Mama Bear

From dream...

 to sketch....

 to a lump of clay.....

 to full form:

Carving out texture is just as repetitive and meditative as stitching, and working with clay is just as tactile.

Animal sketches and some play

 My horse skull sculpture caused a sleepless night last week- I kept dreaming about how to fit all the planes together. The interaction of the jaw joint and eye sockets is very intricate. I'm hoping to find it all fired and ready for me to see tomorrow night.

 Another nightmarish night brought some bears to my door. I dreamed of moving into a new house near Fairmount park, and bears were crawling all around the wraparound porch. I've always wanted a porch- but could do without bears.

Last week there were 2 lifeless fish to sculpt in class, but I wasn't very interested.
Today was the first day I really had off and totally to myself since I don't know when- so I spent it in the studio. I kept hearing somebody clumping around on the top floor, and it got my imagination going. Since my mind wasn't on my embroidery hoop I pricked my fingers, and suddenly had an idea for a short stop motion animation. I played a bit and put this rough video sketch together. I think it could turn in to something more:

View from the Hoop

Literally.

A stitchy landscape. The brick wall is growing... so much faster than the white section since I'm only stitching through 2 layers now instead of 3, and the section is only 6 inches wide instead of 16.

Almost a haiku

 rainy studio Monday

 a little progress on the panorama

Tuesday art teacher hands

freshly fired

In the last post I shared my sketches from the first night of animal sculpture class. I thought I'd share the resulting sculpture as well. I hollowed him out last week and here he is already fired! I think I'll glaze him to soften up his surface. Tonight I sculpted a copy of a horse's skull.... so much harder!

beginnings and middles

 Last week was the beginning of the semester at Fleisher. My embroidery class sadly lacked enrollment and was cancelled, but that means I got to sign up to TAKE a class instead. I'm taking Darla Jackson's Animal Sculpture class (with my honey) and our first night was all about Beep the bunny. I did a bunch of sketches before working with the clay because I need to draw things to really see them. Beep kept moving around, too, making it hard to capture just one pose, but gesture drawings are a great way to capture a quick pose.

In the studio yesterday I began stitching the Port Richmond Panorama. There's going to be so much backstitch! The picture above is about 5 feet of thread stitched in, covering only about 1 x 4 inches of the drawing. It's tedious sometimes, but it was a nice break from the wall:

Forgive the giant hoop marks (Yay! Finally used my standing embroidery frame!!) The white section is now completely covered in sashiko patterned running stitches to give a brick-like appearance. The original background wall is mostly gray up to the apex of the triangle, and I did get some gray thread for it, but I think the whole piece will feel more lively if I switch to the rust color for bricks.

I didn't make it to the studio today, but I did finish observations for two of my student teachers. Finishing things feels wonderful. At least it should. My prayers for the Boston runners whose "Finish" was ruined this afternoon by cruel terror. Although it seems futile at times, I'm going to just keep trying to put out beauty in the world. We need it to balance out all the ugliness.

Unusual threads

It was First Friday! It was Spring! There was finally art worth seeing and weather worth going out in to see it! Unfortunately I forgot my camera. But there were two great sights in Fishtown on Friday night. Firstly, Holiday Campanella showed off her felted "Fleisher" at Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, capturing two of my loves (fibers and my favorite community art center). Secondly, Jason Hackenwerth had an installation/environment at 2424 York that was magical. With light plastic sheeting, clear packing tape, and fans, he created a series of tunnels, domes, and cave-like spaces to move through. The air pressure as the doors to the space opened and closed would dramatically alter the inflation and movement of the plastic structures. It reminded me of the rare occasions the gym teacher would let us play with the parachute and you could run underneath the puffed up cloth and be enclosed.

The next night brought a new adventure out to West Philly to Seeds Gallery to see a collaborative show including Genevieve Coutroubis, Johanna Marshall, and John Karpinski. Genevieve's photos of Greece were the playground for John and Johanna to explore. John's drawings captured the magic of childhood and Johanna's stitchery added nostalgia for the past. 

 I especially loved this scrollwork over the strap on the statue's shoulder:

Seeing these stitched photos makes me want to play some more with stitching on paper. Maybe if I printed out some of the panoramas I've been doing lately. Fabric is more fun to stitch on though. Maybe I could do some digital prints on cotton or silk..... Seeing art makes my mind spin.

I figured out that in my hour and a half in the studio today I was able to stitch about 60 stitches a row, each row was about 2 feet... there were 12 rows making my total for the day about 24 feet of thread and about 720 stitches. I'm hoping for more time tomorrow so I can get a section of my wall piece totally finished.

View from the studio

 On this last day of Spring Break, I spent a beautiful 3 hours in the studio. It was a balmy 63 degrees finally- no need to bundle up! My "wall" got another inch of running stitch. I also spent about an hour up on the 5th floor drawing the skyline in water soluble marker on a 6 inch by 6 foot length of white cotton. The 5th floor is really nice- no dividing walls, just the full expanse of wooden floor, 16 foot wooden beamed ceilings, and windows running the length of both sides of the building for an almost 360 degree view of Philadelphia. My panorama covers only the northeast to southeast view over Port Richmond and Fishtown, from Tacony bridge down to the Ben Franklin. Eventually I'll stitch it up for a nice line drawing. Maybe when I get sick of running stitch on the wall I can shift over and do some backstitch on the drawing.

*sigh* back to school in the morning. Just 10 more weeks till Summer vacation.

Happy Easter!

I was asked to bring dyed eggs to Easter dinner tomorrow (maybe because I'm supposedly the "creative one"). My original plan was just to marbleize some eggs. While we were doing that I wondered what the oily food coloring would do to paper, so I cut some egg shapes out of some printer paper and laid them over the bowl of oily dye (success!). Finally I thought the eggs could use some holders, so I cut up some paper towel rolls into 1 inch rings, wrapped them in green tissue paper and fringed the edges for grass. The paper egg shapes turned into flower petals on my basket tray with the eggs and holders in the center. Some jelly beans make it complete. This is ridiculously cute and crafty. Not my usual style. Pin away!

PS. We rigged up a little lottery hidden in the eggs. The lucky recipient of a hidden bird sticker will have to sing a song, the hidden frog sticker winner will have to do a silly dance, and the 2 winners of the hidden house stickers will have to do all the dinner cleanup!!

Good Friday

It was special. My friend Anne and my mother, who have both been battling cancer in the last year, participated as artists and both are returning to health. Several participants returned from last year. Some people from the crowd came up to me and said they still have my scrap of stitchery from last year's Stations of the Cross. Several teenagers participated. The community gathered for something positive despite ongoing blight and violence in the neighborhood.
This is the best kind of art I can make. Art for prayer. Art with meaning. Art for people to see and touch. Art that connects people in my community. Art that sparks conversations. As I spoke of Mary and the feeling of mothers- our desire to protect our children but our inability to do so at every moment in their lives- I saw heads nodding and calls of "Amen".

There's a small doubtful voice in my head that questions if it's a good idea to dwell so much on religion or spirituality in my work. Maybe it will turn people off? Maybe it will pigeonhole me? Maybe it will not be taken seriously? I can't listen to this voice. This work is meaningful and worthwhile to me. I cannot be apologetic for sharing  the spiritual side of my creative life. For thousands of years art was primarily an expression of spirituality. May it continue.