Cool

I love researching the meanings and origins of words, especially slang words and well known sayings or expressions. If someone remarks on the "dog days of summer" I want to know why they are called that. (hint: it's based on a star in the sky). If you're "throwing me some shade" then I have to know not only what it means but where it began. (aha, it originated in the 1980's LGBT drag culture, as a finely finessed insult, without being blatantly tacky). I can be snarky but throwing shade is a more subtle skill, somewhere above the level of an eye roll.
 In my many years of living through various forms of slang from "groovy" through "amazeballs" I AM actually amazed at the longevity of the word "Cool". Yes there have been variations from "Chill" to "Ice Cold" but "Cool" stays cool because it is the perfect word to define an elusive set of traits. People who are cool are effortless at what they do. If you try to be cool you are not cool, as any hipster or high school teacher will find out. Cool means being perfectly comfortable in your own skin, not easily affected or swayed by the opinions of others, not faddish but eternally in style, poised, self aware, and yet not taking yourself too seriously. It is effortless and unashamed, mysterious and yet accessible, different, sometimes strange, but not to the point of being bizarre or uncomfortably weird. Cool is outside the mainstream, but not too far out.

Shakespeare even described a character as cool, but the modern use came into being in the 1930's in African American culture and specifically the jazz music scene. Black musicians, like Duke Ellington, were the first cool people. In the Forties it migrated into the Beat culture, and into literature like Jack Kerouac's characters in On the Road. Film Noir had a lot of cool actors, from Bogey and Bacall to Alan Ladd and Robert Mitchum. Rock and Roll had loads of cool in the Fifties. Elvis was an example of someone who started out cool but had a hard time keeping it when fame overwhelmed him. John Lennon was the cool Beatle, Jimi Hendrix was definitely cool. (Disco was not cool. It just wasn't. It was fun, but not cool).

 There's nothing wrong with not being cool. Some people are too brimming with emotion and passion to be actually cool, which usually requires a certain contained reserve. Janis Joplin was not cool but she was definitely a red hot ball of messy energy. Even I know I'm not cool. I just admire cool. So in that vein, after all that build up, here are my top five cool people of this year. May they always keep the faith.

#1 Prince

Prince was like a magic unicorn who existed in his own realm. (And I hate referring to him in the past tense.) With his passing everyone had a Prince story, from the pancakes and basketball, to killer ping pong matches, to acts of overwhelming generosity. He was the person who wandered into someone's concert, blew everyone away with a guitar solo, then just wandered off again into the ether. The opposite of every overexposed pop star, he was only occasionally sighted then retreated again to write another thousand songs. There was just something preternaturally calm and poised about the guy, even when an amused smirk played on his lips. Even performing in a downpour at the Superbowl it seemed as if the rain was deliberately avoiding him so as not to mess up his hair and outfit. Sure, some of his persona was smoke and mirrors, but there was also that core of authenticity, not to mention undeniable talent, that kept him so endlessly fascinating.

David Bowie:

Bowie is like the white version of Prince, that same quirky uniqueness, that same somewhat remote persona, and buckets of talent. If anything, Bowie was more detached than Prince, hiding behind a series of created characters that kept him always interesting, always evolving. He could blend into the pop culture scene, as he did in the Eighties, or remain on its' fringes, often being frustratingly obscure. In an age where everyone overshares on the internet, and gives away part of themselves and their private lives to strangers in an attempt to be "liked, the truly cool ones, like Prince and Bowie, keep that core of themselves away from the public eye.

Helen Mirren:

Helen Mirren makes being an older woman sexy, fun, stylish, and sassy. She continues to act in parts well outside the range offered for a woman in her Sixties. (Assassins! Queens!) And as a woman in my Sixties, I look to her as a role model. She is unadulterated in her appearance, showing her wrinkles, her generous nose, her small curvaceous body, without feeling the need for plastic surgery or photoshopping. She's blunt, smart, and funny, cool in a warm, feminine way.

