Mothers to Our Daughters and other exhibits

It's been a long time since I showed any artwork at Philadelphia City Hall, but this month I have 2 pieces in "Message to Our Daughters", an exhibit of female artists with messages of inspiration accompanying the work. I'm most excited about the fact that my daughter, Zillah Elcin is exhibiting her artwork next to mine in the show! Above is "Mother and Child", which includes fabrics created by some of my Fleisher students, and which I started as a sample piece for my Stitch and Surface class. Below is my daughter's watercolor "Hotel Wakeup", a still life representing the tale of a bride who was left at the altar but who goes on her honeymoon anyway.

In January and February I exhibited at the University City Arts League exhibit "High in Fiber", showing 2 of my largest embroideries ever.

Next week I'll drop off work from the summer program at UPENN for a show running through April at the Westtown school.

I've been fortunate to have a great season of exhibits all over the Philadelphia region, and I hope things continue to flow creatively throughout this year. 

Thinking out loud

Only one more Daily Notes strip is needed to complete my year of stitching. I need to lay them all out and see what 2016 looked like. Each week I also sewed the scraps together into a larger quilt-top- very randomly. I've done some nui-shibori on it and overdyed it in indigo, and the piece is already being stitched up with imagery related tot he brain and perception. I'm hoping to finish and display it with the Skirkanich work I did over the summer at the exhibit we'll have at Westttown School in March.

That leaves me wondering about next year. I really enjoyed having an "assignment" for myself to work on each week. Although by the time August came it started dragging, I rallied through the Fall to finish strong. It's strange how over the summer, when I have all the time in the world I work less than during the school year when I'm busy beyond measure. 

I've been debating about a project for 2017. I don't want to continue the daily note strips. I want to start something different. The weekly format fit well with my schedule, but the size of the weekly piece must remain small enough to complete in a week.

 I liked the photo collages I made last spring, but the collaborative aspect collapsed. I think I could keep up with a photo a day or at least a few a week. These are 2 versions of a photo collage layering up, filtering, and thresholding images I took this past week during a trip to Quebec. The threshold effect loses some of the imagery, abstracting it a bit. I could print the images on fabric and then stitch over them. I could screenprint them...

 I saw an interesting exhibit at the Musee National des Beaux Arts du Quebec by Diane Morin. Rows of model trees were set up in front of strips of LED lights which projected the shadows of the trees onto a large screen. As the light program strobed sequences of light combinations across the rows, the shadows flickered and shifted, like watching stop motion videos of plants growing or like watching trees fly by your car window on a foggy day. It was entrancing.. she called it "Machines a Reduire le Temps" or Machines for compressing time.

Also at the MNBAQ I saw a retrospective of Pierre Bonnard, whose color sense I have always loved. There were several snapshots in a case, some of which were everyday scenes of people in his life, and others looked like visual sketches working out painting compositions. There were several self-portraits I'd never seen before. He seems to always put his face in shadows so you can't really see his eyes.

Maybe I should do some more self-portraits. It's a way of freezing time. We change so much as we get older. My inside vision of myself and my outward appearance don't really match anymore. My daily notes project started with thinking about each day as a pixel of the bigger picture of life. The final view of all the strips should reveal how my year really was. Perception as a concept is something I'd like to keep exploring...

Another idea I had was to do something called "The Sky is Falling". All the news every day seems to cause a doomsday feeling. I'm worried all the time. If so many terrible things can happen everywhere all the time, what is there to stop it from happening here? But maybe it's just the media playing Chicken Little with me. Art is cathartic. So a thought I had was to screen a picture like this of the sky and stitch my worries or concerns each week- images? words? fragments? a piece of sky falling. Maybe I could print  it large and cut off fragments...

I don't know yet... 

I will finish my last daily notes strip tomorrow.

I'll take photos this next week.

I'll think some more.

Conversation 2 & 3

 While I didn't get to stitching up a new strip yet this week, I did spend several hours this past weekend finishing the previous week's strip and painting up Conversation 2. On top of that I cut about 20 stencils to use in a teacher workshop with my colleagues. (I refuse to do"painting with a twist" where all the paintings end up all the same!)
I didn't have as many photos to work from this week, but apparently it's Spring and all the Azaleas are in bloom.

From our pair of bushes I collaged these two together:

All those azaleas will be fun to paint.

I went to the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym on Saturday and saw Christina Day's piece:

She was working with all recycled materials- lawn chairs in this instance. I believe she had a RAIR residency, which I would love to do someday....

Wyeth love

I took my (somewhat) annual pilgrimage down to the Brandywine River museum along with my aunt and uncle visiting from Virginia. My aunt shares my love of Wyeth, and we very happily wandered the museum enjoying N.C, Andrew, and Jamie. Today this picture struck me:

 It's a watercolor called "Black Water", and I love how the woman becomes part of the landscape, her inner self hidden from view- deep and unfathomable as the water behind her. Or perhaps that's just what I'd like to read into it.

 After wandering the museum we took the shuttle over to Andrew Wyeth's studio. They opened it up last year to tours, and this was really the pilgrimage part of the day. It's amazing to see the place where all the magic happens. You enter near the kitchen and see the public space, then move through a corridor to a library, then the former living room where Jamie Wyeth claimed studio space at some point and where Andrew's huge collection of lead soldiers is displayed. I was enchanted by the view out the window up the hill. The window panes making a perfect graph, revealing proportions of space and color. (Oh how I love a grid) Finally they reveal his studio space.

