Winter

Winter wonderland....always better to be looking at the winter with a positive angle. The snow can be beautiful. it can also make our lives more tested. My next task is to clear off the back deck. Will I let myself get into some creative work today or will I wait for the first day of the year to begin a new?
Happy New Year all!

making connections

Finding my way through the blogger world is becoming an adventure, not just a bewilderment. Can I really send messages from email?
--
www.colormusing.com
colormusings.blogspot.com

RESURRECTION

As the year ends, memories come. This painting was created during the last days of Tumba's life. It began with great earnest...something to say. The woven piece, a relic, found its way into my hands and the painting proceeded from there. The spirit escaping came as a direct link with my acceptance and recovery from the loss of the faithful cat of many years. This is a personal process painting...one I put in a solo show in City Center when the work was still drying...with a price on it. Since bringing it home, I have become more aware that this piece is part of my journal for 2008, part of my story and perhaps is worth far more than the small price I had assigned it.

Always the question of what stays in the personal collection and what asks for acceptance into another's life....My son Jonah asked for a painting for his new apartment and is so amazed at the transformation of his living space with the added energy of the painting, with its pulsing breath still audible. He breathes with it and feels fuller.

Puzzle

Gail was over for the holidays and was so taken with my puzzle made 10 years ago by painting over a 100 piece child's cardboard puzzle....both sides. I had completed the puzzling myself...looked too hard for my sons and was pleased to see again the painting I had made there. Well, Gail was so excited...thought I really was on to something....maybe for a small audience, a small following...she and me. There was another puzzle in its box sitting on the table. I had not seen this painting for some years but she was so thrilled with the idea that she happily received this gift....I'm hoping she puts it together and I get an image of the completed painting. Gosh, it is such an honor to have someone really be excited over one's work...makes it all seem like it is worth it.

New oil pastels!

Still in one of the 12 days of pear tree...the boys have taken their energies off to town and I am on my own which means I do a bit of art and then do the computer thing to actually put a bit of art in the air...out to chance public...sharing rather than hording....a thought for this coming year to resolve. Wonderful to have fun loving playful children around again. Ezra just turned 32 and Jonah will soon be 30 and they are such boys when they get together at Mom's house. Fortunately for me, they are both easy with kitchen work and cooking so it all shared and do we ever eat! Oh my!

Gifted my art self with some new oil pastels....more creamy than i usually allow myself and what fun to use. i have some new blank canvases waiting also. After the holidaze of making gift items, it is so lovely to consider that i could be a painter....more a hibernation exploration. Comments from anyone accepted....

Solstice tree

Last year my Ukranian friend brought me a tree which she had rescued from power line scrub. This tree could hold a few white lights and some fruit and birds, icicles, and glass globes....it was such a comfort in the darkest days and longest nights. My photos became a game in photoshop and helped me adventure into learning. This year Sofia brought me another tree...this from her land when she went out "shopping". It sat on the porch for a couple of weeks....I wasn't quite ready to take in a tree and give it glory. Now i have and only the images to take and I will offer up the glory of this year's boughs in a coming entry.....Mostly I have been shoveling and making those last red scarves of the year 2008. Happy Soltice to you all!

Taking a refresh

Just a few moments here between ad making while the banana bread gives off its baking aroma and i sip the new kombucha I just harvested, I got to check out a couple of other blogs, but I didn't leave a message that I had been there either. Why are we so private and shy? By the way, I do have extra mothers to share if anyone else out there is interested in making kombucha this winter--longevity and vitality...isn't that what we need?

Tried posting an ad in pdf and then in Indesign but no luck....only jpg.....hmmmm.....does anyone know anything about this?

I'm part of a craft gallery in Montpelier...Artisans Hand. There are only 6 craftspeople running it now, 125 exhibitors. It is a big commitment to the craft world in Vermont and not getting any easier with the fading economy. My shift to clerk is coming upon me. artisanshand.com I used this image for the postcard for our 30 years celbration the first weekend of November. Yes, that is my silk in the background.

silk scarves and hanging

Because of a request for another hanging from a customer of several years ago, I have been taking photos. So many pieces to keep a business active. Suspense 32x35---to become a hanging, it will need the "right" wooden "rod" --of natural essence. The scarf is 13x60, jacquard striped, certain to warm and cheer many outfits of loden, olive, greys, and those more subtle combinations from the natural world. About $50.