President Barack Obama:

Even if you don't like Barack Obama, he is that rarest of animals, the cool politician. You only have to view the current selection of candidates to observe what is NOT cool. The closest any of them come to cool is Bernie Sanders, just because he's got the whole crumpled clothes, crazy hair, traveling coach thing down. But he tends to be a bit too stern and humourless for real cool. Obama has the dry wit, the unruffled exterior, and the subtle snark (a shade throwing President!) that cause many to view him as distant and detached, when in fact he is caring and personable. Cool people, again, don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they don't let their emotions get in the way of being calm, decisive, and rational. Probably the last cool President we had was John F. Kennedy. Jimmy Carter was not a cool President but now he is a cool ex-President, quietly fighting cancer, building homes for needy people, and showing the world what a real Christian is supposed to be. Sometimes coolness has the warmest of hearts. ( I will also argue that Jesus was cool but that's a longer discussion)

Emma Watson:

It's rare for someone this young to be cool, as they are usually struggling to find their identity and voice, and worrying about image, popularity, and being loved, but little Hermione has grown up to be an elegant young woman, a U.N. ambassador, and an eloquent spokesperson for the rights of girls and women everywhere. She is a voice for modern Feminism and has stepped into that role fearlessly and calmly. I would also place Malala Yousafsai in this category.

I first became interested in Cool back in the Eighties when I bought this little book. It's still available on Amazon, as is its sequel. It won't tell you who is cool now but it certainly discusses who was cool then. And if you know some cool people let me know. because that would be cool.

 http://www.amazon.com/Catalog-Cool-Gene-Sculatti/dp/0446375152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461872366&sr=1-1&keywords=the+catalog+of+cool

And if you want the lengthier explanation of Cool there is this article:

http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-did-cool-become-such-big-deal-0

Big and Bold

I used to have a watercolour professor in art school named Juanita Pollard. She encouraged us to paint big and to use the largest brushes possible so we would loosen up and not scratch like chickens in tiny little places. Her philosophy was "Get a broom!" I have to be honest, I like working smaller. It's in my comfort zone and doesn't feel overwhelming. But I got a commission from a friend, as her "consulting artist", and although she has a number of my artworks on her wall, from 5" x 5" quilted squares to 40" x 40" collaged ink drawings, she wanted a BIG painting on her living room wall.

First I needed a canvas, so Naomi, my daughter, and her carpenter-savvy friend, Joseph, built me a beautiful 60" x 60" frame out of poplar wood. Then we stretched it with cotton duck, and I gessoed it (three coats, with sanding in between). The only viable place to paint this, without causing a domestic clean up disaster, was to take it out to the garage, which, fortunately faced north, for the best light.

Step 1 was complete, so now, deep breath, I actually had to paint something. I knew that Ellna loved the colours, turquoise and pink, and that she loved Gerber daisies, but I wanted it to also look lofty and inspiring. Ellna has been slowly remodeling and decorating her house to be a bright, warm, open place to be. She wanted to surround herself in her own special environment, so I knew I wanted her to bask in something that brought her happiness. So first I painted a background.

Disclaimer; None of the colours look accurate in these photos. They show up either too garish, too washed out, or incorrectly coloured, and Naomi with her magic photography skills, hadn't the time for documenting my daily progress so it was just me and a cell phone.

Then I added one giant flower reaching for the sun. I went with white so it would pop out against those rich pastels.

It needed some movement so I added the petals flying away. Nope. Too many petals. And one looked like an extracted tooth.

Painted over two of the petals. Still needed a bit more so I added the silhouettes of other flowers. Then more rays of sun, to which I added some metallic gold paint to give a soft gleam.

Following an internal dialogue to KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) I added final coats of varnish. We loaded it onto Naomi's truck and delivered it to its' new home. Mission accomplished!

Now I'm going to paint something really, really small.

Printable

I have about 200 different artistic interests, so sometimes I abandon one and focus on something else for awhile. But eventually my need for variety kicks in and I go back with fresh eyes to a previous craft. I hadn't done any block printing in awhile so I dug out some old lino blocks I had carved a long time ago, a snail and bee, but then I bought some more EZ Carve blocks (I call them lino blocks but they are much softer so the carving process can be done in about a quarter of the time with less likelihood of slicing a section of my thumb off) and carved some new images, two foxes, and a leaping hare. So for the past two weeks I have been enjoying the process of printing wild creatures on some nice card stock I ordered from Paper Presentation.com., and also on small scraps of watercolour paper. Most satisfying. Except for the prints that got smudged. It happens a lot. They end up in the trash can.

Here are my carved blocks:

And here are the prints from those carved blocks, in reverse, of course. I have added details in ink and glitter to make each print a one of a kind even as they are part of a series:

I did a double print on the snail to get two layers of colour. Often referred to as off set printing. 

