How Do YOU Work?

I've been asked that allot lately, and now it's the posed question on one of my yahoo groups. I have several different ways of approaching a project, depending on the end result. Meaning, I have several different ways of getting my work finished.
Holographic images are created from inspiring photographs I take. I guess I have become 'known' for these. The finished pieces are hard to photograph as they depend highly on the viewer's movement for the full effect. I published the technique in Quilting Arts summer 07 and they have a DVD on this process also.
Silk Organza is my fabric of choice. I love to dye, paint, silkscreen- you name it. It works best in my transparent works and in my new 'layered' collages. They are a brand spankin' new idea and am very excited about them. Very nontraditional though.
I also layer the organza in applied collages and sewn works. I use their transparent quality to create layers, free and fixed. I continue to explore what I can do with this amazing stuff.
I paint fabric, usually in the summer, for use during the year. I get into a fabric creation mode and just play. Wonderful and fun. This is used for all my works as well as art quilting etc. During the rest of the year, I will yank out the paints to refresh my sense of play, much like sorbet during extended formal meals. ahem. The fabric is used in all of my work, focus, borders, whole pieces, anything! ( I do have a workshop series based on my techniques)
In sum, I get inspired by an idea and then figure out the best way to approach it. What technique will best portray my vision. When I don't have the time, I jot the idea down, with drawings and construction ideas, in my artist's journal. That happens more frequently than I wish. However, I have a wonderful artist journal! ( someone actually wanted to buy it!!!) I highly recommend it's use. Even better than buying one, create your own. Take a book making course- it's really not that hard. It gives it heart.

Email and Removal Requests

shepard-fairey-barack-obama
I get tons of email a day. I check'um out first, delete what I don't want or don't have time for, then read the rest. My spam folder fills faster than crumbs in a toaster, but I pursue that as well because sometimes good stuff leaks in there. Then DELETE. What mighty power I hold in the tip of a finger. Kinda like when you turn the channel on TV. The power of choice in the moment. So Zen.
Often, when I have a tid bit of news, good video etc to share, I can compose my zesty little note and insert lots of categories in the address bar. With one button press, I can send to lots of people, who then have the choice to delete or read as the spirit moves them. Again Choice. That's democratic.
Sometimes, I get a request to 'remove them from my list'. Not often, but sometimes. I feel bad I've inconvenienced them but remove them and let them know its done. Sorry to take up your time, no hard feelings. That's it. But once in awhile a not so nice note appears too. These people have a problem with my sending to them and let me know. Well, I'm sorry- they have the opportunity to delete before reading and I have the freedom to send. Lets leave it at that.

Buisness Cards- a must

Gotta have'um. Give them to everyone. Like small little magic carpets, they fly away to far off corners of peoples homes. You can get the cutest little ones from Moo.com. They make great hang tags- but then, I just made hangs tags on my computer- personalized for each piece of art I've done and the scarves and other smaller works. Soooo- I just ordered some 'real' business cards from Overnightprints.com. I've done this before. I don't want to order too may 'cause my art changes as fast as I can change my mind. Inspiration strikes and wham-o, I'm off. I do have a product that seems to be the one folks like- so perhaps I'll get the cards with photos of these. That is to say one of these, for unlike moo cards, you must settle on one image. Darn! Hmmm. Done. Files uploaded. You can change files to pdf in pdfonline.com- you'll need to do this unless you're really handy in Photo shop. Fairly simple and they give you instructions. I LOVE the Internet! Then get yourself a pay pal account. Easy too. You can pay for just about anything this way and you don't need to enter your credit card as often. Now to await their arrival- hopefully in time for the Holiday shows!!

New York City 05

I grew up 15 minutes outside the city, the BIG apple that is. I left to 'return to the garden' and have been there ever since. Recently I've taken day trips back in to see NOHO Gallery and Alex Grey's Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors (wonderful!) I'm kinda sorta related viva marriage (my husband's brother's wife's sister's husband) Would LOVE to find a gallery there, any suggestions??

Fall Shows

Brookvale Park- Monclair NJ- October 18&19 www.rosesquared.com

NH Open Doors- Studio #336 -Salmon Fall Mill November 8&9- Rollinsford, NH www.millartists.com

(note will be unable to do Open Studios this year so this is the only time my studio will be open)

Paradise City Fine Craft Shows- Marlborough MA November 21-23 www.paradisecityarts.com

Button Factory Open Studios Portsmouth, NH
December 6&7 www.buttonfactorystudios.com

Quilt National

I have been entering this show for more than 20 years- I need to 

look up the exact count. I make 'virgin' work for this show. I have enterd my holographic work, but I think it is hard for a juror to understand what they are seeing as there is just 

nothing 

out there like it. So this year I went back to flat work. First, I did a couple painted works, but digital is my passion at the moment, so the painted pieces didn't seem jazzed enough. Here are some pic's of the entered pieces.

