The Shape of the Matter

I've been playing around with notan expanded squares for years, ever since Jane Dunnewold of Art Cloth Studios showed our class the Japanese exercise. Her explaination is on the tutorial section of the Art Cloth Studios website, so you can go there and get the instructions straight from my source.

As Jane writes, so eloquently (as she always does),

Both symmetrical (the same all around) and asymmetrical (different on each side) designs can be achieved through the use of the expanded square concept. In order for the exercise to be completed successfully, there must be a feeling of balance in the design created. A symmetrical design can still be heavy, ponderous, or boring. If the design is working, it will be interesting and will feel balanced on all four sides. Test this idea by turning your paper as you study a completed design. Does it measure up when rotated and studied? Is it interesting from all directions?

 

There are many other notan exercises, all of them derived from what is considered a kind of visual meditation sometimes by its practitioners.This example is even simpler in execution. Simply cut a square apart in any way you wish, with the object being to reassemble it with white space in between, making again a pleasing and intriguing balance of white and black, light and dark.

I also like to play with the shapes in multiples, enlarging and reducing them on the copier, then reassembling into a rhythmic shape composition.

These exercises are a neverending source of inspiration for stamps, whole cloth quilts, applique, stencils, screen-printing and other graphic applications to fiber arts. I'd love to see your examples! Like snowflakes, there never seem to be two alike! Here's another site with examples too, from Princeton Online.

And here's a wonderful extension of the discipline into maskmaking by a class at San Jose.

By the way, there is room for one more shape-minded person in June's The Shape of the Matter workshop at El Cielo Studio. We'll be doing notan and lot's of other shape exercises in design, using shape as the structural bones for an art quilt, and more. If you're interested, send me a message via the contact box on the sidebar. Dates are June 26 - 28. For further info, see the workshop page.

And, if you're not overwhelmed with opportunities yet, you can find more shape exercises in our new book -- yes, it's for parents, but each set of activities includes a page for the grownup investigators, too.
Here's the exercises in the Shape section -- plus a whole slew of others that didn't make it into the book. I'd love to hear your ideas, too.

Shape investigations to do on your own:

Explore your home as though it were a museum. What kinds of shapes have you collected, consciously or unconsciously? Make an arrangement of disparate objects that share a shapely characteristic on a bookshelf or windowsill. What would the catalog of these shapes say about you?

As you drive through your neighborhood notice the shapes of buildings, homes, stores and other structures. Do the shapes that you see serve as clues to architectural eras, the history of the street? If yours is a new neighborhood, what historical styles have the builders called upon for inspiration? Shapes of windows, doors, rooflines and facades are your best clues.

Cut or tear shapes from colored paper and collage them to solid colored cards for interesting personal note paper.

Enroll in a ceramics class at a local art center or continuing education department of a local college or university. Or for self-guided exploration buy a 50-pound box of ceramic sculpture clay from a local supplier.

Watch a dance or mime performance (live or recorded) with an eye for shape, how the performers use their bodies and each other to create shapes in space. Some troupes and artists to look for: Mummenschanz (on the web at www.mummenschanz.com), Martha Graham -- who else?


Take a walk along a creek bed or river and visually collect the shapes you see in stones and water.

Dip into Georges Perec’s 1978 Life A User’s Manual, a non-linear novel that uses writing constraints – rules that the writer has imposed on the content and structure of the book – much in the way a visual artist uses shape in the composition of a painting.

Write a haiku each morning for a week about the weather outside your window. (How do constraints of syllable count shape your thoughts?)

Think about how your clothing affects your silhouette as you dress for work or play. Make an effort to wear something that changes your shape and pay attention to its effect.

Collect a specific shape (circles or cones, for example) or specifically shaped objects (manholes, terracotta vases, interesting doors) by photographing throughout a day, a week, a month. Post your collection on a photography website, such as Flickr, to share it with others.

Carve simple shapes using a craft knife into the side of an art gum or white artist’s eraser. Make shape patterns and grids using black stamp pad ink on white paper. Enlarge and reduce and repeat shape patterns using a copier. Can these inspire a quilt or other art project?


