Seamless Skin

We made it babee! The grace of another year!

This will be my 3rd year in a row to give "learning curves" (reading and following exercises with daily accountability) another attempt.  In previous years I maintained a seperate blog page to share my schedule with any blog visitors who might have been interested in joining me, but then the page tab was haunting me after I abandoned the practice so I deleted it).

The 1st year I thought diversity would be the key to make "learning curves" fun.  The 2nd year I thought a central focus would be the key and I had 4 books all related to digital art.  This year, year number 3, I'm going to limit it to 2 books and keep the digital focus.  I'll decide on which 2 books by Friday, but I'm leaning toward Gloria Hansen's Digital Essentials and Lura Schwarz Smith's Digital Quilting.  

As far as "distractions" I'm adding the Strathmore free workshops to the mix and when I take a notion, the Sketchbook challenge.  I will not be taking any major workshops this year although Jane LaFazio will be coming to the area in the spring and I'm tempted but I do not want to rearrange my plans to accomodate the change in budget.  As it relates to the previous post, my goal is to obtain a larger space at Mellwood or a 2nd smaller space.  The idea space right behind me has once again come open but I'm not ready to take it.  

There are other books I'm working through but I'm not sharing the activities just yet...mainly because the pace depends on how often I get into the studio during the cold weather and they are not imperative as my other goals around creating and finishing a minimum of 5 new large for me quilts along with small-to-medium size pieces prior to Sept. 2013.

My word for last year was jubilation...the experiences that gave me jubilation after they were done and over...namely my mother's surgery last spring and her move...alongside those events, the time spent with Claire and Leslie and seeing my 2nd Quilt National exhibit at the opening weekend with my good friend Bev and the day I spent with sistah-friends Penny in her studio and wooded retreat and Valerie on a day the Lord held us together.  

My drive word this year will be tenacity!   

Learning Curves, Week 4

Learning Curves is getting back on track after Thanksgiving week.  I made it to class (class is how I'm referring to each book I'm working with in the Learning Curves) but not on the days designated.  Like today (Thursday, 12/02/10, the day of this writing) I'm working with all 3 books on digital art.  I have continued to reference Visual Language (Benn & Morgan) in creating lines and shapes.  The 2 images above are small cloth samples.  On the top one I cut out random shapes from book-cover plastic (similar to contact paper) and stuck it on the fabric to use as a resist and then dye painted over it. The image directly above is with the plastic removed and then dye painted in the white areas.  The cloth sample has been washed out and dried here.

The Image Transfer Class (McElroy) didn't go this week.  I did order the Transfer Artist Paper and its on its way and succumbed to a Lutradur purchase.  I have 3 weights of it and the extra light offers the highest appeal...I'm thinking it would pair well with silk organza in a statement on transparency or where transparency could impact the overall visual.

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Jane Dunnewold will be here the end of January and will have a show at the Hite Gallery on University of Louisville's campus and is preparing new work for the show.  Here, on Jane's blog, you can see how she has written and defined the parameters for her forthcoming works. Here is Jane's schedule for her Louisville agenda. 

When I'm stuck on a piece, I pick up a journal and begin to ask questions and provide answers while actually sitting in front of the quilt/fabric.  When I first started doing this I was going to dedicate a journal by year, then by the series, then by location...but what I really do is just pick up whatever journal is close by, thus loosing continuity in writing about specific pieces and making it difficult to have the writing become reference material because my notes are spread throughout journals.  The one dedicated journal I have is a technique journal that I glue I glue samples into rather than how the designing of a quilt and the message of the quilt are related and what I did to get there. 

 I washed out the last of the fabrics I've been layering (images directly above).   Dunnewold limits the variables in order to self-impose focus and I'm going to join her in this journey for the next couple of weeks as I return to Crowbonics.  My next post will go into details.

 

Learning Curves, Fall, Week 3

Monday:  I skipped class today and instead cleaned up images in Photoshop and then headed to The Basement and made several thermofaxes for printing.  The images came from the homework in Visual Languages (Benn & Morgan) on negative and positive space.

Also, I browsed through an older journal looking at my face sketches and discovered I was partial to sketching faces with the eyes closed.  I selected one that I would like to work with on cloth and will make some samples for painting and stitching.