Quilting Arts DVD

Yikes I'm on You Tube- click on the Quilting Art DVD picture (scroll part way down, on the right) to bring it up.

art, meaning and families

What do female artists do? Does anyone ever question thier sense of purpose. As Women, are we supposed to put everyone before our creative urges and wants. We are told we must fit these wild and crazy inspirations between family gatherings and the needs of our partners. If we don't turn a huge profit, we are told we are playing, that what we do doesn't count. How do we fit our real selves into these pictures without feeling guilty and selfish= because someone told we were?

What makes us real?

"I was his mother and his wife and now I want the luxury of my own life"

Ani DiFranco

best response ( Thank YOU)

Expressing yourself thorough your art is who you are. You really have no choice but to keep doing it. The Alternative is to crawl into a fetal position and die; Period. End of Discussion. As one who has been married FOREVER, I have found that the agreements we made to share our lives together need re-negotiation. The old paradigms we lived by because the kids were small or money was needed to educate them etc no longer exist. Men have trouble with that, especially those who are successful. At this stage of the game our relationships need to be mutually nuturing.. whether it be a marriage, friendship or parent/grown child. I don't know where your fulcrum rests but you need to feel you are in a good place to sustain both yourself (your art) and a joyful relationship.

2 quotes

"Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry." Gabiel Marques

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr Seuss

Graditude

Belonging to the League of New Hampshire Crafts since 1993 has been an exciting growing experience. I am challenged to keep my work top notch while I strive to grow my edges. The past two years I have done a 10x10 booth at the Sunappe fair grounds for 10 days. While it is a long time, I get to meet people and talk about my work. Beautiful! I continue to expand by applying to more shows. I have just applied to one in NJ and  will be at the Paradise City show in Marlborough MA. I do continue to send my work to galleries and enter exhibits. It is so wonderful to have these opportunities to share my creations. Thank you all!

What goes in...

My piece in the previous blog received Viewer's Choice Award at the Whistler Museum, Lowell MA at a recent exhibit. What a wonderful honor! It has been a very full summer with many learning experiences. In the face of trying circumstances, one can either give up or fortify oneself. This is what this honor has helped me do. I am sharing a few photographs of the construction process of Winter   Tree. Starting with one of my  photographs,  printed on especially 

treated cloth

 and sewn.

Summer Revelations

Creative people learn they need to take the time for thoughts to peculate from their unconscious. Observing the world with an artist eye brings intense aliveness. Patterns and textures leap into focus.  Shining spots of excruciating Beauty.

Allowing space for gathered reflections to come forward is part of the process of making art. 

Then, to give expression is required for sanity. 

Winter Tree, one of my Holographic Images, can be seen at the Whistler Museum, Lowell Ma. until August 15th.

Photograph Manipulations

Traveling gives me many designs points as well as inspiration fuel. I use my images in my work in several ways. This is a somewhat mundane image that

 has a interesting tree. I cropped the image to include just the tree, then played with the image using photo shop filters. I can use this now as is to print or make a thermal fax of it. Using my photography in my fiber work gives my work an individual and personal edge.

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is located on Deer, Isle Me. This Isle really resonates with my senses. The sight, sound and smell of the ocean, the vertical pines, and large granite boulders highlighted by lichen and seaweed, create an topography  I am sad to leave. Part of me wants to stay there, making art, living art.

The Crafts school is a lively community of artists working in a non-competitive environment which encourages and inspires artistic growth in the individual, to create brave new work.

   This was my 4th session there and every one of them differ. I want to say that the artistic community of kindred spirits touched my soul as it has before, albeit in a totally different way than I expected. I learned how important bonding in a workshop is, that respect and kindness are paramount. That organization and a little planning can go a long way in fostering creative responses to the work. Working together in an intense atmosphere for 2 weeks is difficult but educational. 

Definitely Go- you never know what will happen. Learning always takes place. No matter what.

 

Inspiration and New Ideas

Inspiration can come from many sources, inner and outer. New ideas about how you are doing current work can pop up anywhere, so I try to carry paper and pen, even on walks or at work. I love to look at art of all kinds, anywhere, in magazines to museums. 

Fiber art is on the cusp of a wave. Some fiber artists are trying to evolve our medium to a new level of perception. That is not to dishonor those who enjoy it on any other level, I have been there. I have done those tiny hand stitches and matched countless points. We learn the rules and then we can break them, and should, to move forward. What does one do who sees visions? Experiment. Break traditions. Expose people to new ways of seeing. It takes time for venues to catch up. Should traditional venues hold new work to old standards? Isn't that like putting new wine in old wine skins. Art, to me, is about moving forward. Creation gives me ideas. My passion is to put them into art. I use my medium, fiber. 

