Saying goodbye – and hello – to a home

Have you said good-bye to a home? It is like losing a close friend, causing you to want to touch it one last time, to trace favorite portions with your hand before walking away. Remember the feel of the front step. Remember the sound of the door opening. This week, as I am creating artwork about home and memories in my studio practice, I am also saying good bye – again – to a home.

I am not a housecleaning fan. I remember once reading a beautiful soulful essay which included words about the meditative power of cleaning baseboards. I thought, “really?” This weekend I cleaned baseboards, and it was, in fact, an act of reflection.

The house I lived in for six years, the house that was a landing place when life changed, is now a house I own and use for rental income. It’s about 900 square feet and not fancy at all. I loved being there. But I left intentionally and willingly when it was time for me to form a new household. It was my home. Now it’s not.

I cleaned baseboards in preparation for a new tenant to move in. This is now the second tenant, so I have experienced the transition of this home once before. It was left in good shape, so the prep work required has not been daunting. I have cleaned, patched walls and replaced carpet in one room thinking about new inhabitants and a new stage for this house.

Images of home and memories of home are so compelling! Home is where our memories begin and are formed. Home is a combination of a physical place and all that happens there. Home shapes us, in ways that may be nurturing or poisonous, or some of both. I am thinking of all these qualities of home as I continue in my current series.

I do not believe I could have created this work earlier in my life. There were too many layers still covered. Now, the work is a way to peel back the layers and dig into the rich soil of all that grows from such memories.

It is my way of saying “hello” to the concept of home.

Here’s a detail from one of the works in my current series, Home is What You Remember, “Something Real To Remember.”  The juxtaposition of the child drawing and faded homes in the background suggests the exploration of memory. More about this work on my website, HERE

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Hmmm… Let’s give this one a try

I’m a planner. It’s just how my brain works. I enjoy the process of thinking through a project, visualizing it, working it out in my sketchbook, then saying “go.”

But I’m learning the value of listening, responding, and just trying something out as part of the artmaking work.

This may be a lot of what I like about collage construction. I physically move things around, try different combinations, and test if what I thought would work does actually work.

The try-it-and-see approach is perfect for testing color. Color surprises are some of the best things that happen in the studio. This weekend I worked on a new set of rice paper abstract collages, intentionally doing all of the on-plate compositions in gold-and-olive neutrals.  The addictive hues created by mixing cadmium yellow with either burnt umber or black work in wonderful and surprising ways with other colors. I had thought this piece would want reds and oranges for the next collaged layer. (That’s how I sketched it.) But what a surprise this teal blue is! I would never have planned that.

Try-it-and-see can be an emotional test too. In my current series about remembering home, some of the stories I am working into compositions are gut-punch-real to me. My inner reaction to an image can be very strong. That happened as I positioned this giant tree into the work in progress of the collapsed house. That was the plan from the beginning. (That’s how I sketched it.)  I wanted the house to be collapsing and a large tree growing up out of its windows. But, as I positioned the tree in the picture, and I felt how powerful it was, and imagined how it must be making the house crack and splinter as it grows up out of its center, I felt it to my core. This became an affirmation. The imagined story has a lot of reality and truth in it.

As usual, what I discover in creating art has truths beyond the studio. Discoveries await. We find them — sometimes — with a plan and — sometimes — by taking chances.

The one artmaking tool I can’t live without

I think color is tricky. Working through the color issues on this quilt-in-progress, I reached (as usual) for my indispensable color wheel.

Some tools are just studio-must-haves. For me, it’s my color wheel. I take no credit at all for its design. The process of creating it was described and assigned to me in 2010 when I was taking an oil painting class at DeLand’s Museum of Art from artist Jennifer Houdeshell.

Building it was tedious. It was time consuming. It was humbling. It was like my mother making me eat peas. I knew it was good for me. I thought it would never be done. But, it’s the only way I learned about color and I return to it again and again.

Despite my wonderful teacher’s best efforts, I just did not take to oil painting. At. All. So I did all the classwork in acrylics. Your color wheel should be created from the kind of paint and the brand name that you use.