 A huge window looks out toward route 1 over fields. Light pours in and strikes bottles of dry pigment. An easel sits in the center of the room across from a cheval mirror. Photos and sketches are pinned around the room (no originals here sadly- the poor color photocopies of watercolors and sketches were a disappointment). The ceiling and walls are crumbled, spattered, chipped. (I couldn't resist a selfie in Wyeth's studio) They look just like the textures and colors of his paintings. I stroked the light switch on my way out, to touch something he'd touched. It's silly. My daughter teased me for "fan-girling". But despite the awkwardness of a tour guide telling stories,and roped cordons dictating one's movement, and the slight oddness of a curator's touch, I was enchanted to be in his space and feel his light and sense how he caught moments around him. I understand that.

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.

Creativity in the woods

I've been home for a week (somehow this week flew by in comparison with the week before). I thought I'd look back on the artwork made by myself and the other participants at the residency in Montana. It seems far away now, but I'm still feeling the restfulness that grew while I was there.

Tobacco Road Studios was a great location with 2 studio spaces in the garage, and a wrap-around porch where I made my workspace. Our hostess was working on an elemental series and cut a huge spiral in the lawn for "earth". The elements and trees around the property were inspiration for many of us.

 I noticed how most of the trees grew in clusters,like families. their root systems are shallow because the bedrock is so close to the surface, and the interlocking of the roots help the trees support each other. A great deal of underbrush has been cleared out of the surrounding woods over the past few years. I noted numerous stumps dotting the landscape and thought it would be interesting to take prints from them.

Woodblock printing with ink and a brayer was a total failure as it picked up only the sawmarks instead of the beautiful rings. So I switched to oil pastel rubbings to capture the texture and age of about 8 stumps. After heat setting the pastel I experimented with walnut ink on a few, but didn't like the loss of contrast.

 The 2 small stumps with walnut ink were appliqued to some red sunprinted cloth I'd made in grad school. I stitched a few rings and used feather stitch for roots reaching out and entangling. It needed a little something extra, so I added  a ring of red seeded "fire". Wildfire is a major concern in the Rockies in midsummer. The firetruck came out at one point because someone noted smoke from our (well-tended) campfire! But fire is needed at times to control undergrowth and bring new life to the forest floor as well. I finished this 12-inch piece up in a day and then moved on to a larger piece.

 I waited for a full sunny day and painted out a yard and a half of cotton with blue, ochre, and emerald setacolor. I laid plant material I'd found on the forest floor on top and let the fabric dry in the sun for a lovely organic sunprint. Five more stump prints were appliqued onto this 4x5 foot background, and then I spent 3 straight days doing concentric circles in running stitch until my fingertips ached.

 On our last night we had an open house despite rainy weather. All our artwork was hung and displayed around the porch. The event was publicized in the local paper and we had a number of adventurous souls venture out in the rain to visit. Here are some of the other artists' work:

 Michelle Menard of San Francisco delighted us with a puppet show she developed over the week. She created all the characters and scenery from painted cardboard and papier mache. Above is wise Ladybird in a cage and below is the blue bird of happiness nesting.

 In the evenings we gathered on the porch for some basketweaving lessons from our host's mother, and they were displayed along with the rest of our art:

 I'm quite proud of my tight little reed basket. I've always enjoyed weaving....

 One of the major events of the week was a pit firing for the ceramic pieces that had been made. It was a little scary to do after all the fire warnings, but I helped out by keeping the surrounding area quite damp with a hose. A 4 foot deep pit was dug out, the ceramic vessels were loaded in the bottom and the fire was fed over the course of 3 hours. Finally we let it burn down, and by morning it was cool enough to unload.

 The woodfire makes an amazing and unpredictable smoky effect on the clay body. Our hostess, Christina Barbachano's pieces are above.

 One of the local artists who joined us in the evenings was Nikki Meyer (also a reporter for the town paper!). She worked on a series of somewhat surreal photos of animal life, playing with real and unreal, pumping up the contrast and color to distort perception. I loved the image of the turkeys and buffalo below. Not all of the animals in this image are actually alive though....

 We had a few of Christina's high school art students up as well. A pair of them collaborated on the "Dr.Seuss Tree" below, transforming a former porch post into a fantastical tree with a strange creature in the branches. It was wonderful to watch the perseverance of the pair, as they struggled with weather and materials to get it complete.

It was wonderful to have so much time to just make art and be surrounded by other creative folk. As artists and mothers and working people, so much of our time and mental power gets distracted by everyday life and responsibilities. It was a joy to let all those distractions fall away.

 I've returned to my fair share of worries (perhaps to balance out that free time!) but  I'm trying to hold on to that rest and rejuvenation that soaked into my spirit while I was in that other world.

Perfect Summer Sunday

It was a rather spontaneous day.

We headed up to Doylestown to visit the Michener museum. There's a fabulous exhibit called "Infinite Mirror" of work by American artists in all our glorious colors and backgrounds. My favorite image was the one above by Leamon Green, Jr. There were a lot of great silkscreen and litho prints throughout.

Afterwards we stopped at the Mercer museum, which is full of pre-industrial era tools in a castle-like building. The main hall is overwhelming, and even has things attached to the ceiling! 

 We had an invitation up to a farm near Doylestown for a solstice party with one of my Fleisher colleagues. When searching for my friends' houses I love to play the game "Where does the artist live?" Perhaps the one with a tree branch upended and adorned with a lion's mask:

 The one with sculptures in the birdbaths:

 It was so nice to be out of the city for a spell. There were musicians and a contradanse caller. I forgot how much I loved dancing and swinging around with a partner. There was a picnic dinner served on china plates. I felt like Martha Stewart could have been lurking around the corner to catch some of the bucolic air.

 Welcome summer!! What else will you have in store?

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.

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.