Seamless Skin

Power in the Chitlin' Circuit

Yes, yes, yes...thank you Lord (stomping feet, head bowed, right hand held high, left hand over heart)...yesterday I was feeling the power, (I GOT THE POWER...hearing the voice in that song that I can't name...anybody???).  I held up to a long day at the Chitlin' Circuit, my studio, and made what felt like progress.  

Untitled at this time but finished.

added the color...since this is of an boarded up storefront church, I'm thinking hand quilting, but I might succumb to machine quilting.

another toilet paper insert fabric...my intent was to go with subdued colours...then i changed my mind.

One last thing and then I gotta go...but Enchanted Arts Studio has this hanging outside their door...it is a work in progress.  It took me by surprise when I saw it.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next...paper maiche, clay, fabric...all of the above

 

 

...And Still I Rise

Update

How good it feels to write a new blog post!!!!  How good it feels that Spring is here!!!!  

Louisville is #3 in the nation for the worse pollen count.  It wrecked a little bit of havoc on my lungs in spite of the emotional uplift the warmer temps gave me.  I just kept yo-yoing with chest crud until I had a brief 4 day stay in the hospital.  In between feeling good/feeling bad I kept plugging along on the boats...

Happy to report the hand embroidery is done and it is ready for quilting...but here is my plan...to continue on to the next quilt(s) and then sometime in mid summer go hog wild, (bat crazy, mad cow) with quilting all the tops.  This year's goal is all about production (don't get too excited...I work slow even when I'm fast).  My goal was to have the "boats" completed by the end of Feb. and it didn't happen until mid-March.  

You may recall me mentioning that my sewing construction studio is in storage due to my mother moving into senior housing.  For months I considered renting a 2nd Mellwood studio to set it up once the storage contract ends.  I turned over the idea of sharing a 2nd space, subleasing, etc.  It was my anxiety talking over not having my design board, fabrics, sewing desk that holds my main machine, etc. accessible.  I spent the first part of this week clearing the studio to make room for at least my sewing desk and to begin the next quilt with the attitude of "making do equals can do". Peter and Ade will haul through the storage unit and pull it out and deliver it this weekend.

Yesterday I actually sat down to begin the preliminary studies for the next piece.  Two of the three studies I finished...one is a thread sketch, this one using tsukineko inks.

The next one will be raw edge applique.  While doing them, the question in the back of my mind is "how can I make the imagery more abstract and still capture the event?".  It  will be a Kentucky Derby quilt.

Blog Love

I don't remember how I stumbled into Karen Walrond's blog and website, Chookooloonks.  I think maybe her book, The Beauty of Different, kept coming up on Amazon's recommendations.  She offers an on-line magazine workshop that offers gratitude prompts with photography prompts called Gratitude 2012.  Karen is an award winning, jet setting photography whose blog exudes kindness, humor, and beauty.  I enrolled in the workshop yesterday.  It is 5 dollars a month and 40% of the fee she donates to Kiva.  

Also, yesterday I discovered the website (thanks to Pinterest) and blog of fiber artist Diane Melms.  I've always wanted to improve my photo-documentation by showing the process involved in completing a piece from start to finish.  I think I'm too wordy to be as succinct as Diane or as succinct and poignant as blogger Judy Martin, another blogger I enjoy reading.  

Wrap-up

Time for a change.  I've been with Typepad now since I first began blogging back in '04.  This is a fee based blog and I'm at the lowest level.  In order for me to customize I would have to jump up to the next fee level and that ain't happening.  Blogspot offers customization and it is free.  My hold-up is anticipating the learning curve (the headache) of moving content.  This will be a goal for April.

Tonight is F.A.T. Trolley Hop.  I will not be having Open Studios but will be around with Carter, my 3 y.o. grandson and Anaya my 2 y.o. granddaughter for a few hours (at least this is the plan) visiting the other studios and galleries at Mellwood.  

 

Basketball, Art, and Breakthroughs

My weekends are anchored by little league basketball. Both of my grandsons, ages 3 and 5, are playing. Before it turned cold (although today it was 61 and sunny, reasons for it be damn, ya know I wasn't complaining!), I was taking the 5 year old to his bus stop in the mornings and after his bus arrived, I would keep on going (most days) to the studio.