If you use a less detailed wheel, or if you use a purchased one and have never mixed your own, I cannot say enough about how much you will learn from this exercise. I use a limited palette of basic acrylic paints for my artmaking: cadmium yellow medium, two blues (cerulean and phthalo deep), two reds (alizarin crimson and cadmium red), burnt umber, raw sienna, black and white. And I mix everything from these. My color wheel provides a roadmap for 228 colors.

My color wheel is 16” diameter on a rigid canvas board. It consists of an inner circle and six concentric rings. I drew the rings with a pencil and compass.  It begins with a twelve-color sliced pie in the middle circle. Everything is built from those base colors.

In the 12-color middle: three primary colors (red-yellow-blue) plus three in-between secondary mixes of the primary and the one next to it.  For red and yellow, for example, in between there are three mixes of orange: mostly-red-with-some-yellow, an orange that’s half-red- half-yellow,  and mostly-yellow-with-some-red.

Concentric circle #1: The hue mixed with white, 3 tints per hue. So, 12 colors x 3 = 36 blocks to create.

Concentric circle #2: The hue mixed with black, 3 shades per hue. Again, 12 hues x 3 shades = 36 blocks.

Concentric circle #3: The hue mixed with its complement, 3 versions. Twelve hues x 3 mixes = 36 blocks.

Concentric circle #4: The hue mixed with its complement plus white, 3 versions. Twelve hues x 3 mixes = 36 blocks. (You will now be in the realm of irresistible colors!)

Concentric circle #5: The hue mixed with raw sienna, 3 mixes per hue. Twelve hues x 3 mixes = 36 blocks.

Concentric circle #6: The hue mixed with raw umber, 3 mixes per hue. Twelve hues x 3 mixes = 36 blocks.

I have especially loved discovering luscious world of greys: yellow-greys, blue-greys, violet greys. Seeing the color relationships is just invaluable.

I love mixing and discovering colors. My teacher – of course – was right. Just like Mom. My favorite vegetable now… peas!

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PS - The quilt in the picture is the one I wrote about in my last post: the collapsed house with the tree growing through. It's progressing. More next time.

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Out on a limb – the girl in the picture and ME

I feel like I am also out on a limb today, after my studio work for the afternoon. I’ve begun a project that’s already presenting me with both color challenges and emotional tone challenges.

My vision for the piece is a collapsed house – one that looks as if it has been actually pushed over by a force growing from inside. There will be a large tree growing out of a broken window — the tree as embodiment of that force. And, outside, where the tree protrudes beyond the house into a space, a young girl sits on a limb. She’s not falling off, but it’s certainly precarious. How did she get out there? How will she get down?

This is a lot to deal with. I want the viewer to feel a connection to the girl. I want to create wonder about the story of the collapsed house.

And the palette is tricky. I am using a digitally printed image of the house and it is dictating a strong presence of yellow-grey tones, not a regular color choice for me.

Earlier this week I created some fabric yardage with colors and textures I like. I’ve got the beginning of a composition cut out and mocked up on my assembly table. I have a sketch of the child that I like. And now I feel like I just need to go slow. Stitch the textures in the sections I’m sure about. Keep going back to the worktable to work out the parts I’m not sure about yet. Remember the story I want to suggest and the emotion I want this to convey.

I believe this will come together. But it’s not there yet. And, when a the piece has emotional content that’s important to me, the process of making feels a bit… precarious.

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THE UNEXPECTED WINDOW

This happens all the time in TV detective shows. Frustrated with the case, the detective throws some photos on the desk and then – amazingly! – says “Wait a minute. We’ve missed something.” Some little detail in the photo, previously overlooked, solves the mystery.

My e-mailed photo was almost like that. My sister had sent me a photo of a new painting in her home. I opened it, took a look, realized that the glare in the photo kept me from seeing much of the painting, then closed the photo.  Wait a minute. I missed something. I opened the photo back up and found something else in the photo that was much more interesting. The window.

