Seamless Skin

American Icon and Artist

Sometime in the early-mid 90s we vacationed on Edisto Island and toured Charleston.  On one of the tours we went to the home and iron mill of Mr. Philip Simmons.  A family member, maybe a great-nephew, was carrying on the art of forging iron he had learned from Mr. Simmons who happened to be there at the time the tour stopped (a rare occassion we were left to believe).  He talked at great length to the group and spoke of his humble beginnings, life with his then deceased wife, and the opportunities that catapulted him into noted fame of his art.  He spoke so movingly that it was the type of wisdom-story Peter and I dared not breath to fast or move in recognition of greatness speaking and the thankfulness of being in his presence.  He left an indelible mark on both of us and we have since then often reflected on the chance to have met him. Most of the money he earned he donated to organizations that worked with children opting not to live a lavish lifestyle. 

I've typed this while wiping away tears as I just learned this morning that he passed away. 

Philip Simmons

Its A Miracle!!!!

 

Well, lookahere, lookahere, I can upload pictures!

This is another 6x12 completed (for the most part).  Do you think the fringe should stay...I was planning to trim it but looking at it here, I kinda like it.  I went through at least 7 bobbins as I experimented with thread painting.  I received Carol Shinn's book in free motion embroidery and decided to thread paint this one...she uses heavy canvas also which takes thread painting beautifully!

These are just me auditioning possibilities at random.  The green fabric is my continued writing on cloth in readying fabrics to continue with the Poetry Series.  Writing on cloth is time consuming but I decided to do the writing on multiple pieces before doing successive layers.

Back in 2003 when I jump started this journey of quilting I saw myself doing picturesque quilts...human faces in fantasy/mysterious settings.  My attempts were not enjoyable...didn't enjoy the realism in applique.  The image on the left above was done using a stencil I cut from a picture of one of my great nieces...the one on the right was based on a free hand drawing in my journal of an artist whose name I can't recall but he uses found objects and old pressing irons in his work.  The stitched image was done using free motion drawing. 

Here are some images from some of my journals:

young man-child w/ dreadlocks

 

aborted pod from magnolia tree

 

art from others that I find appealing.

I found a video that Melanie Testa did (on YouTube) of her studio...I've been wanting to delve into doing short videos...I think I'll make it a goal for the month of July...with the first one being a view into my workshop.  Hopefully the learning curve will not be too deep.

Breath in, Breath out, Breath...

Ohhhhhhhmmmmmm, I once again ooohhhhhmmmmm, can't ooooohhhhhhmmmmmmm upload oooohhhmmmmmmmmm pictures ooooohhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Good vibrations are contagious!

Yesterday I attended the summer social for Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Artists (LAFTA).  This is my 3rd year having a membership.  Joining 3 years ago was a part of my plan to re-socialize and get out more after coming to grips with how my life had changed due to pulmonary hypertension.  Now slinging my portable o2 tank and breathing treatments are old hat and I think very little about it and my life is once again centered around my aspirations first and my limitations second. 

Anyways, I had a great time yesterday at the social and received fantastic feedback on the 3 6x12s and woke up this morning itching to return to my workshop today.  Good vibes are contagious! I'll go this evening for a few hours after some appointments that I hope will not take too much energy from me...there is a heat advisory warning today.  Louisville is situated in a regional valley and pollutions travel from afar and just settles...couple this with high heat and high humidity and it is nasty...no matter how blue the sky looks and bright and beautiful from inside, it is not healthy. 

Looking into my basement workshop from outside:

I keep promising myself to order a portable door screen to go over the doorway...I love to keep it open on cooler days for the light but then I find myself swatting at flies.  Its a great working space and I'm still trying to make it more efficient and supplies accessible.  After flipping through the art studio magazines, I feel this pressure to make it pretty...but I know that would last all of a hot minute.  When I walk into this space it says to me "are you ready to get down to work", it asks "do you have what it takes today? if not, you better go play somewhere else".  The space feels very purposeful.  Pretty would relax me and make me feel whimsical and detached from the reason I have the space in the first place.

Part of LAFTA membership is the availability of monthly workshops offered free and lead by other members.  Two months ago Joanne Weis, who just finished Jane Dunnewold's 2 year master program (YOU GO GIRL!), did a basic soy wax workshop.  Here are my samples using ink, paint, and dye and no, I didn't bother to mark which was which like I was instructed, so i can't tell you which piece received what.

I do believe the one on the left was ink since it is black...the other two where black dye/dye paint.  I added a second layer of colour when I was testing out the old dye stock and here it is now:

Issac, my 6 yr old nephew is here for the summer from North Carolina and he and my great-niece Zaria took interests in watching me sew.  Issac wants to paint.  When I set up my workshop space I seriously considered having an area set-up for children.  From time to time on Craiglist, the old school children's desks and chairs can be found very cheap. (I do not want the bright coloured contemporary plastic ones, yuck!) I think I'm going to keep an eye out for 1 or 2 of them just for moments like this.  I'm just a hair short of being cramped but I don't want to regret not making space when a child in my life requests to share it.

If you've read this post, or stopped by to browse my blog, I hope your day is everything you need it to be! Peace,

 

Hurricanes, Swamps, and Magnolias.

 

Yesterday I started with what I thought would be a few circles around the moon but I was really caught up in the building up of colour with the stitches that I did not stop and loved the ending result.  Peter saw a hurricane...I see a swamp at dusk.  The edging is hand stitched with thick linen thread.  See how flat it lays?  I wasn't expecting this either but if must be the acryllic felt as batting that is responsible for the flatness.  Behind the moon are 3 layers of felt which makes it rise up...its not visible in the photo but you can see it a little bit on the back-

 

 

A Huge Thank You to Dr. Paul Cappiello from Yew Dell Gardens!

