Thursday, April 28, 2005
Just plodding along
well...I am just wandering along, working on several things but not really excited about anything. Almost finished another piece but have finished two rather simple ones which I will post for your viewing pleasure. The one that isn't finished quite yet (just needs a binding) is far more complicated. Started another piece using a piece of my monotype fabric and added colored pencil and ink lines and am doing hand embroidery to it...really not like what I usually do...it is pleasant to sit there and do the hand work although I sure don't want to do it all the time.
So, I wander from my studio and in to my bedroom and look in my closet and a huge pile of clothes that were on top of a suitcase standing on end has falled down. Fills up the floor in the closet because the dear dog has gone in and mushed all the clothes around to make a comfortable bed for herself. Oh well. So, in and out of the studio and in and out of the closet...so far I have five, 5...count that 5!!! large trash size bags full to be for donations of clothes that don't fit, I don't like any more 0r I don't wear because they shrank or something or other. Out of the house they do tomorrow!!
Which means that I didn't have to deal with what isn't happening in my studio!
So, I wander from my studio and in to my bedroom and look in my closet and a huge pile of clothes that were on top of a suitcase standing on end has falled down. Fills up the floor in the closet because the dear dog has gone in and mushed all the clothes around to make a comfortable bed for herself. Oh well. So, in and out of the studio and in and out of the closet...so far I have five, 5...count that 5!!! large trash size bags full to be for donations of clothes that don't fit, I don't like any more 0r I don't wear because they shrank or something or other. Out of the house they do tomorrow!!
Which means that I didn't have to deal with what isn't happening in my studio!
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Time to Catch Up
My goodness...I've been gone a long time!
I got the book "Inspiring Creativity" edited by Rick Benzel, in which Laura Cater Woods did a chapter in andhas on her blog and website. Started reading and the first chapter really resonated with me. Kate Quinlan describes 5 notions to resist:
Assumption: "The assumption that the cretivity of others is better than yours is false and must be resisted. In fact, the creative accomplishments of others have no reflection on your work. Discovering and exploring your creativity is not a competition. Your creative work stands alone as your creative work." I've been wallowing in this for the past several weeks...I've gotten over it now!
Intimidation: discusses the fact that others can make disparaging comments but then goes to praise, which can also be intimidating and has been a problem for me recently: "Ironically, praise can also be intimidating. Your've worked hard, all the while yearning for recognition and praise. And when the adulation arrives...whammo! Regardless of how much you wish and hope and pray for it, favorable jedgement can be daunting. With acclaim can come self-doubt about the authenticity of your work or the ability to reproduce the same quality next time."
So, you have to get the book to find out the rest. I am into chapter two which hasn't applied for me but there is lots more to read. All by creativity coaches!!
So, I Remember Mama quilt...I've posted parts of both sides of the beginning of this. It will be quilted with red-white-blue variegated thread and then embellished with various things she had such as her Red Cross pin, etc.
I got the book "Inspiring Creativity" edited by Rick Benzel, in which Laura Cater Woods did a chapter in andhas on her blog and website. Started reading and the first chapter really resonated with me. Kate Quinlan describes 5 notions to resist:
Assumption: "The assumption that the cretivity of others is better than yours is false and must be resisted. In fact, the creative accomplishments of others have no reflection on your work. Discovering and exploring your creativity is not a competition. Your creative work stands alone as your creative work." I've been wallowing in this for the past several weeks...I've gotten over it now!
Intimidation: discusses the fact that others can make disparaging comments but then goes to praise, which can also be intimidating and has been a problem for me recently: "Ironically, praise can also be intimidating. Your've worked hard, all the while yearning for recognition and praise. And when the adulation arrives...whammo! Regardless of how much you wish and hope and pray for it, favorable jedgement can be daunting. With acclaim can come self-doubt about the authenticity of your work or the ability to reproduce the same quality next time."
So, you have to get the book to find out the rest. I am into chapter two which hasn't applied for me but there is lots more to read. All by creativity coaches!!
So, I Remember Mama quilt...I've posted parts of both sides of the beginning of this. It will be quilted with red-white-blue variegated thread and then embellished with various things she had such as her Red Cross pin, etc.
Monday, April 18, 2005
That Thing Going Around the Web Ring
That Thing Going Around on the Web Ring
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit, Learn it and Use it for Life
"To embrace luck, you have to enhance your tolerance for ambiguity."
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit, Learn it and Use it for Life
"To embrace luck, you have to enhance your tolerance for ambiguity."
