Some times it takes a shove…

It’s been really hard getting back into a creative frame of mind since my knee replacement last fall – as evidenced by the lack of activity here. First I couldn’t hand sew because all the various muscle relaxers had my hands too shaky to do so, and by the time that effect was gone I just plain wasn’t feeling creative. Not a good thing for an artist. I have tried over and over again to make myself just spend time in the studio creating anything at all to get a jump start. but that negative voice that says “What’s the use?” always puts an end to it. I know that the working artists do just that, but I don’t know how they get to that mental place that allows them the impetus to do so.

But, Monday evening I got the shove that forced me into the studio to create something. An acquaintance from my quilt guild days called with the request for a landscape of Pike’s Peak that she could turn into a small quilt for her daughter – with a deadline of two days or less.  So, off into the the studio I went first thing on Tuesday morning, and by mid-afternoon the landscape was done. Nothing like a little push to make me work. I had a size requirement, very specific design request (Pike’s Peak, two trees on the left side), and an incredibly short deadline, all of which worked to my advantage.   The landscape (pictured below) will be picked up this afternoon, and I will spend this morning cutting mats for some small threadpainted miniature landscapes that I did ages ago, and for some landscapes that have been laid out but not sewn since Ocotber. My hope is that having the mats all cut and ready to go will provide the impetus to actually get them finished.  Some times it really does take a shove to get me moving again.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation

One year ago today we were into the 8th day of what would turn out to be 12 straight days without electricity due to a massive ice storm that slammed into Nebraska and Kansas.  For rural residents like us, when you lose electricity, you lose everything – including water. Fortunately, we were able to purchase a small generator on the second day of this outage, so we could have the refrigerator running, a small space heater, and then switch off between a lamp and a small tv or the computer. Those days were hard work for my husband, who hauled in 8 gallons of gas for the generator and 10-12 gallons of water every day so we could wash, flush the toilets, cook, and etc. For sure I am not made of pioneer stock, and my heart goes out to the people on the West Coast who are currently experiencng much the same situation right now. It’s not often that central Nebraska makes the national news, but we certainly did one year ago.

What the national news did not say was that this was actually our second power outage, as we had one that lasted 4 1/2 days leading up to and ending on Christmas morning. We didn’t have the generator at that time, so did our best to keep warm using the oven  and fireplace. We eventually burned every piece of burnable wood on the property, including a lovely section of birch that my father-in-law had brought back from Minnesota years ago. When I picked up that log to put on the fire, something in my head made me stop, look at the bark, and then find my exacto knife so I could peel off as much bark as possible to save for some future use. In the back of my head was a vague idea of using it for a writing surface, trying to make a basket, or something similar.  I just could not let that bark be burned to ash when it was so beautiful.

Eventually, the lights came back on and I found myself in the studio looking at those bark pieces and thinking of what I could use them for. The final result was a series of acrylic paintings of birch trees on birch bark; having done them I am ever so glad that I chose to save that bark. Talk about making the best of a bad situation!

 Moonrise Birch

Sunrise Birch

    

Sunset Birch

 Finally, my apologies for the inactivity on this blog the last month and a half.  Recovery from my knee surgery has been long and hard, and sitting at the computer is something that has been extremely difficult for me to do for any length of time.  I believe that I am finally on the downhill side of the recovery, and hope to have entries made more often. Thanks for sticking by me!

Starry, Starry Skies

A great site for inspiration is the Astronomy Picture of the Day Calendar (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html).  These awesome photos show what a great universe we are part of and how beautiful it can be.

My group of online quilting friends has a challenge due on Nov. 28th for a small (8″ x 10″) quilt that gets its inspiration from one of the photos from this site. My piece is based on an entry for May 2007 and is of the Bright Spiral Galaxy M81. This was a challenge to work on for me because of my limited mobility, so I could only use those items I could easily put my hands ons. I decided I’d use this as an experimental piece, and  so started out with a commercial cotton of the night sky, used Stewart Gill Alchemy paints (http://www.artistcellar.com) to paint on the spiral galaxy, and then beads to add in the stars. I’m not one who puts beads on very many things, and it is certainly a tedious job, but I do think it was the right embellishment for this litte quilt. I chose to fray the edges rather than put on a binding because I believe the universe has no end and didn’t want a binding to confine the galaxy. This was a really fun challenge, and I encourage you to look at the APOD site and see what inspiration you receive from it.