Tuesday:  Woke up with a scratchy throat and apprehension and vulnerability...for years more than I care to count up, the week after TG marks the season of bronchitis/pnuemonia.  The unseasonable warm temps paired with sudden drops in temps is what my great grandmama called "fooler weather" and always admonished me to "wrap up" or at least put something on my head and around my neck.  In my youth though, in spite of the chronic asthma and sarcodosis in my lungs at the time, I still felt I had mind over matter and the benefit of my youthful energy that I didn't feel pressed to adhere to her folk wisdoms.  But as my mother still says "a hard head makes a soft behind".  

My goal is always to get through winter without being hospitalized.  I think my record since the early 80's is 2.5-3 years straight without having a hospital stay.  (So you can begin to understand or be reminded of my dislike of winter months.) 

Image Transfer (McElroy) is the on the agenda for today.  Since I'm still waiting to order some transfer mediums, I'm only going to read.

After Tuesday:  I just blew the rest of the week off and will begin again on Monday, the 29th.

The next Artist Interview is scheduled for posting on December 1st.  The Artist is Penny Sisto.

Learning Curves, Fall, Week 2

Monday:  I was not consciously in my art mind today but when I stopped by the studio to drop some things off, I plopped down and surveyed the room I left last week and tried to think about what processes needed to be done to which fabrics.  Feeling defeated, I dug out some black construction paper and begin cutting shapes out.  This is an exercise from Finding Your Own Visual Language (Benn, Morgan).  Image Transfer is on the agenda tomorrow.  

Tuesday:  The studio didn't happen. First, I had trouble getting out of the house, damp, wet, cold weather aggravates my mobility and breathing but did make it and after taking care of some business with my mother, I headed to Mellwood.  Made 2 attempts in heavy rain to get me and my stuff (I'm always carrying stuff from one point to another) gathered up to walk the 40 miles across the parking lot, I felt defeated and came on home.   Once back home, I reviewed the lessons for tomorrow's Learning Curve and watched Ricky Tims dvd on machine quilting.  Tims' method look cumbersome but worth it when decorative stitching is a definitive element.

Wednesday:  The chapter on Color Management (Hansen) woke up lots of dormant brain cells.  I spent one hour reading in front of the computer with PS Elements open...changed my computer monitor from a bright lime green to a neutral gray background as she advised and looked at color calibration devices on Amazon.  The prices are prohibitive and although all this is leading to wanting to create digital art into textiles, I'll have to work with what I have first to see where it lands inside my spirit.  This will be dinner conversation with Peter today.

Thursday:  LAFTA meeting was so inspiring that I left there and spent and hour in the studio just to touch up on the four small pieces pinned to the print table.  The piece below I painted in the white spaces with blue and red but I think the values will be too dark.  Will consider going back in with discharge paste.

Friday:  I'm getting ready to spend a few hours working from Digital Expressions (Tuttle).  The author provides a CD of images for working through the book as an option. The Madonna and Child are from Wikipedia and copyright free and the man is off the CD that comes with the book. 

1st attempt didn't quite understand, 2nd attempt with Tuttle's image, and 3rd attempt w/ better understanding.

 

MY THOUGHTS ON HOLIDAYS

Next week is Thanksgiving and next Friday is the onslaught of shopper's day.  F.A.T. Friday will be an all day affair and I'm planning to be in my studio for the anticipated foot traffic.  I said I was going to do more holiday themed post cards since they move really well for me and I'll string some lights in my studio window, but honestly the holidays always feel like "peer pressure" to me and I've yet to convince Peter of retreating during them...but for me, personally, I'd like nothing better than to go to spend them in a cabin, lodge, in the mountains or at the edge of a body of water surround by nature, mutual love with family and good food, music, good movies, and an all day Scrabble tournament.  That would be holiday bliss.  Most of these things do describe what we do except for the change in scenery.  As much as I'm an urban woman, sometimes the sights and sounds are an onslaught to my senses...and I feel it most around holidays, even when I was a child I was weird about holidays.  What I remember loving the most is basking in the fun of family get-togethers for what seemed to me, no apparent reason...it was just what one did on the weekends.  I'm kinda half-way recalling a theory by John Blassingame who attributed survival through the harshest conditions and  the flourish of creativity by what occurred in the few hours of down time and gatherings in the slave quarters away from the watchful eyes of overseers.  In some strange way that makes me feel off-center, holidays feel intrusive and like those watchful eyes trying to market my soul.

Peace,

Embracing the Season

In attempts to embrace the changing season I'm changing my routine to reduce my going in and out as much...appointing days to dedicate to learning and being in either the studio or workshops.  Warmer temps encourages me to work more fluidly than the colder temps. The colder temps encourage to stay put and focus even more.       

