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Archive for March, 2009

Paying It Forward

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

On the day that I was taking down my show, the next exhibitor was there, hanging her show. Nancy Jo Mullen is an artist/teacher/ printmaker from Medford. She received her MFA from the U. of O. in 1991. She is particularly interested in creating images that connect her art expressions to emotional states and spiritual destinations. The realms of the unseen are often the “stuff” of her art. She works abstractly in relief printing, monotypes, monoprints, etchings and mixed media drawings.

I was blown away by her work. She, also, paid me a huge compliment, saying she was so happy to meet the woman who could do what I did with thread. One particular work caught my eye. “World on Fire” is a multi-block woodcut with reductions and stencils. It looks like shibori. I am happy to say that this piece is now, mine, or it will be when the show comes down at the end of April. Here is another edition of the same piece which was in a juried show for the OSU College of Agriculture annual art show. The colors in mine are slightly different.

World on Fire

Mr C and I spent the week-end (after M & M went home) doing errands like buying raspberry plants, buying Mr C some new shoes at REI, and getting the flat tire on my car repaired at Costco, where I bought a Garmin GPS. When I was down in Eugene with my friend Bonnie, we used hers to get around and I decided I needed my own. Bonnie’s sister named hers, Charmaine. I am trying to decide what to name mine. She sent us home from Costco a different way than we usually take. Of course, Mr C was very skeptical. Ha! It was very direct, less traffic and less time. She is a genius. I think I will name her after my friend Reva!!

Good Things

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Thanks for the commiseration over my recent state of mind. Today was much better (even though I turned myself into WW and was up 4 pounds!! eek!!), and I think it proves the old adage that sharing our misery helps to dilute it.

I spent an hour with a charming Comcast tech who straightened out our connections so that our phone, Internet and TV will all operate more efficiently. He fell in love with Maggie and might have absconded with her if I had allowed it.

M and M arrived early afternoon (no school). We took a walk in the Rhodie Garden and fed the ducks. There were many signs of spring.

onetwothree

springdress

helibores

milescrossingwater

redcoat2

The mail came very late today, but it had two large envelopes that made me very happy.  Early in February, I won a pressie when I commented on Regina’s Mostly Turquoise blog. Regina is a talented artist who lives on the Dutch West Indies island of St. Martins (Sint Maartin). My gift arrived today and it is so much more than I expected. It is a beautiful art quilt with some hand painted fabric and of course, some turquoise.

reginaquilt

And some more Regina Art:

reginaart

Thank you so much, Regina!

The other envelope was the acceptance of two of my quilts into the Sacred Threads exhibit. This happens every two years, in June, in Ohio. The two quilts are the Galilee Sunrise and the Wailing wall with the Dome of the Rock, both of which were in my show and sold. The new owners have graciously agreed to let them travel. They can be seen on my Flickr set, Holy Land Pilgrimage, A Quilter’s Journey.

M and M brought some much needed energy and fun to my life.

Ennui

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

…a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.

I have been dragging around the house in my sweats, unable or perhaps unwilling to do much of anything. I can’t even go into my studio. I don’t know when this will end. It is like a bad dream.

Today, I did get two loads of laundry done. I got myself cleaned up. I loaded a bunch of stuff in the car that I bagged up in December before the snows came. Mr C and I dropped off the cast off clothing at a thrift store near our church. Then we went to the Powell’s Warehouse in NW Portland with a bunch of quilt related books. I left with a check for almost $200.

I also did some organizing in my office. I have piles of stuff that was never put back on shelves after the painting was finished. But it is slow going.

Oregon/Washington SAQA meeting. I never reported on this, but there really is not much to say. There were 11 of us there. We decided to meet quarterly, next time in Portland. I think I am going to try to get a local group meeting more often. I went down with Bonnie Bucknam, who lives over the border in Vancouver, WA. We had a good time. She has decided to come to the SDA conference, after the SAQA conference and the debut of her quilt at Quilt National. We are going to take a class with Alice Kettle, from the UK. The class is titled, Following a Line to Tell a Story. She does very interesting free motion machine  embroidery. I am thinking of staying for the post conference workshops and taking a class with Els Van Baarle.

By the way, I found a link to Mary Ann Jordan’s work which I mentioned after our trip to the Vision’s Gallery.

The California Supreme Court heard arguments today for and against overturning Proposition 8, which would bar same-sex marriages in the state. I have been supporting the fight to overturn this, for my daughter. Today I received this t-shirt.

idotshirt

Spring must be coming. At least daylight savings is coming. Oh goody, I have M & M coming tomorrow to spend the night so that Steph can take Jack out for his birthday. It is also my son, Mark’s, birthday. I am wishing them both happy times.

Surface Design…

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

has currently taken over my life. I have had oodles of website updates to do plus catching up with the conference registration. I just got word that I will receive a boatload of images and text for the many exhibitions that will be in and around Kansas City — all to be added to the website, soon. I haven’t even done my normal weekly website maintenance which I will do next.

A year ago, I took part in an art cloth challenge with 12 other artists chosen by Jane Dunnewold. Now, that I have seen the results of the work, I wonder what in the world I was doing in that group. You can see the beautiful fabric done by the other 11 at a blog set up by Jane, Art Cloth Challenge.

When I sent my fabric off, I was very happy with it, but now that I see what the others did, I think I was too timid in my approach. I thought I would share my fabric and some of my processes. All of the photos are clickable.

Here is the original fabric (silk habotai):

artclothbeginning

I shibori dyed it with strong orange:

artclothoverdyed

I made a screen using masking tape. Here is where my plan fell apart. The design I made was too stiff. I should have used torn paper and had a softer, more organic print. I first discharged and then over printed with metallic paint.

artclothorangescreenprint

I then did some printing with vinyl mesh and bubble wrap.

bubblejetmeshdetail

My next thing was to do some repetition of the circles but on a larger scale so I made a thermofax screen of hand drawn circles and printed those.

circlesprinted

For the final printing, I wanted to fill in the areas around the linear shapes, but wanted a calmer, receding pattern. I decided to stay with the bubble wrap printing. This time, I used blue and a bit of metallic turquoise.

finalprinting

Here is a detail:

finalprintdetail

So, there you have it. My first venture into the art cloth arena. Working on 2 yards of someone else’s silk was very daunting. I do hope you will go check out the blog and see the amazing work done by the other women.

Back to work.