quick (not really) Sunday post

Yesterday's SAQA Parlour meeting in Mahopac, NY, organized by the charming and talented Debbie Bein, was a big hit! Sixty-three art quilters, some from as far as a 3-1/2 hour drive) came together to meet/greet/eat (of course), show-tell, crit, and we had a slide lecture by fabric collagist extraordinaire, Patricia Mattison. Amazing work. This is a quilt made by a group of people, each of whom got a piece of the picture and had to do her technique with their portion. Very cool!Some people brought 2-3 pieces for show & tell; I brought one quilt and 1 piece of fabric, both of which you have seen - so I won't bore you. However, Dierdre Abbotts, who was the official photographer, got this picture of me wearing my art jeans. Someone told me they looked better in real life than on the blog - LOL - I'm not so sure. Several people asked why I hadn't painted the back of the jeans: I didn't think I needed to draw attention to that area.

Sixty-some people had show and tell and it moved right along. I have to say it was a pleasure to sit through show & tell where people didn't say "and this is the grandmother's flower garden that I am making for my grand-neice" or "here is the sailboat quilt I made for my grandson."
Show & tell for art quilts -- yay!!

Last night I put this piece of cloth up on the wall. It has numerous layers.

While I was contemplating it, I began to think it was really two separate pieces and I should cut it into two pieces, stitch them, and mount them on canvas. They would be about 14"x17".

This afternoon I took a huge number of quilts to the studio where I photographed them in good light, camera on tripod. Some of them hadn't been shot in so long that I had actually used FILM and scanned them in. Not good enough for my revamping of the website! Spent 3 hours tonight uploading and resizing pictures but a few need to be reshot anyway. For now, I am done for the day.

working in a series, revisited

There was a question on the QuiltArt list today about how many pieces it takes to make something a series. I guess, by definition, a series is more than one - so the answer has to be two. Right? But it is less a case of how many than of how you define a series. Style? Subject? If subject, does the style have to be consistent? Size? Color? Mood? Technique? I don't think there is any right answer.. Are they a series? If so, what makes them a series? Or if not, why not?




This is a piece of fabric I have recently printed. Does it belong with the above pieces? Even though it is a smaller size (and not intended to be part of anything when I printed it), is it part of the (unintended) series that evolved over time?
And what about this piece, which was on my design wall recently? Style totally different: subject the same. Is it part of this series? Depends on your definition. I think not - at least not as it stands - or stood - because I have dismantled it and may or may not revisit it in the future.
And this one, which I made a decade ago and no longer own: is it, in retrospect, part of this series?

If you were reading this blog two years ago, you may have participated in the terrific discussion about working in a series. If you didn't read the posts/comments, go to working in a series and click on it to see them. Then come back here.
Take a look at your own inventory of work: what do you see as a series? Do some of those pieces fit into several different series, depending on what you bundle them with? This gets us into another topic, which is what constitutes a body of work? But maybe that's for another blog post. Meanwhile, let's talk!

blah blah blah

Maybe I should shorten this post's title to blah blah. Or even blah. Too tired to blog tonight - still recovering from a few 18 hour days.

Spent about 1-1/2 hrs late this afternon in the studio, ironing. Came across this one, which is actually from the fabric covering the print table.

That's enough for tonight. Hitting the sack.

mid-week

Hello again. Sorry I've been MIA but I've been working steadily in the studio since Sunday.
The holiday weekend was a blur and I did not have a chance to come near the computer except to answer a few misdirected e-mails I had never seen till now. I did get a lot of deconstructed screen printing done, however. Here are a few I am pleased with. Click on them to get a better look.


It's been a while since I have done this so steadily and I still have plenty left in some of the screens. I'm looking forward to going back and using them on some of the other fabrics languishing in my studio. Maybe tomorrow afternoon after I get the non-studio chores out of the way. I'm also rearranging my space: it looks less glamorous but is more user-friendly, so we'll see how it plays out. Glad to be back with you.

what day is it?

