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....

Conversation 1

Starting something new with a friend. This is the result of week 1. I'm not sure if it will become something else or just be as it is.  We'll see.

In Memory

Happy All Saint's and All Soul's Day.

There's something particularly poignant to me about this season. I'm not big on the costumes and candy of Halloween, but I love the change of weather towards cold, the changing and falling of leaves, and how we remember our ancestors as Summer dies into Winter.

 Yesterday, November 1st, we celebrated Dia de Los Muertos in the sanctuary at Fleisher. The medieval saint statues were bedecked in marigolds and looked more lifelike than usual. The altar became a huge ofrenda.

 Aztec-style dancers did a ritual dance with drums beating and incense offered to the cardinal directions and Mother Earth in honor of our ancestors.

 It was breath-taking. In the face of death, we celebrate life vibrantly with color, flowers, dance, music, and food. It is life-affirming to be surrounded by community gathered in remembrance, in honor of ancestors.

This morning at the Philadelphia Cathedral, we also gathered to remember. The cloth I started two years ago was brought out and encircled those present while we prayed the Litany of the Dead. It is not long enough for our growing community, so I will be adding more before next year.

In speaking with my family about these two events, it made me think about the blur between culture and religion. Did we attend a religious event or a cultural event last night? this morning? Does it matter? In modern society we are sorely lacking in ritual and cultural traditions. They become overpowered by commercial purposes and consumerism. So striving to continue authentic ritual and cultural practices that connect us as community is worth it. Sharing with and supporting a cultural practice that does not reflect my personal ethnic background does not detract from my sense of self, but enriches my understanding of humanity. We honor our ancestors in different ways but at the root is that we are honoring our ancestors. If we seek the commonalities across cultures and religions we will recognize ourselves in each other. To me, this is the way toward peace.

May the souls of the departed rest in peace.

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.

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.

The 100 print challenge

Look at this:

 This is a vision of a well-oiled machine. My Saturday teen screenprinters at Fleisher are doing an AMAZING job trying to complete a 100 edition 2-page zine. Which means one sheet of paper will get printed on 8 times (4 images per sheet, 2 layers of color per image). Their zine contains images and views in and around the Fleisher campus, and we will distribute them to visitors on the last day of classes.

To print 100 sheets of paper is a true feat, but by the time they complete it they have honed their technique for how to get a clean pull. Sometimes screenprinting with my teens seems a bit pointless- why have multiples of anything? But this works. It has been refreshing to work with this group of teens. Most days I'm with the 5-11 set, and if I hear one more tattle tale I think I'll flip my lid. But this group has worked so well together and so maturely that I don't feel like I'm working. We're just in the studio... making our zine... yeah!

How to pass the time

I have a new sketchbook. On Sundays my daughter has a 3 hour language lesson, and I stick around to socialize with the other parents. On our way in today she told me I should write and draw pictures in it for a story. I asked her what it should be about, and she said, "The fox who stole winter". I asked her to elaborate a little, and she proceeded to spin a tale of a fox who worried about skinny rabbits, and who wanted it to always be warm and sunny so the rabbits would come out and fatten themselves up on the grass. So I sat and drew this for the first half hour:

I think it would make a good myth- how the fox got his white-tipped tail... trying to sweep up the snow.

The brain is an amazing thing. Where do such ideas come from? What made her think of foxes? How did this image spring from my imagination and pen? How lucky I am to share a creative spirit with my child!



Prayer Cloth

 Sunday was the culmination of 6 month's of work (and a final week of sleepless nights trying to get it done in time), as we presented and used the 100 foot-long prayer cloth during the Great Litany in honor of All Soul's Day. I was given the opportunity to speak the homily about why this piece was made and why I work as a fiber artist.

It was very fulfilling to see everyone holding onto the cloth during the prayer. This piece belongs to the whole congregation, not just me as maker. Creating work with and for community is different from working just on things for me- it has greater purpose. It's bigger than me.
The cloth and and accompanying exhibition will be up for the month of November at the Philadelphia cathedral, 38th and Chestnut. Open daily for noon eucharist, and on Sundays at 10 for services. Next Sunday will be a special evensong performance/service at 4 pm.

