What do you know... another snow day!

I shoveled... and I stitched on this little guy. It's a mini version of the big blue monster- I wanted to try stitching the tile pattern. Small makes sense. Not sure yet how to scale it up. Should I just keep the one motif large scale or make it smaller and repeat it?
I found a nice quote by Rumi:
"You dance inside my chest,
 where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art."

These are squares and loops but they are more to me. I need to write lesson plans and sleep, bu it's hard to put this down.

And more snow days...

I've been hibernating some more. In the studio it's been slow going on the blue monster, interspaced with more watercolor geometries. I also started binding the edges of my urban sampler that was finished a few months ago but never bound. It's too cold there to be terribly productive. We had another snow day today. Strange to feel weekendish on a Wednesday, but I slept in... had breakfast at lunchtime... shoveled out my car to be ready in the AM... and decided to stay home and paint instead of trying to go the 1 mile of icy road to the Papermill. That's just laziness really.

 I searched around for india ink to no avail... since moving into the studio last year there's a dearth of art supplies at home. But my trucky little Schminke watercolor set was handy for some sketchbook work. I was given this watercolor set by my former classmates from the lycee in France the year I spent abroad when I was 16. I think it might be the best present I've ever received. All those lovely young French people whose names and faces have faded from memory (Regis and Claire- where are you now?) knew even then that I was an artist.

 I have a few images pinned to my Patterns pinterest board that I've been meaning to sketch and paint. So I filled the spread of my sketchbook (oh thank you Michelle for the most beautiful sketchbook I could have ever asked for) by simplifying and combining some of the patterns. This looks like broken down tile, revealing plaster and grate..

It's so nice to paint. It's faster than stitching. But the repetitive focus of painting these circles and tiny diamonds and the patience required for watercolor mirror my embroidery so well. It's all layers and watching something unexpected happen, watching it grow under the brush.
Back to school tomorrow. I will have to wait till I'm very old to live the studio life I think. In the meantime, I'm thankful for unexpected snow days.

Noyes and Forsythe

So nice to escape the city for a day, and actually get out and do something during this vacation time (although the studio has seen a bit more of me than usual this week). We drove down to Absecon to visit the Noyes museum, which is this great little art museum that features New Jersey artists primarily. They have four main gallery spaces. One is featuring a solo exhibit of fable-inspired portraits by Victor Grasso- while well-painted, some were just annoyingly... well see for yourself. Another gallery had a member show, and a third had an exhibit of impressionistic pastels by John Pierce Barnes. In the hall was a great window installation by Karen Guancione, filled with suspended card catalog cards- all these once-useful indexes flown to the wind.

 A final gallery had an exhibit about Noise (noise- Noyes, get it?- yeah it's a little silly, but it was perfect because my daughter asked on the way down- will it be noisy there? Oh we love a little pun....) I'm not a huge fan of multi-media art exhibits because half the time the media devices aren't working, and they weren't. There were headphones connected to a typewriter and an old trestle sewing machine, but no sound came out, and an ipod was dangling from a phonograph-like sculpture, but no sound poured forth because the cord was disconnected. And were these sculptures meant to be interactive or not? No signage granted permission, but the works seemed intended to be interactive. I love the Noyes, but this exhibit seemed sadly neglected. Despite the media flaws, there was an INCREDIBLE piece by Eve Ingalls anchoring the show. From afar it appeared like a charcoal drawing:

but up close it revealed its incredible 3 dimensionality. Entitled "After Sandy", it embodied the crash and thrum of pounding waves and the crunch of sand covered asphalt, all while sitting quietly on the wall. Perhaps its success was that it did not set out to make sound or incorporate sound literally, unlike the rest of the works in the show. It was a great noise through visual expression  and interpretation. Visual artists can get in trouble when they try too hard to be something more than visual. Ingalls captured it just right. Check out more of her incredible work.

 Is it any surprise that my favorite works were fibers-related?