The week has gotten away from me. I HATE when that happens! I have been moving my fabrics over to the studio little by little, but I don't think there is any ore room. I shall have to cut them up and give them away -- if I can find time to do it. I have been preparing for a special project I'm working on this weekend and I'm just hoping it is not 90 degrees again tomorrow or for the next few days. It has cooled down tonight and I'm keeping fingers x'd it stays this way. I've also been frantically dyeing/printing scarves to meet the request from one of my California venues that I bring a bunch with me. Here are a few I did yesterday. The first one is crepe de chine, deconstructed and then screened with text and music. The next two are chiffon. This one is dyed and screenprinted. This one was dyed, discharged, and screen printed.And finally, I have not been happy with the scarf below and finally decided I would discharge through a screen and see what happened.

Here is the result. Amazing, right? Thiox paste through a screen and then steamed.Here's what the whole thing looks like. I hated it before; now I love it.

I'm working Sunday, Monday, Tuesday in the studio. I will probably not have time to blog till my company has left on Wednesday, but we'll see. If you have a long weekend, enjoy it!

I have to thank Hilary Metcalf for her comment on yesterday's post that led me to the images and an interview with the late artist, Rosalie Gascoigne, that resonated with me so much that I went in search of a longer interview. I feel cheated that I never knew about her or her work.

Also, I promised to give you a link to the place where I found the 6" squeegees. Earl Mich company - and when you do a search, you need to misspell the word as "squeegie." I have enough of them to keep me for a while, and yesterday a big box of syringes arrived: probably enough for the next ten years. I'll just add them to inventory with the 41 lbs of soy wax and 8 rolls of batting - LOL. I took two rolls to the studio and put one of them up on my design wall so now it is nice and clean.

Besides that, my other big accomplishment was making my jeans into wearable art, so to speak.
I had spilled paint in various places and they just looked grubby. Now you can't tell where the spots were and I can get away with them. Here is one of my favorite aphorisms -- it was probably in a fortune cookie. Did some deconstructed printing on a couple of scarves and played with neocolours on a screen. I normally use base extender when I print the crayons but today I grabbed a bottle of medium by mistake and couldn't get the damn stuff out of the screen because it is acrylic. I won't do THAT again. Finally, my in-process piece went back onto the (nice, clean) wall and is ready to be poked and prodded some more, when I have time. Meanwhile, it will stay there and vegetate.

My studio mate, Francesca, was in today and it was lovely to have company in the room for a change. Actually, when I look back at the day, I realize it was pretty productive. How nice!

Monday and Tuesday

I missed last month's meeting of Studio Six so today was a treat. Diane Savona just returned from visiting her son in Japan and came home loaded with old textiles she had found in flea markets and little shops. As she showed them, she told us what they were and gave hilarious renditions of her pantomimed bargaining in the stalls.

Here are two quilts from Susan Brauner's new garden series. (ok -- one and part of one).
And Hollie Heller brought a few of her new experiments with her. See these bamboo boxes she made from an old bamboo curtain?

She's holding up the prototype of what she can do with the bamboo constructions. Very nice!
Judy Langille brought two catalogs: the new Quilt National book, which I have to say is the best I have seen in many years. Lots of newcomers and while not everything in the exhibit was a gem (yes, there were a few head-scratchers) - it was refreshing to see the work of quite a few artists who were new faces instead of so many of the same old-same old.

The second catalog was from the opening at the McCormick Gallery in Chicago of the spectacular work from the estate of the architect, painter & printmaker, Harold Krisel. Go see the show if you are in Chicago - it is up till May 30. Otherwise, you can see his work on the gallery's website at the link above. He was Judy Langille's father and she clearly has inherited his talent.


I spent a couple of hours in the studio today, with most of the time devoted to mixing alginate paste in the blender and adding color. I mixed up 8 containers of thickened dye and made a couple of deconstructed screens, which I will use on Wednesday.
On a whim, I decided to screenprint with thickened dyes istead of paint and I used the eyes I had mixed for deconstructed printing -- so they were very dark. I brought this home and steamed it tonight and it didn't lose any color. At first I thought it should be a vertical piece,But then I turned it in the other direction and now I don't know, because I like it this way, too.

Just before I left for home, I spotted this rainbow on the floor.

I hope it is an omen.

spring cleaning continues

After 13 years, the amount of STUFF we (mostly I) have accumulated in this house is beyond belief. So, I'm clearing out, slowly but surely. Well, not so slowly - my husband accuses me of tossing everything - but it is a PROCESS.