I took much of December off and January's days were filled with more Nana duties in the day and evenings with the other 2 grand-delights.  As much as I love them, there is a very good reason for menopause...50something year old women should NOT have day in and night in care of small children.  But we now have daycare!!!!!!!! (and the crowd goes wild!!!!!!!!!!).  So now Nana and Papa just have the evenings with them. Ahhhh, much better.  

Last Friday was an art reception for Hope and Healing. Twenty-one artists donated work to a non-profit that serves women, men, and children who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.  I sent Urban Exodus (formerly Urban Egression) on "permanent loan".   (excuse the bad photography, it's the camera's fault ;D )

Carter and Anaya and my Mother went with me.  I could not have had two toddlers in tow without my Mama's help!!!  Here is Anaya saying "look look".  This is the only quilt she responded to...It is a Penny Sisto quilt.

Carter was going through the exhibit saying "wow, wow, wow".  It was mostly abstract work that he liked...the few he said he didn't like were realism in landscapes.  Here are snapshots of the two that "wowed" Carter the most.  

The work on top was created by Keith Kleespies and my apologies to not remembering or being able to find the artist who created the work on the bottom.  

Negotiating Territory is now hanging in the newest gallery at Mellwood, The Kore Gallery.  It will be there until the end of March or April.  

I'll be returning to some semblance of what passes for normal at the Studio.  I was there today for 6 hours...5 of which I hand embroidered 8 of the boats for a total of 13 completed...only 164 more to go.  I have to mentioned a breakthrough I had while stitching (Obama is going to beat the pants off of ANY republican candidate! okay, politics aside).  My breakthrough was this...I had been isolating embroidery thread colour within colour segments on the boats...and then I thought, why not use the thread across colour segments...use the thread to bridge the segments...here is my breakthrough in a picture: 

I'm a convert...

I'm good, I'm very good!  Peter has been on vacation for most of December.  It is wonderful to see him so relaxed and not carrying around work all the time, even though work does make life sweet most days.  

We've been enjoying coffee together in the mornings, and grandkids, watching tv, and listening to music.  I'm actually looking forward to him being able to retire if the "creek don't rise".  

The other thing I've been doing is reading like a mad woman! Thanks to the Kindle Fire Peter gifted me.  Some months ago I downloaded Kindle for the PC...it was okay and I like reading between surfing, but still was somewhat lukewarm on getting a reader, etc.  The best thing I enjoy is the back lighting which doesn't require lamp light for reading in the dark.  The 2nd best thing I enjoy is not buying a hard copy book of  books that will not get a 2nd read from me...there are some books that are real treasures to me, but there are some that once I've closed the book, it is over!  Not all reference books require physical space, even if they are art related.  This morning I downloaded Digital Art Wonderland and I just finished reading a book on African American Rootwork and Sacred Symbols of the Dogon.  Although informative, (Sacred Symbols was not quite what I expected), I was reading them to inform some visual ideas I had...somethings struck, most didn't right now...but 1. I didn't pay full price and 2. neither book will occupy space in what is already very limited space and 3.  multiple titles are portable.  So I'm a convert to book readers.

Its been about 2 weeks since I've been in the studio.  I did bring a study piece home to work out some hand embroidery on the "boats".  It boiled down to "yeap, the thread work and colour choices make the boats pop even more which translates to 'gonna take me more time to finish'.  

I'm considering trapunto, which I've never attempted, to make the boats stand out more.  The embroidery will only be through the top layer.  The blue section will be quilted by machine. Each boat is around 3 inces across...the actual top has about 150 boats.  This is what I'll be working on when I stay home from the studio (i.e. too damn cold).  

No further revelations have come to me about this piece in addition to it being my response to Troy Davis' execution.  

almost there

Two sides of the facing to sew on and then the sleeve...tomorrow I'll focus on photography and then I'll meet the deadline for Form Not Function.  My next deadline is November 7th, but unlike the piece I'm finishing up, I started a whole new piece for the November 7th deadline.  

I had a brief off-task activity thanks to a short trip into JoAnn's Fabrics.  I was enticed by these liquid beads described as self-rounding...so I sampled them yesterday.