 

State of Arts Ed in SA

 

Here's the latest correspondence we've received from the San Antonio Arts Education Task Force. Hopefully this will move the organization and the city forward!

This past fall, at the behest of the Office of Cultural Affairs, Paula Owen, Jon Hinojosa and I attended a conference sponsored by Americans for the Arts titled, “Knowledge Exchange: District-Wide Change in Arts Education.” The conference shared the impact and success of “Arts for All” http://tools.laartsed.org/default.aspx an arts education blueprint for the Los Angeles County region. The program in Los Angeles has been so successful, that we came back determined that it was a great model to learn from and potentially replicate. The SAAETF has done some good work and now is a good time to reconnect and move forward with a new focused direction and leadership. We have been informally discussing the logistics of how we can begin to reconvene and begin this important and rewarding endeavor.

The Office of Cultural Affairs is moving forward with an RFP process to find a non-profit organization that will be the fiscal agent responsible for the hiring of a full time Project Director. This individual will help us all create our own arts education blue print for San Antonio. Once the Project Director is selected, we will set a date for the SAAETF membership to re-connect and discuss our role to assist in strengthening the arts for all children in San Antonio.

I appreciate your patience and look forward to your support!

Isabel Romero

Fine Arts Teacher Specialist for Theatre and Art

SAAETF Chair

As a arts-in-ed professional, I know the need, the value and something of the politics of the business. I enjoy the occassional forays I make as a consultant back into the world of formal and informal  K-12 education, so it's with interest that I explored the LA county blueprint. Anyone out there in LA county had experience or interaction with this program?

Good Morning World

I'm not Jewish, but I am observant (in the big sense). I loved reading this in the New York Times online today, and plan to make the observance tomorrow part of my personal spiritual practice this year:

Those April 8’s, like the April 8 that arrives next week, marked the holiday of Birchat HaChammah, named for the blessing of the sun that is recited after daybreak by observant Jews.

According to the celestial calculations of a Talmudic sage named Shmuel, at the outset of spring every 28 years, the sun moves into the same place in the sky at the same time and on the same day of the week as it did when God made it. This charged moment provides the occasion for reciting a one-line blessing of God, “who makes the work of creation.”

The astronomical metrics of Shmuel are by now considered inexact, but close enough so that the religious tradition persists, so that Jews like Rabbi Bleich believe that the sun next Wednesday occupies the same location in the firmament as it did when it was formed on the fourth day of Creation, which would have been Wednesday, March 26, of the Hebrew year 1, otherwise known as 3760 B.C.

Since I'm 60, who knows if I'll manage to be around for the next 28th year celebration? I don't know the actual blessing, (and my Hebrew literacy is non-existent) so maybe I will have to write my own. I hope any observers who read this will take my adoption as a reverent and respectful act, even if I don't have the words. Hey, thanks to Wikipedia, I found them, and translated, too

"ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם עושה מעשה בראשית"
"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe who makes the works of Creation."

About that blessing, the article goes on:

The same brief prayer — consisting of the basic syntactical root for most blessings and three culminating, specific Hebrew words — is also used to express awe and wonder at physical grandeur (the Grand Canyon) and creative acts visible as they happen (lightning, meteor showers).

That makes it even better doesn't it! What a wonderful idea to honor the creative acts we see and notice.

And doesn't the idea remind you of the "good morning world"  line from Kurt Vonnegut (gotta find that now!)

Poem for the Season

It's not May, but here in South Texas (even with the little cold snap that we're coping with, sweaters back out of the cupboard), it is blossom time. And it's also poetry month, I understand. Here's a poem by Ann Porter I could not resist sharing. Please leave one of your own, or a link to a favorite in the comments, if you'd like to share.



When winter was half over
God sent three angels to the
apple-tree
Who said to her
"Be glad, you little rack
Of empty sticks,
Because you have been chosen.

In May you will become
A wave of living sweetness
A nation of white petals
A dynasty of apples."

