a deep breath

The last month has been one of hope, anticpation and wait. I haughtily anticipated receiving the acceptence letter from Fiber Focus and having the pleasure of a face to face conversation with the Juror. It was not to be.

I had recently jumped off in a new direction of work, walking that tight rope of self-doubt and exhiliaration, stepping into pathways not yet followed by me. That in itself is a scary place to be. To make matters even tougher, I had made a point of getting the work done in muliples so that I had a "body of work" AND was presenting it to the juror I most wanted to see my work. YIKES!

I KNOW better than to invest so much energy into hope. I've been there! I've done that! It doesn't pay, it doesn't help and it certainly doesn't feel good when the anticipation meets disappointment. You'd think after 5 years of doing art festivals where the operating basis had become- lower your expectations- I'd and back off and not tangle up so much emotional energy.

But in my arrogance I had actually thought my work had reached a point where I felt secure in presenting it and having it be well received. Just so you know-- so far the public reception of my new work has been great. But back to my issue--disappoinment. I personally think there is real value in having a severe reality check every once in a while. Not often- but occasionally.

In case you haven't figured it out-- I didn't get into the exhibition. But rejection has its purposes. I've really gotten stronger along the way. And I think that people who know me well, appreciate the fact my head isn't on a contiunual unabated expansion. I KNOW I have a large ego. To my dismay I find there is a competitive edge to me as well. (To my defense in that realm- I have several relatives who have competed internationally in the olympic games. Is there a competitive gene?)

When I step back from my immediate disappointment and look back at my big picture, I remember that I am first creating work that pleases me. The only time I am disappointed in my work is if I have allowed myself to be lead astray for a commission that doesn't at least echo the style I've developed. But if I am scratching my own itch first-- then allow it to be presented for critiquing and judgement, I am at least starting from a point of satisfaction.

While I do allow myself to simply follow a path of exploration, I generally do so with at least an eye for my bigger goals and targets. I don't want to wander so far afield that I look back 6 months from now and wonder how I got so far off path. Even while exploring the new printing techniques, or even doing marbling--I do so within the 7" square format so that it could be incorporated into my existing 7" bulls eye block. I have recently been playing with some new silk screens. Guess what size I am printing most of it on? Yep! 7". I have also been playing with thickened dyes. Oh my! They are so luscious to use! ( I know--where are the pictures? I'll get there. But not today.)

But what new project lures me like an illicit romance? My latest quilt started with the arrival of new dyes--Turkey Red and Eggplant. I did a morph of those colors using 7 gradations. For each coloration I used fat quarters of silk broadcloth, cotton broadcloth, bridal weight silk satin, silk noil and cotton flannel. I was delighted with ithe results. BTW- the silk just doesn't take the blue in the eggplant as deeply as does the cotton. I know I should have taken a photo of the fabrics before I started cutting them up. Next time...

Then I got out my colored pencils and sketched out a gradation from the turkey red through to the eggplant and onto a deep brown. Flashes of a bright golden yellow would pop up occasionallly. Wow! I liked that!

So then I did a morph of eggplant to tobacco brown. Again yum! Plus, again, the blue in the dyes isn't as well absorbed in the silks--so the color variations from silk to cotton are remarkable.

Where is all this going? B_I_G!!!!!I have cut out over 300 blocks and circles and begun my largest piece yet. Finished this piece could be 8 ft tall by 18 ft wide. Don't worry-- I wouldn't consider doing it all in one piece ( unless it was a comission and I had a longarm machine to do it on).

Now why is it like an illicit romance? Because I am still struggling with an unfinished commission-- I am actually nearly done with it. But I am only allowing myself a short while each day to work on it until I finish the commission. It is the reward I am teasing myself with for catching up with parts of my life that have fallen WAY off the normal time track of life.

Since I started caring for my ageing parents and went on the road 5 years ago doing art festivals my life has been in overwhelm. So this month I am addressing those issues. Well at least most of them. Everything from sales tax reports, to income tax, to transferring my father's assets, to finishing the kitchen I started remodeling 4 years ago-- all need attention.

