Subtleties

Now that we're into October, the autumn season is really in full swing....colors are changing daily in the most beautiful and often subtle ways. There are moments of bright, warm yellow set against deep, rich red, but as I drive along the back roads, I am also quite taken by the subtle shifts of color in the fields and the grasses on the side of the road...colors that shift from a pale gray-green to the color of straw and then to a soft peach and onto deep red and then crimson. I do love each season for it's own beauty, but there is something about autumn that makes me more aware of color than the other seasons. I know that spring and summer are full of the rich, bright colors of gardens in bloom, but I am more deeply drawn to subtle palettes and the colors of autumn make me swoon. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera when these thoughts came to me today in the car, but I did snap a few shots in the backyard just a bit ago. The river is beautiful no matter what the season!

Still keeping up the daily drawing practice and with the recent big deadlines looming over us now past, I find that I am able to post them more often. I'll start off October with today's drawing, but do have a peek at the others in my shop here. I do have sale going on in the shop, so if you are interested in any of the daily drawings, now is the time to have a more serious look around...there is 15% off everything in the shop, but be sure to use the coupon code at checkout: AUTUMNSALE

October 1, 2012

There's a newly finished drawing in the Notes From The Ancestors series, now posted on my website

I'm still loving the interior space I can roam through as I make these pieces...an open-ended conversation with time and memory.

Notes From The Ancestors no.11

Hope you have a great week....savor the day and the subtle details so easily overlooked! See you soon!

Time and Space

Good afternoon, dear readers!  I'm here to show you more of the unfinished work that is just so demanding of me.  I've really come to realize how much space I need to work.  I'm not talking about physical studio space, which thank goodness, I seem to have in great plenty.  It's the space that lives inside of time...that allows the time to open up into an infinity that invites creative flow. Now that I am working part-time, the days seem to close in even more than they used to, and although I should have time "in theory" to work, I can't seem to work when I know the clock is ticking, so to speak.  I take care of the many, although not all, must-dos each morning and try to leave myself enough "open space" to work, but inevitably I stall....because it's not open time and open space....it's closed and very finite.  I need to know that I don't have to be anywhere but in the studio in an hour, two hours, three hours....ever.  It's an illusion, a trick of the mind I realize, to try to fool oneself into falling for the ruse, but sometimes it really works.  If you've never done an artist's residency, I really encourage you to apply to any one of a growing number of them available all over the world....that's where the illusion works....it works really well, when you know that you have a month where all you have to do is feed your belly and your soul with working. Amazing things happen and the creative process unfolds in ways you can't foresee when you are squeezing the work into slivers of space.  All that is a way to say....these works which I want to move to completion are inching along at a snail's pace. I've just taken some shots of them in their current state because obviously it's going to be a long time before I have the space and time I need to really move them along any faster.....but I do love the way it's going, for as much as you can see, I hope you can gather a bit of what's happening.

They are all on my husband Johntimothy's handmade paper, around 15 x 11".  Those extra bits are just laying there in the third shot, waiting to see if they belong anywhere on the piece or not. All the pieces will have "roof" sections attached like you see in process on the fifth shot. There is a lot of layered drawing at this point, but the pieces will all have more drawing and embroidery by the time they are finished. I just need some space.

It's interesting to see now how my morning drawings (the 10 very quick meditation drawings I do each morning) and the dailies on the teabags are all informing one another, as well as these new pieces I've shown you in process. Maybe those of you who know my work can tell, I'm not sure, but it's fun to watch it all unfold.  Here's today's daily drawing posted at MissouriBendMusings.

March 26 2012

I do hope you have a fascinating and fruitful week ahead!  See you in a few days!

Days of Sunshine

Hi everyone....pardon my unexcused absence, but I'm about to give you an excuse anyway! I started a very part-time job at a nearby library toward the end of January and have been working more hours due to the absence of another staff member....my schedule and time is in a bit of flux these days. But I surely haven't forgotten you all....just behind the power curve.  So, here is an update post with what's been going on in the studio lately....the dailies, of course...a couple new items for the MissouriBendStudio shop and I've been trying to work on a new series that is slowly unfolding. These pieces are beginning to invoke the notion of writing and are using a lot of indigo ink....a color I dearly love. When they reach a stage that I can show you, I surely will share them. Today's daily drawing is here, but know that there are a growing number available for viewing and purchasing, if you are so inclined, at MissouriBendMusings.

