Collage and paint--some brightness in this Divided Night
Exploring what oil pastels can do that other media can't....experimenting with shapes and boundaries. Feeling sadness about what is happening in the world where people make boundaries and others crash them, where control is an issue and power is expressed by brutality and force, where people are killed shopping in a market for women's clothing --women and children killed--for what? Why does this seem so senseless to me? 
I have had the honor to meet Faiza through her wonderful paintings which she shared on flickr. 
One of the sketches I made while the others were walking on Sunday. A quick sketch, as Bruce came to check in on me. Good to make a white page in a small notebook bring home the memory--to come alive with the trees at the end of the neighboring field and the mountains beyond. These mountains could be in Canada, the land is so close to it, on the last fold of the map, as Bruce claims. It was enchanting to focus on the trees, to make them stand out from the whole view so I could begin to find the form and the colors...there was no green the right color. It took at least 6 colors blending. Such a looking experience. I forgot about the chill in the air, the the sun had gone behind the clouds, that my leg was in a giant stiff boot and I was balanced on a tiny folding chair....I was looking and trying to bring the look upon the page....I need to practice this again.
The team formed this morning to begin the undoing of the yurt and the journey to the land in Lowell was the reward. Jonah and friend Twig arrived full of coffee but very ready to gobble up the corn bread Bruce had made. We discussed time and how to make the most of it. I was thinking a nice quiet day at home was needed, but the adventure pulled me and I went along for the ride. The guys did a fantastic job getting the coverings off, the dome was considered and they were into it. Great success without too much strain so we congratulated ourselves and piled into the Rav4, taking back roads, enjoying the tamarack in full golden flares, feasting on sundrenched green fields and marveling at the mountain vistas now visable with leaf coverage shrunk. I sent the guys off to explore and I made a very slow tentative
"walk" to the field's edge...just beyond the tree row to sit in the sun, make a couple of drawings and marvel at the wonder of wind whispering grasses and the roll of the earth. Tired now, but so lucky to have had the outing.
Ah! A Relic of the past. This palette assemblage--fabrics, leather, wire, wood, and a fabulous figure purchased in Paris who decries his story at the thumbhole of the palette--resurfaced to haunt me tonight. Hundreds of wooden palettes were decked out as a Vermont Arts Council challenge a couple of years back. This piece never really got its due so tonight it has claimed my attention again. I find I am intrigued by the odd surface or shape or theme of a show; then I dive into creation and enjoy it, maybe broadening my capabilities, but doesn't it take me off my focused path of the work I need to do, like a body of paintings...into which these oddities do not fit. Always questions.
Today I was working on a fresh website, looking for images I couldn't find, finding others I didn't know what to do with.
Or is it rough rouge? Very red at this point and that will probably change when I enter this work the next time. I like the piece of heavy black screen lower right but it will have to find its way more into the whole. Does me good to inspect this in such a small version with big white around it on this screen which won't be that way when I push the button.
I did make it out to my studio today when the sun was shining. So cold in that cabin...I didn't think I could be there, but then I got working, mostly cleaning brushes and putting paints away....I lost track of the cold....brought some paints home and hope to paint some soon....
Hand painted chiffon cape finished last month...had just scheduled the fashion shoot of some of these big pieces when I broke my ankle...cancelled shoot, but at least got a couple of snaps on the back deck. I have no wall big enough in my house...and I love painting this big! Looks different when flowing on the form of a body.
I can' t seem to add images within the words or after them in this program. I like more creative licence!
Yep, art making after dinner with the big chunky crayons and computer paper Bruce brought home from the recycle shop in Barre...felt freeing and surprisingly fun! This was the third one...always feel like it takes several to find that free feeling. Now I get to watch "So You Think You Can Dance"...some of life's little pleasures.
Quiet on the home front. The carrot cake is baking. I found the most beautiful carrot in the fridge...a Cate Farm Carrot Cake was inspired from this large carrot and my want for something sweet and warm...fresh cake! I am delighted to be walking about the kitchen without a crutch and I can carry things! Jonah was over again bringing back the borrowed car. He's excited with the plan that he and friend Twig will be helping Bruce take the yurt down on Sunday and get the pieces up to Lowell. There is talk afloat that a team is forming for yurt building. The other excitement he has is the upcoming trip to Mexico on Halloween...a workers Union conference.
