Bringing Back my Blog

 It's been a huge amount of time that I haven't written to my blog...obviously I either lost  interest or didn't have the time...probably a bit of both....posting work that I have created since the last post and I have more.  "Friends Forever" sold at my March 2018 solo show in Davis, Ca.

 This piece is titled, "Moving"...which is what I have been doing...mainly I moved and sold my home of 45 years, moved in with the man I was going with, we got engaged and I broke the engagement in May 2018....

 Since then I have purchased my own home in Citrus Heights, Ca and moved in late June and have been fixing it up since that period of time.

 "Seasons" is hanging in the foyer of my new home...along with many other pieces of work.  I am thinking of putting some of my inventory up for sale in the hear future as I need storage space and my work needs to have homes to bring joy to others besides me.

"The Canary" did sell at the March 2018 solo show...I love this one, fortunately my brother in law purchased this piece and I can see it whenever I visit.  Might just have to work up another piece using this image from the past.  Originally is a black/white photo, so the color just came naturally in titling it "The Canary".

What I have found out from what has happened to me over the last  year and a half...you can never plan what can come down the path of life...you just need to go with the flow, hang on and enjoy the ride.  It might get bumpy from time to time, but it always seems to straighten out in the end.

It's May already !!!!!!!

Yes,  it's May already and I feel like I'm still in January....each day rushes past and time is flying out the door.  The shoe project:  Inner Soul is the exhibit happening in July 2017 to raise money for Joshua's house with Loaves and Fishes here in Sacramento...it's going to be a place where homeless can stay and receive hospice care.  I purchased the shoes at a thrift store..black patent leather shoes for $5 and I purchased a $10 container of silver flat sided beads and glued the heck out of them.....Looking for a shoe box to decorate and include in the final give away.  They will be donated to this exhibit and auctioned off in July 2017.

Also finished "Mandala Series: Koi Fish"....30" diameter circle original design, fully stitched over entire surface...a real bugger to finish off...used foam core between the finished piece and a back piece and sewed a bias strip around the circle, hand sewn to the backing.  Not as clean as I like it, but it looks good from the front.  Started the third piece and should be complete by the next weekend.
Then I can start working on the pieces I had printed off on the large massive printer at Wholesale Giclee to see how that work as I want to do larger and larger pieces.

April's Finished Work

 "Up Rooted" was accepted into KVIE Art Auction for 2017...delivered it this week to the studios and on to the next project.  I think this one will generate some $$$$ for KVIE and that's the whole purpose.

Mandala Series: Emerald Birds....finished it this past week also.  Finished it off once and tore it all apart and did it again.  I placed a cut of foam core in between the front/back circles so it had some solid surface to hang against, otherwise the piece slumped from the weight of the fabric.  Took the entire piece apart and fused the front piece to the form core and the back to the board core, then sewed another home made bias tape to the front and hand sewed to the backing to finish it off for the second time.  Now it hangs much better, has a smooth surface instead of being bowed in the front....FINISHED.

I started sewing the purple/orange mandala yesterday and it's going fast...will sew on the purple background over the weekend and should finish early next week.  And then the third one next so I can get all three installed into the gallery early May.

Finished this 90" long scarf off the floor loom last week also...seems  like I finish several things at the same time, working on them together.  Warped another scarf using pink carpet cotton thread and turquoise warp for another scarf.  Finally getting the warping down so it's much easier and getting used to using the right threads for the warp.

Being Blown into April

 

Finished "Up Rooted" .... I'm entering into the KVIE Art Auction as a donation and I'm hoping it gets accepted...if not, it goes into the gallery...turned out great and I had fun stitching...see below:

 

 Close up of stitching on the surface design and filling in the areas with colors.....

Accentuated the green pine needles on the tree leaving some in the background to give it more of an effect of depth.

 Going to do more of these pieces....they weren't that difficult and the end product is pretty grand.

Had my hair colored again yesterday and it's so windy out today it all blew to the other side, which I like....actually took what I think is a good photo of  myself....I hate selfies, but this one turned out ok...of course my glasses aren't black rimmed, they are purple, but in the lighting, they changed color.

Found a local printer that prints on fabric in large pieces...they have a 60" wide printer and they were willing to purchase a roll of cotton fabric to print off larger pieces for me, at a cost of course...they got the sample section on a roll and they are going to print off a couple of pieces in black/white for me which is what I use to start my pieces of work.  This is so great as I won't have to tile together the larger pieces now and that's a biggie for me for sure.

Got all excited about entering wearable art (shoes) into Inner Soul...a fund raiser for Loaves and Fishes here in Sacramento...very good cause....embellish the shoes and donate them and they will be on sale late-June, early July to raise funds for this good cause....along with many other artists in the area....I went to a thrift store and they had loads of high heels...I got the highest I could fine...I'm sure these are four inch heels and they have plenty of surface to deal with....I'm thinking these are going to be my "political shoes"...left and right....get it!!!   Right being conservative, left being liberal...got to start collecting images and words to start the project....should be fun. 

