Get 'er Done

If real deadlines did not exist I would have to invent them just to get projects finished. Let's just say that most of the time I 'mosey' through my artwork, especially fiber art, which tends to get done one stitch at a time, with lots of pauses in between to work on other, less snail-like projects. Nevertheless, I have not posted much lately because I do have real deadlines approaching, one for submitting an artwork to the Lubbock Arts Festival, the other for getting a series of quilts, especially a very long banner, ready for a show in March at South Plains College, then later at LHUCA in June. As I type this I am on the clock. I can hang out here at the computer for twenty more minutes then it's time to pick up that needle and thread and stitch, stitch, stitch.
Here then is a preview of that banner, as part of a series of two-sided banners our Caprock Art Quilters group is working on, around the theme of "Textured Land and Sky". If the images remind you vaguely of the area around Lubbock.....then my job is done. These are my own quick camera shots. I will get my daughter to take more professional ones when the project is complete. Because she is really really good at that.
The first few images are from the 'Day' side of the quilt. and the last one from the 'Night' side of the quilt. Day is done. Night is still being stitched with silver stars, a moon, and more texture in the checkerboard field.

The finished banner will be 7 feet long and hang free from the wall so it can be viewed from both sides. Onward and upwards..........

Stitch by stitch.

It's time for me to dive back into fabric and textures. I have two art quilt shows coming up with the Caprock Art Quilters so it is time to dig out those ongoing projects and actually finish them. I've also become interested in a movement in fiber arts called Slow Cloth. Turns out I have been doing slow cloth for awhile but didn't know it. In a fast, mass manufactured world it is a way to reclaim craft and authenticity, patience, and beauty in both the creation of fabric and the embellishing of it. It's amazing what richness can be created with a simple needle and thread, two of the most low tech of all materials. Slow cloth also honors centuries of women's skills, often denigrated or taken for granted. It honors the practicality of making do, making clothes last, recycling old clothes into quilts, upcycling shabby and worn out garments with embroidery, applique, and quilting. It respects the time and patience of handwork and learned skills passed down through generations. I love the feel of cloth in my hand, the needle piercing the weave, the small bits of fabric joining into a larger pattern. But even slow cloth is too slow when you are on a deadline so I am doing moderately paced cloth, soon to turn into hurry up and get it done cloth. I will document my finished pieces before they are hung but here is a small sample, a close-up, a tease. Also my brightest, boldest piece, a new, finished wall hanging called "Passage".

It's a snap.

I'm taking a break from painting, stamping, and gluing right now so my fingernails can grow back in. Art is hard on the hands. Meanwhile, one of my other big playtime projects is taking photos, and then altering them on my Corel Photo/Paint program. I used to think it was cheating to digitally alter photographs and even my own artwork, but since I took the photos in the first place or did the artwork myself, I realize that I just have another tool to experiment and mix media with. Not only that but I have restored some old family photos to their former brightness, and have eliminated scratches and stains on them. Of course, there is probably some program or App to ADD scratches and stains, to create a faux antique look but I prefer my wabi sabi to happen naturally.
This is a photo my Dad took at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in 1954 when we lived in Zambia and were on vacation. It was a small black and white photo so I sharpened it and gave it a slight pastel tint. Just because I wanted to. Old black and white photos are the best. They never fade.

I have also recently added a little App to my android phone called Vignette that allows you to take photos in all kinds of styles and play with the colour and lighting. In other words it does the altering for you without having to scan and play with the photos on your computer. Some of the effects and results are unpredictable, others are very subtle, but that's what makes it fun. The irony is that you can take a photo and make it look like a faded Polaroid image from the Seventies using a state of the art gadget from 2012. Here are a few photos I took around the house and patio yesterday. This first is a reflection in our fish pond using a technicolor saturation setting. Then one of our patio after a light rain using a diffuse, dreamy pastel setting.

 A few more 'moody' style images of a rainy day:

 Penny on the patio looking warm and relaxed:

My daughter, Naomi, not too pleased at being photographed (or appearing in this blog):

 A film noir view of our bedroom, including a photo of me from 1993. I swear this room is painted a sunny, light yellow but you'd never guess from this quiet, melancholy photo.

And finally I went crazy with colour. I shot a photo of a pot of winter kale in a rich hue setting then I downloaded that image to my computer and digitally altered it even more by adding posterizing effects and additional art effects with a pastel drawing tool. It already gives me new ideas for painting or for quilting.