Life is full of adjustments. When I put my mother in a nursing home in April, it was decreed that only 5 pairs of shoes were allowed. Now my Mama had some fine shoes for her long narrow foot--11AAA--and it seemed such a shame to dispose of the extra shoes because I know she had struggled to find these special shoes. I took in a couple of extra pairs, but when I looked again---the number was 5. My shoe size is almost the same as hers--10.5 AA, but usually I get what is closest to fitting .....I took some of her shoes home to Vermont and have worn a couple of pairs. When I turned my ankle I was trying to walk in my Mama's shoes and look what that got me! I am adjusting to the change in footwear. I have cast off the cast and now I am booted. It is much wider than my foot and thus awkward, or am I even more awkward than before? I am adjusting to couch sitting and am happy with my hand woven blanket that I made for sale many years ago and no one bought, so it is now mine for using and so warm! I need to find warmth. I am not moving around/making things/dancing to warm myself. I am huddling under this blanket typing away trying to make connections and understanding with.....myself. I did make it upstairs and started some small sewing projects. I have quite a fabulous collection of fabrics dyed in excellent colors waiting for inspiration to unfold them. I began today, but it is slow going for me and I must adjust to my healing slowness, my considered and thoughtful forward movement because my right foot is encased in this large boot, unbending, not my mother's shoes, but something even stranger and that foot is precious. I want to return to the dance of one who can leap and dash and bound and keep tempo with that life I was living before the misstep. Yet I also am so thankful for the things I am adjusting too, the slowed up life, the lessons sinking in, and the help of those who come to sit at my side and bring me that cup of tea.
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One of the many sculptcycles made and displayed in Montpelier for the summer, into fall. I worked on this project and was pleased that this beauty sat in front of our gallery sponsored by Artisans Hand. It sold within the first 24 hours of installation. Yes, art still sells.
For Love of Yurts, building your own yurt-home for under $1000, book by Bruce Sargent is at the printers! www.forloveofyurts.blogspot.com. I took this photo while Bruce was positioning the plexi dome and considering how he would make a scaffolding to help get it lifted to center before it held the rafters. He was thinking hard and that serious face shows the concentration. This photo was blurry so I took it through some processes in photoshop and turned it into a painting! Acceptable now. This couch art has some merits.
So, a result from "playing". Amazing how a lovely photo of rocks from a ruins scene in Az, very dry and abandoned can become an underwater current flowing place ...so transformed. What an adventure! What away to lose oneself and forget about......yeah, the ankle is a bit better, too.
Perhaps I seem to be posting from all my extremes..... I do the promotional work for Artisans Hand Gallery and try to take very recognizable images of the crafts there...sometimes I can't help but get creative with the beautiful crafts.....just makes me feel better to be creative and had to end this "lazy" day with a bit of sparkle. Be well out there, all of you who come to visit and leave me a hallo every once in a while, okay?
Ah ha! Faced with contemplation time as I lay on the couch or wander a very small home space which includes this computer. Just a few days ago I was envisioning renting an old mill for artist studio space out in E Calais about 20 minutes away from my home here off RT 2. I saw myself painting silks there...large silk hangings with space to hang them for display...working with water as the sound of the flow over the dam entered all my pours. I felt myself flowing in the near future...if I could only get one more artist to rent one of the front rooms...I'd do it! Exciting to think of being in large spaces, the movement could get bigger, my soul expanding with the energy of bigger spaces...oh...oh! That was Thurs late afternoon after dropping off a foliage grouping of silk scarves to Blinking Light Gallery. Friday morning I was reminded of the pain in my ankle, the hot sensation, the dull ache which could change its tone and pull me in. Something was still wrong with the turned ankle of Sat morn when I did too much...asking more of myself than was to be. Oh, that turned ankle is declared, by x-ray, fractured in a vulnerable spot, splinted, and I cast out to fend for myself...a change of life.
The delight of this day was the arrival of a package in the mail so very neatly wrapped with many separate wrappings--from Japan. Hiroshi Matsumoto, a painter I have met on flickr whose work I have admired from first setting my eyes upon it, appeared on my etsy site "hearting" my work and an exchange was proposed. He called it a "miracle" that we could exchange work and indeed it has that feeling when I held his painting in my hand and felt his brushstrokes on the canvas...the memory traces held in paint. It is even more lovely in the flesh than on the screen and I was so fortunate to also be gifted with an oil painting of kanna leaf, very feather like and finely executed, a sensitivity so keen, by his partner Natsuo and several of her drawings on postcards. I was enlivened by this energy exchange that came onto me today, and my mood shifted from the couchpotato state to something far more creative and alive. Ah, new paintings in the house! Spirit exchanges, new friends, and possibilities. Life opened up once again.