The window in the room she had photographed has wonderful character. Wood trim and frame create interesting depth and shadows. The light through the panes turned the glass panes into abstract compositions. It’s just the kind of window image I was looking for to incorporate into a planned art quilt.

I have already asked her to shoot a few more images of the window and have enlarged and cropped them – ready for transfer onto fabric.

I am strongly drawn to window images. Incorporating a window into a picture plane automatically creates depth: theirs is something on the other side. And looking through a window invites participation of the viewer in the image. Windows often reflect; we see back an unexpected image. When I collage into a window pane a scene or pattern different from what was in the original photo, a new kind of reality is created.

My e-mail brought me both an unexpected image and an unexpected inspiration.

The photo above is a detail from a work in progress, “Look through the Windows,” part of my current series: Home is What You Remember. I have combined photo transfer windows with painted window shapes. 

Striking’ while the sun is hot… the unexpected… and some closeups

When the rain finally broke earlier this week, I knew it was time to spring into action. I had lots of yardage that needed painting, and we’d had nothing but rain.

I set up a 6-foot door on sawhorses right outside my studio door on a concrete area which I gave up trying to keep clean a long time ago. I can drip without fear here, and a nearby fence section provides a place for drying.

I generally start with plain unbleached muslin for my quilt backs and then create painted patterns compatible with the quilt’s front. I like to work wet and fast. First I used the garden hose in a fine spray to get my yardage pretty well damp. With a wet natural sponge and acrylic paints, I got down the background color, a deep violet blue.

I hung it on the fence to dry.

That ‘s when the first unexpected surprise occurred. As I lifted the muslin off my table, the vinyl cover over the surface had pools of water and paint in beautiful patterns. It was a now-or-never opportunity. I quickly went inside and grabbed a few yards of sheer polyester, brought it out and gently laid it down in those irregular pools. What a beautiful surface design I’d captured!

Next I needed some teal fabric, so I mixed the color and sponge painted about three yards of that, wet into wet. Again, when I lifted it up off the table, beautiful irregular pools were there. I picked up the sheer that had violet blue on it already, and pressed it into the table surface again. Aaaah!

After all this dried (in a wonderfully short time, thanks to the Florida sun) I painted abstract tree forms, again using the wet natural sponge, but this time with stencils, both the muslin and the sheer.

Result: I have some muslin for quilt backing plus some watercolor-like sheer polyester to incorporate into a quilt front. And a little more spatter and drip on the concrete.

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Abandoned… Rediscovered… Remembered…

Discovering this abandoned house in South Carolina was an art inspiration. I blogged about in January, writing that the experience of finding this spot was a gift discovered by taking the long way, the off-the-highway path driving home to Florida.

Since then the house stayed on my mind. A work-in-progress in the studio now is beginning to take the images and create a new reality. (Video below in this blog post.)

What was so compelling, standing there by the house, was looking through the door and the broken windows and seeing trees and vines growing up inside the house, filling it. In a strange way, although the growth filled the space, it emphasized the emptiness. Homes are expected to hold people and life, not overgrown vines.

What interested me was this feeling of unreality. Instead of depicting the house realistically as we discovered it, I wanted to translate it into a dream-like memory.

Photos of the paint-peeled door and the overgrown windows have been transferred onto muslin. (I use a gel medium transfer from a laser color printout, pieced together to fill the size I need. These are tedious, but I like the final effect.)

The photographic images are being placed in a childlike, two-dimensional house shape, along with other fabrics, colors and textures. I will be adding tree forms behind to recreate the sense of loneliness the place held for me.

As I work on all the pieces in my “Home is what you Remember” series, I am trying to listen. To the images. To the memories. To what they stir inside me.

                  What happens when the people leave the house?
                  Something else will grow there.

You can watch the process unfold in this video.

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Half awake… and what was revealed.

Half awake, half asleep, I was thinking of tangled tree limbs seen through broken windows. I knew they were waiting to be revealed.

