Work on Display @ Discovery Cafe

Works on display at Discovery Cafe, 6 Discovery Street, Victoria (how's that for a cool address!)

They will be up for another week or so. The staff were so friendly and helpful and did all the climbing on ladders, thankfully sparing me, thanks Kathleen!

Clockwise from top left: Hundertwasser Light, Purple Millenium, and Ballerina, my newest piece. The bottom is intentionally not parallel with the top, this is not just the angle of the photo.

Marbling - quick and dirty

This is a piece of silk I marbled in a Color Hues session at Satin Moon. Color Hues is a new dye product developed by a Seattle woman. It dyes protein based fabrics, i.e. silk and wool but not cotton (although my dyeing t-shirt kept some splashes!) It is very easy to use and the fabric seems to suck the colour out of the water, unlike Procion dyes where you can rinse and rinse and see wonderful bright colour running down the drain. Also no need to heat set and no powdery chemicals so safer to use in a home setting.

Does blogging about being productive count as BEING productive? If so I could add a half hour onto my time for today.

1. Day one: 4 hours 15 minutes
2. Day two: (today) 5 hours 40 minutes

And spent more time painting color swatches for my next piece - yesterday I used EZ-TintZ and watercolor crayon pencils to get close to what I thought I wanted to do, and today I took that swatch to Michael's to buy acrylics in the colors I picked. Still need to get freezer paper and get a template enlarged -- the printer here won't take a big enough piece of paper so I'll have to go to Staples I guess.

Resolution / Time Management

Taking stock of last year, which in some ways seems like an amnesiac blur, I decided that my slogan/watchword for 2009 is to be

The Time Is Now!!!

and I had what seems like a flash of inspiration, to define productivity as work/art and aim at 8 productive hours per day. Deadlines will doubtless continue to define which takes precedence at any given moment, as well as that annoying need to eat and finance my art habit, but hopefully this will take away the guilt about doing art and help me define it to myself as a serious pursuit.

The photo shows fabric discharged with a powerful fresh bleach pen, from the workshop.

Dyeing Workshop

No longer having a place at home where I can be messy (and I am!) I took a workshop at Satin Moon with Susan Purney Marks where we had days to dye fabrics and permission to be experimental.

Resolution even though it's not New Year

woah Nelly!

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged, and a lot has happened personally and artistically.

Now I've relocated I need to post more pix of my work.

My resolutions ought to give me pause too, because needless to say I didn't keep up with them ... just showing up and doing SOMETHING is so important and I need to stay focused and not be sidetracked and constrained by circumstances or things will never get done.

Inspired by Hundertwasser

This is stiffened fabric that was used as a stencil for monoprinting with Lumiere paints. Behind the cut outs is a small fabric collage with Lumiere paint brayered onto commercial fabric with a sheer fabric appliqueed on with metallic thread. To the right is the same sheer fabric with journaling text on it in Fabrico marker, with no backing fabric.

The irregular rows of squares and funky colors makes me think of Hundertwasser. Here is an image of the Hundertwasser House in Vienna.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hundertwasser/hundertwasser_house.jpg.html




This is a scanned close up view which better shows that there is text on the sheer fabric behind the window.

The journaling is the transformative aspect of this piece. I still need to trim around the edges and somehow make them more finished.

Everything in the Garden

A wall hanging work in progress using fusible web (YAY for Steam-A-Seam 2!), assorted commercial fabrics, and Fabrico marker for the faces on the masks.

When in Thailand in Chiang Mai, I ventured out alone to the market area where the fabric shops are and that's where I found the hibiscus print. The blue body is a lightning design -- it works even better than I thought it would. The blue head is from a tiny scrap of commercial fabric. The rest of it doesn't look like faces, just abstract marks, but every time I looked at the bit I used here, I could only see a face.

One figure is frozen, static, unchanging, the other is alive and amazing transformations are taking place within her. Yet both hold the same mask ready to use.

Force Field

Force Field is my second contribution to the challenge. It's fused applique, regular applique, and acrylic paint on fusible web.

The symbolism is an exploration in progress -- EIP

Doesn't that sound better than work in Progress!

The wedjet eye is a symbol that has been with me for years. Before we moved across the continent from central Canada to the SW US I had an image of a wedjet carved into a wooden picnic table that came to me while I was having acupuncture treatment.

The dots and bright colors remind me of Mexican folk art. I usually stay away from natural/neutral tones but this batik is so beautiful that I bought a pack of fat quarters last time I was at JoAnne's.

Up to now I have not used human figures much in my art -- I sense this may change. The force field around the main figure resembles a Picasso-style head in profile, this was unintended but I could see it even before I fused the paint onto the fabric.

One down, 99 to go!

My first mixed media piece for the challenge. It's a door hanger, one side says

DISCOVER POSITIVE ENERGY

and the reverse says

RECHARGE YOUR BATTERIES

RELAX!

I hope to set a positive tone for this challenge and use the appropriate side of the hanger as needed.

Wooden door hanger, acrylic paints, commercial stickers and tag, oil pastels.

Did not buy anything for this one (the hanger has been hanging around for about 3 years!) and it's Wednesday today, not that that matters, but now I have until Sunday to create my next piece.

The 100 Challenge

I'm an avid reader of Astarte Mega-Zine and also one who loves a challenge.

See www.myartself.com or read Stacey's 100 Art Dolls Challenge article in the Feb issue (#5) of Astarte, which is published online.

Taking the important aspects, I'm challenging myself to create 100 mixed media pieces, giving myself the time frame of 1 year + 1 month + 1 day.

That's 366+30+1 = 397 days, or 1 piece every 4 days. I need to pick two days in the week that are the "check" days, to either have created a piece by or get on with it and create something. Sunday is a good day and perhaps I should make Wednesday the other one. Hmm, tomorrow is Wednesday.

The important thing too is to reflect on the healing and transformative aspects of the art, not to fling into production mode.

I'm starting to know what art feels like when it truly comes from within as opposed to being a technique, a doodle, a whim, a clever concept.

OTOH I need to let go of my perfectionism or the time will go by with very little started and even less "finished."

Countdown! Is there a counter I can put on here to count down to March 6, 2009? And hopefully to note how many pieces there are to go.

Like Stacey and Arrigo, I'm all in favor of using the stash and recycled materials WHERE POSSIBLE. i.e. I'm not going to turn that into a fetish, but I have plenty of materials of all kinds. Although I will probably end up buying Tyvek at some point. Perhaps that will be my birthday present to myself, or to celebrate some other occasion.