Well, so it turns out that my turned ankle turned into a broken ankle today at the doctor's...now splinted, but next week a cast...this splint seems like a cast to me and to think I was walking around on it for days. yes, it hurt, but I had things to do and now my thing to do is to learn how to get around on crutches...that is a task...one that is great! Made it out to computer, but chilly out here with my toes exposed, so I won't stay long. Finished reading a very good book called Nature Journals, written by a man who spoke in 3 woman's voices as they wrote about Stowe and Mount Man's Field and the ski resort and communication towers on the tallest peak of Vermont. Nature and how to stop the destruction of nature...environmental but also exploding what has been built...yes, one man worked his way into the 3 women's lives. Held my interest, now what? No weaving. I did put a kybosh on that...and to think they were selling so well even on the very day I brought them into the gallery...well, enough complaining. I had to get it said.
This drawing in oil pastel from the Az sketchbook drew my attention today as it spoke the question of balance which is so precarious and what can set one off balance, a tumble into the void. Ah ha! I have been thinking of getting a sketchbook going again...perhaps seeing this now is the impetus I need to rekindle the sketchbook of today.
I thought this slate would become a sign, but it became a painting. Loved working on the slate, layering and scraping...acts of discovery.
I have been missing painting, but it is time to get chenille scarves woven and put up for sale in galleries. There is color play in the warp making, but the dance of row by row, foot controlled, has worn thin. When I gathered all my supplies for weaving at the gallery at Camp on Sat morning, I was not in the best emotional space. I was rushing and not connected to the ground. I raced across the street to get a poster up and I met uneven pavement with a twist of the ankle. I lurched and stumbled for 15 feet til I met a wall to stop my forward thrust...I was shaking, but I did not fall. I recovered enough to very slowly and painfully continue on my way, finding a bag of ice that I could put around the ankle tied on with my sweatshirt. Was I trying to stop my weaving? It certainly messed with my plans for the day. My discontent deepened and here I was supposed to greet viewers with a smile and welcome. What an act we must put on! 4 days later and my ankle is better. I have tried to be gentle with myself and not so demanding and I did get some scarves woven, but to paint has not come to me yet even though I know it would be emotionally helpful. I sit with my processing and my questions of "How come?" It has been important to look at some of the work I have done to, to feel that it has some purpose. I want to give a soothing wash to the discontent and find motivation again.
Having been encouraged to keep the gallery open for this weekend, I spent alot of time there yesterday and today. I did get some chenille scarves woven, which now begin their drying process after washing to wed the fibers...this drying could take days if I don't turn the heat on in this coolish house. I moved Element into the gallery as Alex had moved out his paintings and walls were freed up. This one feels finished...large and simple. Hard to understand in this small image that the painting is really more than 30"wide. Size does matter. This one is powerful because of its simplicity and size, but here...not as much. I am remembering now that I did post this one before, but I have been looking at it differently today. The other painting I did in accompaniment with Michael Arnowitt's piano improv. I do not feel it is finished but somehow I can't seem to go back "in there" to finish it...a piece of "unfinished music" perhaps. I have missed painting because I need to turn my time to weaving chenille scarves which do sell even in a recession....still need to find money for bread...alas. Painting must wait. Yet still important to keep considering what I have done and where to return when I get the chance.
September seemed to come quickly this year and is already gone. The yurt got its new red covering, the Miata loved the drive out to camp, paintings were happy being shown right on the wall of the cabin-studio and the garden made harvesting a joy. Happy days. My art group met at camp and chose to look at art outside on an excellent glowing day rather than use the "museum" building. Every beautiful day in Sept was celebrated...now rains in October and below normal temperatures surprise us and make us realize that change is upon us. Though no real frost yet, the growth in the garden is slowed...will those brussels sprouts really get big enough to enjoy....yes! back to camp tomorrow to weave more scarves in the "museum" building and hope that I get interrupted by art viewers and maybe even a sale! Today while working at Artisans Hand, I made a lovely sale of a chiffon jacket...the woman is a "big fan" of my work and she was delighted to "meet the artist" and get to tell me personally how much she loves my work. Ah, yes, that does make me feel good.
Finally getting some photos on computer for potential blogs....today I spent much of the day in the gallery at Camp with open sign out, but few visitors. It was very cold without any heat turned on yet, but I wove...wove off the old warp, wound on a new one so very orange, the very colors I seem to exclaim over as we drive through the foliage change. I love winding the warp, choosing the colors to play together, to make the conversation of color mood I want to express. I use more colors in blending than most chenille weavers, because I have such a deep color love, but I cause myself some grief also as the threads tangle in their groupings and I am forever moving the tangles back as I weave forward. Bruce said, as he watched me today threading the loom, "There is so much more to weaving than anyone might imagine." It is a whole effort, but to combine threads like paint in subtle hues and then to pass the shuttle row by row and watch the inches grow into a scarf...there is some magic in it still for me even after more than 35 years of weaving....and folks still crave these chenille scarves so I continue to let them come through me as the days get cooler and the need for warmth is so present.