March 12, 2012

This little hanging drawing below is now listed over at MissouriBendStudio. When I first showed these, I wasn't sure how to describe them, except as badges, which didn't feel right at all. I asked for some responses from readers and another Etsy artist, Anca Gray, also a follower of this blog, used the most delightful phrase to describe these pieces..."pocket mirrors for the soul".....now I can't think of them any other way!  Thanks so much for that bit of poetry, Anca!

Tiny Yellow Teapot

This little piece below has been in the works for quite some time, in an on-again-off-again pattern. The drawing and I struck up the conversation again a couple of weeks ago and became friends again....finished it up today with the stitching at the top and the tiny text pieces falling into the bowl.  I'm quite fascinated with text and all that it implies....so much to explore!  

Warm Yellow Spring 

(don't hold me to this title....this piece will be listed tomorrow at MissouriBendStudio)

Hope you all are having a good start to the week. Here in the southeast corner of South Dakota temperatures are due to be in the mid-70s this week....we are pinching ourselves and hoping that this weather is here for good!  Happy Spring....and for my dear friends in the southern hemisphere....Happy Fall!!

The Latest

Fragments no. 12

Fragments no.13 

(those are my fingerprints that form the background!)

I'm gaining on those weeds!  I'm yanking them out by the barrelful, along with all the volunteer mulberry trees (tenacious buggers), sumac, daisies and the rest.  I've cut most things back so I can see what I actually have...lovely to discover the phlox in bloom, barely visible before I whacked and pulled enough stuff to let the sun shine on them.  We also finally got the poor tomato plants staked up...so top heavy they had pulled their cages over.  Despite the fact that we've not had any rain to speak of for weeks (after a spring of practical deluge!) they are hanging in there.  Of course, we planted way too many squash plants for the space we have....I guess we never quite believe anything is going to actually grow, so we hedge our bets!

The internet was SUPPOSED to be fixed by now, but no one came this afternoon....but here we are up and running...for now.  I've seen more of the inside of our local McDonalds (using their internet access) in the last couple weeks than in the previous five years I'm sure.  So, maybe tomorrow?

I also hope to have some really good news to share in a few days.  Just waiting to see if this opportunity will become a reality and then I'll share it with you.  Hate to keep you on the edge, but don't want to jinx anything!  A couple of the latest Fragments....no. 15 will be listed tomorrow.

Fragments no. 14

Fragments no.15

See you in a few days....hope you all have a great week!

More Bits and Pieces

Fragments no. 2

Fragments no.3

Fragments no.4

Fragments no.5

Fragments no.6

The Fragment series has been continuing, as you can see, and I'm having a delightful time surprising myself with the juxtaposition of little bits and pieces.  Often I hesitate to tear one of these unfinished cast-off drawing or fragments into even smaller bits, but what it there to lose, I ask myself....I mean they've already been tossed aside as fodder for other projects! Fragments no.2 is the only one listed in my shop so far, but they'll be added throughout the week.

In my last post I mentioned taking a wire bending class up in Sioux Falls, which I did on Thursday evening at The Bead Co., a store where one could easily while away the hours of an entire day. I'll have to go back for an outing very soon.  This was just a two hour class and as I knew, I'm pretty clumsy and kind of slow to learn these maneuvers in space, handling new kinds of tools and making my hands do what I want them to.  This will take practice for me!  The focus was on making jewelry, but  I find what I'm really interested in is making small objects...mixed media objects that combine things like sticks, wire, beads, found objects, mementos, etc. I'm slowly working in that direction and somehow I think these fragment pieces are moving me along.  Right now the fragments are sewn to a sheet of paper....the world I'm most comfortable with, but I have begun to have glimpses of these tiny collages being their own thing, existing in some other form in real space.  I don't know yet, I can't articulate it and for me this is like being poised on the edge of a diving board....I've been here before on the high dive and I've chickened out and gone back to my very comfortable two-dimensional world....but I need to stretch and I need to make the leap.  This is both exciting and frustrating, because I lack the skills to work with a whole new variety of materials and must practice being okay with clumsiness and with failure as part of the learning process.  Unfortunately, I also lack patience and want to make wonderful things right away....I've always thought of myself as one who loves the learning process, but I think that's probably not entirely true...I love having learned and I love the discovery, but I'm not so keen on the hard bits.....but isn't it true, that if we're honest with ourselves, we'd really rather avoid the hard bits of life?  Okay, so I'm telling myself to enjoy the journey and not to covet what other people make, because as I learn I'll begin making something else, the thing that is in me to make....even though I don't know what it is....but that's what it means to learn by doing.  Stay tuned!

