Seamless Skin

500 pencils on the wall, take 1 down, pass it around, 499....

click image to go to website

By the start of fall...I'll have all 500 pencils!  I read about the 500 pencils some years ago on the QuiltArt email list.  It took me months of hemming and hawning but I broke down and ordered the 25 pencil/month plan.  By the start of autumn I should have all 500!  It was the collection of 500 colours which is alluring.  I would love to collect 500 solid colour fat quarters of fabric the same way!

My lungs have been junky, necessitating the need for a course of steroids and anti-biotics...with the dropped in temps, I haven't been to The Chitlin' Circuit in over a week...with only 1 trek out to test improvement in my lung capacity.  Surprisingly, I've kept the anxiety in check over losing time but have kept myself close to the hearth and entertained with pinterests, facebooking, blog and e-book reading.  Since getting the Kindle Fire, my book reading is back on!  I've read more books in a month then I did all of last year that were non-art making related!  And now that my library offers e-books, there is less threat to my budget.  My current author crush is Tayari Jones and it is my book review blog thats getting most of my action now.  

My two favorite boards on pininterest are DIY crafts and Food.  I've spent the last couple of weeks cooking dishes I found there...I tried recipes for thai noodles, brussel sprouts, zuchini boats, chicken salad, quinoa patties.  This cake is cooling now...but it is from Allrecipes.com, my go to food site.

apple cake

One of my studio neighbors has hosted Pinterest workshops which is "lets get together and make something we find on pinterest".  I haven't attended any but how clever an idea!  

 

 

 

letting go and moving on

I let go of the November 7th deadline...it is an annual show and there is always next year...too much had to be done for a new piece to be completed.  However, behind that decision, I pulled out most of my smaller works that I have left and will loan them to the Iroquois Branch Library to hang for the month of November along with some of my cloth.  I have to put sleeves on some, others will go into frames...I also will be in a pop-up show next Friday along with my neighbors at Mellwood.  The pop-up show will be in one of the vacant studios just off the courtyard where a live band will be playing so we're aiming for more visibility.  

Below is the 1st piece I was attempting to complete before November 7.  This one is done with dye paint...I applied wax over the boats yesterday and scrapped both sides with a mixture of jet black, turquoise, and navy.  I have another one that is done with fabric paints which will be the main piece.  This one I'll complete for practice and preparation for the other one.

the fabric on the right was using up the last of the dye and print paste...it is stamped with crookedly cut potatoes.

and inspite of me cleaning off the surfaces of my desks earlier in the week, this is how they look now, just a few days later...

and thanks to Paradise Videos for filming and EDITING the short clip of me talking about what I do!  

Low Technique Yields High Results

One of the suggestions Claire Benn gave us in May was to push the limits of one single tool...just commit to using one mark making tool everyday for a week in your studio.  A couple of weeks ago I did just this using a plastic card and did these...

But my new awesome favorite tool is this!

 click to enlarge.

The insert from toilet paper is a fantastic stamping tool.  I shape it into a pod, square, rectangle or odd shape  and just stamp with my medium of choice.  I must give a shout out to the fabulous Joanne Weis (toward the bottom on the post) for suggesting this in a LAFTA workshop she gave last year.

I smoked and inhaled a long-arm machine and now I'm hooked!

Autumn for me is marked by time with Penny Sisto...a retreat, a revitalization, a re-centering in the art making as healing, yes.  The day was shared with Barbara, a watercolorist and dollmaker, and Gloria, a hand quilter and appliquer.  

Me on the long-arm and Penny looking intently

This time it was all about the long arm.  My first real chunk of time using one other than a five minute demo years ago at a quilt show.  Penny was aware of the Crowbonics series, thus she had us select from a variety of Crows she loosely had sketched in order for us to use to construct our birds in cloth.  I selected these Crows because they appeared to be praying to me and my next Crowbonics quilt is called The Hymnal.  

Deborah, my sister, not knowing about the next quilt, said the Praying Crows reminded her of Matthew 18: 19-20.

The Crows are fabric snippets which have been placed on wonder under, cut out, then sewed on a background using the long arm.  I don't know if a long arm is in my future but I'm now more motivated to use one to complete at least one quilt.  