I'm re-committing to Learning Curves, my self-directed education program.  There is a tab at the top of the blog if you want to see which books I'm using.

I'm listening to Charlie Rose and noted panel discussing the works of Romare Bearden...here is the link...

 Romare Bearden

Also, would anyone like to have this book?  It is a small booklet of 31 pages with about 10 or so different projects like cell phone covers, basket liners, book covers, etc.  No drawing, just the first to want it in the comments will get it.

Taming Listlessness

While I'm typing this, Ade and Peter are intensely discussing NBA players and teams...they are always on opposite sides of the argument when it comes to sports, each one talking rapidly and overlapping speech...some father-son bonding ritual that gives me a headache.  In earlier days this would take place on some nearby street corner or neighborhood pub or some garage...but at the kitchen table over coffee and cereal seems invasive to my head.  I'm recalling a lecture given by bell hooks to architecture students (i crashed the lecture) that theorized to what extent outdoor and indoor spaces where claimed by gender. 

I woke up very early and sat on the balcony surrounded by Peter's tomato jungle and watched a teeny tiny spider bounce up and down, little by little, off of a vine, but I'm feeling listless.  To settle myself I printied on the fabrics that were soaked in the Bubblejet and Golden Digital Grounds that I mentioned previously...as I sip gulp my coffee I"ll upload the comparisons...hold on.

Visually, the difference is negligible .  The Digital Ground image is a little sharper and it makes the paper feel and behave more like art paper instead of cloth, stiffer but breathable, unlike using a gel medium.  Between the 2, my perference is the cloth with the digital grounds for the feel of it.  These are on cotton.

Last summer, sister blogger Marie, shared her results. (Click on her name to see.)

Daddy's service and beautiful and a sweet but short family gathering.  I loved two of the stories shared by one of his CB buddies, a Rev. Woods, who has lived in Michigan for the last eleven years and just so happened to be in Louisville for a family reunion.  He shared how my father, some decades ago, got him started with his CB passion and how much he loved talking to my father, Groundhog, via the radio.  The other older gentleman, told a railroad story and its what he left out that made the story even funnier for those who knew him.

I dreamt about him last night...he was dressed in the suit we buried him in but was in front of the casket carrying it with the 6 pallbearers.  He was walking down Broadway and when he passed 26th street he turned into this huge rugged field of gold and green patches of grass.  It was midday and my father was taking firm steps and said "people need to understand that patience is needed in times like these".  There was a huge, huge crowd waiting for him and cleared a path for him to enter a white building that sat back and off to the side in the field.  I arrived in a limo but had gotten off of work and into the crowd and was hoping that no one would recognize me.  I fell in step behind the casket after my father arrived.  I remember having the feeling that I wanted to blend in with the crowd but I wasn't a part of the crowd. 

When I awoke I thought, its just like Daddy to find something to do to keep him busy. :) 

The hugs and prayers are appreciated very much. 

Do I speak a languid language?

I'm getting close to believing that pre-planning induces a deeper anxiety in me.  I didn't know that I'd end up with such a long stretch of time in The Basement, but I did.  Flowing from one thing to another worked for me today.  Just pick up something and go with it flow is what I did.   While there I did some exercises from Finding Your Own Visual Language and Image Transfer Workshop...

The transfer techniques involved allowing the image to dry completely in the gel medium and then spritzing with water and rubbing off.  If a solid filled image is important to the outcome then the culprit can be air pockets in spite of burnishing the back to get a good adhesion.  The larger image is on stretched canvas and the small image is a page inside a moleskin journal.  The desert image was a magazine photo and the crow was a laser printed on common printer paper.  Again, a techique that I'll relegate to altered books.

And right before I left I did this collage with some ink-jet printed fabrics that I'm in love with...instead of using them for some heavy message ladened art quilt, I just cut them into squares and rectangles and put them back together again.  Now I want to print off more of the same fabrics and just keep rearranging them into collages.  Ade, my youngest, called it "languid"...he meant it as a compliment...no, really, honest to goodness, he did...I think this is what I will title it.

And I'm lacking vim and vigor also, soooooo I'm taking my languid self to bed...Peace...

Gel Transfers using ink-jet images.

The transfer technique using gel medium is too unpredictable. I transfered onto paper, cotton, and a stretched canvas.The application of gel medium leans toward a thicker application then I expected in order to get a better transfer.  In this case, for the outcome, the use of materials seems a waste.  This technique gets moved over to altered books, fabric postcards at best.

I'm now trying a similiar image with a magazine page and a toner-based imageon paper and the stretched canvas.