 Much to my surprise, the Forsythe national wildlife refuge was RIGHT NEXT to the Noyes (who needs gps?) and our adventure continued to the great outdoors. It seems more of a vehicle-friendly place than walker-friendly (ugh... NJ car culture), but we took a short hike down to gull tower pond and climbed the observation tower. I took some panoramas and sketched from the close-up views of the swans and egrets you could see with a telescope up top. The sun-spot above obliterates the Atlantic City skyline with its windmills. I love windmills. From the aerial view, the wildlife seemed so much more abundant than from our roadside hike vantage.

 Although, we were wonderfully startled by an egret who suddenly leapt from his hiding place about 10 feet away from us as we walked. I love the marsh grasses and their reflections. The broken stalks below remind me of a Harry Callahan photo. I wish I could stumble in and weave a living basket of them.

Winter color is subtle.Winter light is crisp. I'm more inspired by the beauty of nature than the man-made beauty in the museum. I can't help myself but to go and make art myself... but it is a poor reflection of the wonder of the world.

Sketches from Montana

There is no way I'm ready yet to distill my experiences of traveling cross-country on my way to Montana. But I've been away from home for a week now, and am becoming saturated with beauty and fresh air. I miss my family and environment back home, but I'm having a great time just making art and absorbing new inspiration out here. Here's a sneak peak at my sketches from the past few days:

 The retreat is on a property surrounded by fir trees and stumps leftover from clearing the overgrowth. Our host mentioned an idea to personify the trees, and suddenly all these stumps became symbols of people intertwined by root systems just as we are connected in social relationships.

 Today we drove out to Glacier National Park and I sketched the entire time- I love to do "snapshot" sketches when on road-trips to capture the fleeting landscape. The Rockies are immense and scary and breathtaking and awe-some in it's true sense. We kept saying "Wow!" which does not express the overwhelming awe of seeing the peaks rise straight up from the valleys, and waterfalls gushing down rock faces, and narrow roads that wind up and over along the cliffs with a mere stone wall separating you from a precipice.

When you see such incredible vistas you wonder why you waste life in a tiny row-home in a crowded, littered city neighborhood....
I will enjoy the present, the landscape, and the time to be with other creative people doing what I love.

competition and emulation

I had a good and unexpected conversation with a colleague this afternoon that made me think about work ethic and drive. We were talking about my alma mater, and I mentioned some individuals from my graduating class that I have felt in competition with ever since undergrad over a decade ago. At the time, my sense of competition was tinged with jealousy, almost a sibling-like rivalry for professor's attention, and later for career opportunities and recognition. But now I'm seeing this sense of competition as something incredibly healthy and vital for my artistic life. I have to keep working, teaching, exhibiting, BEING an artist, because these other people are DOING it, too. And I am. And it's what has led me to be who I am and doing what I'm doing.

In my first graduate education course at Tyler, my professor asked us to think and write about our former art teachers. Many people had positive memories, but my most memorable art teacher was one who frustrated me (while a great teacher, he'd always draw on my paper, which made me really mad- so I'd erase his drawing and do my own). As an art teacher now, I have a sense of pride and perhaps superiority because unlike him, I do not draw on my students' papers. It's a little silly, but it's something I hold myself to. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even bad experiences, frustration, rivalry can be as valuable as the caring, attention, and encouragement we receive from others. They can drive us to be better, push us to succeed, and prove ourselves. They keep us on the road to success.

New Space!!

 I'm so very happy to finally have a studio! I have enough moved in now to start some work. After hauling boxes up the 4 flights of stairs this morning I sat in my new chair and started an ori-nui shibori piece inspired by the landscape panorama in my previous post. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but just the fact that I sat and made something there felt wonderful!

 One reason I couldn't resist renting the space was because of the great light through the 2 windows, and the view that looked out over Port Richmond to New Jersey. I can see the el and the trains passing, the church near my house, and the Betsy Ross Bridge from my 4th floor studio. It's worth the stairs.