Interplay: Inward Outward Transference

I will have 5 digital fiber works and 5 Holographic images in this show, which includes a variety of media.

Featuring the works of ten contemporary artists, this exhibit highlights the interrelationships between internal and external form and space, clarity and ambiguity, surface and introspection,

translucent and reflective light, and simple and complex texture.

Jaffrey Civic Center, Cunningham Galleries

40 Main St. Jaffrey, NH 

Show June 6 to July 5, 2008 reception June 6th, 5-7 pm

Exhibition hours Tuesday 10-6

Wednesday- Friday 1-5

Saturday 10-2

Artist Forum

Artist Forum May 28

 Transfer Processes

I will discuss some of the ways I apply photographs to substrates and do a couple demo's.

The Forum is held at the Lincoln Levy Gallery,136 State St. Portsmouth, NH. It's free and open to the general public. time 7-8 pm.

Solo Show Images

Images of Bringing the Outside In 

Wonderful Fiber Mixed Media Show

Bringing the Outside In

It is a thrill and an honor to see my work installed at the LIncoln Levy Gallery in Portsmouth.

I was surprised and delighted at how professional and beautiful it is, to see it all hanging in one place. I had some placement help from Bee and Bill, volunteers at the Gallery and they knew how to hang! Thank you!!
I hope you can get to see it! It comes down on the 25th of May.

present paradigm and directions

Read Marija Gimbutas - the fact that there was actually a culture that choose their home sites based on beauty rather than defense was clearly indicates an enlightened culture- no weapons of any kind were found. They honored the woman's body and it was an honor to make love to her. The color red was sacRED, as it was the color of our life giving monthly cycle. It is a fascinating read, as well as introducing us to an aspect of our herstory that most women do not know about.
Of course, than the eastern steppe raiders came with their patriarchal structures and mowed down those poor defenseless peaceful people. This followed women throughout the next thousands of years, slowing replacing and rewriting the Greek myths to making it illegal for wise women to help the sick, etc. The more your read... There is an EXCELLENT 3 part vidio called Woman and Spirituality by the Wellspring Media from The National Film Board of Canada, based now in NYC. You can try to google it. They are titled Goddess Remembered, The Burning Tomes, and Full Circle.
The present paradigm is non- supporting for our men and sons too. So any work done on this level is good for our society. In a way, we are reformers.

Art Quilt Elements

Back from Art Quilt Elements- What a whirlwind trip! Lots of wonderful art pieces and quilts. It was really nice meeting people and putting names to faces, esp. from the yahoo list. Kathy Angel Lee and Linda Wickey and I faced the highways in NY, NJ, Conn, MA and NH to arrive at Wayne PA!! The show was beautifully hung. My piece was in the main gallery. I was really surprised and pleased!
I took the Digital Approaches Workshop with Leslie Noble Farber. She is a assisant professor at Paterson State, near where my father lives in NJ! What a jam-packed eventful workshop! Lots of things were happening right from the beginning and continued to stimulate us the entire 3 days. We immediately started out preparing a variety of substrates, surfaces to print on, these included collage techniques with gel mediums and ink aid to fine papers. We learned how to set up the image in Photoshop and send it to the printer driver and print out our prepared surfaces. We printed on all kinds of fabric, a variety of pellon interfacing, and even plastic! Once everything was ready you inserted your substrate into the printer, talked nicely to it, coaxed it along and prayed!
We experimented with a variety of other techniques of photographic transfer each day such as ink jet transfers, decal sheets, T-shirt transfers, and sticky paper transfers to paper lithography. We touched on resists and methods of spray fixatives- that definitely need to be dried in a well-ventilated area.
This workshop was a great introduction to basic digital printing using your computer, Photoshop and substrates.
Glad to be home!!
Now to get back to work an finish a bunch of pieces for my solo show in May at the Lincoln Levy gallery in Portsmouth. I am so inspired and itching to get at it!
I did, however, get a phone call from a writer from New England Home Magazine, a regional version of Architectural Digest and he also writes for Readers Digest. He is coming to interview me and view my work at my studio in Rollinsford on Tuesday! Yikes! I am so excited!! Of course the place is a mess as I am getting ready for the show and classes at Exeter Fine Crafts. He'll get the real deal!

Currier Museum Opening

I went to the new wing of the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH with some friends. I saw for the first time, that I recall, Jules Olitski. Beautiful name, loved his work. Sky alight! I goggled him and here is a quote- just wonderful!