Does anyone else have this very real struggle between working 2-d and 3-d?  Would love to hear from any one of you who have worked through this leap to thinking in three dimensions....it's not something I can really do yet!

Have a great week!

The Perfect Day

Today is the perfect day....at least in terms of the weather.  This morning we sat outside to have breakfast and the mosquitoes weren't bothersome, the air was fresh and cool and the river, though high, seemed to be moving rather calmly and didn't feel quite so menacing.  We turned off the air conditioner, opened the windows and I've just been outside to eat lunch and it's still absolutely perfect.  The sun is shining, birds are chirping, their songs echoing through the cottonwoods whose leaves have the just the slightest rustle...the air is just the right temperature and the water on the river is still relatively calm.  And why do I need to get back inside, I ask myself?  Whose time clock am I punching, but my own....there is nothing that says I must be inside at the computer or in the studio to justify my day...nothing except my own relentless strictness.  My dear husband, much more relaxed than I, would certainly have no problem encouraging me relax and enjoy the day....although he is up at school, working hard and getting ready for the next  couple of weeks of printmaking workshops that will bring people in from all over the country.

So, even as I continue to drive myself to make more work, pursuing this new series that will take advantage of all the fragments from the mountains of unfinished work I keep finding, I remind myself that I do already have over 150 items in my shop....and must I break my neck to keep adding new work? Or, perhaps, another side of me chimes in, I should expand my horizons and learn a new skill.  I've been looking into taking a beading class up in Sioux Falls, which will be a nice treat and a diversion while John is so tied up these next few weeks.  I have this notion in the back of my head that combines sticks and beads.....hmmmm.

For now, here's the first piece in a series I'm calling Fragments, that will be tiny collages from bits and pieces of my "scrap" pile! There's a full shot and a detail below.

Fragments no.1

Fragments no.1 (detail)

Think I'll go back outside....isn't this what I waited all winter for?  See you fine folks in a couple days!

Walk Me Through This World

It's the weekend already!  Maybe it's been a long week for you, but with the trip and the unpredictability of life these days, I'm kind of surprised to find that it's Friday evening!  The river continues to play center stage in our lives these days...neighbors talk among one another, news comes from here and there, some of it just rumor, but taken at face value, it all serves to keep me feeling as if I'm on a roller coaster ride that doesn't quite end.  Some people in the neighborhood are just sure their houses are going in the river, others of us are confident that this is not going to be the case...and yet, the land beyond the last house on the street loses huge chunks into the river every week or so, making the last house especially vulnerable.  It's a raging river alright and it will no doubt have found a different course when all this is said and done.  Makes you remember the power of Mother Nature.  And so, we just plug away and go about our business...which is pretty much all you can do.

I have finished one of the new larger pieces that I had begun calling the Pink Pages.  This was originally one of the Connect the Dots series and just as it was almost finished, I realized it no longer felt "true"....those carefully connected dots didn't make sense to me anymore...and so I took a leap of faith and started drawing randomly.  The marks were chaotic and reflected the moment like a mirror....I was listening to "Calling All Angels" by Jane Siberry and the title announced itself in a snippet from the song...Walk Me Through This World.  As I've always said, I think through my hands and this piece says something about what's going on inside in ways that I can't name, but I know that it's true to the moment.