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Favorite room in the house
Oh, this is so simple!!! I can respond to this question!
THE STUDIO
of course...to be perfect it would have a lounge chair in it (that didn't fill up with piles of freshly dyed fabrics) a potty, a huge sink for washing painting supplies (oh, yeah, and hands after the potty), a small refrigerator and a small microwave. Already have the tv and the stereo. Can sleep in the lounge chair and I won't starve to death. And of course, since I like to drink a lot of water and my diet Pepsi's I need a potty close by.
I love to be in my studio. It is my room. Sometimes I even resent my husband coming in just to say hi...because it breaks my train of thought! I can just look at piles of things and get new ideas right away! And I play the music I like to listen to. And I don't have to have the TV control in my hand...usually it's set for Sirius music so there are no commercials...my computer is here, I can print out things for my quilts on to fabric, my thermofax is here, my copy machine, my ironing board, the washing machine and dryer and anything else I want except for a wet studio. And that may come!
Thursday, April 14, 2005
I Remember Mama
Yesterday I spent time crying now and then as I worked on this quilt about my Mom. However, it was good crying. I really like the way it is coming together. I have been busy scanning pictures to include and have been having a really good time going down memory lane. Pictures of my mom when she was little, a teen ager, a young adult, engaged to my dad, married, in different situations, traveling around, being herself, her art, and the graceful way she aged. I have one last picture I think I will include which is of my mother just two weeks before she died. She has bright red lipstick on, something she wore a lot, and it was Christmas and she was in a wheelchair at my house, in her fancy robe. There is something so sweet about her bright red lipstick and her paleness and smallness that just touches me tremendously.
So today it was over to Dad's again, took him to the lab for his routine testing, shopping and then back to his house where I went snooping through more pictures. I have most of the family pictures at my house but my mom traveled to England every other year for quite a while and made huge albums of her trips...includes photos, photos taken by her good friend and traveling companion, post cards, and of course all the ticket stubs, handouts, and booklets she could get. One doesn't have to go there to learn about it! I picked up a bag of several of these that were in the closet and it wasn't until I got home and started looking through them that I realized I had brought home the ones that covered the time she took my daughter with her. What fun to look back at my daughter at age 16 traveling with her grandmother and her grandmother's friend!
Looking at castles in her books is giving me ideas. I already have done one piece called "The Windows in the Castle Wall" which I am considering entering in to Tactile Architecture but it is pretty abstract. When I looked at the pieces that were in the show last year they are pretty down to earth...fantastic but not abstract. Oh well, I only have $5 to lose if they don't take it!
Ideas are generating all over the place. Getting ideas about more surface design and how to incorporate it in my work. I sometimes worry about doing something that someone else has but in my own way. Twyla Tharp has a great quote in her book, The Creative Habit in which she says about demons..."Someone has done it beofre? Honey, it's all been done before. Nothing's really original. Not Homer, or Shakespeare and certainly not you. Get over yourself!" Something to remember when I start feeling either full of myself or worried that something might seem to have come from someone else's work. People, lots of people, have done arches, ladders, squares, circles, etc but if I do them I will do them in my own way, my own design, my own colors.
I love to keep all these pithy quotes in my art journel. That, in and of itself, is a pretty fun thing. I like to start painting pages (because who wants to write on a white paper) and then go back and play some more and add pictures and quotes and all sorts of stuff. And then when I feel like it I write. It also travels with me so ends up with bits and pieces from where ever I am. part journel, part art, part scrapebook!
So today it was over to Dad's again, took him to the lab for his routine testing, shopping and then back to his house where I went snooping through more pictures. I have most of the family pictures at my house but my mom traveled to England every other year for quite a while and made huge albums of her trips...includes photos, photos taken by her good friend and traveling companion, post cards, and of course all the ticket stubs, handouts, and booklets she could get. One doesn't have to go there to learn about it! I picked up a bag of several of these that were in the closet and it wasn't until I got home and started looking through them that I realized I had brought home the ones that covered the time she took my daughter with her. What fun to look back at my daughter at age 16 traveling with her grandmother and her grandmother's friend!
Looking at castles in her books is giving me ideas. I already have done one piece called "The Windows in the Castle Wall" which I am considering entering in to Tactile Architecture but it is pretty abstract. When I looked at the pieces that were in the show last year they are pretty down to earth...fantastic but not abstract. Oh well, I only have $5 to lose if they don't take it!
