Seamless Skin

As I typed this Martha Stewart demo'ed how to make felted soaps.

One of my favorite tunes that Cheryl Lynne Skinner use to sing when she performed locally had a line that said "i'm sitting in the house with everything on my mind, looking at the clock and can't even, can't even, tell the time". 

dig the gold by Liquitex!  

Amazingly, I'm calm and cool and relaxed even though I've not left my domain since coming home from the hospital.  I'm even letting the fingernails grow...(a little idiosyncracy about me, I clip them short because I do not like the whites of my nails to show and have never been a fan of long nails even when I had regular manicures done at salons...nail techs found me odd that way.  But this obsession with clipping them short as I do started about 3 years ago when I was going through some BS with my daugther and I just never stopped.  I also found short nails to be better for handling paints and dyes so it just made sense to continue.)

 beginning a new "design writing"

If I'm honest with myself, it will be March before I return to either The Basement Workshop or The Beauty of Holyness Studio.  The comments in the previous post boosted my spirits.  The idea to start "design writing" came intuitively without any preconceived ideas of where the lines and values would go.  I just kept changing up pens and writing anything from what I heard on tv, what the doctor said to me, something I recalled, or a slew of emotions.  The idea Mai-Britt offered to make copies and experiment with colouring them was like "a duh, why didn't I think of that" moment.  Thanks Mai-Britt for the idea.  I haven't been in Photoshop in so long that I didn't feel up to taking in sharp turns in my brain by trying to recall how to do layers, but when I do feel up to I think I'll try working them with colour that way. 

  

i got carried away

Deborah's idea to start a study made me go "wow! i'm going to do an entire journal, page after page design writing"  I dig this!  Then Acey suggested seeing them stitched and I thought "ummm, did she mean stitched paper quilts...thats cool, I've never done one...or did she mean print them on fabric, ummmm saw a quick layout in my head...then I thought a paper and cloth quilt!"  I dig this also.  The art of holiness and the holiness of art is that it is regenerative on soooo many levels, one being that it draws community, and out of community, one finds their tribe.  So thank you to all who commented, one love!

doodling faces to mimick Ethiopia artists.

Its all good.

This morning it was a song by Kool Moe Dee on the radio that perked me up...nothing like old school rap...I was just "this close" to break dancing and annoying my 17 year old.  'He ain't up on it like that', nor could he appreciate it from an historical perspective...his loss.

I am still rolling (slowly, but still, ya know) at the gym 3 times a week.  This week I added an additional 5 minutes on the treadmill.  Since I've been doing this, its a must for me to take an additional nap during the day and I sleep very deep...a few hours of sleep feels like the next day when I wake up.  My sleep through the night is still broken up, never more than 4 hours straight.  Sometimes I can get back to sleep, but on the nights that I can't I so wish I had my workshop accessible.  When ideas flow in the middle of the night and at the time they seem so fantastic that I just know I'm going to remember them, right!?  Well sometimes I'll write them down. :)

The colour is slightly off, but here is the piece from the previous posts.  You will see I haven't attached the copper wire ring.  Thank you to all the commentors who left suggestions on how to attach it.  I'm still pondering them. I'm leaning toward putting in two holes and using a flat washer painted copper instead.  I mixed the charcoal paint with gel medium and painted the four sides.  I've yet to decide how to hang it, either frame or mounted to a stretched painted canvas...but for the moment I'm considering it complete.

The learning lesson here: painted canvas is unforgiving when stitches have to be removed...so stitches are the language of committment! 

Here is an in-process close-up of the next 6"x12".  This is raw and rough.  My current book and the one before present information/perspectives about The Slave Trade during The Middle Passage.  The raw and rough feel to this could possibly be a manifestation of what I'm carrying around as a result of reading Lose Your Mother by S. Hartman and The Slave Ship by M. Reidiker.

The Piddlin' Peddler

My confidence has taken a dive.  My emotions have been bouncing up and down like the weather..."life stuff", the bittersweetness of it all.  I'm also wheezing and experiencing some heaviness in my chest so I've had to up the breathing treatments and rest more than I typically do.  I'm always the most vulnerable when the seasons change.  So the few days I've been at the workshop I've piddled.  I seem to have lost the grove for The Poetry Series at the moment...I didn't want to approach it with the funky dragging moods I've been in.  In order to be gracious with myself I thought I would dip and dabble around...so I pulled a book fro the shelf on collage and thought I'd work through it slowly, not with any sense of urgency...afterall, collage really isn't what I do, so whatever I end up with would be okay. 

 While working on this I thought about paper quilts or paper and cloth quilts.  Possibly another piddle day I may quilt this.

On another day, I gave in to re-organizing but really only manage to move clutter from one table to another, so I opted to sit down and read and listen to music...really listen and allow the music to carry me away...I was vibing with jazz violnist Regina Carter.  So that was this past Saturday. 

Today I thought I would play around with free motion embroidery and free motion quilting.  This is very different for me...again, just piddling and practicing.  My flower looks like it has the chickenpox.  Again I was playing Regina Carter and added Herbie Hancock to the mix...I really wanted a bottle of wine to accompany my groove with the sewing machine, but since I drive to come home, that wasn't an option.

 Inconsistency in speed paired with hand control delivers uneven stitching.  I did like the zig-zag stictching with free motion.  The threads I used were Isacord and Madeira.  Isacord really sinks down into the fabric.  Madeira seems to sit more on top.  My machine (Janome 6500) loved them both.

Here are two atc's I had left over and found when I moved my clutter around and if you'd like to trade with me, give me a shout out.   ummm, the image orientation is on its side...oh well, if you make atc's then you already know what size they are, right?!

I canceled going to Paducah next week.  I took a deep breath and called my sister to tell her I just didn't think it was feasible to push going financially in light of some other things I'm trying to cook up.  She kept the reservation and plans on dragging her husband over for 3 days and 2 nights (if I had the strength, I'd fall over laughing...she is optimistic but I really don't think that is going to fly).  We shall see, said the blind man.

Oh, and I the only one who is going wild over the HBO series The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency?  I ordered HBO just to watch this series...a big fan of Jill Scott, no surprise there, but I think its the secretary that makes the show.  Think of Murder, She Wrote with an African flavor.  I could just snatch Jill Scott's wardrobe for the show right off!  Simple, free flowing, yet great sophisticated patterning. I'm also tickled by the cartoon animation for the header and footer of the show so I did a search to find out who was responsible.  Those of you interested in graphic design might enjoy perusing the company's info...Airside. 

Peace to anyone and everyone who reads here...and as far as replying to comments, I'm going to change and try mainly to reply within the comment section.