Walk Me Through This World

It's been posted in my shop, so you can see some better detail shots.  This piece is on a sheet of the handmade paper Johntimothy makes and measures about 15"h x 12 1/2"w.  I'm now finding myself drawn to tiny collages, having found a couple more boxes of our cast off unfinished pieces and scraps of this and that in the storage room.  Plan to be in the studio a fair amount this weekend.  Hope everyone has a great weekend, full of memorable experiences. Thanks so much for all the comments...good to be back among friends across the globe!

Cheers!

I'm Back!!

Wow, I'm finally back "in the saddle" so to speak!  I had a wonderful trip with some of my family to Glendive, Montana for a family reunion, where I met a couple of cousins I'd never met before and caught up with the extended family I rarely see.  This is a very small town in eastern Montana, on the edge of the badlands, where both my parents grew up.  My mother's grandfather was one of the founding citizens, having followed the railroad out in the late 1800s.  There's a lot of family history there and I find myself attempting to piece together an elusive past, trying to get some sense of what life was like there as the town built itself up to prominence in those early years.  I always think of time and history as a building process, which it is in many ways, but in certain others there is a slow dismantling and a kind of crumbling.  I guess this struck me most when some of us went to see our great grandfather's (Henri Dion, originally from Quebec) original house, which is still there. Once an imposing structure in the center of town, by the middle of the last century it had long been sold, probably numerous times, and was moved to a new location not far away.  Now it sits in the shadow of an overpass, having been remodeled and added onto over the years in strange ways, broken up into apartments and now is practically unrecognizable as something that might have once been a grand home. Time passes, but I still struggle to capture something of my history, not to relive it, but to "connect the dots", to understand where I came from and how that frontier past informs my identity.  One of my cousins there is friendly with a 98-year old woman who has lived in Glendive on and off her entire life and, quite the perky one, she remembered both my parents, as they were almost contemporaries.  Sort of like time travel to be in the presence of someone like that.  My brothers, cousins and I are now the oldest generation of the Dion family and even that feels strange.  Obviously, I'm still processing the experiences and will no doubt come to more understanding as I get back into the studio and start making artwork.

Perhaps some of you are wondering about that flooding Missouri River, a not-so-friendly presence these days.  We're still high and dry, although less high than we were.  The Army Corps of Engineers has had to up the flow from 150,000 (cubic feet per second) to 160,000 (cubic feet per second) from the dam in Yankton, which we'd hoped wouldn't have to happen.  The water table by now has got to be much closer to the house and we've heard the sump pump kick on occasionally, so we'll hope it can keep up.  The rains have been pretty heavy in this whole area--the last thing we need.  Fingers still crossed that we won't have too many worries over the next couple months, because these high waters will be with us for a long time to come!

I finished up a little piece and added it to the shop a bit ago and am headed back to the studio to really get to work.  I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with some other things to show you!  A waarm welcome to the new followers and thank you to everyone for your support and good wishes--I missed you all!

Connect The Dots, no.4

Ebb and Flow

Happy Monday....already!  Time does have a way of moving in ways that continually confound me....let's just say my perception of time confounds me.  Now that I'm working on larger pieces...relatively speaking...large for me is 11" x 15", which is a full size of the handmade/homemade paper that I use....the work proceeds more slowly and my understanding about what happens next on each pieces comes more slowly than it does on the smaller pieces.  I hesitate more, because I want to be sure that the thing I'm about to do is the thing I'm supposed to do....I suppose they feel more precious because the process is tied to finding the content...so it's kind of an unearthing process, in a way.  I've finished just one of the pink pages, although I've moved the other two along several stages, there is a lot of hesitating and walking away for a time of percolation.  This is one of those percolation periods...perfect for doing a blog post and introducing Firmament of the Ancestors.

Firmament of the Ancestors

There's one full shot of the piece, but it's hard to see, so there are three detail images.  I'll be listing this in my shop later today.  Here's how the piece came to be. Most of it is that pattern that slowly built itself into an abstraction of waves in the ocean....in the beginning I didn't know where it was going...I was just making a pattern. Also in an early stage I made an arching pattern of connected dots in the upper portion (now buried under the one you see), that I realized was like a view of the constellations. I had a strong sense this piece was about history....that's when I knew there was a tiny boat riding those ocean waves.  There we are on our very solo journey in a tiny boat...navigating the waves (just where are those oars???) under the timeless firmament of history...our collective ancestors. Time continues on...each moment adds another layer of waves to the ocean current, more dots are connected as we pass through our lives....history builds itself into eternity.