- Anne Porter

 

 

 

Answer these Questions: Find your Path as an Artist

 

A disclosure – this list of questions to ponder was adapted from one written by my psychologist friend and colleague Dr. Cynthia Herbert about observing children  -- part of our  NEW WORLD KIDS book. We adults need to make and reflect on the same observations about ourselves in order to find our paths as artists, to locate our visual poetry and sweet spots. Of course, what we're saying in the book is that as great a thing it is for adults to discover their passions and paths at age 30, 40, 50 or older, wouldn't it be great if we helped kids find, respect, analyze and deepen their strong suits at age 14, or even 4? It can happen!

Feel free to copy and paste this list or go to my public file to find a downloadable pdf file here.

One-on-one.
One-of-a-kind.
Each of us is absolutely unrepeatable.

How do you look at yourself with new eyes, outside of the daily get-dones and to-dos? It helps to have a certain distance, an anthropologist’s viewpoint even. Step beyond judgment (this is good stuff; this is bad) into a position of value-free observation. It often helps to use comparative information--sometimes it’s easiest to see your own unique combo plate, when its sitting on the table next to someone else’s menu choices.

Here’s a checklist to help you observe, collect and compare. Start with observation. Ask a friend or colleague to use a camera to catch your typical actions and behaviors, or just reflect and write. Or try setting up some self-portraits that capture the real you. Answer the questions from your present life AND from memories of what you were like as a child. Are there parts of the “real you” that have faded from sight? Been dampened by circumstance or age?


How do I sound? What’s my voice like? Do I hear clumping or tiptoeing or trotting through space? Do I have soft or strong sound qualities? Am I talking fast or mulling things over before I speaks? Am I a story always in the telling, or a dramatic announcer of all things important?

 

 

 

How do I move? Am I a whirlwind at the center of any activity or a slow observer who has to watch before jumping in? Do I have wings on his feet and a kinesthetic grasp of each and every movement through space? Or not? Do I have a facility with hand-eye coordination, or am I a person whose favorite exercise is mental gymnastics? Do I fidget and wiggle my way through the day, daintily twirl at every opportunity, or cut through space with conviction, ignoring obstacles and rules at every turn?

 

What is my rhythm? If I clapped a rhythmic score, would it be regular and evenly paced? Or erratic and unpredictable? Would I be a march or a tango? A jive or a three-ring circus? Am I fast, slow, somewhere in between? Surprising or forthright?

How do I use my face and eyes? Am I an open book? Or a mysterious stranger who seldom lets my emotions show? Is drama the operative word? Or is methodical my method? What happens when I meet a stranger? Am I out there or on the sidelines keeping score?

How do I present a public face? Is it different from the private life behind my front door? How do others respond to me?

What kind of roles and functions do I take on? Alpha dog? Follower? Listener? Starring role? Backstage director? Conformist? Devil’s Advocate?

What makes me laugh? What makes me funny? Where’s my funny bone?

What brings me joy? What is sure to bring a smile to my face?

What questions do I ask over and over and over again? Am I a “What?” or a “Why?” a “How do I?” or a “What if I?”

What makes my different than anyone else’s? One-of-a-kind?


Another way to collect information about yourself is to note preferences – the things you collect, choose, concentrate your efforts on. Here’s a second checklist of observations and inventories to make.



What catches my eye? Movement? Color? Light and shadow? Strong patterns? Interesting shapes? Or is it all about touch? Or movement? Or telling the story?

What holds my attention? What things do I do for longer than other people seem to do them? Music? Putting things together? Routine chores or tasks with repeating actions? Puzzles and brainteasers? Walking or running or other movements?

What do I surround myself with? The choices of clothing, of possessions for my home, for regular activities? Is it other people? Color? Music? Animals? Things to build with? Stuff that moves?

What qualities do my favorite free-time activities have? Are they all big or small movement activities? Do they have procedures or linear rules? Do I see strong sensuous qualities, tactile elements or sound and motion? How about emotional or analytic components?

What do I collect, naturally? What gets picked up on the street, from a dollar store? Rocks and shells? Magazines, bugs, or little glittery bits of foil and glass? If I could make a collection of anything, would it be hats or robots, ribbons or sports equipment? Do I find and save magazine pictures, maps or cartoons? Character dolls or jokes? Stacks of fabric and threads or antique lace?