Yesterday, we took the table that was in there over to the studio so I have an extra one for workshops, which I promise I will be scheduling - probably in September. Ditto for the drying rack. I re-stacked the empty cartons (which I use for shipping supplies to workshops) and now a person can actually walk into the closet.The roll of bubble wrap is left over from when my neighbor moved: she was going to throw it out!! The shibori stuff is neatly stacked in buckets. And I made some discoveries...

41 lbs, neatly bagged in 1 lb units untold yards of pfd 419w from Testfabrics, plus some black that may not discharge

and - oh, joy - 8 or 9 rolls of queen-size batting I didn't remember I had. It does pay to clean up once every dozen years or so.

I'm off to my crit group meeting and will catch up with you later.

Family celebration and an art link

Yesterday, my grandson David made his first communion and we were at the church, then back at the house for a wonderful party. Happily, the weather held so we could be outdoors. While I swore I would never get off-topic with grandkids and family event, I am allowing myself a bit of an indulgence and I hope you'll humor me.

Here is the 8 year old kid before everything started, practicing to be a cool teenager or a magazine model. LOL.

And here he is with his little brother Jake and their parents Jeremy and Anne Marie. They're laughing and look relaxed - must have forgotten they were being photographed.

Later...with Nanny & Grandpa

Uncle Mike and Aunt Hilary
and THE CAKE!! (to die-for - chocolate cake & cannoli filling )

and finally,
Uncle Tommy and Aunt Jessica

There was tons of ice cream because Jeremy's best friend owns the Ben & Jerry's in Ridgewood, NJ. and he brought over his ice cream cart, filled to the gills. We took home a pint each of NY Superfudge Chunk and Coffee. I hate to say it, but I think their coffee is better than Hagen Dazs.

ART - I promised an art link. Between the last paragraph and this one, I called my DIL Anne Marie to tell her what a fabulous party it was. She said she had meant to ask me whether I had heard of the artist Hanoch Piven (I hadn't). He is a mixed media artist who makes wonderful portraits using found objects (or collected items, or whatever he calls them). Long story short - He lives in Barcelona but was here for something else and one of the mothers tracked him down. He spent all day at David's school recently doing workshops with the kids and apparently it was a fabulous day! What fun! Cheered me right up to see the portrait of Bernie Madoff he has on his blog, which you can get to from his website. Go have a look - it'll make you smile.

space opened up in California workshop

I happened to spot this notice on The Wild Onion Studio blog and thought I'd pass the offer along here to help Susan out, since it is sad to have paid for a workshop you suddenly can't attend.

Rayna Gillman workshop available I was lucky enough to sign up for a Rayna Gillman workshop, happening this June 17 – June 21 at The Quilter’s Studio in Newbury Park, CA. On day 1 and 2, Rayna will be starting us out with monoprinting, stamping and screen printing. Her concentration will be on using found or textured items, working experimentally to create unique fabric.


On day 3, 4, and 5, there will be creative exercises and small studies done, to test out new ideas, continue working in a series, or work on a larger piece.

This is a wonderful opportunity to work with such a respected studio artist in a small class of like-minded artists. The venue is open and airy. And I can’t go! If you would like my spot, please contact Eileen or Trudy at (805) 480-3550. Tell them Susan Italo sent you!

well...

Life interfered so I never got to Comcast this morning; it'll have to wait for a couple of days. Meantime, the culprit seems to be my blogspot url, so I tiny'd it and it seems to be working better...at least temporarily.

Spent today at the V.A. with Marty, filling out more forms and then went to visit Molly who still has shingles and will not be able to attend her great- grandson David's Communion tomorrow.

I did print for about 3 minutes tonight. Motivated by curiosity about Gerrie Congdon's experiment and all the comments on the Complex Cloth list about what to use for a squeegee with Thermofax screens, I did my own test. I took a Bondo and two new scraper/spreader thingies that I think are so great that I bought 25 of each size: a 4" and a 6"(Carload Charlie, my grandfather, would be proud of me).The bondo was the first print
and was slightly lighter than the other ones, but that is probably because the first pull is always different. . Here is the third one, done with the 6". Nice, huh? I just KNEW this would be a good tool. The 4" is good, too. I also like the tree, which I shot recently, I forget where. It is very late. I had better get to bed so I don't sleep through watching 40 kids take communion tomorrow afternoon. That would just not do.

I am SPAM!!