“I decided to be a painter when my grandmother died. And there was something about that that made a number of things clear to me. I was a kid... and I loved her very much and feel that in some way she was one of the few people who supported me. That is she loved me. I got, nonetheless, the sense of an absolutely wasted, thrown away life. Like a dead cat on a garbage pail heap. And it made me get a very clear look on a all the people around me... My family, their friends... And the one thing that got through to me was the notion of... If there’s one thing you want to do, that’s meaningful, in my case it was painting, do it. Do it.”

“If I could just get a spray of color in the air, and somehow it could stay there– _that would be it.”

Solo Show in Dover NH

Digital, Holographic, Surface Design Fiber Art
I just hung my 4th solo show this afternoon with Jim Livermore. It was fun to see my work in a new gallery setting and with brick rusty red walls! When you work with another person, an unusual event for me, it allows insight into how other people work. He is relaxed yet on the ball. Such a pleasure. I hope you can get to his gallery. Lots of art and his jewerly is out of this world!

Solo Show March 29- April 26
April 18 opening 430-630
Village Goldsmith
Dover, NH

Remember wen
I need to remember –when I’m tired, discouraged and wondering why. I need to recharge, to take myself outside. We had a wonderful Christmas- like snowstorm today.
The leaves and trees are covered in a deep blanket of fluffy white snow, just waiting to pose for my camera. They just want to be appreciated- like all of us.


ORIGINAL PHOTO

Art Quilt Elements

detail

Art Quilt Elements 2008
April 4 - May 10
Wayne Art Center
Wayne, PA

One of 68 works chosen from
708 entries by jurors
Robert Shaw, BJ Adams,
and Mi Kyoung Le

I
just
realized!
Why I like to blog.

It's like keeping a journal but you can add pictures! Images excited me! Going to get them is a challenging fun. Thoughts excite me! I can get so excited some times! Then,
I go to my studio and that makes me happy!

Friends in fiber

Photograph taken in Lowell, MA
Today I met with a group of fiber friends. The group is called SAFA, Seacoast Association of Fiber Artists. Each of us is an artist in our own right- respecting, exploring, consoling and encouraging one another. Every artist benefits from some kind of feedback and honest critique. We expand and contract, like breathing.

Piecing in the Flow Workshop At Portsmouth Fabric Co.

I was reviewing for my March workshop, Piecing in the Flow. A intutitive piecing techinique I have done for the past 20 years or so. I am a shy teacher but I know my stuff. Check it out on
ttp://www.portsmouthfabric.com/classes.html
It is a technique exploration class of direct cutting and piecing. We attempt to work without conscious planning or stress. We allow the intuitive part of ourselves to influence the process. There are NO MISTAKES. Mistakes are opportunities to change directions! Mistakes are directions from your intuitive self.


Which reminded me of this- a paraphrase from one of my online lists.

Beleve it or not, creativity is HARD WORK! It involves
Risk and Sacrifice!
It involves moving beyond our fears, excuses, road blocks, people, (the naysayers) etc..
It involves going deep
inside –
which by the way- scares most of people,
to see what is
really
there.
And to remember to do that!

It involves the ability to put it out there and say "I don't care what others think this is (insert whatever topic, emotion, etc...)
It’s about following your vision.
It’s about all the effort it takes to get it out there, because you must.
It’s about passion.

Haystack Memories

I just completed my application to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer isle, ME. It is a fantasy island filled with kindred spirits. Everyone on the same page, with art sparkling out from their smiling eyes. I found this poem I wrote after one wonder-filled but rainy week.


In My Mind’s Eye

I return to Haystack,
that day of surprised joy
when Paulus recited “Hello Sun”,
his arms outstretched
to gather it in,
to release our minds,
to capture and motivate our attention.
Wetness collects in my smiling eyes
as I remember that morning,
when the sun first came out to greet us
after hiding for so long.
Came out like a field of flowers in bloom,
heads up,
wanting us to take them home.

poem by Wen

What drives me.

The thought has occurred to me that my love of textiles and fabrics give expression to my fascination with other things. Things like nature and hugging trees, being outdoors and smelling the cleansing wafts of air lifting my spirits. I love photography, since the beginning, when I had a 35mm and took shots that I thought were no good because I didn't have the technical skills. But I learned I have an eye. I like patterns and textures, of course, but shots of nature- views into a softer world, stills of interiors and arrangements of objects. People that take time and interest in their choices of things they bring to their space. It's like looking into a prism of their world.

Good conversation- those glimpses into another's soul. The invitation to do so. A gift. That appreciation comes out in the way I put my colors together, influences my painting and stitiching. I feel privileged to be able to do my art.


I hope my art is a gift in return.