Ancient Mysteries, Eternal Truths

“Ancient Mysteries, Eternal Truths” is a whole cloth wall hanging that seems especially appropriate for posting on Thanksgiving Day. The piece is loaded with symbolism of the things for which all people give thanks: the sun represents happiness, the eagle is Freedom, rainclouds for good prospects, the circle with rotating arcs stands for the four stages of life, the bear claw is good omens, and medicine man’s eye (diamond shape) is for wisdom. The Universal Mother, basis of the quilt, has no eyes because Truth and Love are known with the heart and soul, not with one’s eyes.  This quilt has powerful meanings for me, and it is one that I cherish. She occasionally makes the trip to art shows, but mostly stays at home and is displayed above our fireplace.   I have plans to make a series of quilts based on Native American legends that feature women, but they are hard to come by.

 

So far there is one other piece in the series: “Aliquipiso, The Warrior Woman”. This piece is based on an Oneida legend about a young woman who gives her life to save her people from being slaughtered by their mortal enemies. After her death her hair turned into woodbine, which the legend says is still referred to as the blood of a brave woman. All of the stitching on both quilts is done free motion on my trusty Bernina, and I think that both quilts are very powerful. A third one (White Buffalo Woman, a Sioux legend) is on the design board, but no progress has been made on it for awhile. Hopefully this winter I’ll be able to work on it once I am more mobile.

The Fall of My Discontent

I normally really look forward to fall and the coming of winter: I like the cold days, the changing of the leaves, and am always anxious for the first snow to come. Seems that I am inspired to create more in fall and winter also – I suppose because life in general slows down until the Christmas rush. This fall, however, has me feeling discontented, discouraged, and depressed – those dangerous “D” words. I know that it is all related to my knee replacement and the lack of progress on my therapy. By now (3 weeks out) I had hoped to be moving better and to have graduated from a walker to crutches, but instead I am going backwards. My knee is freezing up and tomorrow the surgeon will decide if it’s time to do a manipulation (under anesthesia, praise the gods) to tear out the scar tissue or if he wants me to continue to try therapy. In my heart I know I need the former and I am scared spitless over the whole ordeal. There is the source of my three Ds.

Today’s photo is of the piece I created for the Graham Gallery’s (http://www.graham-gallery.com) ”PO Box 617″ art competition in August. Each artist had to use the frame of an old Post Office box as the basis for their artwork. When I first saw the boxes I was instantly transported back to my college days as we used those same type of boxes in the dorm for our mail. And so “Wednesday Morning at the Dorm: Letters from Home” was born. My freshman year was both exhilirating and scary, and I depended on letters from home to help maintain my sanity. The best letters came from my older sister, who was married and had an infant daughter – an entirely different world than the one I was living in. She would add in some quarters for laundry, occasionally a little gift or two, and always managed to make me smile. That same sister has been my savior these last two weeks, hauling me to therapy and taking care of me while my husband is settling his  father into his winter home in Texas. Were it not for her, both this fall and that fall 32 years ago would have been unbearable for me.

I swore early on that this blog would not be centered on personal things, and so I apologize for breaking my own rules. I did, however, feel that an explanation was needed for my long absence, especially as posts will continue to be infrequent until I can get this phyiscal situation resolved. I have neither the physical stamina nor the emotional fortitude to be creative, so bear with me and let’s hope I can get back on track soon. Life is too short to be lived going backwards.

Paverpol Play

One of the fun things about working in textiles is finding a new product to play with. I’d been hearing about Paverpol for quite a while, and when Dharma Trading Company (http://www.dharmatrading.com) started carrying it I finally decided it was time to give it a whirl. Paverpol (http://www.paverpol.com) is designed to take natural fibers and turn them into a rock-like substance, and allows you to make sculptures, bas relief, and so forth. It’s quite messy to work with, but with plenty of water close by and table surface protection, easy enough to deal with. The result was two sculptures for the Sisters in Stitches: Sibling Revelry show, “Joy” and “Mariah”:

Joy” (about 12″ high) is made from an old cotton t-shirt, torn into strips and draped onto the wire skeleton form; once dry it was sprayed with a grey suede paint.

“Mariah” (about 8″ high) is a layer of cotton over the form topped with a layer of hand painted silk, then touched up with metallic paints to give it some highlights.

Things will be a bit silent on the posts for a week or so as I am due to have knee replacement surgery tomorrow morning. You all have a good week, and we’ll catch up when I am recovered enough to spend time on the computer.