And so in this morning’s quiet I began the process of removing and revealing. There are gentle sounds associated with this studio work. The spray of water from the hose onto outside concrete wetting the paper. A gentle breaking of the surface of the vinegar- soap solution with the dipping of my cloth. And the rhythmic rubbing. Rubbing. Peeling away the paper to reveal the image on the muslin below.

Discovering the images as they emerge is itself a new way of seeing. Before I transferred, the paper copy was a mirror image of what will finally be revealed. Rubbing away the paper film is a discovering of the shapes that interested me from the onset, but now reversed, patterned in a new way.

As I rubbed, discovered, revealed I remembered the experience of shooting the photographs. We were in rural South Carolina, and an abandoned, roofless, vine-filled house was waiting for me. The walk to the house was through a thick bed of pine needles. Wind whispered in the pine trees. The photos I recorded capture that feeling of stillness and loss.

Who lived there? How did the house become abandoned? How long has it been decomposing? Does anyone visit this place? What memories might it hold?

Once the images are assembled as part of a large quilted work, I want the composition to invite the viewer in by conjuring up questions. The questions will become another layer. Memory layer. Captured photo layer. Composed layer. Fabric layer. Dream layer. All held within the tangled tree limbs and broken windows.

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... but then I was wrong!

You have a great idea for your next artwork. Now what?

I was preparing a workshop for Arts Etc., the surface Design group in which I’m a member. It was my turn to teach this past month and this was to be my lesson.

And I felt good about my plans. I spend a lot of time on developing concepts for my work. I sketch. I try them out in Photoshop. I enlarge manually to be sure the vision works at full size. I’m competent at the math of proportions so I get the image to fit right. And I’ve developed a few personal tricks to help me “see” the concept as a composition and to make good cropping decisions.  All good.

Feeling well prepared to teach the lesson, I had – for a little while – gotten into the happy thought that I had pretty much conquered this topic, and that what I was going to teach was THE composing method textile artmakers would need most.

Then, the night before the workshop, I visited a thought-provoking exhibit of work by textile artist Lauren Austin, exhibiting at the Yvonne Scarlett Golden Center in Daytona Beach. What a wonderful body of work. The mages are still inside my head. Her works are lyrical, and spiritual, with a meaningful array of images that repeat throughout the body of work. And, it was obvious from absorbing these works how intuitive she is in her making. The compositions are strong and interesting. They seem to come from the images, not to dictate them.

Shaken to think in a new way (one of the great things that can happen when interacting with another artist’s work) I realized – of course – that there are different ways to get your idea down on the fabric. There are as many ways to handle the nuts and bolts of artmaking as there are artists and art ideas.

I did teach the next day. I do believe it was a good working class and offered some helpful ideas. But I shared with the group that my guideposts to traveling from idea to artwork are just my way. But not the only way.

And my way, I hope, will also grow and change.

More about Lauren Austin….. https://thatblackgirlart.com/

The artwork shown above is “Becoming One With the Night”
In the Journeys and Stories Gallery HERE

Once She Could… take a look and let the poem tell the story

This  textile collage was juried in and will be headed to Woodstock, Illinois to be part of the 31st Annual Women’s Works exhibition at Old Courthouse Center.  It’s a fine art exhibition of work in all mediums.

As I packed up the piece in its shipping box today, I spent some time looking at it more closely. There’s a lot going on in it, and I remembered both the memories and meanings I put into it and the technical process of making it.

I have created several works featuring a young girl depicted as a black silhouette. It evokes memories of a paper doll and, without specific features, has universal appeal. Here she’s writing at the blackboard. Writing, drawing… what? I feel her reaching on tiptoes to complete the image. (Having always been among the shortest in class, I relate to this.) Rather than place her in a physical, recognizable schoolroom I have suggested a blackboard, and created an otherwise dream-filled environment. There is soothing water with tree reflections. There are tangled roots. There are blossoms on branches, loosely connected to what she is drawing on the blackboard. There are blocks of non-representational color and texture. Whatever this environment is, it is complex. I want to draw the viewer in to taste some of the forces and feelings that are part of her world.

