Cold... but warm

 

This winter is so long and dark. Despite my northern ancestry, my blood longs for the Mediterranean.

I had a beautiful morning tessellating patterns for block printing with my adult students at Fleisher. The snowy afternoon chased away my teens, and only 2 showed up for class. But that's special too- having a chance to connect one-one-one with young people who would normally speak barely 2 words to an adult. I wonder if my elementary students connect to their classroom teachers the same way as they do with me in art. Is it art? Is it me? I seem to get their smiles and hugs and best behavior more often than not. It's a privilege to share their joy and creativity and growth.
Yesterday morning after we said the pledge all together in the cafeteria at school, a first grader took my hand and held it as we walked up the stairs with her class. In the evening I went shopping at Old Navy and one of my (sometimes challenging) 3rd graders was there. He rushed over to hug me, and I got to tell his mother how wonderful he'd been doing in class that morning. She looked so happy and relieved- I don't think she hears good things very often from his classroom teacher. I have so many moments like these that fill me up.

I get impatient sometimes for my studio, my needle and thread and cloth and paint and dye. But what's the most effective means of making a better, more beautiful world ? Filling it with beautiful objects that may last beyond my lifetime fills me with some satisfaction of eternity.. or at least longevity. But being a positive element in children's and people's lives, connecting them with creativity, helping them be better communicators of ideas, encouraging them to be empathetic, attentive, and careful may have greater reach in the world.
But I still have to stitch and draw and paint and print.

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.

Snow days

 Winter break is just about over. It has been ever so wintry. Snow is beautiful... and annoying... but mostly beautiful.

 The snow hushes the city. Nobody wants to drive. All you hear is the crunch of your boots.

 Icicles grew to massive proportions the day after the storm. Its a marvel that there is melting even in below freezing temperatures.

 I've been trying to spend lots of time at the studio despite the cold. It only made it up to 41 degrees there today... here's my studio wall:

I've been moving between little geometric watercolors... vibrating circles... and quilting the blue monster (still). I wish I could just be there every day. Something different would develop. We underestimate what happens during sustained time.Time to think, absorb, reflect, encounter chance. When I only go in for a few hours and stitch- it's too direct.
But little children await me this week. 500 pairs of bright eyes and eager hands and imaginations. It's a different kind of development. The paint and cloth will wait for me.

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.

When in doubt... Stitch

With all the flurry of weather and other changes in life, today was the first time over to the studio in 3 weeks! Yikes! It was 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but with hat, scarf, studio sweater, fingerless gloves, and the space heater next to me I was able to work for about 3 hours. There is nothing like stitching to let the mind release worries. With my fingers busy my brain can still and I can be in the present moment. The rhythm of the needle and pop of thread through the taut fabric is music that calms and sustains me. The bleak midwinter is outside my window, but my center is warm and bright.

pattern play

Snow day today!! Which means I've had time for the great pleasures of reading, cooking, and photoshop playing. I was not about to slosh over to the studio, but decided to stay cosy at home and make some art on the computer instead. There were some photos I'd taken around South Philly that I wanted to mash up. Here's the Fleisher sunset with the sanctuary gates superimposed:

 And a little piece of Isaiah Zagar mural from 7th and Carpenter has made its way onto the ghost rooms from a building torn down at 7th and Bainbridge. I walked by yesterday and found a nearly complete new building has sprung up where this wall once was.

I REALLY want to print these out onto some silk and add some stitched texture. The beaded snow piece I started last month is complete and needs binding. Oh boy, there's a bunch of binding that needs doing!! Perhaps that will be my winter break activity...

In the meantime.....
Registration is open for Winter session at Fleisher and I need a few more student for Stitch and Surface!!! It's a 10 week course on Thursday evenings, and I promise a new sampler idea, some fabric bleaching experimentation, and a portrait project!
also:
Registration for Summer workshops at Peters Valley is now open as well! I'll be teaching a digital print (and embellishment) on fabric class at the beginning of July. Check it out!

Longwood visit

 We headed down to Brandywine area this weekend to visit Longwood Gardens, just in time for their Christmas extravaganza. I much prefer spending time there than shopping on this Black Friday weekend. My favorite decorations were the gourd birdfeeders on this fir tree above.