Home Stretch

 This beautiful bundle of fabric is 8 months of  work and has become 100 feet in length! It transitions in color from black to gray to white to pastel to bright colors thanks to all the donations of precious fabric given to me by members of the Philadelphia Cathedral. I debated about whether it was complete or not as I stitched the last piece of bright fabric on the end.

 I'm a sucker for hard work, so I decided to add embroidered text to it... After looking through the Book of Common Prayer, I settled on the 23rd Psalm. Since it's a piece representing grief and mourning, it seemed appropriate to include the words that have given so many people comfort in their loss. As I go though, certain phrases from hymns and psalms keep popping in my head, so I'm adding them in smaller text between stanzas, under the main text.

Yesterday I bought the binding tape I'll need for the edges. It's hard to believe this piece is almost finished! It seems massive! It will be revealed at the 10:00 Sunday service at the Philadelphia Cathedral on November 4th in honor of All Soul's Day. It will connect us as we name those we've lost. The Dean has suggested I speak about the work in lieu of a sermon that day too, so I hope you'll join us for the culmination of this project.

Stencils

 I have a new crop of silkscreen students at Fleisher- this time in the 14-18 age group. With only 8 kids, it's really a pleasure working with a more mature group. We kicked off the semester learning about the roots of silkscreen in paper stenciling.

 Asked to combine a word and image that related to nature, the students designed a freezer paper stencil, being careful to include enough "bridges" between shapes. Then they came up with a second simpler shape and cut it out of contact paper for an adhesive stencil on the screens.

 Last week we printed the large simple background shapes using the adhesive stencils on the screen. This week we stenciled our key image on top with sponges, which allowed for more specific color placement than regular screenprint would have allowed in one layer.

 Once our paper prints were complete we headed out to the "free wall" in the parking lot and stenciled our key images in a random arrangement. The wall has been totally blank for a few months, so it was pretty cool to activate the space with our nature-themed prints.

Having put our art out in the urban environment, next week we'll go looking for image from the urban environment to put back into our art.

70 feet

The wrapping cloth is coming along. It is currently around 70 feet in length, and I've been averaging 2-3 feet completed per working session. At this rate I'm not sure I'm going to get it as long as I'd hoped by November. Either way it will be an impressive length. I had quite a few fabric donations today: a tie from a spouse who passed away, a t-shirt from a priest's first parish, a "birthday shirt". As I near the end the colors are getting more vibrant. The piece is moving from death back into life.
I hope I can keep this going in the next few weeks. I start seeing students at my elementary school this coming week!

Performing Arts camp

For the past few summers I've helped run a 3-week camp in Northern Liberties. We fill in that gap between when all the other city camps end and school begins with a week of performing arts, a week of visual arts, and a week of field trips around the city. This past week was for performing arts, so we invited a local musician and a local African Dance teacher to work with the kids in music and dance. I ran an elective in giant puppet-making. The best part is that the 7-11 year olds get to CHOOSE what activity they do, which seriously cuts down on behavior issues since kids are doing what they WANT to do. I love it!



our 5-yearolds in their neighborhood jobs uniforms



knotting fabric strips for a puppet dress



 I worked with 2 groups of kids in the mornings to invent a "Giant of Northern Liberties" inspired by the city giants of Northern France and Belgium. (City giant sculptures on Hotels de Ville in Northern France really impressed me as a 16-year-old exchange student). First the kids brainstormed what characteristics our giant should have, ad they each sketched a giant idea in crayon. Then we collaborated on the design by havig each child offer something from their own sketch that they REALLY thought should be on the giant. From their list of features I sketched out a composite, and asked them which part they wanted to work on together in teams. Of course, everybody wanted to work on their own idea, which totally worked to get all our components made! We made armatures out of cardboard, then papier-mached a layer (only one layer though due to time constraints). Next the components were painted in tempera (which got all crackled?!? drying too fast? Damp papier mache? Really old tempera?). Finally we assembled the components by using zip ties, tape, etc. One giant had an ice cream cone head, rainbow wings, bird feet, and a fringed dress of fabric strips knotted to a ring of cardboard. The other giant had a "cheesesteak" body, liberty bell head (with laser eye and mohawk), lightening bolt legs, a trash arm, and a hammer and scythe. The bird-like one took 3 kids to maneuver whereas the cheesesteak giant required 5 kids! We practiced for a while, then performed by "Stalking the city" and "chasing the villagers" (all the kiddos who weren't involved in giant maneuvering). It's ridiculous how happy it makes me to see these kids marching their giant puppet around- everybody wanted to try it out. I don't know if I could do this with a big classroom of kids in quite the same way, so it's a real pleasure getting to work with just 10 on something like this.