Very soon, we are off on a short jaunt to the big city of Chicago to immerse ourselves in inspiring art, good food and more as-of-yet untold discoveries.  I'll see you next week, with more from The Pink Pages and hopefully some good stories to tell!!!  Right now, as it's a gorgeous day outside, I'm off to plant some zinnia seeds....wish me luck....planting seeds has never worked for me before, but I dearly love zinnias!

Notes From The Ancestors

I seem to have lost my regular posting days of Monday and Friday. I'm sure you're not watching the calendar or your clocks to see if I post to my blog "on time" or not...maybe this is a good sign that I'm going a little easier on myself!  The weather is ever so slowly inching toward the lovely stage, but it's quite a tedious process that includes a fair amount of cold, wind and rain.  Still in the 50s this morning, but should be warmer this afternoon and I can't wait to get back outside and continue the weed pulling and communing with the fresh growth in the garden.  I've been here nearly six years now, but having come from decades spent in Florida, it still astonishes me each spring to see plants coming back from "the dead"...that's what it feels like!

So, I have begun working again on the full size sheets of my husband's delicious handmade paper, as I mentioned at the beginning of the week.  Here's that piece I showed in an incomplete state earlier...now listed in my shop here.

Notes From The Ancestors

Lots of layers of drawing underneath the photos and the organza "envelope" that holds snippets of text and image from vintage family photographs.  I have a few more pieces in the works...a fragment below of one on a background of beautiful soft pink....a color I discovered comes easily when adding white to burnt sienna!

Actually, this photo doesn't capture the color quite right...it almost looks lavender here...I'll make sure to have it properly photographed for you when it's finished....this is just a small teaser!

I've stitched a few more rows of blue on the river piece and have spent my own time doing a little "repair"work on Violett (my new sewing machine for those of you who are recent readers of this blog)...the thread kept getting caught from below in the bobbin and I spent many a frustrating attempt trying to sew, with the same bunched up chunk of thread each time.  I'm happy to say that I was able to clean out the little bobbin case nicely with the brush, provide a few drops of much needed oil exactly where the booklet said to place it and sure enough, I practically heard Violett breathe a sigh of relief before she headed off sewing that line of blue like a dream!  Such a victory for me who is so very unmechanically inclined!!

Well, hope you are having a great weekend.  I will continue to mull over the large and small questions...what defines success, how can I keep myself moving forward, how to make sales without sacrificing my artistic integrity, how to find balance in life, etc. etc.  Oh, and still working on building my new website!  Keep your hands moving, that's my mantra!

See you at the first of the week!

The Slowness of a Hand-Stitched Line

I sure wish the weather would turn spring-like...might help me get some momentum going! Cold, gray days and rain or threatening rain are a constant companion of late, it seems.

I've been working on a little piece that is taking a long time...all hand-stitched on a piece of blue handmade paper dipped in beeswax.  This is a slow process, as you might imagine, and as I make tiny stitch after tiny stitch in row after row, I recall how I used to talk about my work (it was larger then and much more involved) in terms of the very fact that it took a long time to make by hand.  That was, in part, the content. It was about the time it takes to slowly stitch, a meditation on making, impossible to create any other way.  There are many things a machine will do, that really are better done that way, but hand stitched lines are uneven, full of wavering, momentary indecision and then decision....they carry the trace of the hand, of the process, of the hours.