He must flag the name of the gardens and I'm so happy he did!  He answered the question about the pods I picked up from the ground in the comments of the previous post.  Here is his reply:

The little "pod-like cones" are actually the fruiting structures from a magnolia. The specimens you picked up from the ground did not set any seed and that is why they were shed by the plant. The structure is actually an aggregate of follicles - if anyone cares.

Yew Dell

I care I care!  I've started drawing these pods and I'm watching them decay still.  They have turned to a blackish brown colour and have shrivelled in size.  Reminds me that 'one needs substance because beauty doesn't last and is often fleeting'.

If I'm understanding his answer correctly, they would have tunred into the flower if they had seeded? 

Retrospective in Photos

 

First, a cuppa tea. 

 

My assignments from online workshop, Graffiti Chic with Alisa Burke.

 

And I thought it was finished.

 Six by Twelves in the making.

The 5 images below summarize our staycation week activities.

 

Jefferson Memorial Forest

 

One of the many toys made by Marvin Finn for his children when they where young.

 

Another early Finn toy.

 

This is a small representation of what Finn is famour for.

 

Mr. Finn, I believe painted by his son, who carries on his legacy in wood.

 

Such an elegant shape in glass.  The five above images were taken at the Kentucky Musuem of Art & Craft.

 

Family Funny Business at Lynn's Paradise Cafe.

  

A day trek to the Columbus Zoo

And finally...what is this?  I picked them up from the ground at Yew Dell Gardens.  Some type of conifer?  I'm in love with the shape and colours.

Testing

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

&%3@*#!

The title is severe profanity in keyboard speak...I still can't upload photos!

Un-plugged

I remember being stunned when I read an article discussing the demise of cursive writing...something like 20% or less of students who took the SAT in 2008 wrote the essay part in cursive writing.  The proliferation of keyboarding to communicate and in education is the reason.  The impact of this in my own life has been made clear.  My beloved upgraded the OS system and there are kinks which prevent me from up-loading photos from my hard drive to websites.  I've had at least 3 posts that I wanted to document here and alas...the moments have passed and in retrospect I'm not feeling as enthused to attempt to recapture them.  I could have opened up the gazillion hard copy journals and written in one them along with photos printed directly from my camera...my excuses: I couldn't find a good pen, I no longer have a designated space for sitting down to hand write, the lap top occupies the space now, and what of the tap tap tap of the keyboard strokes in a syncopated rhythm which hand writing can't capture, the continuity of my blog will be broken, and in short, I just wasn't feeling it.  I'll be un-plugged this coming week celebrating family-ness and waiting for my beloved to get this all worked out.  Short out-bursts of thoughts will be facebooked this week.

Peace, 

The effectiveness of old dye stock

I pulled out old dye stock and 2 strengths of thickener from the fridge and allowed them to come to room temperature over night for use last Friday the canvas.  Since I didn't feel like bothering with soda soaking I used Afterfix which goes on after the dye is completely dry.  The Afterfix is brushed on dries in about an hour.  It has to completely dry and then the fabric can be washed to remove the Afterfix and the dye remains.  

The dye and thickeners are 9 months old and have not been removed from the fridge since I put them in.  There is no odor to the thickener...seems like I remember reading in Complex Cloth that an amonia smell indicates the thickener is bad. 

I hand-washed the pieces in warm as my hand could stand it water with synthrapol.  I was satisfised with the results and plan to use the remaining dyes for dye-painting.  Here is what I painted today. 

The dye is still wet and will be good and dry when I return to paint on the Afterfix. 

I also tried ink-jet transfers using soft gel medium...the top was on a lighter background and the image was in gray scale.  The image directly above was in colour and the background fabric was darker and I'm thinking the values where too similiar resulting in the lost image.  While I was doing these samples it dawned on me to have my journals either dedicated to "transfers", "embroidery", for example, or either divide up a journal into sections so that I will not have to flip through journals to find (or most often, rediscover) previous samples.  What can I say?  Always slow but sure.

Memorial Day is starting out gray and wet...we are not trekking to the "country" cementary this year but I have fond memories of tradition of going with my Aunts and cousins.  For my mother's family, Memorial Day morphed into remembering the ancestors and not just those who served in the military.  I always used the time to collect family genealogy and stories which I entered into Family Tree Maker, a software program which has since been lost.  Even if I find the back up disc I'm not sure it would even open in the operating systems we have now.  I've thought about re-gathering, rebuilding the information but genealogy is much like quilting for me...enjoyably consuming in time and attention where anything else ceases to exist.  I loved the hunt involved in digging up records (of course much can be done online now) and oral interviews.  Even though I anticipated picking it back up, I don't think I can do it without stressing myself out which would take the pleasure from it.  I don't know if there are any young people in my family who are interested or not...its kinda entertaining to think of the 2nd (3rd?) wave hip-hop generation undertaking genealogy research.(what age demographic is that btw?  15-25).  I think of the first wave being my brother's age in their early 40's now.  The group that was weaned on it.  My 17 year old is writing a paper about the history of hip-hop.  He sees Rap as a sub-genre in Hip-Hop.   He has been struggling with the paper because I can't get it through is thick head that strong research paper goes beyond just citing historians and views of others but should at the heart be his own thoughts, ideas, and impressions of what he has learned, or what he thinks of the thoughts and ideas of others.  When we are talking about it, his self comes through, but he struggles with transfering his spoken words to paper.  At this point I've stopped bumping my head against the wall and I'm leaving him to his own devices and see what transpires between he and his teacher about it.