As I created the piece, words for a poem were in my mind. I did not write the whole poem till after the work was complete. I was an elementary aged student in years when girls were not taught or encouraged to think about their potential or their possibilities. This sense of entrapment is part of what I was feeling as I created her environment.

The collaged layers make this work almost rigid, although it is fabric bound and backed as an art quilt. I used gel medium photo transfers of original photos onto muslin for the water, the roots and parts of the branches with blossoms. Other areas use monotype printed textures, stencils, direct painting, and varied patterns of machine stitching. The backing is hand painted muslin in colors to match the work.

I love this little girl. I fin myself thinking about her and all she might be. Girls should not feel trapped, and – like imagined characters they draw – they should soar!

Look Deeply and Don't Be Afraid...

TBT...  I enjoyed rediscovering this image today. I created it in 2017. (This is a detail of a larger work, “Are You Really Up There Mr. Moon?”)

The process of creating the tree layers was, itself, an exercise in looking deeply and not being afraid. I remember that I had started with the deep blue painted background. I just loved the patterns I had built. But it did not do what I needed in the piece—I wanted to create a dream-like landscape. So I had to do the thing that I find scary. I had to mess with an image that I liked, not knowing if I would ruin what I loved and not knowing if it it would go where I wanted. So I just kept printing and collaging. As the work evolved, it did create exactly the effect I had hoped for.

The finished piece found a home with a collector — always the best possible outcome! And, I also submitted this image to the public art project in DeLand to be digitally printed on an large utility box. It now graces a corner under the trees. I can drive by and see my artwork out in the big wide world!

The process wasn’t easy. This piece took unexpected turns. It required me to get over some inhibitions. But, in artmaking -– as in pretty much any other endeavor— that’s what made it interesting.

Last chance – last dance - new creating – no mugwumps

The rhythm of artmaking and life as a human being feels just about right today. The day is cold and drizzly – about as much experience of winter as we get here in Central Florida. The newspaper is full of taking stock, putting aside and looking ahead. A local sports team is ready for last game – last flame – last chance – last dance. (Who new sportswriting could be so poetic?) Merriam-Webster announced its word of the year for 2017. (“Feminism.” But has that not been important for quite some time now?) And words the language analysts are eager to put aside. (“Fake News.” Amen to that one. And “drilling down.” Also Ok with letting that one go.) I’m a little disappointed to see that “gauche” and “mugwumps” are no longer useful and fashionable. I especially like mugwumps.

And in the studio… what I needed to happen over the holidays has happened. I put all my work aside for a bit. Then I completed some works that have early-2018 deadlines. My worktable is cleared for new creating. I have revisited my sketchbook, worked out ideas on paper and in Photoshop, and I am full of new plans for artwork that interests me. For me these dance steps of change are necessary and pleasing. OK 2018. I’m ready.

May what you need and what you hope for be yours as well this beginning of 2018. Happy New Year.

The Pleasure of Objects

Inspired by this photo from the Florida CraftArt Members’ Show, I’m just thinking about the simple pleasure of objects. What wonderful ceramic work in the foreground.  (by )Rebecca Zweibel)  and what intriguing shadows they cast.

The finished works make me walk through the imagined steps of the making — forming these shapes out of the smooth wet clay. (If you have ever worked in clay, you know its wet, earthy feel and scent.) The painterly application of colors and images. The hands-on work of firing and finishing. And these forms have a liveliness to them — animated, like the creatures depicted on the surface. And once these works were in your home, you could touch them and run your hand over the surface, tracing the incised lines.

The quilt I created is a still life — unusual subject matter for me. But, the mix of objects was also a chance to dig into the nature of the vessels depicted. The cobalt blue bottle has lived in my home for years. (It’s only a few feet away right now!) It is wonderfully reflective and richly colored. I had it on a table next to the smaller glass vessel, which is covered in marble-like forms, and a ceramic canister created by my daughter, Mary. It was such an amicable little grouping! As part of the composition I ended up doing some cutting and splicing, a way to give life to the scene, to accent its energy. And I hand painted the fabrics to capture the patterns found in the vessels themselves.