Ideas are generating all over the place. Getting ideas about more surface design and how to incorporate it in my work. I sometimes worry about doing something that someone else has but in my own way. Twyla Tharp has a great quote in her book, The Creative Habit in which she says about demons..."Someone has done it beofre? Honey, it's all been done before. Nothing's really original. Not Homer, or Shakespeare and certainly not you. Get over yourself!" Something to remember when I start feeling either full of myself or worried that something might seem to have come from someone else's work. People, lots of people, have done arches, ladders, squares, circles, etc but if I do them I will do them in my own way, my own design, my own colors.
I love to keep all these pithy quotes in my art journel. That, in and of itself, is a pretty fun thing. I like to start painting pages (because who wants to write on a white paper) and then go back and play some more and add pictures and quotes and all sorts of stuff. And then when I feel like it I write. It also travels with me so ends up with bits and pieces from where ever I am. part journel, part art, part scrapebook!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Back again
Has it really been ten days since I did an entry? Too much of life has been happening. Most of all it was time to get everything together for TAXES!!!
In the spring a good friend who is a bookkeeper set up Quick Books for me. She came for several months and would enter info into the program for me. Then I went of vacation and we never got together again. Woe is me!! It took me three days to sort of get caught up just on my art stuff. It only took me a couple of hours to get the home stuff together. I hate having to use my time this way!!! However, after almost four days of working on the stuff I got it to the tax prep people so am now waiting to see what the verdict is.
And then, I babysat my grandson a couple of times, once for an entire day...that takes some getting used to...even tho he is only 5 months old (today!)
And then, taking my father out to get his hair cut, to the bank, shopping, and shopping etc and then doing his bills and then taking him to doctor appointments...
And then, starting a women's fellowship group at church to help bring the women who are at home during the day together...mostly older women...
And then, pulling out my paints and a canvas and doing a collage which I really enjoyed doing. Was able to get a lot more depth in to it than I do with my fabric.
And then, feeling sorry for myself again because I can't quite figure out which way I want my art to go...and not having much time to do it all.
And then, have Karen Eckmeier come out from Conn. to speak to our guild and do a workshop. Since I am program chair, I got to pick her up on Saturday, get her to the guild, then back to her hotel and then made arrangements for someone else to get her to the workshop and then picked her up Sunday after the workshop and went out to dinner. And then, I had to get up at 5 AM on Monday in order to get Karen to the airport in time for her flight...I don't do early mornings well but I got home and started working on a piece I have been playing with.
So, what is going on in my mind (this is for me...not you) I am not having creative blocks...what is happening is that I am trying to decide where I want my art to go. I have been doing some good things but sometimes it seems too easy and I need to challenge myself some more. Add more depth to my work....ideas of using more of my dyed silk organza in layers...more of my dyed cheese cloth, and introducing some of the tyvek I have been playing with...not as the subject but as part of the texture in parts of the work. So where do I go with all of this?
So, I started working on I Remeber Mama quilt instead. When Mom died I had friends and family write about her on four inch pieces of muslin with white print. I had thought that some day I might put them together along with the little applliqued hearts I had been doing while I sat with her in her last couple of weeks. But then too many people wrote too close to the edge.
I've been thinking about what to include in this quilt...so this morning I took out a piece of white cotton, used spray paint to add red and blue and some white on top, since Mom was extremely patriotic and also wore a lot of red, white and blue, and also spray painted the squares that I had fused to wonder under. Cut those with a fancy cutter and have fused them on to the backgroung cloth. Now, the fun begins as I print out pictures, cut them out, put them in, add embellishments (like the red, white and blue buttons she had) and just go to it.
However, I do have to stop regularily to allow myself a good cry. It's been five years since she died but do I ever miss her!
Love ya Mom....
In the spring a good friend who is a bookkeeper set up Quick Books for me. She came for several months and would enter info into the program for me. Then I went of vacation and we never got together again. Woe is me!! It took me three days to sort of get caught up just on my art stuff. It only took me a couple of hours to get the home stuff together. I hate having to use my time this way!!! However, after almost four days of working on the stuff I got it to the tax prep people so am now waiting to see what the verdict is.
And then, I babysat my grandson a couple of times, once for an entire day...that takes some getting used to...even tho he is only 5 months old (today!)
And then, taking my father out to get his hair cut, to the bank, shopping, and shopping etc and then doing his bills and then taking him to doctor appointments...