But now, I realize, after nearly a year of making, making, making at a much different pace, in order to add pieces to my etsy shop, I have grown impatient with making tiny stitches.  I questioned the process all the way through the first half of this little piece...wondering what it's point was...these interesecting lines in different pastel colors that I wasn't even sure would work together...so what....one more piece in the virtual shop known as MissouriBendStudio.  But at the same time, the dialogue ran the other way in my mind, as I remembered I used to thrive on this work, watching the piece build stitch by stitch, happy with the slowness, allowing my mind to wander, to discover and watch my own thoughts emerge and fall away, often coming to great insights about my own life and my place in the long, complex chain of the living, the having lived, and the yet to live. And yet, by lunchtime today, I'd made it halfway through the stitching and I realized that it was worth doing....those colors accrued on the surface and interacted in an interesting way (at least to me) and I could begin to envision the rest of it and knew I would continue to the end, trying to be patient and enjoy the process as I once did and as I would still be the first to advise anyone else.

Don't worry, Violett is happy to wait for me to finish this little piece before we continue making the river.  She knows that in order to make a six-foot long river, she is a most essential friend and accomplice....that is not something I would do by hand!  Look at the angst I go through over sewing a piece of paper 5 x 7 inches!  So....here it is, in it's unfinished state....just a pattern of vertical and horizontal parallel lines....it's about more than that, but I can't say just yet, what it might be!

Violett's First Mishap, The River Run Through It

Well, I had kind of an unexpected week and not very much got done down in the studio.  I was working away on the new sewn piece when Violett and I ran into a couple snafus, the last of which necessitated a quick visit to the service desk at Heirloom Creations where I bought her.  However, when you have to travel an hour to get there, it's not a quick visit!  The first mishap was one they warned me about in the class and it was rather hilarious once I saw what was happening....the key is not to have a spool of thread just hanging out on the top on the second spool holder because it's easy for the thread to find it's way over to the turning wheel handle on the side (my names of the machine parts are incorrect, I'm sure) and wrap itself around there a million times over....sure enough....I looked at one point and there was a half and inch of thread wound around there.  I realized immediately what was happening...it was just like the woman said...one of those lessons you learn really well once you have had the experience!  Well, that got taken care of and another few minutes later I found I was stitching away, petal to the metal, with no thread in the bobbin....lots of nicely punched holes...not quite what I had in mind for this piece.  But then, the last mishap was serious...the thread broke and was caught somehow in the innards of the machine and for the life of me, I couldn't get it out, not through coaxing, bribing or by any other means.  After a trip to the service desk, I now know how to take the side cover off and retrieve a caught thread, should it happen again, but I lost time and momentum in the process.  That happened Tuesday afternoon and I couldn't take the machine in until Thursday and hey, one doesn't waste a trip to Sioux Falls....why not take care of getting that 90,000 mile service on the car while I'm at it!  Sure, that'll be 4-5 hours sitting in the Panera across the street, having lunch, drinking coffee, reading, waiting endlessly for the car.  There went Thursday.  Today, well I have no good excuses...I think the fact that the dreary rain turned to snow took away my will and I got very little accomplished. So, while I wanted to have a piece pretty far along to show you, I have barely started, but I'll show you anyway.  It's a river...I've sewn 4 six-inch wide strips of Johntimothy's yummy handmade paper together to create what will be a long scroll....with lots of wavy stitches in various blues...that I hope will look something that calls to mind a river when there are enough layers of overlapping stitches.  At this point, it looks rather pathetic, but we just need more time.  I now have varigated thread to add to the mix, so that should be fun!  Here is a long shot of the river laid out on the floor and another detail...not a lot to show for myself, except I now know that Violett likes to sew fast and it's pretty much fun!

There are a couple other little pieces in the works and a beaded piece on handmade paper dipped in beeswax below. It's really quite simple, but I do like the combination of silver against the creamy white paper and the buttons.  

I've got to find my motivation again...I'm quite sure I have a slow leak...probably good that it's the weekend...time for a break.  Hope you are going to doing something special or make time to enjoy the ordinary in a special way over the next couple days.  We've been given tickets to the Sioux City Symphony, which means we'll go out for a really nice dinner and make an evening of it...looking forward to that! See you on Monday...hopefully energized with the sun shining brightly and this last snow a distant memory!

Cheers!

