every-single-day

She reads this blog!

She is a very quiet reader. Blogging is a funny medium that way, you can write for months or even a little over a year. You might think that no one is reading, that you are blogging into the wind. But you are not. There are many quiet readers who perfer not to comment often or may never comment at all. You may check your web site statistics and see that 300 people come to your site everyday, but they may come for a 15 second drive by. Who knows.
Anyway, the reader I am talking about is my mother. She posted a comment last entry. Before that was many moons ago.

I hesitate to post this entry because of her.
My mom's birthday was in April. She asked to go to Manhattan for a day and we have yet to go. THINGS kept getting in the way and plans needed rescheduling. Stuff, weather, I don't even know what held us up.
Click Here to see a photo/post about the two of us. It wasn't so long ago that the two of us spent a day in the city. This time my father and husband will be coming too. We will perhaps go to a museum, get some great food and poke into some shops. We have celebrated moms birthday in this way for a couple of years now.
So this weekend was fabulous. I had planned, after having a great two days with My Man, to work on screen printing in preparation for my workshop in June, but that got foiled because my photo emulsion decided to go all rubbery and dry on me.
So then I decided to go up to my sewing room and see if I had a 'small work' in me. I mean it has been so long since my mom's birthday, perhaps I could see if I had a quick piece of art in me. This is what I came up with:

Saturday we are planning to FINALLY go to Manhattan for her birthday. This is when I will give her Camerons portrait. Cameron is our nephew and her youngest grandson. He is a beautiful little man.
I didn't really hestitate to post about this, I just wanted to see how much will power my mom has. You see, I called her this morning and asked her how much will power she thought she had. I wonder if she comes and looks at what I have made for her. I wonder if she posts a comment if she does...

Wanna Trade?

Here are six artist trading cards I have completed. The woman on the right is four separate cards. I am ready to trade them. If you are interested in the woman I am asking for four separate cards from you. This is a card for card trade.
I am not picky about the medium you use, all I ask is that I like your trading card as much as the ones I have created. Please don't hesitate to contact me with images of your own cards!

Added later:
The cards need to be 2.5x3.5 inches no larger and no smaller. This is to keep them in the realm of commercially printed trading cards, like baseball cards. I paint on playing cards and have found that if I sand them before painting on them, the paint takes better. I usually keep the playing card visible but don't feel constrained by that!

She Paints Too.

I have been working on this page for a few weeks now. Saturday I drew the Dogwood flowers onto the page and today I painted them in.
I actually had a fabulous day! I got Twyla Tharps' The Creative Habit out of the library and read it for hours on the deck in the sun. I took small breaks to paint outside too. That is where I painted the Dogwood flowers.
I think this page needs a little something, not much but something. Don't know what yet. Something to accentuate the Dogwoood flowers.

We seem to have a resident bird!

You can see the chickadee to the right and above the house in one of the pear tree branches. I put a bunch of silk organza and cotton scraps, threads and some batting in the crook of the tree, to help the birds make nests. All of it is gone. I will be interested to see if it got into the chickadee nest!

Finishing Edges

This is a sample of how I would like to see the edges of my current piece finished. I would like to fold the edges to the back of the work so that the painterly quality of the piece extends all the way to the extreme edge of the work.

This is a test piece so you don't get to see that the real piece is backed in a black fabric and the "binding" (shown in white in the photo above) will also be black. But this is how it looks from the side.

This is how the above "binding" looks from the front and side.

This is another way of doing it but I am not sure that I like seeing the small strip of "binding" fabric at the right edge in this photo. I love the look of this binding better than the other, EXCEPT for the small strip at the right corner of this photo.

This is how the this "binding" looks from the front and side. Am I making something out of nothing? Is there a better way to do this? If there is a better way of doing this I would love to know about it. Help is appreciated!
Dog earring the corners won't work because the corner is too thick. I haven't tried mitering the corners for the same reason. Perhaps one of you has done this technique successfully and could help me out on this one.

It Really is all about Birds!

Ok: I have said it before, I love birds.
Today my Man and I had a glass of wine on the deck and watched our new feeders. We got two. One has sunflower seeds in it and the other safflower seeds. So far we have seen cardinals, purple finch, chickadees, titmice, mourning doves, cow birds and squirrels. My Man also saw a yellow finch (?) of some sort. Wish I had been there!
So...
Here (go ahead and click it!), you can see nest cams of owls, bluebirds and osprey. I hope there are no human cams in this house!
Here (yup! Click it!) is a podcast magazine all about birds. It has a west coast perspective but/ and is really well done. I can't wait for the next one.
Here (um, yeah... you know the rules) is a very short podcast that features a single bird and it's song. Again a west coast endeavor. There are many in the backlog to choose from.

All of this to say... I was at someones blog. They embroidered swallows onto something. I want to see similar again. and forgot where I was! If you have any information about hand embroidering birds! Please! email me!

Retreat, Renew!

I am back from another retreat at the Incarnation Center. It was a rainy, spring weekend. This was good because it truely provided time to focus, sew and relax.

We had two new members this retreat, Carol (whose work ought to have its own website...hint, hint) and Lisa. Both were a fabulous addition to the group.

Here is Carol working on her latest graffiti quilt. Carol uses her own photographic images of graffiti on fabric, manipulating and arranging them into compositions that are both frenetic and more tailored like this one. I wish I had a detail shot , the images she finds and uses are phenominal.

Here is a photograph of Lisa Chipetine working on a piece she calls, "The Devils are in the Details". Lisa is filled with fabulous energy, is enamoured with the process of creation and taught me the value of looking at artwork through a reducing lens, of which she is addicted.

Brienne is working on a new piece having to do with Trees (she is another fabulous artist who could benefit from having her own web site!!!). Watching her work has taught me a great deal about controling my machine stitching.
It goes both ways though! I gave Brienne her first painting lesson, (don't feel shy to ask for another Brienne).

EJP has been working on a fablous piece that shows off her own hand dyed and resisted fabrics. I am happy that she was able to place it on the background before the weekend was up.

I don't have usable photos of Judy, Kevan, Dana or Pat. Sorry gals!

Saturday afternoon I was super punchy and needed to blow off some steam. I put my ipod on, running and dancing through the forrest. This is where I found this fabulous detail shot of a tree. I love photographs of earthly subects that intimate the female form in some way, this tree reminds me of a v@gin@. I write it that way in the hope of foiling google into sending too many of the wrong sort to this blog.

Check out this post and click on the word female at the very end of the post.

Still no photos of my piece, I am just not ready to share. I did great work this weekend. I had been calling this piece 'The Bitch' but I think I can retire that name now. It was awesome to have a chunk of uninterupted time to work.

Thanks to everyone in the group for coming, sharing and continuing the process of bonding as artists, women and friends. I look forward to many more retreats!

And once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT!!!!