If you know of any elves looking for work or willing to do charitable work, send them my way!

 

Grooving...

(The back ground music for this post is any song from Laura Izibor's Let the Truth Be Told cd)

The last couple of weeks have been great for being in the studio.  If I were to make a complaint it would be being there gets the pistons firing so fast with ideas and there is no way I can work fast enough to attempt them.

(auditioning threads) 

Crowbonics: The Scroll came home just as I was nearing completion of Crowbonics: The Hymnal which morphed into something that I had not intended due to being excited and getting carried away with the scissors.  After a couple of sleeps I'm okay with now having 2 new pieces instead of the 1 and I'm welcoming the opportunity to start over from scratch with The Hymnal.

(auditioning beads)

The past couple of weeks I've also been finishing up "studies" that have been hanging around, some for over a year.  Now they feel less like "studies" as I'm working with intentions towards a vision for them versus "let me see what this will do".

(stuff I do when I take a break)

  My stamina has been fueled by a new med I'm on for PH.  I started on it over a month ago and my ability to take stairs has improved and I attended the art car parade with my daughter and 3 grandchildren (it was a very short parade of about 20 cars) and was able to walk a couple of blocks and back to my car.  I'm still contending with mild to intense muscle inflammation caused by fibromyalgia but when I'm in the studio or the workshop I am successful at ignoring and working around the pain and making accomodations by pacing myself.  It helps that I'm good at tuning out distractions.

(Paula Cundiff's Art Van Go)

 The flip side of distractions is having interesting people visit in my studio.  Two watercolourists visited who are also in the building and I learned there is a life drawing class in the evenings and the price of admission is usually a bottle of wine (or diet coke if thats your flavor).  Michael, the artist behind me, brings his young daughter, prolly around 2yo, to his studio daily and she has the cutest voice and I love hearing what sounds like endless q & a.   Since Janet, a neighbor, has moved in, being at the studio has the added bonus of socializing...after conversations with her, I'm dizzy with fresh ideas.  She starts me down the path of brainstorming and I have to reel myself back (but its a super-fantastic issue to be faced with).  And yesterday, I had two seperate visits from old friends that I had not seen either of them in six years.  I was flooded with memories yesterday of things I had forgotten.  But with good friends it doesn't matter the time or the distance...the rhythm of the heart returns and re-connects.

Basting

Basting, it has to be basting. When I ask myself what is the least favorite thing about quilting...I believe it is basting.  Its important but tedious...tonight I went with 505 temporary adhesive paired with saftety pens (pins?).  Quilting the stones is my favorite pattern for the texture it creates although here on the screen it looks flat...could be due to the circles not being tight enough, thread colour too close in value to the background, or that the middle layer is commercial felt instead of batting, or all of the above.  

This working intuitively with little to no pre-visioning on the outcome is working for me of late.  It might change again sometime and I might go cerebral at some point but just flowing when I am here in The Basement is working.   The painted fabric (above photo) is one that was eliminated from consideration for the Crows.  Its my aim to have this finished by the last Friday in the month for F.A.T. (Frankfort Avenue Trolley Hop) Friday which is designated as the Derby Hop.  I'm not sure if Mellwood will do anything special but I'm expecting that they will...a tenant's meeting is coming up next week and I'll get the scoop then.  I'm feeling a little gutsy (or just crazy enough) to hold a "Grand Opening" that night which gives me three weeks to plan.  I spent yesterday, pretty much all of yesterday, trying to recall how to create and merge layers in Photoshop in order to produce one mock 4"x6" postcard...if you click on the page heading for The Beauty of Holiness you can see what consumed me in time and energy....darn near an entire day squeezed into a 4"x6 piece of paper!!!!

 
(sectional view) 12"x12"

Sorry, Ade, but I'm not going with Languid for a title.   Try again.

Peace...

What I did during the mid-40 degree F heatwave

Ade and Peter are on vacation and I've been more home bound and hanging out with them eating ginger snaps and watching movies and lounging and running about.  Peter takes the whole month  or most of December off and this vacation has been sweet and low key just the way I love them. 

Yesterday I did take advantage of warmer temperatures (mid-40F) and head to my Mellwood Studio.  I worked on felting the scarf and Peter hung my curtains there before he and Ade went on their merry way and left me to my own devices. 