We were all witnesses to the corruption of Gloria...who prior to this day, was a NO-RAW edges appliquer and hand quilter.

And here is Barbara, the dollmaker, at the long arm.

Penny currently has a joint show with Ann Lawson Adamek at the Huff Gallery at Spalding University. Penny described her work in this show as the most biographical series she has ever completed. The quilts center on the the myths and legends that abounded on the Orkney Islands where she was born.  

Can I Get Cute?

It was so humid today I didn't even want to walk across the parking lot to go to the studio today.  My substitutes were to drop in at my favorite quilt shop to see the quilt exhibit by quilter's who are men...I wish I had taken my camera in because I would have showed you a quilted scupture that made me laugh...I can't recall his name but this dude LOVED LOVED LOVED bead embellishing!  His work had such a strong sense of play and fun to it!  There is group of art quilters that meet once a month and he is one of the members.  His work tickled me so much that I'm feeling compelled to attend the next meeting just to meet him and let him know.

The other substitute for applying myself toward quilting was to move my sewing table around in the Basement.  I've been caught up with thinking about a "cute" space due to being under the influence of My Desert Cottage's 2nd Annual Blog Party called Where Bloggers Create.  I've looked at about 10 studio spaces from the blog list party and mostly they were cottage/vintage/cute and lo and behold I'm riding down Bardstown Road today (not while looking at the website though) and bam, what do I spy but a vintage looking body form and just briefly tapped the breaks when I my voice emerged and said "thats not you" keep moving.  Thank God for voices, eh! 

At the moment, I'm washing out dyed fabrics that have been sitting in the car for a few days.  I used Linda Johansen's Fabric Dyer's Dictionary as a reference.  Even though I did not use the exact dyes she did, I'm pretty satisfied with her formulas she offers for colour mixing.  Here I was messing around with creating greens...

Speaking of green, I seem to have 3 times as much green fabrics then any other colour! I always thought it was purples/blues but after really sorting through, purples and reds are the least in my humble stash.  After greens, comes blues, warm yellows, and oranges.  Also, of late I've been vibing with a turquoise acryllic by Liquitex...Turquoise says summer to me and so far everything I've put it on, it becomes the pizzazz, the pop!  Juanita always says "a little bit of yellow goes a long way", but I'm thinking Liquitex's turquoise is the new yellow.

Also, another new find I discovered from a blog of a member, Pat, of the local calligraphy guild is this gem for writing, Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen.  It writes well on fabric and I'm going to use it in the next Crowbonics piece.  I picked up on in silver and tried it on a gray fabric.  Pat shows more examples of how she used her pen here.

My studio/basement time continues to be hit and miss, catch it where and when I can.  Tomorrow my mother and I have a meeting at the nursing home...he has reached a "plateau" with his physical therapy which translates into end of insurance coverage...we're in the midst of applying for Medicaid which I'm preparing for this nursing center to say they have limited number of beds available.  He has adjusted very well at this facility and the staff have been great and treat him well.  He has kept a positive attitude and his humor has returned. When my head hits the pillow it will be with prayer that it all works out for the good of both him and my mother.

Peace,

Things Fall Apart

And no, this is not a review of Chinua Achebe's novel! I had just two days at my workshop this week...I was going in today but find myself dealing with the pain of sciatica (something new for me) so I came home and today I will play with some calligraphy between drug-induced naps. 

Shortly after Christmas I had this pain in my hip/lower back and it progressed down through my leg in days following...sometimes it would seem to get better and sometimes I wouldn't feel it  at all but then last week I had tears flowing trying to get up in the mornings.  The pain would get better as I moved around but the mornings became horrendous! Finally went to the er and followed up with my doc and I'm trying to decide whether to take the PT she ordered or wait for a few weeks to see if there is any improvement.  I really do not want to accomodate the effects of taking the pain pill and the muscle relaxer...I have stuff I need/want to do and this is such an intrusion in my plans here!  Yesterday I did fairly okay without taking anything until the afternoon and had to miss a meeting with area textile and fiber artists.

