Seamless Skin

...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.  

 

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!  

Visitors make the Trolley Hop!

Last night's Trolley Hop went a long way in reviving my spirit.  For the woman who actually came looking for my demo on screening with thremofax machines, the 2 women who inquired about prices in their colorful jackets, the close to retired gentleman who is thinking about looking into Paducah's Artist Relocation program, to a friend of Nancy who previously purchased Sankofa Bird and has it hanging in her kitchen, I say thank you for stopping in.  Visitors really are challenged to walk through the building which is huge to find artists in their studios which looks sparse due to the size of the building and the number of spaces where artists select not to participate coupled with the vacant spaces.  I'm always trying to recruit artists to consider leases there, as it generates energy when working around other creative folks.   

Some of what I saw that amazed me last night was an artist who carves hummingbirds and butterfiles using wine corks, chopsticks and other recycled items.  I was stunned thinking about how his mind visualizes wine cork to very detailed and intricate hummingbirds.  I tend to think in broad strokes and fluid gestures so it leaves me in awe to think out another may see in small miniature details.  I can't recall his name and I've checked the Louisville Artisans Guild website looking for his work and its not there, otherwise I would share with you.  I'll get it today when I go over to my studio.

The first demo cloth was testing out freshly made screens and getting a view of how they might play together in a design.  

The second demo cloth was one that I immediately fell in love with and the screen will be one of my "go-to"s.   I drew the image in response to "branching out", the April theme for The Sketchbook Challenge (see button in the side bar).

My Mother came through the first surgery beautifully.  She will be having a second surgery on Monday and will need a little more care and support.  Going over to the studio will be "catch is as catch can".  Peace.

Six Years, but whose counting...?

There are 2 exhibits with November 1st deadlines which I've just given myself permission to not submit. My focus has been dye painting and screening and my muscles are feeling fatigued and I'm releasing the will to push myself the next 2 days.  I did make it to the Open Studios and many artists were in their studios which is always energizing but rest will be the focus for the weekend.

There are 10 pieces of dye-painted fabrics wrapped in plastic that will cure over the weekend, possibly until Tuesday or Wednesday.  I'm on the schedule to to do some campaign calls for Monday and will be at my Mother's for bit also.  Tuesday I'm on the schedule for a few hours to drive folks to the polls so I'm not sure when I'll return to do the wash out.  The piece shown in the post below had very little dye wash out but I dye painted it again yesterday with a chocolate brown.  Here it is before the brown was applied:

I'm sold on curing AND steaming.  

It dawned on me yesterday that I'm focusing on dark colours...for no apparent reason but if I were to go all hyper-analytical I would say because I'm dreading the onslaught of winter and the need to readjust my activities due to it getting dark earlier.  But really that would be over-reading the intent.  I think it boils down to 'I'm just dyeing dark colours', (insert shrugging shoulders)

My presentation at the Carnegie last Saturday was a lot of fun for me and hopefully for those who shared the morning with me as well.  What keeps coming back to me is the clarity in which I knew that art-making is a conversation with my body and I used the metaphor of it being a dance that allows me to explore my limitations and sense of freedom.  The surface applications on fabric is hip-hop and the quilt design and construction is the waltz and modern dance sequels. 

This was the last piece I did yesterday and I was tired and don't know where the face came from but right before I did the face I asked myself "what else can I do with the writing?"  I've been doodling faces on scraps of paper and looking back over my attempt at faces in old journals...I do think it'll be a long while before faces as a motif makes it into a quilt but I'm open.

November 4th will be my 6 year anniversary of blogging...for 6 years I've been typing out loud about my journey with the main focus being my own art.  I hope casual readers and dedicated readers of Seamless Skin find some nugget that moves us closer to kindred spirits that keeps and increases the use of the internet as a fully positive human one.  

Beginning next week I'm going to add a new feature on my blog with interviews of local artists.  I'm starting with members of Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Artists.  When I'm at meetings I'm overwhelmed with all the creative vibes and the group experience that I'm wanting the interviews to be the counter-part and allow me to connect and get to know members as individuals.  The first one will be with ceramist and shibori artist Elmer Lucille Allen (see the video below) who has an upcoming show with Valerie White at E & S Gallery.

 

 

Peace,

Unity in Schisms (what the what am I talking about now?!)

 The Beauty of Holiness Studio, my art making sanctuary

Odd, ... I cannot recall ever being this excited about Mondays when I was employed.  Sundays now are a signal to re-engage fully as possible with my creative mind.  Sundays are filled with thinking about the different pieces of cloth and quilts in their variuos stage of development and what needs to be stitched and the hows and wheres of it all. 