And then, starting a women's fellowship group at church to help bring the women who are at home during the day together...mostly older women...
And then, pulling out my paints and a canvas and doing a collage which I really enjoyed doing. Was able to get a lot more depth in to it than I do with my fabric.
And then, feeling sorry for myself again because I can't quite figure out which way I want my art to go...and not having much time to do it all.
And then, have Karen Eckmeier come out from Conn. to speak to our guild and do a workshop. Since I am program chair, I got to pick her up on Saturday, get her to the guild, then back to her hotel and then made arrangements for someone else to get her to the workshop and then picked her up Sunday after the workshop and went out to dinner. And then, I had to get up at 5 AM on Monday in order to get Karen to the airport in time for her flight...I don't do early mornings well but I got home and started working on a piece I have been playing with.
So, what is going on in my mind (this is for me...not you) I am not having creative blocks...what is happening is that I am trying to decide where I want my art to go. I have been doing some good things but sometimes it seems too easy and I need to challenge myself some more. Add more depth to my work....ideas of using more of my dyed silk organza in layers...more of my dyed cheese cloth, and introducing some of the tyvek I have been playing with...not as the subject but as part of the texture in parts of the work. So where do I go with all of this?
So, I started working on I Remeber Mama quilt instead. When Mom died I had friends and family write about her on four inch pieces of muslin with white print. I had thought that some day I might put them together along with the little applliqued hearts I had been doing while I sat with her in her last couple of weeks. But then too many people wrote too close to the edge.
I've been thinking about what to include in this quilt...so this morning I took out a piece of white cotton, used spray paint to add red and blue and some white on top, since Mom was extremely patriotic and also wore a lot of red, white and blue, and also spray painted the squares that I had fused to wonder under. Cut those with a fancy cutter and have fused them on to the backgroung cloth. Now, the fun begins as I print out pictures, cut them out, put them in, add embellishments (like the red, white and blue buttons she had) and just go to it.
However, I do have to stop regularily to allow myself a good cry. It's been five years since she died but do I ever miss her!
Love ya Mom....
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Blogging
All of a sudden it seems like we are on the same wave length. I am enjoying reading others' blogs and find that it gives me a sense of community. I also have to remind myself that this is for me but I do put it out there. Get off the pity pot...keep on working...just do what I like to do.
I have been thinking a lot about my work. Lately it seems as if things have been too simple...they go together too easily, I don't have to work very hard at what I am doing. And then it dawned on me. My work is simpler...maybe it's time to get back in to more complex work.
So I pulled out a canvas and brushes...and the paints, and have been working on a collage. Just to work and get depth. And build layers. And incorporate fabric and maps and words and other stuff. And of course, because it has to dry between layers, I get to think about it and ponder where it is going.
Spent last night pulling out new entry forms off the computer and getting them organized. Lots to look at. I know that I just have to keep entering and entering because of the time lag. But I also have to keep producing work because I seem to like to enter new stuff. I figure most of the pieces are good for entering only about a year, although with art shows, there seems to be a different time line. I know I get tired of seeing the same quilts win at every big show...but it only lasts a year and then they get retired because there are only so many big quilt shows. However, the art field is wide open. It also is a great place to enter smaller things because they show up so much better on a gallery wall than hanging between two huge bed size quilts on a black curtain!
Well, I've checked over the other webs, written briefly and now I'm back to working on this collage and doing some more fabric work!
I have been thinking a lot about my work. Lately it seems as if things have been too simple...they go together too easily, I don't have to work very hard at what I am doing. And then it dawned on me. My work is simpler...maybe it's time to get back in to more complex work.
So I pulled out a canvas and brushes...and the paints, and have been working on a collage. Just to work and get depth. And build layers. And incorporate fabric and maps and words and other stuff. And of course, because it has to dry between layers, I get to think about it and ponder where it is going.
Spent last night pulling out new entry forms off the computer and getting them organized. Lots to look at. I know that I just have to keep entering and entering because of the time lag. But I also have to keep producing work because I seem to like to enter new stuff. I figure most of the pieces are good for entering only about a year, although with art shows, there seems to be a different time line. I know I get tired of seeing the same quilts win at every big show...but it only lasts a year and then they get retired because there are only so many big quilt shows. However, the art field is wide open. It also is a great place to enter smaller things because they show up so much better on a gallery wall than hanging between two huge bed size quilts on a black curtain!
Well, I've checked over the other webs, written briefly and now I'm back to working on this collage and doing some more fabric work!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)