It's so much fun to have that much control over my photos now, rather than taking a roll to the drugstore to be developed and hoping for the best. Plus I can use that handy Corel clone tool with my recent photos and erase all my wrinkles. At least on paper...........

The Big Book.....etc. Part III

So.....I have basically completed the book I made from a box of microwave popcorn. It is not bound yet but I will use just a basic punch and stitch technique with an awl, a strong needle and some linen thread to stitch through the pages (folded into 'signatures') and into the spine of the box, er book. It seemed like a great way to showcase all the odd bits of art I experiment with, from collage and stamping, through painting and drawing. Kind of like taking all the photos out of the shoebox and putting them in an actual album. I would also like to give thanks to a British artist called JenniBellie. She has a website with lots of videos showing all kinds of scrappy paper techniques, plus I like to hear her say the word "Cover" as "Coovah"
Speaking of coovahs, here is the assembled book with the pages inside:

And now here are the inside pages in roughly their order as you browse the book. I did the title page from an old Christmas card (thanks Juliana) because it had a cool foldout dove I could get arty with.

 The fold out back tab is from two small ATCs* I did a couple of years ago.

 Some of the pages have little extra pages within them, or envelopes or pockets with more art. There is also potential for adding text and more embellishments, so it's the kind of book that is always a work in progress.
Speaking of which, I already have another book started from a granola box, and one from a tiny box of saffron my friend, Kath, brought back from Seville, Spain. Tada!

* 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" Artist Trading Cards. Will gladly trade with anyone who makes them. Might even blog about them.

The Big Book of Wonders and Delights- Part II (interim)

Still working on that big book of ......stuff. I'm using up a lot of paint and glue and making a mess. It's like being a kid in kindergarten again with art as the major part of the daily lesson plan. Wouldn't that be great? Above is a preview of one of the pages. An old experiment in collage. Other pages I am creating from scratch or reassembling from bits of this and that:

In the meantime I have been thinking a lot about books and how important they have been in my life. I have always had a library of sorts. Nothing fancy, just shelves to hold the books. There is something about tangibly seeing the books that makes them a part of your home, like a well-loved painting or a comfy sofa. Right now my so-called library is a wall of shelves in the basement:

Some of those books are classics. I would like to say I have read them all but I have not. Some I studied in high school and college, others I read in book club. I got hardback heritage copies of these books because they are great literature and should be respected.

Other books are the original versions that my Dad used to read to us as children, like this favorite edition of The Arabian Nights from the 1950's.

I also have a fondness for poetry. It used to be cool to read poetry. The country used to have poet laureates whose names we recognized, like Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. I feel bad that I don't even know if we have a poet laureate anymore.

Sometimes I buy a book just because it has beautiful artwork in it.

But mostly I have bought books just to get lost in them. And despite the "nice" books I own, I have a particular fondness for the lowly paperback: the cheap paper, the flashy cover, the ease of creasing a page, stuffing it into a purse, scribbling in a margin, bending the spine, spilling coffee on the print, basically treating it like a throwaway. Years later I handle these books kindly, still not thrown away, and I remember exactly where I was, how old I was, and how, when first opening those pages, I was transported and transformed.

I guess that's the problem with the Kindle. Even though I have read about twenty books on mine this past year, and have, I suppose, saved some paper from the landfill, it has no lingering tactile memory. I will only remember holding a piece of plastic with a screen, no matter which book I have read. It will all be the same touch and smell (or lack of), whether I am reading a Pulitzer Prize winner or a pulp murder mystery.
When I worked in a book store in my madcap youth, it surprised me at first to find out that when we returned paperback books to the publisher, we tore off the covers to return for credit, and threw the rest of the book away. It no longer had any value. Naturally we employees scooped up all those coverless books and  took them home to read. I still have a few of those books without 'faces' from that time, (including the juicy biography of Lana Turner) looking a bit sad and naked, but still a friend on the shelf.
Lately I have been culling some of my books, knowing I no longer have that particular interest (70's style crocheted sweaters?) or will never read them again, donating them to the library, to used book stores, or to friends. As I get older the idea of collecting gives way to the idea of not leaving a lot of mess behind when I have gone. My children are not readers like I am. Maybe they will grow into it. Maybe they will only see all those books as dust collectors weighing down their mobile lives. All their photos, their music, their books, their mail, their games, will be in one little lightweight place. Oh, say like this:

Wuthering Heights, anyone? I think it's about co-dependence........