AFTER spending 12 hours (no exaggeration) on the phone with Verizon, nobody could figure out why I could receive but not send. Turns out that Verizon thinks I am spam and since they do not have a HUMAN in their spam dep't, they say there is nothing they can do. So I can do: I am picking up my modem from comcast tomorrow.
Good night

another challenge piece - or two??

These/this came in today from Jeanette Davis, who sent both the before and after of the piece she made for the fabric challenge from Grand Junction's class. According to Jeanette...

There was an orange-yellow schmear across part of the pink that I included as part of the challenge. I added strips of a small pink scrap I found for the columns, a piece of dark blue screenprinted fabric from the class, then added a piece of blue guatemalan fabric that had pink designs with faint orange elements. (challenge 1), then decided to stamp over the pink-(challenge 2).


Bottom line: she wasn't happy with the second piece, while I thought it picked up the African motif and toned down the pink nicely. Again - no two alike! Her choice of fabrics makes a great counterpoint to the other pieces and just shows again how exciting it is when people start with the same fabric and go in such diverse directions! What a great idea for an exhibit!

more on challenge - and an UPDATE

Lynn Mattingly just e-mailed me the piece in which she used my pink fabric.

(approx 16" by 17") the quilt is a finger labyrinth. You can trace your finger on the labyrinth, one path in, which you turn and follow out again. the path is the background, the "walls" are formed by the lighter fabrics. Your fabric forms two arches into other spaces (VERY subtle) which is what labyrinths do. They can balance your left and right brains, and take you into meditative space.

It is, indeed, pacific and meditative. Thanks, Lynn!

Spurred on by the success of the challenge in my class (see previous post), I got busy in my studio yesterday while I was sorting through the mountains of cloth. Pulled out a piece I hadn't seen in ages and threw it at the wall. Then began auditioning. You probably know by now that this is how I work. On the wall, arrange, re-arrange, substitute, change proportions, and then sometimes, remove from wall and forget about it. Three of these fabrics have already been on the wall in other pieces which never quite came together.

At any rate - to return to my original thought in the title of this post...looking at the first audition above, I realized I was working with only two colors (plus black, which doesn't count). "Hmmmm...," I thought, "what if I were to set myself a challenge to work with only two colors (plus black, if needed)? How crazy would I drive myself?" I think I'll explore the idea and find out. AND, to add to things, I have another piece of similar pink to the one I gave out and think I may (gulp) see if I can use it in a small piece. Am I biting off more than I can chew??

On another subject -- the other day I discovered the most elegant blog I have seen in a long time: Running With Scissors Studio. Running with Scissors Studio is a Canadian on-line shop (yes! Canadian readers- another beautiful source for fibre supplies and books) and this is their blog.

There are engaging interviews with Linda and Laura Kemshall, as well as with Maggie Grey -- and I spent more than a bit of time reading them. When I clicked over to their shop, it was nice to see that they carry my book, along with some other beautiful and intriguing books I might like to get my hands on (as IF I need more books). Anyway, check it out - the interviews are fun to read!

That's it for the moment. I have finally put the facing on my as-yet-unnamed blue and white (and black) whole cloth you all commented on recently. And I have another facing to do tonight while I contemplate what's on my wall. I brought it home because the rest of the week is fraught with appointments and I probably won't get to the studio for any length of time.

a couple of challenges

When I was teaching Jump-Starting the Art Quilt in Grand Junction last month (after 2 days of printing) one of our exercises was "working from the fabric." There are lots of ways to get inspired - and this is one of them: starting with a piece of fabric that has colors or design you want to use for a jumping-off place.

Nobody in the class could decide which of their fabrics to use as a starting point so I offered a piece of my own fabric, which was greeted enthusiastically. I tore it into pieces and distributed it, with the request that the class send me pictures of the pieces they had finished. I promised to post the results here. So far, I have four finished pieces and if/when the others come in, I'll post those, too. This is a smidgen of the fabric.

from Carole O'Brien
"No Birds Just Plaid". It's 17 1/2 " x 12". This was a fun challenge, and I really do like the fabric even though it's not a color I use very often.

From Terry Lee
I really enjoyed the fabric challenge. I didn’t really tweak the design much from what I started. I decided to try going through different color threads that were in my color palate. Then added some Angelina Fiber and beads to give the flower some pizzazz. Again, thanks for a great class.