Back to Basics

Doing a show always has me trying out different forms of artwork, so as to “wow!” the people who think they know what to expect from me for my art. It’s good to stretch my limits and see what I can create, but it also always feel good to get back to my mainstay art form: the landscape. I have been creating hand pieced landscapes out of my own hand painted and hand dyed fabrics for about 7 years, and it is still a thrill to have one that catches the viewer in an “Oh, wow, would you look at that!” moment.

Painting the skies is undoubtedly the hardest part of the entire process. I can paint maybe 30 or 40 skies, and end up with five or six that are ones I want to work with in a landscape. I paint on wet fabric with very liquid paint, and the paint tends to have a mind of it’s own as it dries. Sometimes that’s great, other times…… Every now and then I get one of those “WOW!!” skies that I can’t wait to work with; many times the sky seems only okay until I actually get it laid out into a landscape.

The sky for “Sunset at Potter’s Marsh” was one of those skies. I came close to relegating it to the scrap bin until something made me try laying the fringed edge of a piece of brown fabric on it, and then it was “Eureka – this is it!” The landscape quickly came together after that, and it was one that drew many people in before it was purchased at a local art fair. 

Other skies are so magnificent that they practically stand alone. “Indigo Prairie” is very evocative of the plains as a storm is breaking up, and it is one of my favorite pieces.

Threadpainting

I am utterly fascinated by the small thread painted landscapes of British artist Alison Holt (http://www.alisonholt.com).  Ms. Holt takes thread painting to an entirely new level; her work has to be seen to be believed. While I have done thread painting before (as seen in “Solitude”, below), I had never before attempted to make a landscape entirely out of thread painting.

Over the last several days I decided it was time to try my hand at one or two of these little gems – and I can assure you that they are every bit as complicated as they seem! Below are several attempts that I made:

and one piece that is still in progress:

I have much work to do on learning how to control my machine and hoop, and in planning ahead so that I don’t end up with multiple layers of thread in one spot – even my trusty Bernina has a hard time sewing through layer after layer after layer of thread and fabric.

Fiberart for a Cause

My friend and inspirational muse, Virginia Spiegel, has just released an ebook “Art, Nature, Creativity, Life” as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Many of you may be familiar with Virginia’s Fiberart for a Cause postcard sales at the International Quilt Festivals in Houston and Chicago, and her annual online reverse auction of fiberarts for the same cause.  The ebook is a compilation of years’ worth of her e-newsletters, which I always found to be so inspiring and motivating. Please check out Virginia’s blog (http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/) for information on the ebook and instructions on how to go about ordering your copy.  To date Fiberart for a Cause has raised over $130,000 for the ACS, and Virginia has hopes of adding to that total with sales of the ebook.  Great book – Great cause!

Sister Dream

I firmly believe that sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. Call it the hand of fate, Lady Luck, the finger of God, or a slap from the Universe, but sometimes things just come together and become much greater than the sum of their parts. “Sister Dream”, another of my pieces from the Sisters in Stitches: Sibling Revelry show, is one of those pieces.

This is the very first piece of hand felted wool that I ever made. It was a project that my sister started me on when I was visiting her while she was living in Anchorage AK in the fall of 2004. I had no clue what I was doing, and was not trying for a specific design when I was laying out the wool fibers; I was just laying out colors that I thought looked good together. After what seemed like years of scrubbing with the hot soapy water, when I layed it out flat to dry I was not very impressed with result. A couple of days later, after it had dried (need I mention that it is a very thick piece of felt…), I pinned it up on her design wall for one last look before packing everything to head back to Nebraska. There in the upper right corner, to my surprise, were four heads with white hair.  Thought that was rather interesting, but it was time to pack up so I didn’t do anything with it at that time. And of course when I got back to Nebraska I had a three week backlog of mail and gallery work to catch up on, so this piece went into the box with several other attempts at felt making.

Fast forward to the spring of 2007 when I was working to get things together for the September show opening. I pulled out the box of wool roving, and there on top was this piece. Thinking now in the theme of sisters, it all fell together for me: I have three sisters, it had a dream like quality to it – and Sister Dream was born. The moon was originally a yellow disc, but was needle-felted into a moon because that seemed more appropriate. The horse was also a “happy accident”; I was concentrating hard on the left side trying to find a way to balance out the sisters, and the maroon area looked an awful lot like a horse to me. So I needle-felted on a mane, added some lighter colors around the edges to give it definition, added dresses on the sisters, and it was complete.  Fate – kismet – luck – call it what you will, but it was definitely on my side that day in Alaska!