Last week I dye painted over previously painted cloth.  The cloth was not treated with soda ash and I used Afterfix on it which is used to set dye.  I've used this before and was fairly pleased with it...the colours appear to me more muted and toned down then with soda soaked fabric.  I keep returning to this method because I do anticipate, possibly, at some point I may not be able to physically handle low-water immersion dyeing.  This is the piece I'll rinse out tomorrow if all goes as planned:

 
Over the weekend I attended a state meeting of SDA members that Jennifer Reiss and Mary Nehring coordinate.  This was the 2nd meeting but my first.  My membership in SDA has lapsed but renewing it is on my goal list for the coming year.  Being around other artists and diverse minds gets me spinning like a whirling dervish and I left there thinking that its not so much the lack of opportunity that seems to describe this city/state (although the description can be dead on) it is the fact that I cannot attend to all the possibilities. 

In my own art I can say that I now have a focus, sense of purpose, and a vision...a "Karoda" way of working...but I'm also fertil that when I see the art of others my mind automatically begins to push, combine, play, stretch, mix, mingle, and so on, ideas and what ifs and I'm flying or whirling and it feels fun in the moment.  I've learned to reel myself back down...took me a couple of years but I'm good to go and can now say to myself "okay, Karen, settle yourself down".  I think many artists experience this and in turn are faced with juggling the solitude activities with communal activities and how both impact creativity. 

I also attended the tenants' meeting at Mellwood last week and Planet Janet and I will be coordinating demos and activities by the tenants who want to participate in November's Trolley Hop.  Studio spaces are getting new tenants and I hope this is some indication that economically people are feeling more daring and confident.  Many of the new tenants seem to be more retail/service oriented.  A fitness center, photographers, martial arts, florists, etc.  I hope this will not eventually increase the dirt cheap rents for the artists like myself who are solely using the space to create in, but overall, it is good to see fresh eager faces and more activity.

Speaking of solitude and communal, I figured out why I'm not partial to listening to music on an iPod.  I like my music to fill not just me but the space I inhabit.  I want the essence of the sound to rock the cobweb in the corner of the ceiling...I want the vocals to ooze down the walls...I want the rhythms to cover the floor.  This just doesn't happen using an iPod.  I can listen to podcasts on my iPod, no problem...but the music is too big to fully enjoy it that way...and I'm not talking about the volume of the music but the experience of it...listening on an iPod diminshes the experience of the music, the artistry that went into it.  Playing a cd is much more inviting for a shared experience and much more open experience.  I mean would you rather go to a museum or look at the art on a toy view finder?

Peace,

 

 

 

Figurin' stuff out...

top of studio desk

The summer trolley hops are the best!  Such interesting people wander in and out.  I always ask the question, "how often to you trolley hop?" and from the people I've spoken with, first timers make up 90%.  Not sure how significant this tidbit of info is, but I figure Trolley Hop is missing something for repeaters.

There is an outdoor art fair coming up in 2 weeks at Mellwood and I think I'll interrupt my current processes in order to make some brooches and small 4x6 postcards to move.  Maybe 25 of each.  Sadly the winter trolley hops are not anywhere as active or interesting and summer is coming to a close so I figure I betta not be content with allowing the opportunity to pass me by.

I've figured out that my intended audience for my art is primarily curators, exhibit judges, and gallery owners, followed by the general art buying public.  A couple of years ago I had an interior designer interested in my work but I just couldn't afford to "wholesale" it in order to make it worth my time and materials.  The business side of art making is like the hip pain that isn't bad enough to stop me from walking but hurts just enough to say take an aspirin.  Now that I'm no longer sharing the studio...I'm thinking of trying to move small pieces each month to cover half of the studio rent.  In other words, the push is turning into a shove.  I will not rehash my reluctance to address marketing again but do hope I can find an acceptable compromise.  I'm opening up my space by the hour to other textile artist who need a temporary space to dye fabric and I'm also offering demo'ing/teaching intro to basic dyeing for ubber beginners.  There are smaller studio spaces available but these 4 sinks are just 5 footsteps from my door and I do not want to increase physical challenges by getting further from them.

I'm going to take a page from Deborah Grayson's blog and list my business goals for September here:

1. Have 25 postcards and 25 fiber brooches ready for sale by Sept. 9th.  scrapped the brooches but did the postcards

1a. backing, sealed, on placards, etc.  related to above

1b. on cards, take 5 to retailers.  decided against it due to dropping prices on postcards.

2. Flyers on renting space by hr/intro to dye in lobby and Mellwood/LAFTA email list.

3. Make up price list  completed

4. Complete applications for 2 exhibits  (still working it out)

4a. 2 pieces quilted and completed  (1 piece used for postcards, still working on it)

4b. Ade to photographed  (need to retake them)

5. Begin putting together a cd portfolio.  (still working on it) 

I can't commit to doing this each month but at least for September.