The fun part about printing is the variety of colours and details that make each print unique. I have done the hare in silvery white on indigo paper, and the bee in coppery brown on purple paper. And I always add a dash of metallic paint to each colour run so that when the light hits the shell of the snail or the fur of the hare there is a soft, subtle gleam that cannot always be seen in a photograph.

At the Pace of a Snail

I once dashed off a watercolour painting of a fox in about half an hour.

  And of course the standard response when someone asks how long an artwork took, is: "Oh about 45 years and a college tuition." In truth, it's not how long something takes that determines whether it is good or not, although I'll give points to Gothic cathedrals and pyramids taking a few lifetimes (and a few lives) to finish. Some great works are dashed off in minutes while a painting that took weeks or months may turn out to be a disaster. (I've wasted gallons of expensive paints on those turkeys, then eventually painted over them)
      But there is a process in fiber arts called Slow Stitch. The philosophy is to patiently and meditatively work by hand to create layers and layers of detailed stitched textures on cloth, much as countless anonymous artisans have done over the centuries, embellishing clothing, tapestries, and furniture. Embellishing by hand is something no machine can do, even a souped up $5000 Bernina sewing machine, programmed to mimic hand embroidery or quilting. There is nothing wrong with using a beast like that to great advantage, as many award winning quilters do, but there is something to be said for the human touch.
     I am impatient with my paintings, but very patient with my quilting and embroidery. It allows me to slow down, to enter a different state of mind, to be calm and reflective. Many times I will use machine stitching to assemble the basic fabric pieces of my work, and to stitch down fused fabrics, but the great pleasure comes in getting that part done, getting out my slow stitching tools (needle, many threads and yearns, beads, ribbon, and trim) and adding the icing on the cake.
   In that vein, here is my process in creating this 12" x 12" work called "Bird's Eye View" which, after about two months, is still a work in progress.  It started with these two pieces of fabric. I then layered them over batting and over a piece of plain white cotton for the backing.

This photo below was taken in December. The edges are still raw and some of the batting is showing. The bird was added later when I decided it needed a focal point, drawn on in pencil then outline stitched in black thread on my sewing machine. I went around him two or three times so that the stitches would have a sketchy look to them. Eventually, I'll embroider an eye using a French Knot.

Lets back up, though, and start with two separate photos I took about two years apart. The first was taken of some grasses north of Lubbock alongside the little river that runs under a wooden tressle bridge through the Lubbock lakeside area and down into MLK park. I took it on my basic Nikon camera and Photoshopped it to a black and white image so I could see all the textures.

The second photo was taken on my cell phone at a friend's house out in the country south of Wollforth. Eventually, I turned it to black and white also. And cropped out the car.

 Both of these photos were printed out from my computer onto a sheer fabric called Extravorganza. If you look back at the work in progress above you can see both of them layered over the fabric on top of each other.

Here's another example of how that works. A photo I took on my cell phone of wildflowers in my yard last Fall, colour enhanced a bit in editing.

Here is the photo printed out on Extravorganza. It is pale and transparent.

Here it is layered on the same fabric as the grasses photos. Since it is printed in colour it  looks a bit dull and brown on that print fabric and would probably show up better on a different one.

And here it is on a pink dyed fabric with a bit of turquoise stitched to it. I still don't know what to do with it, but it will definitely be defined and embellished to pop out..

So that's the idea. Computer technology has allowed me to use photographs and even scans of my own art to layer onto fabric and stitch it. The possibilities are endless.
Here's a painting I did of three sparrows:

And here's the left sparrow printed out on Extravorganza and quilted to fabric, then embroidered and beaded:

But I digress. Meanwhile, I continue to add on the Bird's Eye View work a stitch at a time and a bead at at a time. Yes, the bird is machine stitched, as are many of the grass lines, and the sky, but in order to capture the texture of grasses and earth I continue to slow stitch my way to the finish line.

And sometimes the back is almost as interesting as the front.

Winter Comes

It's been two months since my last post, going from this:

To this: The blizzard, Goliath. And we are still snowed in.

But it was a merry Christmas with family and friends.

  Glenn just wanted to read after all the cooking he did.

See you all in 2016. I hope to be a bit more diligent with posts. Art, dance, life. And food for thought.