A sneak peek at my latest project

My very very messy studio. There is a box of acorn tops, half painted, half naked. Left-over supplies from homemade Halloween cards. Yarn and snippets from another one of my brilliant million-dollar ideas, my empty sewing machine tote, and gobs and gobs of leftovers from October and early November projects.
Really as soon as this one is done. . . . . Creative chaos!

Since my life changing weekend with Laura Cater-Woods, I have been working. I have ignored pages and pages of Quiltart.com and the dust on the mantel and the laundry in the upstairs hall, and the mess underfoot in my studio to focus on two projects. And still, there never seems to be enough time to do as much work in the studio as I want. How much time do I want? Unanswerable. Even an hour a day is hard to scrape up between my beautiful girls and my "job" as a volunteer mom at school.

My "job" at school entails writing the weekly communication bulleting and the quarterly PTA newsletter. Doesn't sound like a big job. Especially for someone who has words spilling out of her mouth-er-hands at a rate of 140WPM. But it is the information gathering that is so slow and tedious. If folks would just email their info and keep me from hounding them for it, or guessing what they want to go in it, things would go a lot quicker.

Today my friend Jules posted her finished rag quilt. Jules has four children, including her newborn son, Sam. When Jules was at my house a few weeks ago, we played with hot wax. It was great fun. Here she is batiking away. Her daughter played with my daughter, beautiful Max slept the entire time. Blissful.

So here I am with only two, both in school, no babies suckling at the breast, wondering why I don't have time to finish anything!?! Hmmmmm...... Jules could it have anything to do with communications? ;)

Here's a sneak peak at my more "traditional" piece for the She Made her Mark Exhibit. I have another very "non-traditional" piece I am working on. A new friend gave me the courage to pursue it. However, it will remain under wraps until it is accepted, or rejected.

Who picks your fruit and vegetables?
This is something we should all take into consideration every time we go to the grocery store. This is Dolores Huerta. As a child, I remember never eating grapes because my parents were big supporters of Caesar Chavez and the National Farmworkers Association (now the United Farm Workers Union.) Dolores Huerta played a key role in the Delano Grape Strike of the 1960's and hasgone on to be the leading champion for farm workers in our country. She's an incredible woman and my choice for the She Made Her Mark Exhibit.

THE PICTURE of my piece depicting Dolores was removed in order to qualify to enter the She Made Her Mark challenge. But here's the inspiration picture -- click on it to read more about Dolores and the Dolores Huerta Foundation website.

And now, I have a rare afternoon, when my children are playing at a friend's house, I'm going back to the studio instead of playing on the computer.

You too, scoot.

Post Script: In the picture of my studio, see the roll of wonder under laying right next to the parchment paper? It is. And Wonder Under looks just like parchment paper, especially if you are in the throes of creative excitement. Which I was when I fused a nice large piece of it to the top of Dolores' face! Ugh. Another hazard of a messy studio!

A life changing weekend with Laura Cater-Woods

Thursday night I heard Laura Cater-Woods speak to the Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Arts Alliance. Friday and Saturday was in her workshop Tempting the Muse at the studio of Fiber on a Whim. Today I am floating a little closer to the ground, close enough to try and post something about this experience.

Tempting the Muse was like intensive therapy. Laura’s piece "Peeling the Onion" would be perfect to grace the cover of a marketing brochure for this workshop. She peeled us. Along the way, we cried, we discovered, we created and we celebrated.

I don't know if all of her workshops are like this. Most of the participants in our group knew one another, we were connected, and we knew we could trust one another. By the end of the workshop, the entire group shared an intimacy and connection that will continue beyond this weekend. I have written and rewritten this post many times trying to capture the magic of the weekend. Yet no matter how hard I try, it eludes me. In our cohesive group, it was personal and raw. Perhaps it is just too personal to share. It was magic.

The experience was life changing for me and I suspect it will have significant impact on the work I produce. It already has. My morning journal was filled with more images and less words the past few days. My senses are more tuned in to the world around me. I feel peeled and exposed. This peeled feeling is nice. It is raw, it is vulnerable, it is scary, but it is real.

Batik with the Bee

Finished piece and close up.




Friday the FiberArt Bee met at the studio of Fiber on a Whim. We played with hot wax. It was fun.

My primary form of fiber art back in the 70's was batik. I used to batik and dye in the basement of our house. The street was stained with a rainbow where I poured the dye out (of course I would NEVER do that now, but I was young and didn't think about the environmental impact).

It has been more than 20 years since I have picked up a tjanting. I had forgotten how satisfying it is to paint fabric with hot wax. Sharon was a true sport and brought me a pot of good old-fashioned beeswax and paraffin.

I batiked a piece of black fabric, came home and discharge dyed it, gave it a good soak in anti-chlor and then ironed it.

My husband will be hard at work this weekend setting me up a wax studio in the garage. Now I'm off to Dharma to order tjantings and wax.

After discharging and a soak in Anti-Chlor.

What have you been working on?

This is one of my favorite questions on Quiltart.com. I love to read the responses of the members as they relate their current experiments and projects.

As the mother of two children under 7, I've been working on Halloween. The girls love Halloween, and Sophia pretty quickly decided to be a cheerleader. Sarah was a little bit more indecisive. First she wanted to be a robot -- a costume Joel and I happily embraced and were excited to make. She drew up the plans, decided the colors, helped to pick the electronic components -- it was going to be fantastic. Then the next day she decided she wanted to be a princess, a pretty pink princess. Then a doctor, a monster, a ghost and finally a hula girl. Yes, a hula girl with a leigh and grass skirt. She was adorable.

This is most of the gang of trick or treaters.
Two more caught up with us a few minutes
after this picture was taken.

Creepy Halloween Cupcakes were required for two parties.

The week before Halloween, and Halloween week, I stayed focused on a project I"m working on for our school's PTA -- Reflections. Reflections is a fine arts program where students submit their entries for literature, photography, video/film and visual arts. This project was FANTASTIC.

I know I am a bit overanalytical about my work. Putting it down on paper is easy, but taking it to the final medium of fiber is always a bit daunting. Perhaps it is the expense of the medium, or the commitment of time to complete the piece. I never had this hesitation when I painted or collaged.

But back to Reflections. . . it is easy to see when a child suddenly becomes very interested in the finished product. About third grade. The entries from Kindergarten and First and Second grades were so free and colorful and BIG. Those kids filled up each and every page. And if stuff was available to glue on, well they used the supplies with abandon.

Then came the third grade entries which show the artists have become very careful about their work. They started in pencil, you can see the erasure marks, the hesitation and (okay I'm projecting here) the worry that it might not be "right." That continues in fourth and fifth grade, although the realism is better.

The winning entry for Fifth grade visual arts looks very much like the winning entry from First Grade. It is colorful, BIG and FREE. It is fantastic.

And hopefully I'll take some of that artists' permission-to-self to be free and let loose. To not worry about things looking exactly as I think they should and let the fabric take control every once in a while.

Boo!
Go back to work!