Two New, Two in progress and more

 I decided I needed to start my piece of work for the KVIE auction...a donation to a great cause and the huge amount of free advertising that one gets if part of their festivities.  This is a photo I took while on vacation/hiking in Canada...a fir tree with exposed roots..you could actually crawl through the opening...I put the image into Photoshop and tweaked the color and printed it off in four sections onto fabric...pieced the four pieces together, ironed flat and then fused a piece of sheer organza over the top of the entire surface.  Now I intend to sew the heck out of the surface design and hope that it turns out well enough to get accepted into the KVIE auction.  Last year I sold my piece for $400 plus I purchased a piece myself for $400, so I actually gave $800 to a great KVIE cause.  Channel 6 is my number one go to place for great programing and the ARTS.

While roaming around JoAnn Fabrics yesterday, I came upon their fabric quarters and I had been thinking about putting together an abstract pieces using solids..and their quarters were 60% off so I bought a bunch...over 40..actually saved $80 total on my end bill...what would have cost me $160, cost me $80...great savings and I have just the amount I need for my project...no waste, which is my favorite thing when I work in fiber.

 I've  put together the eight squares I created with all of this blue/white Japanese fabric using the vivid colored faces from the fabric I've had for years....and now I'm cutting out the smaller ones with the idea of fusing them onto the surface for the final sew down when it gets under the sewing machine needle.

And last but not least, I created this circle about two months ago along with two others and I need to do the surface design sewing and finish them off...so I'm going to start with my favorite one...not sure how I'm going to finish off the back so I have a stretched piece when hung, but I'll figure it out as I go...first I need to sew over the entire surface to keep it together and give it more interest...I have a strong feeling this piece is going to be something special when it's complete and I'm anxious to finish it...it always makes my soul feel better when I can produce a good piece of art work. 

If I concentrate and stay on my week's schedule, I should be able to put a dent in my project list and get some finished pieces together. 

Can I complete one piece of work a week for the year?????

My latest finished piece "Migration" put together a couple of weeks ago, sewn yesterday and today I'm hand sewing the backing in place.  12" wide by 16" high stretched, wired on the back to hang against the wall.  Most likely I'll take down to the gallery next week and install.  I'm trying to do a new piece a week, which means I should have 52 pieces done by the end of the year, but I don't think I'll be able to keep up the pace as some work just takes longer.  And then were the heck am I going to store 52 more pieces of work, I'm maxed out as it is already.

I drove over to Blue Line Art Gallery in Roseville to see the last day of the Crocker-Kingsley Exhibit and was really very disappointed.  Both my daughter and I submitted work to the jury and didn't get in, which is okay, but then when I saw the work that was selected, I was stunned and amazed as some looked like first year art school work.  There were several pieces that were worthy of being in this exhibit....some that was just stupid and some that was so sloppy and crazy you have to wonder why it was called art.  There was only one juror and for a well known exhibit as Crocker-Kinglsey is known to be, I was surprised at that....and that's the reason the show was "the same"....everything was abstract in one way or another and the juror is an abstract artist...thus the show was as it was.  Something I really noticed was that in the prospectus there was no mention of multiple items that could be accepted and every artist in this exhibit had up to three pieces of work displayed, something that wasn't talked about when entering the exhibit.  Oh well, it is what it is...they had their exhibit and on to the next.  Only a few were sold...the pricing was very HIGH for what you got. 

Spontaneous New Project

 I was cleaning up some of my fabrics and came upon my collection of Asian fabrics that I have collected for years....and I mean  years.    One of my fabric shopping trips in Berkeley, CA., we visited a Japanese fabric shop and I purchased what was a fabric book of Japanese fabric samples.  Each page was a piece of cotton indigo blue/white fabric 18"long by 12"wide and probably near 100 pages marked with a Japanese marker in English and Japanese.  And over the years I have used a good amount of these pieces of fabric, storing those that I've never touched.

 At the same time I have been reading and looking at these fabrics thinking maybe I'd start a crazy quilt using Japanese fabrics...and then I remind myself that I really struggle cutting random sized pieces of fabric, placing them together and then embroidering their seams randomly over the fabrics.....and because the surface design on the fabric is so intense, all of that would be lost.  So I drew a 10" square and create my own design to cut/sew and using the color images in yardage that I found, developed these square with the idea of sewing them together into a nine patch or long eight patch (four on four). 

So I dove into the project and created each block one by one.   Now I need to sew the blocks together with the thought I'd then add smaller images randomly over the sew together surface and then in the border that is planned.  We will see what actually happens once I sew the blocks together.

 

And so here I go again with another project to add to the others I have going here and there and everywhere in my studio.  With the big question:  why do I continue to add new projects one after another?   It's not that I don't finish project, I do.  But my mind keeps telling me "you only have so much time left on this planet and you need to create as much work as you can between now and when the end happens to be"....it's like I can't get enough of everything...........and I really need to relax a bit.  Hard for me to do....even when I watch tv I am either reading while watching or knitting while watching or writing while watching.  Knowing that I'm doing this I am going to try to conscientiously try to RELAX!    I know it will be difficult and I'll fail from time to time, but I am going to give it a try.