Living on the Missouri River

I believe it's finally spring for real, not just on the calendar.  The reason I know is that Johntimothy and I actually sat outside on the deck when he got home and had a glass of wine and read our books in the warm late afternoon sunshine under a sky that couldn't have been any bluer.  Not only that, we realized we could just go ahead and eat dinner out there too...which is exactly what we did...wow, it felt like such a long time since we'd been able to do such things!  After dinner, the temperatures were beginning to drop as the sun was setting, but thought I'd get a couple of shot of the quiet river in the early spring.  There is just the barest hint of a green aura to the trees across the river, although in the sunset light, you can't tell.  Another couple of week and this view will look quite a bit different!

looking southwest across the Missouri River to Nebraska

looking down the river, a bit more south than southwest

The Missouri River is pretty gorgeous in all seasons, but it's so nice to finally be able to be outside to really enjoy it!  

Meanwhile, the river has been something of an inspiration and Violett and I are busy on a new piece, which I hope to be able to show you on Friday....we think it's a bit early to reveal it in this beginning state.  But, it's quite fun, and the stitches are flying...Violett is quite the mover and shaker!

A couple of new small pieces on handmade paper that I believe was made by my own two hands when I was at Penland some years ago.  I found quite a few sheets in various colors in a pile the other day...

Flower Blossoms

Line Work

The color is unbelievably richer once it's dipped in beeswax.  I had drawn those three sets of parallel lines in blue ink before I dipped it, not quite knowing what I'd do next.  I just played with a broken line in colored embroidery thread to create a new pattern, which I found delightful.  I've alwasy loved line and as I continue to contemplate the essence of what I do and the marks I make...I believe it always come down to line.  Some people see and think in tone and shape, but for me, the magic is in line.  I have another piece like this started...perhaps it's becoming a series.  

Night is falling, but the sliding glass doors are still open and the Canadian geese are flying by, their familiar honking echoing over the airwaves.  The big migration has already come through...these must have been the geese that were late making their reservations.

See you Friday, if not before. Have a great week!

Why Not Turn Everything Upside Down?

I've had this growing feeling lately....time for a shake-up in the studio...a total rearrangement!  I know that my studio is featured in the Spring issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Studio, which includes a floor plan and everything, but it's spring and time for a change!  Besides, I'm feeling as if I'm about to adopt a child or something....I need to make a new space for the sewing machine that I'm going to get very soon!  I speak as if I haven't yet enacted this shake up, when in fact, the whole thing is said and done, as of late last night! Johntimothy is away at a conference, and while it might have been easier to move some things around if he'd been here, once I get an idea in my head to do something...well, I'm ready for action.  Off I went first thing in the morning to Lowe's in Sioux City (45 minute drive) to get yet another hollow core door and some sawhorses....voila, instant desk!  I moved tables and file cabinets and then moved them once again until it was all just so...quite lovely actually, and my back was only a little stiff this morning...but that's what yoga is for! Actually, what took the most time was gathering up and moving out and then back in all my little trinkets and memorabilia that occupies every inch of space...all objects carrying a bit of memory...a stick, a seed pod, a plastic this or that, a tiny box, handfuls, armloads of brushes, crayons, little dice, small animal figures, etc. etc. Every inch of paper, gathered in piles, reorganized and brought back to live in a new space.  And, I made a few more discoveries of unfinished works, some of which have now been been torn apart to make new and different pieces, and others that just a need a bit more tweeking, some of which was done today in my freshly designed space!

Page From The History Of My History

This piece had long since gotten buried, maybe because I'd grown weary of making all those stitches that never seemed to end, but I was delighted to meet up with it again yesterday....a long lost friend.  I spent a fair amount of time today adding more stitching....until I announced it finished!  I thought for a time it was named Page From The Book of Lost Love Letters, but only in posting it here have I realized that it is called Page From The History of My History.

Page From The Story Of The Three Buttons

This green and cream colored piece of decorative paper has been resurfacing in my pile of paper scraps for a few years now.  I had dipped it in beeswax some time ago and had never quite known what to do with it.  Today when I picked it up I knew exactly what to do....at least to start.  I found that a little sheet of Japanese paper dipped in beeswax does not have to remain pristine, but in fact, when crumpled, it reveals drawing marks that are quite amazingly beautiful.  This little piece was crumpled and attached with the button and countless, random and overlapping stitches in subtle colors, of pink, green, yellow and cream.  Despite it's title as a page from The Story of The Three Buttons, this little piece only has one button.  I had three ready to go and then understood that I was not to actually USE three buttons....you see, this page appears at the very beginning of the story, say page 7, and I don't believe the second and third buttons appear until pages 52 and 76, respectively!  I just do what I'm told....