The scarf has a long way to go as I want to kick back the way the colour is laid out all wild-like with a little bit of order with the next layer of wool or yarns or cheesecloth or organza or...

The colours are more grayed in this image then they appear off camera.  A hot magentas and rich violets are the actual colours.

The Mellwood Studio is coming along and by spring it should be more work ready.  Peter hung the curtains for me yesterday and it makes it a tad bit more homey since there are windows all the way around except for my direct neighbor who has peg board up on his side.  I'm trying to come up with low labor way to cover up the peg board...I'm leaning toward decorative paper on those windows. 

Three of my quilts and framed poetry by Estella soften the pegboard but I'm thinking a light coloured decorative paper would bring some light into the space and not distract from what ever is displayed in front of the window.  The back corner is my "working" and storage area.

Estella has more framed poetry and her books in the window.  I like to watch the people who stop to actually read the poems. 

The African panels belong to her also and came back with her from various central African countries a few years back.  You can see one on the back window in the photo above and the other 3 in the photo below.  The panels are for sale but I'm not sure how much.  If you're interested, just email me and I'll find out.  On the shelves below  the window is an exhibit of Memory Boxes by Henrietta Box Brown (email me if you get this one ;) )  and they juxtapose an historical memory with one contemporary. 

And this quilt, lord, this quilt was started some 14 years ago and it still is unfinished...its a quotation quilt.  I released it from its unfinished project bag and hung it over my quilt frame for inspiration.  It was started for a birthday gift and the intended receiver has seen many birthdays come and go and its still not complete.  I want to hand quilt it. 

My muscles and joints have not let up in pain since mid November.  In addition to reading to keep my mind off of the pain (I really need to review here The View from the Studio Door by Ted Orland, digging this! and Screen Printing by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan...outstanding!) I'm perpetually giving praise for the blessing of being able to create art in my life as a triumph over the pain...keep on keeping on and have a wonderful Kwanzaa and Holidays!

Peace

Working out the knots

First attempt at bullion knots...I'm so glad there isn't an embroidery jail for those who offend the discipline...but these look like french knots on steroids. 

Below is my third set and I finally got the sequence correct.

  

Again, as with the calligraphy, I'm not trying to become an embroiderer...I think in surface applications which explains why I selected the piece of silk paper as a base, (a material I love), instead of the Aida cloth recommended for beginners.  My initial thought was "this red and muddy grays look great together".

I joined the Take A Stitch Tuesdays at Stitchin Fingers (see side bar).  I might make a sampler, I might not.  I'm thinking I'll make postcards, atcs, or just small cutesy framable pieces...just think if I do this for all the 52 weeks...that would be 52 small pieces. 

Painting Canvas

Don't want to speak too soon but I've got a groove going back in the workshop!!  Whew, I was a worried there for a bit.  This is the beginning of week 3 of getting back on the good foot and I'm putting in 15 hours a week again.  (And week 4 of going to the gym...me and Ibuprophen have become close). 

I still have till the end of May (self-imposed timeline) to work with the raw canvas.  Through the Quilting Arts/Interweave site I discovered Alisa Burke and ordered her book, Canvas Remix, and enrolled in her online workshop entitled Graffiti Chic.  The timing to discover her was right on since she focuses on raw canvas.  For a week now I've been painting torn pieces and here is some of the results.  If you want to see a few of them up close, I uploaded some of my faves to Picasa here.

These are torn a little larger than 6"x12".  The first one I showed you I actually completed today...no, really, I'm very satisfied.  Here is what I did to the "moon":

A few months back I took inventory of completed pieces that where exhibit ready and thought "yeah" I can submit to the 4 shows I identified without worry of overlapping...well, today I searched for the forms...I know they are there somewhere...the organization of paper has never been my strong suit.  I considered appealing to Saint Anthony but thought, "no, I'd rather be painting canvas".

  One of the positive reinforcements I received from reading I'd Rather Be In The Studio by A. Stansfield was computer organization of files and folders.  I've got to make time to get the data entered.  One day (3-4 hours) every 2 weeks to get info entered and set up seems reasonable.  By the end of the year I should have everything in that I want in and from there it would be easier to track...right? right. right! 