Sometimes the city landscape is too much, though, and I long for trees. After my studio time this morning we headed down to Wyeth country and visited the Brandywine River Museum. The river at sunset was gorgeous. I love driving down Route 1 through the hills. It seems I always come down here at Wintertime when the landscape around Chadds Ford most matches Andrew Wyeth's stark watercolors. I'm filled up with the beauty of his contrast and restrained palette. I think I'm still going to stick with my love for the panoramic.

Morris Arboretum: opening the senses

I had the luxury of a mid-week day off last week. I suppose I could have cleaned the house or finished some grading, but instead I decided to spend the day with my mother exploring a place neither of us had ever visited before. (the heart opens... how seldom do I spend time with my extended family anymore?)

 Morris Arboretum is on the far Northwestern edges of Philadelphia, a long drive out Germantown Avenue and past Chestnut Hill. The arboretum is run by the University of Pennsylvania, and it lies along the Wissahickon upstream from Fairmount Park. Near the visitor center is a fairly new treehouse installation. It extends the hilltop level out into the trees so suddenly you have the perspective of a bird or squirrel. A rope net invites children to climb like a squirrel, and two megaphones on pulleys can be brought to ear level to hear the sounds of the forest like an animal. (The body and the ears open.... to experience the environment in a totally new perspective.)

 We strolled along the paved paths, and I marvel at how many plant names my mother knows. We delighted in flowers still blooming at the end of September, bees and butterflies gathering the last bits of pollen and nectar. We stopped to stroke and smell fresh herbs- mint and rosemary. (The nose opens... appreciating the differences between plant varieties and how different forest air is from city air)

 A lawn opens up, sloping down hill. An arrangement of large steel sculptures stand at the top. Its negative spaces frame new views. (the eyes open... seeing different perspectives, noting contrasting colors and surfaces)

 Along an oak-lined lane the path becomes criss-crossed with painted lines radiating from one of the trees. An artist has illustrated how expansive the hidden parts of the tree are underground. The roots reach out far, far beyond the trunk and even farther than the canopy. (the mind opens.... what else is hidden from view?)

We ended up in the fernery greenhouse, almost passed by. It's an escape into a primordial tropical rainforest. The air was warm and moist, the sound of water dripping and trickling, and everywhere incredibly GREEN.

I love living in the city, but I think it dulls the senses. I need to get out into nature to enliven them again.

Goodbye Deborah

There are some people who pass through your life without leaving a trace, and then there are others who come and shift the entire grain of your being. For me, Deborah Warner was one of the latter. She was a fiber artist and professor at Moore College of Art with whom I had the great privilege to study, and she opened up the world of fiber arts to me. She had high expectations, but she was incredibly kind and gentle. She instilled in her students a strong work ethic and sense of craftsmanship. Even years after graduating from Moore, I attribute my drive to work and my desire to be a good artist and teacher to her lasting influence. The last time I saw her was in March at the FiberPhiladelphia opening at the Crane Building where she was showing new work, and I'm so thankful that I got to speak with her one last time and let her know what an inspiration she has been.
Thanks to Beth McTear at Squid Whale for finding this video of Deborah, in her own words:


It was an honor to have known her.

Looking for texture

I spent the morning with a friend in the conservatory at Longwood Gardens down in the Brandywine Valley (someday I wish I can live down there...). It's a hot and humid building to escape to on a cold day. It was bright and sunny out and the light throughout the greenhouse was gorgeous. Especially in the "silver garden" full of cacti and succulents. They have such interesting textures- it's always a favorite spot to photograph

 Lots of the ferns are in hanging baskets over the pathways around the conservatory. The root systems are as interesting as the foliage...