But there is NO way I'd completely walk away from work in my studio. If I did I'd find I had forgotten who I was for a while. I've done it before and no doubt I'll have to do it again sometime. But at this point it would take a major event to prevent me from making time in my studio a fairly high priority for me.

The other thing I've been working on is getting the front part of my studio in shape to be a small gallery. I'm delighted with how it is beginning to look... photos soon!

Let's go back and get 'em!

Artistic voice

The piece above is entitled "What if?" It came about because I wondered what would happen if I painted across my blocks before they were assembled. This is a typical situation I often find myself in.

Kim Ritter asked about artistic voices and suggested we share about our own. hmmm. Since I am in the midst of a stylistic transition this might be a good time to address the subject. First of all, for me, the inital tickle I usually feel for a new work is almost always based on a supposed color grouping. I just love to see what happens when certain colors are combined. Occasionally I am surprised because the colors I imagined being combined I "saw" with vastly different proportions than I executed. Those proportions can make a huge difference.

Currently, I am exploring more drawing skills. My paternal grandmother was an exquisite watercolor painter of botanicals. She didn't even start painting until she was at least 65. Her work looks like illustrations from a field guide of wildflowers. But she drew from collected specimens. While I find I have little desire to create artwork that simply replicates nature- I do find that I am drawn to botanicals as a subject matter for increasing my drawing skills. I don't want to get terrbly detailed. I find I am more interested in capturing the essence or gesture rather than the exactness.

I just bought a sumi painting book and materials and hope to play with that as a means for exploring gesture. I would love to find a local life drawing group-- although here in my small town the chances are rather remote. My interest in drawing figures is in defining long curves and sweeps.

What keeps me going from one piece to the next is the tickle-- the itch. I'll wonder... what would happen if? and off I go!

Bass Ackwards: Poppy

Here is the version I did in Black and White. You'll see the poppy image later as I add images that include the painting on the back.

On Bass Ackwards: Sunflower ( the one in greens)I painted the back with stamps I created to make a large sunflower arrangement.. But I painted it entirely in Black- because the colors of the backing fabric hid all the other colors I tried to paint them. So it is a silhouette. Such a tease. I'll try to shoot photos tomorrow so you can see what I am talking about.

Wednesday is a big day for me. I am finally bringing my work to my new gallery in Hot Springs. Blue Moon Art Gallery. I'm adding a link from here as well as from my website.

My work has just been returned from the MADI Museum in Dallas. I THINK a review has been wirtten. I am awaiting final word on that. Fingers crossed.

Since I am no longer going to be on the road, I have been redoing the front portion of my studio space to include a small gallery of my work. I just want to be comfortable bringing in a potential collector---instead of experienceing excruciating embarrassment at such a trashed out studio. It is coming along. My part-time assistant and I have painted one room and will do the 2nd one as soon as we've removed ll extraneous furniture. Don't worry-- as soon as it is done I'll shoot photos. I've made use of my track lighting from my booth set-up and am using the same chain/ shower curtain hanging mechanism I used in my booth. It works quite well. I have a REAL challenge in using my space. All the walls up front are paneling glued to glazed ceramic bricks. So I can't hang directly from the walls. Then, I have only the ceiling frm which to mount my pipes/ hanging devices.... I KNOW... images, images images. Patience dear ones.

Bass Ackwards: Bee Balm

Whew! big deadline came and went. I've been knee deep in this project for over three weeks now--non stop. I especially wanted to have this work done in time to enter it in an exhibition that has a particular juror who I wanted to see my work.

This first piece you saw as a quilt top - well here it is quilted. I used the bee balm imagery blown WAY up. The colors are primarly reds, oranges and blacks/ grays. The flowers are in various shades of pinks and lavendars.

This piece is Bass Ackwards: Sunflower. the colors are deep greens, citreons and eggplant. What you can't see the sunflower quilting? I'll give a detail on my followup post.

I have also done this in simply black and white. The flower that is quilted into it is a poppy. It'll be in a followup post.