So, more fun for me tomorrow!  I'm very much looking forward to my field trip to Omaha, where I will spend as long as I please at the Jackson Street Bookstore, perhaps the best used bookstore I've ever had the pleasure to frequent.  There are so many books just in the literature section that they're wedged in and sit in piles on the floor...but that's only where I'll start....so many winding paths to other sections, so many books to peruse.  I can't wait!  No place to be, no deadlines...total bliss!  See you fine folks on Monday...have a wonderful weekend.

Notes To Myself

Somehow by the end of the week, I'm just dragging.  It must be from staying up too late and/or getting up too early, along with my inability to slow down.  I don't know about you, but left to my own devices, I'd sleep easily for nine hours, but it averages a bit less than seven hours during the week since we get up early to do yoga before John heads off to classes.  We wouldn't dream of giving it up, but the days are long....and somehow during the last year, since I started this new life,  I seem to have forgotten how to relax.

And you'd think, as a former cataloger, I'd be more organized, but tax-time is looming and I have yet to organize all the million receipts and bits of this and that from last year.  I've gotten as far as making various piles on the floor of my studio.  They will torment me until I take care of them once and for all!

So....I'm here with a new piece and another older piece that has come out of the woodwork, so to speak....I don't know how I keep finding them, but I do.  Often they are pieces that just hang out with me in the studio and I don't even "see" them any more.  This little beeswaxed drawing, done back in Florida, was screaming out at me the other day...."hey, look at me...I'm a spring blossom!!!"  Sure enough...all it needed was to be fitted onto a sheet of handmade paper for support and here she is, Spring Blossom! I'll list this tomorrow in my Etsy shop.

I found myself making another book page and was mid-way through it, moving along as I felt led, before I understood that this piece was called "Notes to Myself" and that it was all about the conflicting messages I send myself...."get new pieces made/relax, you're driving yourself too hard", "time is a'wasting/you have nothing but time", etc. etc.  I think we all make "notes" to ourselves and I think they are often in conflict...no wonder I'm so tired!!!  I just listed this piece in my shop here, so you can read a fuller description and see more detailed views.

I am going to try to force myself to take a break this weekend.  I only hope the weather doesn't get nasty, as is predicted, so we can go on some kind of excursion....anything will do!  Hope spring really is coming your way, because it's taken a detour and is nowhere close to arriving here!!!

Have a fine weekend and we'll see you Monday!

Life Continues To Spin

Season of Growth

Spiral of Time

Well, time does have a way of moving on....let's say spiraling on, since we don't want to think of it as quite so linear...and sure enough, I finished the four pieces and shipped them off today, along with the last two from the Pearls On A String Series and 4 new little meditation drawings.  I feel good about having gotten everything done and am pretty happy with the work, given my anxiety!  I don't feel so good about the shambles the house is in or the plants that cry for water through parched leaves...and I've surely missed reading my blogs!  But ever so slowly getting caught up and finishing more new pieces for the shop in the midst of it all.  I actually did four new meditation pieces for the show, but they were too big for the little cellophane bags I'd bought, so made some little 3 x 5" meditation drawings, mounted on 5x7" handmade paper, which fit the bags just perfectly!  So now, I'll have four new meditation drawings for the shop!  I'll give you a glimpse of a couple of those on Friday.  Meanwhile, here are the last two new mounted pieces that have gone to the Teeny Tiny Art show at Three Graces Gallery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire...just in case you're in the vicinity.  Time to get back down and clean up the studio once more!  See you soon on your blog or mine!!!  

One last thing....I just want to thank all of you for your wonderful good cheer and support!  It means a great deal...my friends are there and always with keen insight and understanding!  Best wishes to all of you!

Rings of Memory

Love of Language