 

What kinds of things -- especially in a new place or space – am I most likely to comment about or remember? The people or the colors? The sound or the story? The size or the materials? The construction and engineering or the aesthetics and theatrical sense?

What do I pick up? Save? Store? Look up on the internet or follow up from a TV or radio show?


What are the qualities of the materials I like best? Track these favorites through the sensory alphabet! (Line, color, shape, movement, space, texture, light, sound, rhythm)

COLOR: Are these materials colorful or monochromatic? What kinds of colors? Bright or subtle? Dark or bright? Contrasting or soothing? You may HAVE to have that new box of watercolors or oil pastels, while another person just needs a big black permanent marker or a Chinese calligraphy brush and ink.

 

 

TEXTURE: How do the materials you like feel to the touch? Are they smooth or nubby, plastic or hard, malleable or rigid, natural or manmade? Is that collection of glass jars on your window a textural necessity or a set of shapes to arrange with little hidden dramas in your mind?

SHAPE: Do these materials – clothes, games, collectables, art media, favorite objects -- have definite shapes? Or are they ambiguous or amorphous? Are they simple in contour or intricate? Do they have structural parts or components? Is a morning in one museum gallery or a day in the sand at the beach the ultimate entertainment?

MOVEMENT: Do my favorite materials move? Or have movement implicit in them? Is there a rhythm to them or to their use? Is the movement smooth, fast or floating? Humorous, serious or unstable? Do I simply have to move no matter what or where?

SOUND: Do these favorites make sounds? Either by design or by my use? What kind of sound quality – musical or percussive, wind or string, whistling or thudding? Is there a definite rhythm to the sound produced? Do I make sounds with things that no one else would ever think to turn into an instrument?

RHYTHM: Are these materials stacked, stackable or patterned? Put in order or grouped? Repeated or reorganized over and over? Put away in categories or lumped together any old way? Is there a rhythm to her play, a beginning, middle and end? Does patterned work or games with words or rhymes have a particular charm?

LINE: Do these favorite materials have a linear quality? Are they curved or angular? Strongly directional, repetitive or meandering? Is there always a storyline going on, a movie in the mind?

 

LIGHT: Is this material one that has qualities of light, dark, opacity, transperancy? Do I like to play with light and shadow?


SPACE: What spatial qualities do the materials have? Are these favorite materials two-dimensional or three-dimensional (ie, given a choice do I choose clay or paper-and-pen?) What’s the scale I like best to work with – a desktop or a playing field, tiny miniatures or large brushes and a 6-ft tall roll of paper? A wall-sized quilt or multiples of mini artist trading cards?

 

 

 

 

OTHER ASPECTS:
What spaces and places do I prefer for my free time? Am I always on the porch or in my bedroom or other private space? Alone in the backyard or in the kitchen with everyone else? Do I need a run in the park to stay healthy and sane? Is time alone essential? Or is time spent with a group mandatory and energizing? Am I always planning parties or trying to avoid them?

When we interact, is it playful or serious? Directive? Organized? Improvisational?

When we work together on a task, do I stay on track or need to come and go? Do I need a process or a product? Do I have to know why, or why not? Where’s the payoff?

When we play, do I want to be the boss of you? Or want to watch and follow? Am I open to coaching or resistant to change? Do I worry about getting it “right”? Am I making up new rules as we go along? Or sticking to a strategy?

And the winner is...

From New World Kids, The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking.

I had a drawing for a copy of New World Kids from those who had commented on my blog posts or guest blog posts during the last two weeks of February. The winner is Laura Ann, who commented on the quilting blog, www.quiltinggallery.com on a post I wrote about my process and influences as an art quilt maker. The book will go out to Laura Ann as soon as she sends me her snail mail info. Keep an eye on the blog to join in for future book drawings! And keep those comments coming. I love to have feedback from those who peruse these posts -- and I know from my site stats that more than 1500 hundred "unique" readers check in regularly! That's not a lot by web standards, but it makes me happy!