 My daughter laid claim to the camera while we strolled around the grounds and the conservatory. I cropped and enhanced them a little, but its interesting to see what captured her eye.

 I think these would be fun to experiment with by zooming in and printing them out on fabric.

Besides plant pictures she also took a ton of selfies and a bunch of her parents strolling off into the sunset together. We've had a lovely weekend. I wish we could always have this much time and fun together...

Kimmel

I'm thankful for continued opportunities to show my work. This past week we gathered for an artist talk at the Kimmel Center for an exhibition of collaborative works by Moore alumna.

 Michelle Wilson and I are showing our collaborative book, "Infinite Thread".It as displayed nicely in  a case, however the lighting there is rather poor and I wish our piece had been placed on the other side of the building with the piece below. Our book was installed next to two loud abstract paintings, which were just too brash in comparison. Our subtly crafted book would have fared better next to the wood and metal spears.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Collaborations at Fleisher

 These wonderful, goofy kids made this fabulous wheatpasted arrangement of prints on the free wall outside Fleisher Art Memorial today to culminate our semester together.

They started off as 3 inch square zentangle doodles which were scanned into photoshop and repeated to create rotational symmetry. They were printed out as photo positives and exposed onto screens. Most of the ones on the wall are just 1 color prints of their key images. In the studio, though, they printed another set of 2-3 color prints with shapes behind their key image like in the ones that have green triangles. I like to have some reason for the multiplicity of prints we generate in the silkscreen studio, so they often end up as collaborative installations of some sort or another.
This wall was recently tagged up by a local graffiti-ist. It's a "free wall" for our kids classes to experiment with public art, but this is the first time in a long while anyone outside our school has tagged it. The tag was not very aesthetic to say the least, and covered up a previous stencil project I did with my screen-printers. The wall wasn't looking great since a previous wheatpasting by the digital photo class had disintegrated and been tagged. So at least we covered up the eyesore of old wheatpaste with our tile-like prints. The front desk printed out a letter addressing the recent tagger and asked that we wheatpaste that too! It suggested that the tagger come take art classes with us to improve their aesthetics!!

I'm hoping the weather doesn't get too rainy so that our wheatpaste survives for a while. Now for a short hiatus from community art. Registration for Winter session opens on Monday the 18th. In Winter session I'm offering Color theory (free class!) on Tuesdays from 7-9:30, Stitch and surface on Thursdays from 6:30-9:30, Printing on fabric on Saturdays from 9-12, and my teen silkscreen class on Saturday from 1:30-3:30. Bring some life into the winter doldrums with an art class!

Changing seasons

 My prayer cloth is once again on the walls of the Philadelphia Cathedral. On the Feast of All Saints and all souls we unraveled it and wrapped it around the congregation during the Prayers of the People. I cried through the whole thing. It is a precious gift for an artist to make something that brings people together and that is used ceremoniously. Despite it's length it is still not really long enough- so all are invited to bring donations of fabric from those you've loved and lost to extend the piece. I lie that it is an organic thing with the potential to grow.

 I'd like to find more opportunities to make work lie this. Maybe other congregations or communities would like to collaborate like this. (And it would be nice to make some money from this too....).

 In the studio I'm bouncing between the big quilt piece and this small digitally printed cloth. I'm scheduled to teach a class on digital printing on fabric up at Peter's Valley next Summer (YAY!) and wanted to work up some pieces using the techniques. This is a photo on silk I did a few years ago and it's been hanging on my design wall for ages. Finally I decided to embellish the blue painted asphalt with some satin stitch and then bead the ice and snow with clear seed beads. I love the texture and sparkle. It's dancing between being very literally a piece of sidewalk and looking quite abstract.

It's heralding the winter. The studio is a cool 60 degrees. A studio mate has offered to design a "roof" for my studio to help keep it warmer over the winter. It was truly frigid last year, so I may have to go for it if I want to keep working in comfort.

I don't like the sudden dark of November. But all around me I keep hearing how the seeds lay in the dark earth so that they can grow and be fruitful in the spring. It's a time to incubate some ideas.