While the worldis filled with awe-inspiring vistas, I understand why artists continue to feel drawn to simple still life scenes. The objects are infused with the human touch of their maker. We can understand them. We can imagine how they feel. It seems to be the way of simple objects to speak to our souls.

Some Unexpected Magic

Some unexpected magic... Throughout the choosing and piecing together of this work, I was drawn to the colors. The over-printed stencils turned out to be a strong transformation, creating something different from what I had expected. Grouping the blue-hued squared together immediately suggested rain so I created the abstract rain shapes to fill those squares.  The stenciling of the rocks then became a way of creating a completely new environment. The underneath patterns and colors of the squares are there, but functioning now as part of an overall pattern. The rock shapes and shadows have become a way both to reveal and to disguise.  I thought of words from mythology and from Scripture, giving voice to the power of rain and the longing for rain. “Then the Rains watered the Earth” … a proclamation or the conclusion of a prophecy… an infusion of some magic to these strong shapes and colors.
      For more information, see the work in Layered nature Gallery, here:   goo.gl/bZb422

Sketching... where it begins

Where it begins… with the sketch. (This is not the very very beginning of a work. The ideas have taken shape in times of thinking, rememberingand – I believe – in dreams.) But getting images on paper, roughly composed, is the beginning of the actual making. Once I have this much on paper, I can begin to feel what palette I want, what papers and fabrics to gather or create. This is the scaffolding.

HAIKU FRIDAY...

HAIKU FRIDAY…. Take flight from fear. Happy weekend.

Imagining... Without A Net

 “Without a Net” I had a plan to climb out my bedroom window, down the rose trellis, onto the roof of the playhouse, and then a jump down to the ground. Silently, of course.  Sometimes I would dream these outings alone. I might plan to take a stuffed animal who possessed a brave heart. Sometimes the plans were concocted with friends. These required throwing pebbles onto a bedroom window, or making a secret whistling sound. Then off we’d go.  My childhood imaginings of adventure or escape were always set in nighttime.  What if I climbed out my window at midnight?  And then...

Hand-printed monotype images on rice paper and fabric • painted fabric • acrylic paints • muslin,  canvas, polyester felt • machine stitching • collage construction with acrylic medium.
For more information visit the girls journey gallery:  HERE  

FLYING INTO THE UNKNOWN

What would this feel like? This must be a dream. Or an imagining. Something is amiss. What does it mean when a young girl is flying through an unknown space—untethered, askew—a wingwalker? It could be an adventure. They sky is an inviting aqua. The clouds are liquid. But she seems very small and innocent up there. When I created this work, I was thinking about escape, and the dangers entailed in the process. Created in three panels, it reads like a story board. In the first panel, far below the girl and the plane, there lurks a giant sea creature. (It’s designed from images I researched of a prehistoric sea dweller.) The suggestion of windows creates a sense of looking inside a space. This is about inner experience. When works are story-telling images, it’s my hope that there’s an interaction between the experience of the viewer and what I’ve created in the work itself. I invite you to bring your own memories, fears and experiences and respond to this dream.

See the whole work in the Girl's Journey Gallery - HERE

Haiku Friday... Dreams Rearranged

Haiku Friday – A dream-like portal from my textile collage “Now Let the Night Be.” Do some exploring. Happy weekend.

Waking from a dream, remembering...

Have you ever awoken from a dream and felt that you could not quite shake the feeling of still being in it? I have found myself at times thinking back into the dream, trying to name the places and events it contained. My attempts at descriptive words never do justice. “Well, it was a forest, but not a forest really. It just felt like a forest.” Dreams are like that. In “Now Let the Night be” I have created a landscape that has that dream-like quality. It suggests a specific place, but it’s not really a specific place. The arch is a portal we can choose to enter. It is my hope that it beckons in a welcoming way.
(You can find out more about this work in the Layered Nature Gallery  HERE)