The Scroll for Counting Backwards

Well, now I've got two tiny scrolls listed in my shop!  The Scroll For Random Phrases was listed yesterday and today I'll introduce you to The Scroll For Counting Backwards...another one inch scroll with clusters of tiny seeds that go from twenty to one.  This is volume 1...there could be an infinite number of scrolls for counting backwards, I suppose!  These are great fun to make...another one is just about finished.  I just have one problem with them...I am constantly misplacing these little guys!  I spend a lot of time trying to remember where I last put one of them...somehow they are so small and blend in with the background that I find myself scouring the studio and then the whole house trying to find the one that has been mislaid.  Such silliness!  Hope you enjoy these and thanks so much for stopping here to look and read!

A Cliffhanger!

Well, it's Sunday, so Johntimothy and I have a little over a week to have the work ready to deliver for our show.  In my last post I mentioned finding my direction for the collaboration...my instincts were right on.  When my husband came home, he loved those drawings of the seeds and it caused us to rethink the whole project.  Yesterday, we basically started over and are now doing triptychs, with my part the central panel, to be informed by those drawings of last week that showed up in the one above, which is A Fork in the Road no.3    Johntimothy will make the panels that go on either side, so the piece will resemble the format of an altarpiece.  We are both excited about the project coming together in this new way and although I speak of it as "starting over" this is really just another step in the collaboration that has been going on over the last couple of months for the show.  It's the creative process at work....just made more complicated by involving two people instead of one!  No time is ever wasted...but it's kind of a cliffhanger still...wondering how the pieces will finally resolve themselves.  I'll let you know!

The One Thing

I'm having a great day in the studio, which isn't always the case!  I'm working to resolve my part of a collaborative exhibition with my husband and the deadline is looming...August 24th.  We've been working on this for most of the summer, but somehow I haven't been able to make anything that feels right.  Now, I understand what I'm to do. This morning I started drawing in white ink onto of the blackboard painted paper and before I knew it...the channel opened and I was right there in the flow, drawing those tiny circles that connect endlessly...like seeds or cells.  I realized that it's always about getting to the essence, the "one" thing, that gets at the core of something.  I knew in the middle of the first drawing, that all 36 drawings would each be an exploration of the one thing...the way the those interlocking little circles in white ink laid on top of the black chalkboard paint and interacted with the pencil.  It was a time of meditation as I connected tiny circle after tiny circle, stopping on each one when the shape declared itself and then moving on to the next piece.  When this kind of thing happens for me, this moment of recognition, I feel it in the pit of my stomach....I am in a flow where my hand is making the thing I am longing to see.  Simplicity, simplicity itself.

There are a couple of images in of the pieces in progress above...more will happen on the black chalkboard paint, but the drawing in the white ink is what the pieces are about....in a way I can't describe in words.

A Continuation

Pattern Play no.4 is shown here, one of latest listings in my etsy.com shop.  It's hard to read the feedback on these new works and whether people are responding to them or not.  I'm going to try to juggle making these, along with more of the Season Cycles, so I can play more easily with collage and embroidery in the pieces.  It's always a balancing act, isn't it?   Would love to hear comments--positive or negative about any of the work shown on the blog!  Cheers!

Patterns of Nature, no.1

Patterns of Nature, no.1 is a sort of prototype for a new series in watercolor and ink.  I've taken the format of this one a step further and added a contrasting patterned roof and a little circle with an image in the center of the square...they'll resemble birdhouses!  I do love making pattern and this is a way to play endlessly with the combinations.  This piece is posted in my shop on Etsy.

Sewn Paper

Just finished up Season Cycles/Spring no. 13 and no. 14 and added to MissouriBendStudio on etsy.com.  In my last post I showed this piece (Spring no. 14) before any of the embroidery and beads were added.  Here it is in its finished state, many hours later!  It's fun to watch what happens as each stitch is added...a very slow and meditative way of drawing!