Next week we continue with Visual Arts week, where the kids will choose between painting, sculpture, and public art. I'll only be spending the mornings at camp, though, because next week I have to go to school to SET UP MY ART ROOM!!! I'm so excited, and nervous, but mostly excited. Just one more week to go before I start school.....

Monster softie!

While other people were having parades and barbecues on the 4th, I stayed up in my cool, air-conditioned room with my daughter getting crafty. I'm teaching a softie-making class next week at Fleisher and wanted some new exemplars. It's very handy having a creative child when you're an art teacher. I borrow her imagination all the time (and test run projects with my 1-person focus group). It really helps me think out what I'll do in the classroom and understand what my kids might have trouble with. Unfortunately, she keeps growing and getting older, and she's already surpassed the age of most of the kids I teach regularly.

But anyway, we had a lot of fun transforming her monster sketch into a real softie. I marked out some pattern pieces based on her drawing. She picked out fabrics for all her parts and cut out the pieces. She then did all the handsewing on the felt eyes, ears, and mouth. (Whoot! my kid knows how to do running stitch, backstitch, and straight stitch and I didn't even have to remind her how!! When did that happen? Oh yeah- she's stitched for me before...) I pieced everything on the machine and handed off all those tentacles for her to flip and stuff. She did the final blindstitch on the base. I realized too late that we forgot the eyebrows in her drawing, and instead of the claw hands she had at the sides, we moved 2 tentacles up. The head is also not as balloon-like as her drawing... but all in all it's a very nice interpretation, and she's very happy with it. It's quite a character!

Wish me luck next week- in the past I've only done this class with about 8 kids, but I've got a whopping 14 signed up for it this summer! I almost don't want to bring this particular monster in to show them as EVERYONE will want a creature with 8 tentacles to sew in. YIKES! Luckily I will have an assistant who knows how to work a machine, and I think we'll pull it off. Who knows, maybe I'll even snag a teen intern for help. It will be a very exciting week to say the least!!

Thought Bubbles

 Classes have been over for over a week, but I forgot to get pictures of this final piece my kids made in the hectic rush of the last day. This was the best semester ever with my Silkscreen for 11-13 year olds! I had a group of 8 charming and mature young ladies who worked quietly and diligently the whole time. Our 2 main projects included a printed word bubble, which the students then collaged with magazine letters, and a 3-layer self-portrait stressing value changes in color.

 For the last class I got a 4x6 foot plywood board, which the students painted with stripes and spatters (they wanted it "rainbow", but I think we went more "circus"). For such a quiet group of kids, they must have incredible inner lives to produce this vibrant work of collaborative art. With the background painted we cut out our bubbles and self-portraits, and collaged them on top.

Their "thought bubbles" include phrases like:

"crazy me"

"this is just how I am"

"Express yourself"

"Am I the only one who doesn't know what's going on?"

and of course, "How can cats be so sute but so evil?"

 Students also had an opportunity to make their own portrait/bubble collage using other prints in their edition.

I'm really going to miss this bunch of girls. This summer the age group for silkscreen is shifting to 12-16 for camp, and in the Fall I'll have 14-18 year olds for the first time. It will be nice to get more experience with teens, but I really like working with the middle schoolers. Working in the silkscreen studio requires respect, cooperation, and responsibility, and I think my students really grow through the process.
The finished "Thought Bubbles" collaboration is going to be on display in an exhibition of children's artwork at the Philadelphia Foundation this Fall!