Stalking the Wild Print at the Maine Event

Searsport, ME

Preparing the ink plate with gesso

Emergence- (earlier work)

Someone's fun prints!

Ohhhhh the pressure!
More on the Regional NH/ME/VT SAQA Blog- here

New Legacies: Contemporary Quilts

On the Cape teaching and got this EBlast. My work is on right!!

New Legacies: Contemporary Quilts Fort Collins Lincoln Center
417 Magnolia St. , Fort Collins , CO

Stacks

Seth Apter writes a art-FULL blog- spelling mistake intended.
He has invited artists to submit their stacks for a stack attack blog list.
I had a little trouble choosing and just took pix of the closest ones.

Vertical Stacks on my bookshelf.

 My treasured volumes of hand sewn paste paper journals.

Horizontal Stacks of prints from my recent workshop, Stalking the Wild Print

Sideways Stacks of drying stretched canvas.

What an idea! To honor our stacks!

His Blog here

So it's Soy?

Some of the soy wax pieces from the recent 2nd Annual SAQA Maine Event this past weekend. 

Beth Berman, the new regional rep, presented this workshop.

 This one reverses to a different color.

more information here

I am Autumn

            Confused leaves bounce, swirl widely. Explode outward, rush toward my car, then suddenly lift skyward, divide and race away back into their interrupted flight.

Reminding and remembering that bright spot of youth that gives one immorality.

All has been and will be that way forever. Time stands still when you're young.

All options open, choices behind doors that swing open at the touch.

Vivid, intense and free.

            My view of the past is longer now. I can see backward toward my youth,

Spring and Summer.

Seeing my triumphs and failures- feeling those lumps where I could have chosen differently- but with now with acceptance for who I am and new patience for who I was. 

            Now, I apply the brakes momentarily, and pop out of my head.

Running crazy leaves, brings me awareness, shows me my memories.

The privilege of these backward glances.

            I am middle age.

All that was limitless before now has a deadline. Options are controlled by life circumstances, finances and health.

Resources are marshaled by choices made years ago.

Yes, there are losses but there are compensations too.

It was good. I feel blessed. I have been lucky. 

            I get back in my car, renewed by a subtle urgency and drive to my studio. There, I will get lost for a while longer with my colors, textures and this overwhelming desire to create.

Realism in Fiber

     I love Lisa's work. I fell in love with the spirt of her Scythian Sprite sculpture some years ago. They were the first people to ride horses. 

These young female warriers were so fierce that the Romans thought they were demons.

Her work seems so real it's hard to believe it's fabric. I hope you enjoy it too.

     Lisa Lichtenfels studied traditional oil painting at an early age, attended the Governor’s School while a teenager and continued her education at the Philadelphia College of Art. There she met Judy Jampell, who was becoming well known for her three dimensional soft-sculpted facades. Inspired, Lisa was going to be an illustrator until the prospect of independent animation and filmmaking fascinated her. Graduating with majors in Illustration and Film, she was immediately hired by the Disney Studios as an apprentice animator.

     While working at Disney she developed three-dimensional figurines with posable skeletons for stop-motion animation. Like Judy Jampell’s constructions, they had nylon stocking skins. Lisa left Disney to explore the potential of these techniques, expecting to return to animation in a year or so;  but it has now been over twenty-five years, and she is still working in nylon and feels she has only barely begun to realize what is possible in the medium.

Lisa and Phoebe
Lisa works in her studio of her Victorian home in Springfield, Massachusetts. There she creates startlingly realistic sculptures with a wide variety of subject matter, including fantasy, myth, humor, and  portraiture. The individual figures range from less than 5 inches to life-sized figures of over 5 feet tall. She also does large environmental installations with many characters. In this she is helped by her husband, the poet Jeremy Ward Wilson, who does her carpentry. 

Website- here 

Art Propelled

 One of my transparent collages, Brainwave, is featured on one of my favorite blogs.

Art Propelled

and included another beautiful poem by Mary Oliver- ending with...

The blades of every crisis point the way. 
I would it were not so, but it is. 
Who ever made music of a mild day?" - Mary Oliver 

Look here

YES! In Visions Art Museum

Visions- Interpretations

November 4, 2011 to January 22, 2012

This juried biennial presents art quilts by Visions members.

Shaking the Tree of Imagination was accepted into this prestigious exhibit. 

 I layered 3 separate images in Photoshop, and collaged digitally. The 
photographs were divided on the computer and printed using a Epson 2400 onto pre-treated inkjet cotton broadcloth. They were assembled on batting, cut apart and physically collaged. I printed more sections on silk organza, divided and fused those to the piece. Each section was creatively stitched with a intuitive spontaneous design. I added metallic paint accents, drew with a fine nozzle bottle. The final pieces were mounted on a hand painted backing of cotton duck.

more info here