From Beverly Hart

Can't wait to see what everyone else did.

from Cathy Stewart

I was stumped by what to do with the challenge fabric. Pink isn't a color I use at all. It's just not me. I thermofaxed in gray on it, I used the screen print fabric from class and added another piece of fabric which I painted and printed on. I also used the pink challenge fabric as applique motifs.


I find it very exciting to see how differently the pink (not my color either!!) fabric was used in all of these pieces. And since I have deconstructed another piece that is similar, I am going to challenge myself to use it. Thanks to all of you for meeting this challenge so beautifully and uniquely.

Saturday's output

Taking a break from filling trash bags with shredded checks and paid bills from 1994-9, I went back to the wall. I slashed this block (sorry for the fuzzy pic) a few times and sewed it back together.

Now it looks like this. Maybe someday all these sliced/diced blocks will go into a zinger of a baby quilt; I certainly don't consider them to be art.

Going to an art opening last night was therapeutic; one of the artists worked in glass mosaic and paint and when my friend Sujata (also an artist) asked her what made her pick glass, her answer was "I needed therapy, so I started breaking glass." It made us smile, but she might not have been joking. It was dark in the café where the exhibit was so I really couldn't get any pictures. The other artist was my friend Ritika, who paints on silk and really does beautiful work. We all seem to be running in place right now, but I expect we will get ourselves moving in due course.

Last night, after we got home, I was inspired to pick up this piece of paper I had waxed, dyed, and screened on about 3 years ago and mount it on a piece of some sort of fiber. We will see if it goes anywhere from here.
Right now, we are off to pick up my mother and go to my daughter's where we will be fed at a mother's day get-together with her in-laws. I think I will take my two quilts that need the facings hand-sewn down: my hands need to stay busy.

Hope all the mothers reading this have/had/will have a good day.

spring cleaning & playtime

I have a big green Rubbermaid bin in the basement which is full of scraps, blocks and UFOs from decades ago.

What propelled me down there this morning? Perhaps the spring cleaning bug (HUH? ME?), or the desire to keep one step ahead of the housekeeper (nah - she doesn't go into the storage area). Maybe I am just retreating to therapy sewing to counteract the stress vibes that are buzzing in the air these days. At any rate, while I was pawing through the fabrics in the recesses of my basement, I came across these two before & after blocks and smiled.

Then the light went on! This was a sample for a class I taught a number of years ago, called Reinventing the UFO
All levels
2 days Get those UFOS out of hiding and bring them to class. Half-finished tops, random blocks and things you’ll never finish as they are. You’ll spontaneously slice, dice, add strips, and completely transform those stalled projects into beautiful quilts you never imagined you could make. What do you have to lose?

The workshops were a big hit, but then my book came out and I've been teaching mostly surface design. However, this is such a fun class - and so appropriate for now, when we are tuned in to recycle-reuse more than ever that I've put it back into my class offering list. Now I have decided to do my own Reinventing project with the leftover blocks from the basement bin. Here are just a few that happen to work together.
There are lots of others that don't-- this is another "what was I thinking????" piece that is godawful. I need to take it apart NOW.


These last few weeks I seem to have have lost the ability to be playful; I've been too focused on making something "good" and as a result, the fun has gone away. So - fun, it is! I am not going to worry about serious art - I am going to reinvent these traditional blocks and see what happens! Here are a couple of blocks I did several years ago - I think I just sewed strips, cut them and resewed them randomly. Look at that energy!!

I had a bunch of them but have used them in other pieces. This one, Forever Plaid, 18"x18" has a stimulus price of only $300.
I used others in the piece I made for "Dwellings,"an invitational exhibit. I called it "I Walked my Feet off Looking for a Place to Live." It also incorporates fabric I printed with construction fence while I was on camera for Simply Quilts. Yes, it is for sale. 41"h x 35.5" and I have drastically reduced the price from $2500 to less than half of that. E-mail me if you are interested.


Hmm...this post has taken on a life of its own. I was going to cut and sew tonight and instead, I have blathered on. Perhaps I should start cutting and sewing in the morning.

more on Thursday's wall

Today was a studio day, through sun, terrible thunderstorms and sun again - just in time for me to leave for home, thank goodness.

Being away from the studio for a couple of days stalled my momentum (which didn't need a lot of help in that department) and I was throwing stuff at the wall. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I am working on a tree series in every permutation. I figure that some of it will go toward what Sandy Donnabed calls the crap quota.