When I find the forms I promise not to wail (here) about another missed deadline :)

To end this entry on a happier note, here is what I think is the most successful collage I've ever created.  It really isn't "quilted"...the only quilt construction is the red rectangle on the left.  Majority of it is built up from the copper painted canvas.  As far as mounting goes, my thoughts were to paint the stretched canvas off white and attache it, but then yesterday I saw  this on The West Country Buddha blog, and I immediately saw this piece with an attached copper wire for hanging.  As typical for me...I'm gonna sleep on it.

I need your help...

Really, I need suggestions on how to attach this piece of copper.  What would a mixed media artist use to attach this, is the question I posed to myself.  I really don't want to use thread...I thought about copper jewelry wire but I'm not sure how strong it is...would it snap or break?  I thought about stringing the charcoal beads and using them to intertwine throughout the copper circle and it would also secure them down using fishing line. 

 

 

I didn't go with the black lines, instead I pulled the colours at the top into the bottom using thread and then will pull the charcoal into the top with the tiny beads.

I want to make 10 of these before the end of May.  These are small, 6"x12" simple designs and exercises in colour combinations.   I like the size and the design and after flipping through old sketch books I saw several of quick sketches just like it...here is even a postcard I made in 2006 with pretty much the same design.  I called it House of Peace. 

 I'm also still uncertain how I'm going to finish the edges.  the canvas is to stiff and thick to roll back using a facing and I do not want to zig-zag...if I did a satin stitch I would want perfect matching thread for the charcoal and the coppery coloured top half.  What if I mounted it on foamcore and then used heavy weight card stock to cover the edges????  I even thought about mounting them on stretched canvas and either using rice paste glue or Y.E.S. glue or a permanent spray adhesive to attach it to the canvas? 

Since I declared Wednesday that I'm getting back on the good foot and shaking off the funk, I've spent 6.5 hours at my workshop.  I did bring somethings to work on while I'm home just in case I do not make it back tomorrow.  On weekends I have to have flexibility since my guys, youngest son and adorable partner, are out of school and off from work.  But I'll be back at the gym tomorrow and am looking forward to it (I can't remember ever feeling like that before...I use to look forward to jazzercise because my sister and I would stop afterwards and get ice cream that was next door to jazzercise).

From Piddlin' to Productive.

You got to use your imagination...clean edges...black vertical lines in the gray area, close together in size 12wt cotton...a singular vertical line of black tube beads about an inch in from the right....the black lines near the circle will maintain the circular edge under the round...no stitches in the copper section but the tiniest of seed beads (not sure of the colour) sprinkled in.  I thought of placing a little bit of shimmer under the circle but didn't want the metallic reflection to go into overkill.  I'm going to bead around the circle.  These pieces are for design and familiarity with canvas.  I don't have a jean needle which is what I'd prefer to sew through this...I'm going to try it with a universal needle, size 14.  I'm trying to decide on just how to finish the edges...I know I want it clean but not bulky...there will be black batting but I'm thinking the back will be either heavy water colour paper or sewn to black foamcore.  Any suggestions??????

Here is the piece I'm beading on in the previous post:

 

There will be more beading but this is what I did to wind down the last 20 minutes in the workshop.  Its about 12inch-ess by 14 inch-ess, meaning I'm just guessing at measurement.  Deborah, my sister, wants this one but wants me to make another one with a mirror image.  When she told me, I was like "really????"; this is the type of exploratory busy playing around that I would only share here on my blog and then hang at home or store for reference, so I was kinda shocked when she said she wanted it.  When I started this piece I just wanted to work with the zig-zag free motion stitching, thread painting, and straight stitch free motion.  The beading was added because it relaxes me and I want to use my statsh...I discovered today that I don't really have a good assortment of purple or orange beads.  There was something else I discovered today while painting.....ummm....oh, I like Golden's Zinc White in fluid acryllic.  It is such a very bright clean white that plays well with other colours.  The bottle I have is a 1 oz bottle and its almost gone.  I also love Setacolour's Raw Sienna.  Need to remember this in order to save for larger bottles.

