New Studio Assistant

I've been cranking away in the studio the last two weeks since I have been home from China. So busy in fact that I have needed an assistant to help me get some things done. He's been doing a fantastic job of guarding the sewing basket and keeping all the hearts I have been making warm.

The hearts are part of my studio project for school. I have to shoot a bunch of work this weekend. So maybe I will share with you a little of what I have been working on. The art that I have been making for my MFA program feels (at least to me) very different from what  show, sell and teach in the main stream. That's good, right? Doing some stretching. We all need to be challenged from time to time. So that said, I have to get back to work. 

Artfest 12. Thanks for the memories

This trip is going to be a whirlwind. Just wrapped up five wonderful days @ Artfest and now I headed to Shanghai for my day job. (Yes, Shanghai, that will be another post, I promise.)  The trip to Port Townsend, via Seattle was amazing. The experience of ARTFEST is something I will never forget. I wanted to thank all my students who gave it their all in the class room last week. They all made AMAZING work! And I am so proud of them.

If you have never been to Artfest, it is an annual art retreat held at an old fort in Port Townsend, WA. Set right on the ocean and full of history, has served as home base for this event for 13 years. Sadly, this year is the last year that Artfest will be held. A bittersweet experience for me, as it was the first time I had ever attended.

In consideration of  time: I am writing from gate 102 at the San Francisco International Airport; patiently waiting for my flight to board. I'll wrap up and share share some photos of the trip. There would have been more, but the camera has been acting up lately.

Country Roads

I drove down to Hinesburg today to pick up a load of barn board for my latest project. 

I visited with Lee Findhold at her place down on Gilman Rd, Wicked Good Farm.  Lee makes wonderful yarn from the wool that she cultivates from her goats and llamas. She sells her hand dyed yarns and other farm goodies on Etsy.  I got meet all her little critters. She also had a huge pile of old barn boards that we loaded up into the back of my little Saab.

Gilman Rd is a quintessential Vermont back road lined with old farms, pastures and barns. Today was such a beautiful day, full of the promise of spring. Spring in Vermont means birds singing and mud. There's always lots of it on the back road. Some how I didn't get stuck in it.

I stopped at an old cemetery on the way back and was taken in by the old stone markers covered with moss. My sense of time and place shifted for those moments when all I could hear was the wind and the birds.

There is something about that stillness.

I got back in my car and drove home taking in the clear blue skies of this perfect Sunday afternoon.

When I got home, I unloaded all the wood. Lined them up against the shed and just stood there for a while with them. Listening to the wind and the birds in my own yard. The noise of the creek gurgling out back.

The world passes around us at it's own pace. Yet, there is a stillness we can cultivate here in Vermont. A sense of beauty that is seen in the rusty roof of an old barn or the joy that a flock of chickens can bring. The song of a robin, the song of the creek. There is something to a quiet Sunday afternoon that can re-charge your mind and set you right.

I hope you have had an equally inspiring day.

sometimes what you are LOOKING at isn't what you are really SEEING

Sorry to say, I have been very neglectful of my blog as of late. I'll use the old excuse, I've can't seem to find the time. That would be the truth. You see, I've been busy in working on art these days. 26 hours a week, to be exact. (that's on top of the 40-50 hours a week I spend at the office.) Yes, I AM counting. The reason for this? I started graduate school last month and I am required to devote at least 20 hours a week to my studio practice. So, that's what I have been doing, besides trying to  figuring out how to balance it all: I've making art. If I haven't been making art, I've been reading about it, thinking about it and preparing to create it. Now, I'm writing about it! 

Why grad school you ask? I don't know.... I'm crazy... I guess, a glutton for punishment. I like school . (I know, I'm a dork.)  I completed my bachelor's almost 15 years ago. The MFA, has been taunting me, hanging out in the shadows for years, but the timing never felt right. Then, somehow, last year, good friend and mentor of mine, put the bug back in my ear. She told me about this lo-residency program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I went and checked it out. I was totally sold. I decided that there was no time better than the present. I needed to dive in fast, before I got cold feet. I already had a strong studio practice. I told myself I that I was almost doing all the work already, so why not get credit for it. (Hmmm... not sure if that was an accurate assessment, but whatever.)  Now, I have found myself on this wild ride. Working with an artist teacher and developing study plans, reading essays and criticism about modern (and post modern art) and try lots of new ideas in the studio. 

So, readers, I ask your gentle patience. If you don't see a post every Sunday, as I was apt to do in the past, prod me, poke me, cajole me. I haven't gone too far away. I'm probably, just up to my elbows in gesso or glue and need to sharp reminder that I need to blog , to reconnect with the rest of the world. Let me know you need a little glimmering prize fix and I will share with you what's on the worktable or what books I have been reading. We can get through the next 2 years together. Learning more about who we are as artists and what we can offer the world!

How does that sound? Deal? 

Ok, here's the first installment. I have been working on ideas of containment. So continuing the the Rural Roots series, two new FINISHED pieces to share: The Little Things and Limits of the Visible.

Limits of visible (6"x3")

limits of visible (detail)

limits of visible (detail)

limits of visible (detail)

Little Things (19"x7")

Little Things (detail)

Little Things (detail)

Little Things (details)

And I will leave you with this thought about art (but you can apply it to almost everything in life)

Sometimes what you are LOOKING AT isn't what you are really SEEING.