If you're a parent or grandparent or teacher, you might also want to check in with my recent posts on the New World Kids blog (I've started writing there regularly about kid-creativity issues at the advice of our new publicists, Austin-based Phenix & Phenix). I've found some great links to information about recent research on the effects of digital media on children's and young peoples' cognitive development.

And while I'm doing this little back-story business, remember my artist's reception in San Antonio at Northwest Vista College on Wednesday, March 18 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Come by to see my solo show,  a short artist's talk, the beautiful new buildings on campus (so many San Antonians don't even know this vibrant campus exists!) and have a little nosh. The exhibit is in the Lago Vista room of the Cypress Campus Center -- it's next to the big (empty for now) lake in the center of the campus, head east or ask a student where the cafeteria is!

 

Art Cloth Before and After

Jane Dunnewold, who as anyone who reads me regularly knows is a mentor, friend and shining beacon in my life, has published a new blog as the venue for an art cloth challenge she issued last year. From a pool of "applicants" she chose a group of us to develop a piece of art cloth from a two-yard challenge piece that she sent-- all identically dyed with mixing blue with a series of small bound-resist circles down the middle of the length.The site is at: Art Cloth Challenge 2008 <http://artclothchallenge.blogspot.com/>

Now the results are in and up on-line at site. Scroll down near the end to find out more about the piece I made, after you've taken time to read the others! Warning: this is a return-to site. There's so much to learn about approach, process, the creative journey, the paths that different artists take from the same impulse and materials. I'm still reading and enjoying!

Vintage Inspiration & Accidental Collections

Vintage tablecloths are, I guess, one of my accidental collections. I first started buying them with the idea of overdyeing or cutting and piecing, and found myself hoarding them instead, unwilling to cut up any but the most tattered and stained.

And now, surely it shouldn't come as a surprise, I have learned  (from a sweet blog called A Charmed Life) that vintage tablecloths are quite collectable and that you can even find catalogs and lists and galleries with names, dates and manufacturers! Oh dear, another web-based fritter awaits me, as I try to track down the provenance of these lovelies. I must have about 50 now, and I still find them at quite affordable prices at thrift stores, flea markets and the like.

What's the attraction?" Some of it is purely visual -- the funky designs and colors, the outrageous tropicals and holiday prints. And some, admittedly, is because I was there then -- in the 50s and 60 when every bridge table had its lovely cloth for parties and tea and holiday open houses.

And, yes, sometimes a cloth finds its way into my work, often on one of my small studio or home wall altars.

Accidental collections are those assortments of things you never really decided to collect, but one day you look around and your home or studio or desktop or garden is full of them. Accidental collections have a kind of natural growth that usually has more to do with liking something than it does with investing in it. And whether you think your accidental collection has anything to do directly with your art or not, it probably has something to do with your strong suits and inclinations in the sensory world.

What are your accidental collections? How do they inspire you?

(Remember, if you comment, you will be entered into my raffle for a free copy of New World Kids, The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinnking)

Change of Date

In case you've been reading last month's posts, I've had a change of plans for my artist's reception (and a short artist talk) at my exhibit at Northwest Vista College. It's now March 18  4 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (And, it no longer causes a conflict for all of my friends who also want to attend the grand reopening of the larger new FiberArts Space at Blue Star with an inaugeral exhibit by Houston artist Liz Axford.)

Northwest Vista College is located near Sea World in San Antonio, North Ellison Drive at 1604 on the city's far northwest side. The reception and the exhibit are in the Lago Vista Room in the Cypress Campus Center which is on the east campus side of the little lake in the center of the campus. You can find a map of the campus and other directions on the college website here.

Don't worry! I probably remind you again!

What I do

Flaming Eyebrows, detail art quilt

This post was originally published on Michele Foster's www.quiltinggallery.com. Check out the post and comments there, as well as great guest spots from some wonderful quilters.