I've been thinking about pattern and texture a lot as I prep for the silkscreen on fabric class I'll be teaching in the winter. Maybe something here will inspire me...

random moments

I don't really know why things hit me as beautiful or interesting. Does it happen to everyone? Or is it just that I have a trained artist eye? Usually it's something about formal compositional qualities or because I see something abstract. So once in a while I have to stop in my tracks and take a photo- it drives my kid crazy and she tells me I'm weird. Having an artist for a mother is a great burden you know...


Anyone else see the tree? Maybe you had to be there...

 

One day the cloud banks made it look like we were headed into the mountains. Felt like up in New York

a walk down a different street brings different perspectives

and peeking through a fence reveals hidden views



don't forget to look down at your feet to find pattern on pattern



Planning another 10 weeks of Stitch and Surface!

My next session of Stitch and Surface starts next week, so I've spent the morning planning my syllabus and deciding on projects to do. It's a class that often has students come back for more, so I'm always looking for ways to keep it fresh. There's always some kind of sampler project, a surface design technique, and an extended image project. I aim for 3 total finished projects, but sometimes people end up only doing 2. Embroidery is an art not to be rushed.

We're going to start off talking about the communal qualities of the history of stitching and begin with 2 pieces to participate in group collaborations. I'm going to have everybody create a feather for Jude Hill's Magic Feather project. It's really lovely watching all the feathers float in around the world to Jude's call, and I think my students will have fun participating. Here's hoping for 15 more feathers for you Jude! Then I'll have everyone make a shisha patch for a collaborative fence tagging project I'm doing here in Philly with a friend. Since most people rarely show up with proper supplies the first night, this will  put something into their ready hands right away.

In honor of Fall, I thought we'd do a leaf rubbing Sampler piece. We can start with using dye pastels for the rubbing and then practice various stitches for texture and detail over it. 

 The Wind Challenge exhibition will be on display, and first up are artists Alana Bograd and Sarah Steinwachs, both working abstractly. Sarah's work is especially entrancing with many layers of cut paper patterning. So I think we'll visit the show and use her work as inspiration for an abstract layered pattern embroidery project. Before that, though we'll try out some rusting and bleaching on fabric to get a base layer of color and pattern on fabric for our surface design technique.

And finally, if we can squeeze it in, we'll satisfy my current obsession with mosaics and do a bead or button encrusted piece.
The fun part about teaching, of course, is trying out all the stuff you wish you had time for in the studio, but never try for fear of veering from the "Body of Work" you're committed to. *sigh*
I think it will be a fun semester! The class is full, but I'll be teaching a new one in the Winter and Spring sessions at Fleisher, so keep your eyes peeled.

Henry Bermudez pattern work

I have to design a one-day lesson plan for next week. I've been thinking about mark-making and pattern. Henry Bermudez is an amazing artist I've been thinking about using for talking about pattern with my new high school students. He's from Venezuela originally, but he now lives in Philadelphia. I'd like to introduce many contemporary artists to my students and use their work for inspiration with them. Here are some videos that talk about him and his work:

Happy Mail!

My copy of "Eco Colour" by India Flint arrived today!! I've been more and more interested in surface design and dyeing. I'd like to incorporate more of it in my classes, but am leery of bringing powder dyes into the shared studios. Just not the best or safest place for dyeing. So perhaps I'll find some new possibilities in this book. India Flint gets some great results- check out her website.

Alas, I'm super swamped with end-of-the semester papers to write, so I'm going to have to save "Eco-Colour" as a reward for my hard work in 3 weeks time. The blog may get a little slow... but I'll be back to full speed eventually.

research finds

I had the luck to get my mitts on this book at the library today. (Reference use only malheureusement!)It's a 2 volume collection of samplers and embroidered pictures describing the teachers behind the stitches. If anyone wants to make my year they could buy it for me! I'm writing a paper for my History of Art Education course on the embroidery of Quaker schools in the early 19th Century. There were 2 whole chapters on the subject in here. One was on Quaker embroideries in general and another was on the Westtown school specifically.
Now if I could only find time and energy to actually read all these resources I've collected...