NEW SERIES: RURAL ROOTS

Great Rebellion- Full View

The Great Rebellion- Detail

I am so excited about this new series of work that I started this weekend. I really have my free-cycler and fellow Etsian Lynn Findhold to thank for the barn board that led to these fantastic new pieces. She answered my call out into cyberspace last week, when I was looking for old wood and metal roofing. That's the beauty of FREECYCLE: One woman's trash is another's treasure. So, I went down to Hinesburg on Saturday to fill up the back of my little SAAB with great re-usable art materials. Lynn's chickens were quite excited to see me too.

I have been toying with this idea for quite a while. I have collected some great old rusted tools, locks and kitchen implements and I knew just a little worn, jagged wood would be the perfect foundation for the work. Vermont is full of a tremendous supply of inspiration and materials to make art. I love living here and very happy with the results of incorporating the old wood with paper and local artifacts.

Great Rebellion - Detail

At any rate, I finished these pieces this weekend. My quite mellow, 43rd birthday weekend, to be exact. I  am extremely grateful for the gift of un-interrupted studio and treasure hunting time my family gifted me. For the most part, these pieces are a departure for me, outside my safety zone; in size, composition, tone and materials. (And yes, I did not use any Van Dyke Brown whatsoever, go figure.)

Great Rebellion- side view

NH Primary- Full View

NH Primary- Detail

NH Primary - Detail

NH Primary- Detail

NH Primary - Detail

The Great Rebellion- 12"x6"x 4"

New Hampshire Primary 30"x 28"x 3 1/4"  

The Waif 7"x4" x 1 1/2".

The Waif- Full View

the Waif- Detail

What stories of a rural past would you create if you had some barn board to play with?

Weft and Warp

When you weave fabric on a loom, there are two distinct sets of yarns or threads that intersect at right angles to form the fabric or cloth. The longitudinal threads are call the warp and the lateral threads, the one's that fill in are called the weft.  
 
Most cloth that is used to make garments today is made on large industrial weaving machines, but if you ever have the opportunity to watch someone make fabric on a wooden loom you will find that there is something mesmerizing and calming about it. It is almost magical the way the colorful thread come together to create beautiful cloth.

A few years ago, when I was in Hanoi I stumbled upon a master silk weaver's workroom in a forgotten alley. The space he worked in seemed ancient and a mysterious. His deft hands at work on the looms, created not only beautiful cloth, but a rhythmic song as the shuttle moved across the threads and the frames opened and closed.  I was reminded today this stunning dance of colors when I sat down to write my weekly blog post.








We are 8 days into the new year and I already have so much on the calendar for 2012. I started to freak out a little on how I am going to keep it all together. Those of you who know me, know that life pours my glass pretty full. This year is no exception. First there is the combination of working full time and pursuing an art career part time. Sometimes the demands of my day job don't end at 5 pm or I find myself working on the other side of the world for weeks on end. Sometimes there are art deadlines that come up so fast that I end up working into the wee hours of the night or waking up before the dawn just to get things in on time. There is a balance, a dance that has to happen between the two parts of my occupational existence. Up until this point, I feel like I have been very successful at achieving a certain harmony there. 

The success comes not just from balancing the two aspects of the "working me." It is deeply rooted in the fact that in the fundamental fabric of my life, I am a wife and a mother. My family life is like the warp threads on the loom. They keep me together and are my foundation. The work is the weft threads, the fillers that add color and texture to my life. Woven together the two are stronger and create something far greater than a single thread. But each thread, each aspect of my life is important.

So, here I am on this gorgeous day in Vermont, lining up all the threads that will come together for this next year. My calendar is chock full of outing and new adventures, moments of contemplation and discovery, art, work, family and love. New threads that have been added to my already rich tapestry are: Graduate school, at Vermont College of Fine Arts, which starts on January 27th, A new website to be kicked off in February, Artfest12 in Port Townsend, WA in March. A trip with Jackson to NYC in April.... That's just the beginning.... 

To help keep this all in order, I have started the necessary January cleaning of my work space. Primarily, because I could not see the top of the work table or find the rusty bits I had been looking for. Secondarily, I just took down a show and I need space to store all the artwork not currently on display. And then lastly, I have received some requests for people to do "studio visits." The endeavor to make it a viable space to receive patrons, gallery curators and fellow artists in has commenced.  I joke with my husband about making the space "good enough" to be in "Where Women Create" magazine. His response is. It's were you create, so it's beautiful enough. 

The fabric of my (not-so) lazy Sunday afternoon  will be this: Jack and I will finish eating breakfast, take the dog on a long walk in the crisp clear light of this amazing January day and probably haul some wood. I will get to work back down in the basement, stoking the fire of the wood stove, painting backgrounds for new pieces and organizing my heart out.  Occasionally, coming up stairs to make some pizza dough, start Sunday dinner and maybe a soup to eat later in the week. 


 



Speaking of fabric... this is what's on my work table now. A new assemblage that's born out of barn board, old embroidery and a well worn quilt.

 

What threads are you weaving together today?