I had put some discharged fabrics up on the wall and my friend and studio mom, Mona, who poked her head in for a minute, absolutely flipped. Please understand that she does not work with textiles and discharge was totally new to her -- and she thought these pieces comprised a body of work worthy of an exhibit. that's what happens when an artist coming from a different discipline looks with fresh eyes at our work. Here are just a couple of the pieces I had on the wall.



I have a long way to go before I decide about these pieces. In the meantime, early to bed (well, comparatively - it is closer to 11:pm than to 2:am. My housekeeper comes tomorrow and I need to be up and about before she gets here so I can neaten up. Know what I mean?

on the wall

If you live in Wisconsin...

jessica kleiman's latest tweet - and she is a foodie who knows whereof she speaks - so listen up!!

Anyone who lives in WI: Go to the Hartford Bistro. It's delicious French food and I fear it won't stay open!

what was I thinking? and more

In early April I gave a workshop for Sisters in Cloth at the Guilford Arts Center in CT. Among the pictures I took was this fabric printed by Diane Wright. I thought it was stunning and as you can see, it is layered - the leaves are Thermofaxed from a screen I brought with me for the class to use in case they didn't have Thermofaxes of their own. As I always do when I teach, I ask the class to send me pictures of anything they made with the fabrics they had printed. I LOVE to see what people do next with their raw materials. Periodically, I am rewarded and this is one of those times. Today's e-mail brought a picure of what Diane did with this fabric. Not only is it drop-dead gorgeous, but to fully appreciate it you must go to her blog and read the back story. It adds another layer to this piece of art.A few years ago Diane was in my Jump-Starting the Art Quilt class when I gave it for her guild and her work has just gotten better and better since then! (I'm not taking credit for her success - she just needed a jump-start and she was off and running). I'm teaching Jump-Starting as a 3 day class at Quilting By the Lake in Syracuse, NY in July and there are still some openings, so if you're even remotely thinking about it - don't wait.

Looking at this piece, which uses log-cabin-like construction and hand quilting, made me wonder what ever happened to a couple of tops I made eons ago and never finished. I opened the steamer trunk and lo and behold, there they were. Lest you forget that I began with humble origins...

WHAT WAS I THINKING? #1

It was probably 1976. My next door neighbor's mother had worked in a garment factory and Connie, seeing that I made quilts, offered me STACKS of these leftover polka-dot fabrics in red and blue. Being the bicentennial year, it seemed appropriate to use them. TA DA!!Don't you want a closer look at this wonderful piece of op art??

I was still cutting every piece out with scissors (there were no rotary cutters) and I was hand-piecing, although I did put the poly/cotton border on by machine.
Oy! So what do I do with this thing? All that hand work - not sure if I can bear to slash and redo it.

WHAT WAS I THINKING? #2
This was later - probably early 80's because by this time I was piecing by machine. Mauve and brown. Good grief - a wonderful combination but so dated! I actually like it but not enough to finish it. This one I could probably cut up and redo without much pain,but is it worth it? I am blocked these days and need some therapy sewing - but not sure this is it.

Just look at all those ditsy prints. Oh, dear. What next?

I had to stay home today to wait for Comcast to show up and fix the tv so I puttered around, cleaning my sewing room (what else is new?) and actully had some stuff on the wall before I got distracted by these "vintage" beauties. Back to the wall and we'll see what transpires.

art redux

Yesterday's art exhibit in the Valley was split into two locations: the second was a gallery and the back lot behind it, several blocks away. We walked through the neighborhood and along the way, there was art in some unexpected places. You had to be looking for it.

This assemblage was on the door of a rather run-down building. You can see the graffiti - typical of the neighborhood. You really need to click on the picture to see it well.

Marty and I had a discussion of whether graffiti is art or not and decided that lots of it is, except when it is defacing or covering up other art that is there. I didn't take a picture of a wonderful mural that had been spoiled by some spray painted graffiti. Boo, hiss. Here is another door with art attached: I forget the title -- something about a witch.