Angels, saints, sinners, strange beasts. fire eye-browed women and prickly landscapes step out of the air and into my work. I can’t help it. These odd characters and scenes aren’t predetermined, they just happen. I don’t use patterns, rarely make sketches, refuse to pin, never measure (except at the very end), sometimes I don’t even worry about the back of my quilts and the knots and snarls that bedevil us all whether we admit it or pick them out or not.

Let’s get one thing straight here at the start. Some of you are traditional quilters. You are the backbone of the interest and the audience and most of the quilt store customers and you are skilled! I am not. A quilter really. Nor am I really very good at quilting. But I think I make good art. That happens to be made of fabric. And stitched, and usually three-layered.

I intentionally make contemporary textile paintings (see Lisa Call’s blog for her ideas about that) and they are quilted (free motion) and they are also fused.

Intensely interested in pattern and color and texture, paint just doesn’t work as a medium for my ideas, and, as an artist, it is my path and passion and calling to get my ideas out of my head and into the world in the best available materials. I began sewing at a young age, but the precision required by my home-ec teacher (and that dates me, right) was an unwelcome discipline and an unnerving challenge. So I went into theater and visual arts and then later became an arts and arts-in-ed educator, museum designer, writer and teacher (there’s even a new book for parents and grandparents who want to encourage creative kids, see www.newworldkids.org), but I kept coming back to cloth.

My personal revival came in a surface design course at the Southwest School of Art and Craft in San Antonio (where I now teach in the fibers department) and in a discovery that I could actually learn to paint and pattern and design fabric. Then I had to figure out what to do with the stacks of stuff I was making and I discovered art quilts. Among those who have influenced what I now do: Jane Dunnewold, Sue Benner, Leslie Jenison, Kerr Grabowski, Rayna Gillman, Lisa Call, African textiles, Mexican embroiderers, Guatemalan weavers, limestone layers, the Art Cloth Network, the International Quilt Festival (where I also teach) and lots more.

I told you what I don’t do much of in the first paragraph. What I do do: journal and observe, listen to my dreams, follow my obsessions, pile up cloth and look at the colors together, mull over design elements and sketch, sketch, sketch images, doodles and private marks then turn them into thermofax screens for printing paint and dye, improvise dyed fabric using Kerr’s methods of deconstructed screen printing, iron WonderUnder or Mystifuse to every piece I like, sometimes piece together long rows of 5’ strips and other background fabric, then start cutting with a vague idea of what it is that is speaking to me. Then I free-motion stitch the quilt, possibly even go back and print another layer of imagery on top of it all. Sometimes I mount my work on wooden frames, sometimes it just hangs on the wall.

And yes, someday I really do want to make a bed quilt. But I am terrified of the binding. And the basteing. I read you so that I will have the courage to try someday!

For those who comment here, or on my blog during the rest of the month of February, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free copy of that book on creativity (it’s even good for grownups who aren’t around kids): New World Kids at www.newworldkids.org

Blogging OnLIne Course from Simpleology

 

I like this site  -- Simpleology --  and its offerings, and though I haven't taken any of Mark Joyner's classes yet, I enjoy reading what he has to say about life, action and inner and outer peace. In order to win a a free enrollment for a new course on blogging, all you have to do is go to his site, write about it like this, paste some code on your site to get his widget. If you're still thinking about blogging, either as a personal tool, a marketing avenue or a way to record your work and process (I do all three here), check out Mark's work and see if it fits your needs.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Here's Mark's invitation:

It took me 6 years to figure out that blogging was significant.

"This is just a freakin' self-posting guest book with comments!"

So, my company (Simpleology) decided to create a course on blogging.

Umm ... can you say "credibility gap?"

Apparently I can.

Anyway, we make kick ass courseware (among other things), but kick ass it may be - your course is only as good as the content is valid, right?

We consulted with some industry experts on the content and people who have seen it say it's great, but I'm still not in my comfort zone.

So, here's what we've decided to do ...

We're going to give the course away to anyone who blogs about it.

All you have to do is mention that it exists.

After you try it you can rip us a new one in your blog - it's all good. We accept all feedback (we may or may not agree with it - but it doesn't mean we can't be friends).

We're not sure how this stacks up against our other courseware (about which we're very comfortable - proud even), but this is what it is.