Mapping ideas

Kensington el bridge at Lehigh, part of my daily route

Today I introduced our mapping project in Stitch and Surface. Mapping is one of my main themes, perhaps because I've traveled and lived in so many places, I'm always trying to orient myself and understand place in so many facets. I shared some of my own work, which I don't usually do, and saw that mostly I tend toward the literal side of maps.
But for sparking imagination I gave my students a list of questions and possibilities to consider. Perhaps others might like to take these under consideration:
Where are you from?
How many different places have you lived in, gone to school in, traveled to?
 Where are your ancestors from?
 Can you remember your neighbors and landmarks of the place you grew up?
Are you concerned with international politics?
 What if you were to map the journey your shirt took from being made to being worn?
What is your daily routine?
What was the most amazing trip you ever took?
What would a map of heaven look like?
 What would a map of your attic look like?

The list could go on......... why not add to it in my comments section?

New ideas

The beauty and horror of grad school is this constant stream of new ideas, thoughts, resources, demands coming at you on multiple channels and having to organize all that information somehow in this poor brain... Wow. If I'm incoherent is because I've got so many things floating around the gray matter, I don't know what should come out.

An assignment this week was to do a websearch on one of the contemporary artists in our textbook to see other works. I selected Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Le. In the textbook there's an image that combines a self-portrait in a crucifixion pose woven into a renaissance era Crucifixion painting. I was interested in the juxtaposition of past and present, photography and weaving, self and religion, culture and religion. Lots of juicy stuff there. So here's another of Dinh Q Le's woven photographs: It's from a series called From Vietnam to Hollywood. This one also has multiple lenses to view it from- contrast of history and media, war and family and culture, generational differences in perception.... I don't want to go too deep now, as I'm reserving that for the paper I have to write now.

Okay add on to that planning my stitch and surface syllabus for next week, some way-over-my-head educational psychology speak, and delving into the history of art ed. My plate is quite, quite full. And so is my brain.

What I want to be when I grow up

I have to write a short autobiography for my history of art ed class, so I went digging through my childhood scrapbook and found some interesting things. This picture was made when I was 6 years old and shows my first house on the left, and my sister's best friend's house on the right.
I also found a paper with my mother's handwriting that describes me for some kind of competition I was entering. Apparently in 1986 my stated career goals were to be an art teacher. I don't remember deciding that early on, but I think it's funny how sometimes the aspirations we have as children really do come true.

Lying Fallow

I feel like I'm slacking. I'm not doing as much as I feel like I should be doing, but there's also less to do right now. In between semesters. Teaching sessions almost complete. Residency finished. So I'm taking some time to do things like watch movies and read books (real books- not just textbooks!!!). I noticed that some of my favorite authors like Isabel Allende and Margaret Atwood have published some new novels while I've been in grad-school world. I've just finished reading "The Year of the Flood" by Atwood. It seems very timely. Reading it reminded me that I'm not slacking... I'm lying fallow for a bit, to rejuvenate my creative juices and absorb some rain. It's time for input of ideas instead of the constant output.

Here's a dramatic reading of a passage from the book I found:

RIP Louise Bourgeois

Some of my friends may remember I've said before that I'd like to be like Louis Bourgeois, making art well into my 90's. Well I was very sad to hear that she passed away today at the age of 98. Her work is inspiring, because she always found the medium to best express her intentions and did not shy away from the pain of being human. The video I found is long but shows the breadth of her oeuvre. Enjoy.

print/media influences?

If you've been reading for a while you may know how I like to use photographs of the city as inspiration for my embroideries, more recently zeroing in on walls and graffiti. Tomorrow I'll be presenting to the Philadelphia Handweaver's guild on how media has been an influence on embroidery in America since colonial times to the present. So for a more contemporary snapshot, I'm curious:

Are you or How are you influenced by images/text found in print media today?