When we passed this window, I thought at first it was art but then decided it was not meant to be part of the exhibit; it is authentic street art, which I frankly preferred to the assemblages.
The gallery had more of the cut tyvek pieces and this piece of art which was actually making a social statement - but you had to read the notebook that was part of the installation to understand what it was about. Too long to go into. Visually, however, this was another of my favorites.
As we walked back to our starting point to make one more walk through the first exhibit, we ran into a couple of guys from the neighborhood standing outside the gloomy-looking corner bar owned by one of them. The bar-owner was excited about the arts district, hoping, no doubt, that it would bring business into his watering hole and persuade new customers to eat his meatball sandwiches and fries along with their drinks. Uh - maybe next time. He also told us that this building on the diagonal corner of the next block, was going to be rehabbed and turned into a restaurant. (I had actually shot this picture before we knew this). I love the idea of all these dreams coming to fruition - although it will be a long process. By the time we were ready to leave the original exhibit, I had decided I was going to drive away with my own found object. Earlier, as we had explored the factory's compex's nooks and crannies, I spotted an object on one of the brick sills at the right rear of this picture.
I do not know what it is or what I am going to do with it; however, I had no choice but to liberate it from its lonely perch. For the moment, IT (because I haven't decided on a gender)
is in the garden, leaning up against my wall.
Frog prince? Hooker? Yard art? Sculpture? Or just another piece of junk? I don't know -- but he or she makes me smile. And smiles are always good!

Yes,there was time for art

This evening - an art opening of Uncharted Territory. -- a site specific exhibit.

Several years ago I was part of a preliminary planning committee for creating an arts district out of the "Valley" - the eastern part of West Orange and the Western part of Orange, which come together there. The area, which used to be highly industrial -- was home to the Berg, Stetson, and NoName Hat Factories and Monroe Calculator (among others). Long story short: Today, thanks to grants, funding, and hard work by the nonprofit HANDS, INC, Valley Arts is becoming a reality (s-l-o-w-l-y but surely). Tonight's opening in the back section of the old Monroe Calculator building, now Harvard Printing, was an invitational to about 20 artists to create site-specific installations. Food, wine, and plenty of people - although the space was so vast that it didn't look like there were as many as were actually there.

Enormous cut-paper (well, actually, Tyvek) pieces hung from the rafters. Debby Ugoretz, one of my studio mates, does this kind of work, but smaller. However, it is her livelihood, not necessarily anything she wants to do as Art.
Here is a closer look at one of the pieces. It was really hard to get a picture of these.

but I love this view of the same piece, taken without a flash.

My personal favorite was an installation called Us in a Box by the artist Evonne Davis. This was only one piece in a huge installation on the floor of railroad spikes arranged differently in boxes of different sizes, filled with sand. I couldn't get a picture of the whole installation unless I flew above the show and my other pix came out fuzzy (what else is new?)-- but the variation and harmony (and "repurposed" found objects, of course) spoke to me. . more art...

Ah - an interactive installation: a hair braiding lesson chages the look of the art.

to be continued in the morning.

end of a long week

We spent yesterday doing errands and and came home with a thick stack of forms that have to be filled out and returned to their respective locations. We have our weekend cut out for us!

We had to go to Newark to take care of some business so we parked at the museum and after all the business errands we treated ourselves to an hour or so of ART!!

There is a wonderful exhibit called: Unbounded:New Art for a New Century. My favorite section was called Mixed Messages -- if you read the description, you'll understand why. The exhibit included work by Martin Puryear (at left) a woodblock print by Willie Cole, and paintings by Wosene Worke Kosrof, whose work captivated me enough to buy a book. There was much more, too - including a couple of quilts; one of which I thought was a poor choice because it was a pretty ordinary string quilt made by someone who used to own a fabric store. The quilt included a lot of African fabrics - which does not make it art. But the decorative arts curator at the museum happens to like traditional quilts.

Last night I was up fairly late putting the facing onto this now-stitched piece which still does not have a name I am happy with -- although some of you have given me an interesting perspective of what you see. Would like to hear from the rest of you who were too reticent to say.I also started attaching a facing to another piece that has been sitting here for months, so I feel that I am making progress. Sleeves are another matter.

Speaking of quilts, I have to remember to send out X-Post Facto, which will be in an exhibit at the Columbus, OH Cultural Arts Center from May 18-June 20.


If you are in the area, go see the exhibit, which promises to be top-notch. I wish I could be there but I have another commitment.

In the meantime, it must have rained last night because my postage stamp garden in the front of the house is looking pretty lush this morning. Signs of hope.

After I post, it's back to filling out forms, going to the supermarket, and visiting my mother. Will there be time today for art?