Right now I am zombie. The last 2 days I put in over 13 hours a day and previous to the 4th I was at it for about 8 hours a day for many, many days. I took off on the 4th because we had our annual 4th of July bash-- which is always a lot of fun, but poorly timed this year. I've promised my husband for days that I would be more available for household participation after this deadline. I wonder what he has planned for me?

Next week I'll be working on making the front part of my studio more of a gallery space. Since I am not going on the road any more for art festivals I'll use my lights etc. to make my gallery show off my work. Since I got it cleaned up last week-- I didn't personally do it-- I was workiing on deadline, remember?-- I'll get it painted and then hang the lights. I'll hang a picture rail as well to simplify hanging. oh yeah-- and I'll finally be getting down to my new gallery in Hot Springs to deliver work...then to Dallas to pick up what remains from the MADI Museum show.

Then maybe I'll finally get around to income tax...ugh

Bass Ackwards

Well I am finally back in my studio and able to focus. I've planned a new body of work and have spent a few weeks researching and beginning to play with the new processes and techniques.

A couple of years ago I came across a book called "Art is where the foam is". You can get it at http://www.foamiswheretheartis.com/. I was fascinated by the immediacy of print making using foam meat packing trays. I can draw directly on them with a pen or pencil and then print using acrylic paints or water soluable printing inks.

Here are three of the prints I made using this technique. The first is a drawing of basil plants in my garden. BTW- since I am no longer doing art festivals- Whoa! ... I am once again able to spend time in my garden as well as my studio. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed working in my garden. The second drawing is of pepper plants and the third are poppies.
I also did some blocks that are just texture- I didn't photograph them this time.

This is the quilt top assembled. I used discharge as well as paints and inks. I have no idea yet where this is going. But I have to make tracks cuz I have a show deadline on the 7th of July in which I need to have three good pieces of my new series. Yikes!!!!

It is called "Bass Ackwards" because the sashing, which is usually fairly quiet and used to tie together somewhat different blocks is, instead, the jazzy part.

I'll be back in my stdio tomoor for hte next step- whatever it is. Tonight we'll have guests for dinner in the garden and I better get to the store.

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!

Getting back to normal

This is an "in progress" photo of one of the quilts I did as a commission last fall. I have all the layers down but have not cut the blocks into quadrants.

This week has been kinda unreal. Since my last post, my father, who I mentioned had had a stroke on Apr. 22ND has died. His memorial service was on the 7Th. The last while has been a time of re-orienting for myself as well as my mother. Thankfully, he went pretty quickly, considering the damage the stroke did. We are healing and moving forward- bit by bit.

Good news came last week when I got a call from Kim Ritter. Unfortunately for her, her son is having some tough health problems and she opted to step down from her upcoming workshop at the Studio Art Quilt Associates national convention. Her topic was going to be "How to go professional without tripping over your feet." In her stead I have been asked to teach it. Wow! I am SO honored!

So for the last week I've been re-working the workshop I taught in February at the Springfield Visual Arts Alliance. I'm trying to figure out how much I can cover in 50 minutes and still sound knowledgeable. I'll be teaching it 4 times...and getting to go to the Quilt National opening as well. There is much synchonicity going on here. The only reason I was able to help Kim out was because I had cancelled all my shows (due to Dad's health) and the weekend was free.

After the intensity of the last few weeks I am thrilled to have the chance to re-connect with many firends who will be at the conference as well as get a jolt of inspiration always prevalent at Quilt National. Plus it will be a large boost on my resume' for teaching on a national level.
I am realising that there seems to be a niche I might be able to fill in the teaching market.

After I finish the 2 commissions that have been interrupted by my dad's scene, I am really looking forward to playing with collagraphs. I have had an interest in printmaking for a while. My personal fascination has been with printing on fabric. I saw work done recently using plexiglass and cardboard and printed onto watercolor paper. The process is so freeing. I'll think it'll first turn up on my backs and as I develop the techniques you may find them on the fronts-- or as the quilt itself in framed work. Since I don't have any shows scheduled I'll be able to focus on it sooner than I might have previously.

You two who have commissions outstanding- I'm on it!