WCAX piece on ornament

Been asked to scoop up the WCAX news interview filmed in my studio the beginning of Dec to add to this site. Well, if this doesn't quite work, go to WCAX.com and then search "Maggie Neale" +"Vt ornament as part of White House tree" and that puts me as #1, click to view. 15-20 seconds of ad first...be patient

http://www.wcax.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=3201980&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Vt.+Artists+Part+of+White+House+Christmas+Tree&d1=112866&redirUrl=www.wcax.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=4769704

ornament press-7 Days

Raining alot of this day. I heard it was snowing in Texas....some confusion. So Pamela Polson did a bit on the ornament. It is always interesting what words make it into an article and how many are discarded. I don't have the sense of being misrepresented, but rather short changed from the story. What do you think of the interviewing process and what is chosen to sum it up?

http://www.7dvt.com/2008maggie-neales-ornamental-art-goes-washington

Steaming my silks, a piece of silk dying that goes unhearlded...the the wash out....so many rinses til the water runs clear....maybe this would be harder to rationalize in the desert.....would love a comment of any sort...it is not too painful.

Janet's studio

Today I spent time with my art group at SPA, studioplacearts.com and in Janet's studio there janetvanfleet.com. Always amazing to see what janet has going on...a very fertile mind and capable artist...check her out. SPA has its Member's show up which is very tastefully handled...3 floors of intriguing art, but being one who makes art and has a house overflowing with it, I'm not a good customer and this year even less of an able customer. Alas....sometimes I wish I were a rich one able to support those great art efforts of others......what art can I share with you today?

Learning...still a challenge

As I work on this blog almost daily, I am stunned by what I don't know and can't figure out how to change. Painted more silks today, so freeing, wove chenille which is restrictive to impulse, yet meditative when the butterfly mind settles. Made ads...such a different form of moving shapes and making a composition. It still is a wonder to me that i can dance from one to another...and the cold winds keep me from the healthier air....and then I look at my paintings and I wish I could be painting, painting, painting in a large airy studio with warm breezes blowing. How can I make this a possibility? This painting is 30x30 called Relationships.

watercress

My watercress continues to fascinate me...stiff with frost, yet still so tasty. This was taken in November just before Thanksgiving. Now buried in snow, alas.

scarf box

Breaking a white surface...quick energy work

More ornament thoughts

Making the Vermont ornament for the White House tree seemed like a ball landing in my lap and I held it rather than throwing it on. It was not tossed to me as great honor, but more as a weigh which needed to get lifted from the list. Because of a busy schedule and a broken arm which unbalanced my whole self, I put the thought of the ornament request aside until more than the last minute and time constrains put the ornament at the top of the list...I moved aside my silk dyeing business and got out my paints and tissues, and polymer medium. I exercised my creativity on many scarf boxes which freed up my creative energies...then I tore out words and phrases from Vermont Life and Time including "Desperate times call for desperate measures." Raising the laughter breaks the tension of a one-off project, and gluing these words on the shiny silver surface of this large 7" ball initated the process of imbedding words colors torn form publications then tissues to blend and deepening the layerings. This was beginning to be fun. When I could see the word Vermont in curcive circumventing the orb as the Green Mountains, I was delighted. So many emotions can be called up through an art making project, but then to sign off on this art making it a property of the US Governemnt is a bit strange.....so now the Government now owns over 300 ornaments and the same from last year...Where will they all go when the tree is dismantled and the Bush's leave the White House? Always another question and art making goes on.

Here's the site for more ornament viewing
http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2008/ornamentsbystate/index.html

Chill in the air calls for warmth to be generated in the spirit. The red on the dye table calls me into that warmth....ah, the dance of dyeing.

Added these scarves...saffron stones...energies of this natural world to give us courage

Watercolor...each scarf is its own watercolor. This silk chiffon at 22x72 sells for $60 and can be worn large or wrapped into a much smaller scarf...warming, yet a light breeze. Perfect for traveling.

Silk chiffon scarf...Fire and Air...though a small scarf it has a big energy. 12x60 chiffon sells for $45. Each is unique and has its own flavor.

Stretched another silk. It is a different way of looking at silk and at painting.