The other problem which I knew was coming, came yesterday...my cutting table collasped!  (My mother's voice in my head "they saw you coming)  I purchased this table at Hancock's about 2 years ago and got it for 50% off.  I paid 50 bucks and it was the last one. Boy, did I feel smug and satisfied!  Well, when I set up the workshop back in the spring there was one problem screw that would not stay in...okay, I thought, I'll contend with it and just tighten it up from time to time.  Well since then every single screw has fallen out!  I would be in my workshop and here this "ping"...it would be the sound of a screw falling out and hitting the floor.  Every single screw that holds the top to the legs will not stay in.  Since I've been in a printing and sewing mode I've not had to use the table for cutting and have piled supplies on it.  Thinking that the weight of the supplies held the top down I really didn't give it too much thought (or just didn't want to deal with it)...well, like I said, yesterday it gave way...so I'm on the search for a replacement.  I've inquired about 3 wood kitchen tables on Craigslist between 20-40 bucks and am waiting for replies.  I'm thinking I could glue the current cutting surface to the top of a rectangle kitchen table and elevate it with risers.  A friend of my father's could build me one if I don't need it in hurry and he is the same one who I'm waiting to call about building me a sewing table...but he works full time at Ford and it is so up in the air when I'll have them.  I'm just kinda typing out loud here for the most cost efficient and immediate answer to this problem.

And if the sciatica and collasped table wasn't enough...with less than 1/6 of the quilting to go on the current quilt that measures 60"x40" (huge for me) I ran into some SERIOUS puckering where the fusible didn't adhere well.  I would rather make a whole new quilt than to try to take the quilting out (a hell of a lot) and pull apart the fabric from the batting to adjust it...so I thought cutting in down in size since the puckering is near the left edge.  The puckering you can see (click on image to enlarge) is not the worst of it either...I have that section folded back to see how adjusting the width would effect the overall design.  The yellow section is also wider than in the photo. 

 

My other idea is to sew down patches of stone and rock that form circles over the problematic area and across the quilt in other sections...The title of this quilt is "washing over the stone of our origin" or "stone of our origin" which is a line from the poem written on it. 

Ah, but the brave thing that I did yesterday was to re-fashion quilt study into postcards and trading cards...if you take a peek at my old blog, Art Going Postal, they are in the line with Urban Egression.  When I complete the edging I'll place them up for sale and trade on a page here and on my website. 

With the King Holiday and the Inaurugation to follow I'm really jazzed...I like to prepare what I call a Freedom dinner on King Holiday and listen to and read his speeches, especially The Letter From the Birmingham Jail.  I think I'm going to watch the festivities with my parents on Tuesday and possibly drop into one of the community gatherings around town.  How are you planning to spend Monday and Tuesday?

 

Somthing(s) went missing

Even though Wednesdays are not my scheduled days to be in my workshop I found myself there to wait on the AT&T tech who was scheduled to come between 1-5 to figure out the problem with the phone lines and what is preventing me from getting online.  Well after several call between 5-6 we were told that he was running behind and would be there first thing in the morning.  Nope! not going to work for me and I'm not rearranging my life today to accomodate what may or may not happen with the technician.  I'll get there around elevenish after an appointment. 

Mo did notice that I wasn't too upset about the missing technician because I had a fairly productive day compared to the day before.  My muscles and joints still ache and burn and I'm feeling slightly fatigued but instead of just shutting down completely, my preference is to move slower and be forgiving of myself.  

Yesterday I returned to working on the 2nd top in the Poetry Series.  After sewing on some strips to one of the focal panels I kept saying to myself, "something is missing"...it took me a few minutes to figure it out but I had yet to write the excerpt from the poem on the panel.  My mother was ironing while I was writing and stopped to check out what I was doing.  She asked me what I was going to do with the piece of fabric and I showed her the first panel and she let out a sing songy "ahhhhh" sound.  A sound of approval coming from her.  I really like that she can observe what I do. 

 

 

 

(auditioning of choices)

The titles of each quilt will take a line from the poem written on it.  This one is African ghosts cry in sunset hours.  I'm using TeeJuice Fine Line Markers to write on the fabric and I think they are the best!