it was more of a pocket to wear around your neck. Lately I have been wearing lots of clothes that don't seem to have pockets. That means nowhere to put my phone. So I decided to resurrect this concept using recent colorations. I found a small shop in Hardy, Arkansas that is carrying ( AND SELLING!!!!!) some of my smaller works. I brought them my little pockets-- we're calling them Posh Pockets. At a mere $18 I am hoping they fly off the rack.

I also bought a needle felting machine recently and have been playing around with it. I'm still breaking needles- argh. But it is a fun toy.

My immediate experiments are with Potato Dextrin. I've got several pieces batching right now and expect to receive some more potato dextrim powder in the mail today.

This is the longest I have allowed myself for pure experimenting in ages. While on this jag I am also playing with some disperse dyes, and am delving into the methods Jane Dunnewold and friends have used to laminate imagery and metal leaf to fabrics.

My next major actual project is to do three vertical panels that will have the silhouettes of 3 musicians who were sidemen to my husband's recording sessions. Since he normally plays alone on stage, these will hang as backdrops behind him-- giving the illusion that he is not alone on stage. There will be a stand-up bass, a clarinet or saxaphone, and a lead guitar. Perhaps even a drummer. I am hoping to incorporate some of these new methodoligies into that project. The plan is to use them on the CD cover. It is due out just before Christmas. Time to get cracking!

I've been tagged!

This is a blogger version of a chain letter but with no downside.. and no threats. I'm supposed to list 7 things that are odd about myself and pass that along to 7 others. I am picking Mary, Suzi, Pat, Dee, Emmie, and 2 others still to be named ( I don't know that many who have blogs!)

Ok. So 7 odd things about myself.
1) If you have ever heard me speak you'll know I sound much more like Texas than anywhere else. Alas, though I claim to be Texan, I was born in Ontario... as in Canada. My family moved to Texas when I was 3 so I learned to speak from other Texans. That works, eh?
2) My grandmother started doing water color drypoint botanical illustrations when she was over 60 yrs. old. As I understand it, she taught herself while ministering to my grandfather who was sick for a long period. ( I have no idea what was ailing him) As an avid amateur botanist and birder she had a lifelong affection for nature. On our birding outings I got great joy by creating strange bird sounds with the bird whistle. She'd get so excited thinking that she'd heard a new bird for her "life list". Then I'd get the "scowl".
3) at 53 I have been married for more than 2/3 of my life. Jon and I married when I was 17 and he was 18. The first 5 years we stayed together mostly to prove everyone else wrong. After that we learned to communicate.
4) I have delusions of grandeur- I keep thinking that someday my art will be my ticket to the world and I'll be able to glide through.
5) I am a fabulous cook and love to entertain. Someday one of my parties will be featured in Southern Living or some such magazine. If I could just afford the groceries. But I do love the salvege grocery for finding odd ingredients. I'm still trying to figure out how to use coconut vinegar.
6) Until I was an adult, the only "art class" I ever took was after school in 6th grade. I took pastel and oil painting from Mrs. Lipscomb in her garage studio. She usually finished the "hard parts" of my artwork.
7) Though I am left handed and proud of it, my physical strength is in my right hand. I use the left for anything requiring detail and finesse. I use right handed scissiors- the usual way, iron right handed, bat right handed ( or at least I did in school).
There! Now I just have to figure out the blog addresses for those I have tagged myself!

pure gold

This quilt is one of 4 that I did last summer for the Creamery exhibition in Springfield, MO. It now resides on the wall at Barnes Jewish Hospital with its companion pieces- silver, copper and bronze. The center medallion of this piece was done with tyvek. First I painted it; then stitched a filagree pattern; then hit it with a heat gun. ZAP! Later I combined the medallion with blocks made from silk- mostly dupionis. After pieceing I applied foil using a stamp I made and foiling glue. Then I applied foil using heat.

Today I have been in my studio working on 2 commissions that seem to be taking longer than they should. One required just the right dyeing combination to get the foundation correct- it is a larger version of "1st of November". After 4 tries I finally got the color right and have begun the printing process using fresh tree leaves. I actually had to wait a few weeks because we had a really late hard freeze here and the trees had to start over. I understand the oaks probably won't produce acorns this year. There is going to be some very hungry deer come fall.

The other piece was one where I was using a water soluable stabilizer in order to do the stitchery I wanted. While I was out of town there was a small ceiling leak....onto my piece. GRRRRRR!. So I had to soak the whole thing in a tub of water and let it air dry. Hopefully there will be no spot from the earlier wetting. It had all just shrunk up and turned hard. Yucko mucko.

For the first time in 6 years I am able to spend time during the summer in my garden. I'm thoroughly enjoying the poppies and we should have a grand crop of tomaotes all summer. I planted 4 different ones in big tubs. and I finally replanted my basil after losing the first crop. I can't imagine summer without basil.

I'm thrilled to be back in my studio. I am chomping at the bit to try some new stuff but can't quite seem to get started. How frustrating!