******************************************************************************************

When I go to the gym (all of week 2) it is early morning and most of the people there are clearly senior citizens...now I'm almost 50, but the folks I encounter are people, without hesitation, I say are my elders.  They see me with the oxygen tank and come over to give me encouragement and advice to take it slow and build up gradually...and some joke with me about returning...I get so tickled inside because these 70+ year old individuals are the ones hogging the treadmills and bikes going at rapid speed.  So with that surrounding me, I couldn't quit if I wanted to!  Seriously, I feel very much at ease and not at all intimidated.  On Mondays, 2 women play raquetball and I can see them when I'm on the weight machines and I do wish I had that type of stamina.  One of my senior buddies caught me watching them and I guess she could tell I was a little saddened...she came up to me and said "don't worry, that will be me and you next year"...we fell out laughing.  I told her I was going to hold her to that. 

I left there and picked up my oldest and his 3 y.o. son and went to breakfast...I left the camera in the car otherwise I would have thrown up a cute-grandchild photo. 

Peace,

 

 

 

Eat, Pray, and Stitch

Outside looks inviting with the soft blue clear sky and the soft brightness.  Based on appearance I could think it is pleasantly warm outside.  The temps actually read too-cold-for-Karen-to-be-out.  My goals today included 3 things; eat, pray, and stitch.  I've been successful.  While sewing on a binding I reasoned that what I do well in my quilts is create good backgrounds.  When I start I aim for the entire quilt to be an all over focal point (it has a name but I can't recall it at the moment but remember it from Lorraine Torrence's book on design) but and once it is finished I become unsettled thinking it needs a more easily read focal point.  Here is a section of the quilt that I scanned.  The entire size is 24ish x 30ish.  I placed a 1/4ish binding around it. 

Some options I'll consider is adding beads in blues, a couple of circles in metallic or light blue threads in blue, and words from the poem in larger lettering using Scribble paints in blueish/grayish.  Also on tap for next week is picking up my Janome Jem from the repairman (don't ask, sad story), and selecting some hand-sewing I can do here at home and practice some calligraphy on paper and working through the artist's workbook on marketing.   

For all who might be interested I've started a Calligraphy and Creative Lettering group on Creative Souls (see sidebar).  It is for anyone at any skill level who has an interest in the graphic possibilities of writing, script, by hand or digital.  Also, I started reading Cherryl Floyd-Miller's latest book of poetry, Exquisite Heats.  Cherryl is also a quilt artist and her blog is here.  A beginning review of the book has been started on by book blog (see sidebar), My Eyes Have Seen the Coming of the Word.

Meditating Over It...

Yesterday I sat in silent meditation with the quilt pictured in the post below and together we decided that the size cannot change.  To address the puckering concern, round donut-shaped stones in a variety of sizes will be added on.  The solution felt BRILLIANT!  The stones echo the motif of life being circular as well as a line from the poem.  I applied the evaluation techniques I learned in the Benn/Morgan Workshop.  I saw that the cloth was not as complex in layers as I previously viewed it and wanted more, so the additional embellishments will help some with this.  One of the comments that Claire Benn had made was that American surface designers tend to lean toward less layering than their European counterparts when making complex cloth.  (Not a judgement but an observation)  I want this series to be vibrant or intense AND sophisticated in appearance.  I spent about 3 hours yesterday evaluating this quilt...not continuously...I would write my observations and thoughts down between staring at the quilt.  I took brief breaks to start on another work in progress that I've named my Prayers series...the fabric is one dyed by Helene Davis that I picked up at AQS-Paducah years ago...I stamped it with a symbol for Sankofa and quilted it a long while ago.  I started the beadwork yesterday:

the beads are amber-coloured but the fabric is not this warm and is even a cool brown...the lights in the dining room gives off a yellow cast plus I couldn't remember how to turn off the flash.

The inspiration for Prayers came from the beaded prayers project by Sonya Clark.  In my last year of employment I came across her work and contacted her about doing a workshop with with the clients that utilized services where I worked.  We coudn't afford her fees and the interest in fundraising specifically for this project was not present in the Development staff.  I was deflated by it because I soooo believe in the art and health connection.  I have one completed in this series (story of my life) called The Faith of the Mother.  I've shown pieces of it on the blog but not the completed quilt...will try to get it photographed soon. 

Let the blessings rain on us all! Peace,