Sunday, April 28, 2013

What's on YOUR wall? - WEEK 4

Zentangles!!!

Oh goodie! A new obsession!
They are called Zentangles and making them is both an art and a meditative practice. I spent a couple of days going crazy with them: making them, reading about them, studying them late into the night and waking up with them on my brain.
www.zentangle.com
The patterns are beautiful and I can see so many possibilities for free-motion quilting. I even have some flashes of insight for piecing based on some of the Zentangle shapes.







Friday, April 19, 2013

Loopy loops in the middle of the night

So, last night I kept seeing images flowing through my brain like a high tech slide show. Bursts of color. Yellow and black, thick outlines, flowing forms. I finally said to my brain, "OK! I'll get up!" and got my feet under me and walked them out to my studio/living room. I passed up the paper stage, just grabbed some muslin and a fresh Sharpie and began drawing... don't know what these are yet, or if they are cool or weird, but I am having a blast and will see where it goes!



What's on YOUR wall? -- WEEK 3

Wow... another week has blown by and knocked me off course!!! I've been taking care of "stuff" in real life, which is necessary, but I get cranky when there is too much of it!!! So now I'm back in the studio, playing and getting my soul filled up.

The red piece on the wall looked like this last week:


 Then it morphed into this:


AAAAAAGHHH!!!!  A red alert started flashing and a voice was saying "Danger, danger Will Robinson!!!" (For those of you not watching TV in the 60s, just ignore this.) I think the glare from all that red was causing a dangerous flux in the fabric of the time-space continuum... plus it lost the cool circles which were my favorite part...

So I set it aside for a bit. That's all you can do sometimes... and just wait for fresh intuition to tell you what to do. If you try to push it you can end up with a hot mess. Art cannot be forced, it must be allowed. I make the space for it and it does what it wants to.





Thursday, April 11, 2013

What's on YOUR wall? -- WEEK 2

I'm going to post a photo of my wall once a week, no matter what stage a project is in - as a motivational tool.  Could be humbling at times... This week I feel okay about it though. I've been studying art quilts that I am most attracted to and asking, "What IS it that I like?" What is MY concept of beauty, of art?  I am setting out to define it so that I can make it. 

So, for today, here is my wall:
- the red piece is in process
- the blue abstract on the table is ready for quilting! (Just need to pin baste batting and backing and add label)



Thursday, April 4, 2013

What's on YOUR wall?

Once a week or so (however it works best) I'm going to do something very brave. I've decided to take a photo of my studio wall... and post it, just as is. No editing, no waiting until it's further along, etc. I will show work in process, I will expose the underbelly of artistic endeavor. These photos show the raw beginnings of a piece, where I have just started to "play" with fabrics and colors. Usually I work from a sketch or pattern I've already committed to paper; but sometimes I like to start with the fabric, cutting and moving it around on the wall until the form begins to emerge, like this. Of course there are many more steps between here and the final piece, so it may end up looking totally different. As long as I am enjoying the process, it's a-okay.




Art does not just "happen," and it took me a long time to understand this. When a piece I saw in my head failed to appear in actuality, I was very critical of myself and would despair. Fortunately, I knew other artists and had watched them go through the struggle. They took classes, they read articles and books, they did practice pieces, they applied discipline to their craft. Why do we think art is different than any other endeavor? It must be developed and honed so that the work matches the vision. Ira Glass of "This American Life," describes it perfectly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbC4gqZGPSY

So... I'm thinking everybody has a "wall" (even if we can't see it) where they keep work-in-process.
What's on YOUR wall?


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Blue tortoise

I was playing with these pretty blocks late one night (see below) and before I knew it this wonderful blue sea tortoise began to emerge. 


Here are a couple of the blocks in progress... 
I love the sea green and aqua colors and wanted to get the impression of light from the sun filtering down into the water.


However... the longer I worked, the more my turtle seemed to pull back into his shell. Like a true turtle, he was s-l-o-w!!! Everything that could go wrong, did. I ran out of the shade of bright blue fabric I was using, my thread snarled and broke, and I stitched the wrong sides together.

After an entire afternoon and evening of trying to force this reluctant fellow to become the gorgeous creature I knew he could be, I realized it was not happening. So I let him swim away to hibernate a little longer. Perhaps this summer he will stick his head out and join me in the studio again...



Monday, April 1, 2013

April Fools Amphibians

This little fellow hopped into my sewing area today ... 


He told me he was lonesome, so I made a friend for him.


Okay, technically a turtle is not an amphibian, but I couldn't figure out how to fit "reptile" into the title. They both still need quilting, but I can't decide on thread color. Bright lime green thread or glossy black?  Hmmmm.....  guess I'll go "fool" around in the studio some more...
Happy April Fools everybody!!!