I'm half-curious to see what the blogosphere thinks about it.

FIberart for A Cause Reverse Auction

Pomegranate Cross will be on the auction block for the American Cancer Society--

I'm one of the invited artists this year, and I'm so happy to be in the company of these fabulous artists. (Click here for photos of the donated work, and for more info see Virginia Spiegel's auction preview. Spiegel has the site up and running (while she's in Texas on retreat at Karey Bresenhahn's).


Invited Artists:
Natalya Aikens
Gerrie Congdon
Marjorie DeQuincy
Rayna Gillman
Carol Larson
Linda Teddlie Minton
Susie Monday
Judy Coates Perez
Leandra Spangler
Roxane Stoner

FFAC Reverse Auction - Press Release

Fiberart For A Cause Reverse Auction Set to Raise Funds for the American Cancer Society

Byron, Illinois, December 12, 2008-
Fiberart For A Cause will hold its fifth Invitational Reverse Auction from March 24-26, 2009. Natalya Aikens, Gerrie Congdon, Marjorie DeQuincy, Rayna Gillman, Carol Larson, Linda Teddlie Minton, Susie Monday, Judy Coates Perez, Leandra Spangler and Roxane Stoner have all donated their artwork. All proceeds from the sales go directly to the American Cancer Society.

A preview of all artwork will be posted at least one week prior to March 24. All artwork will begin at a fixed minimum donation. This minimum donation is reduced by a fixed (and very generous) percentage of the original minimum donation each day until the artwork is chosen by a generous patron. Each artwork will show the minimum donation required for each day of the auction. The preview and actual auction will be linked from http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html

Exhibit at Northwest Vista College

My solo show went up mid-January Northwest Vista College -- and finally the dates are set for a reception for my friends and family members, as well as a couple of "appearances" as a resident artist for the college. The exhibit, I'm honored to say, is the first in a new multipurpose room in the newest to open building on campus: Cypress Hall, where the bookstore, admin and cafeteria share space on the ground floor overlooking the lake at the heart of the campus.

The room is lovely; exhibits share space with beautiful views, and unlike most art galleries, it is truely a multipurpose room, hosting several faculty and student events each week. I've already received quite a number of kind comments about the show from faculty member friends of Linda's (she teaches Communications at NWV).

An artist talk and "guided tour" of my work, my working process and showing a slide show of processes, inspirations and my studio will be presented on February 11, with a lunch reception and the talk from 11:30 am -- 1:30 pm (the talk will be 12:15 - 1:15  more or less, and it is open to the public.) Then on March 5, March 18 I'm hosting a short reception in the room for friends and the general public, from 4 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. -- and I hope you can come! I plan to send out a few email invites and maybe some postcards, but if you're reading this, you are invited. I'd love to meet you and have you see some of my work in person.

On March 25, at 3:30, I'll be on a panel for Women's History Month, discussing with other artists the place and changing role of women as entrepreneurs in the arts, as artists, as well as comparing our personal histories as artist/business women. Again, the panel presentation, part I believe of a full day of events at the college, is open to the public.

All of these activities will be held in the multipurpose room off the cafeteria in Cypress Hall -- follow the signs to the closest parking lot when you get to the college. Parking can be a bit iffy, so if you attend, you might want to carpool and let the hardiest walker  in the group drop the rest of the attendees off at the entrance!

 

FInding Your Way in Media and Materials

Another pathway to finding one’s voice has to do with the materials and media that are central to the form. For me media is anything that takes the idea into form, be it writing, silk paint, cookie dough or conversation. Most of us as artists have the luxury of finding, exploring, layering and learning about many different kinds of media, and this time in play is an important part of the process of coming into our unique style. Some ideas work in cookie dough, others don't.


Experimentation, fluency and craftsmanship all play a role. Experimentation means taking the time and having the will to push a media or material beyond what you have seen others do with it. For some, this is easy and essential, others of us have to work hard to "break the rules," since our inclination or training may make this tantamount to heresy.

Fluency means playing with possibilities and with the borders between media, combining it with other materials and using new tools with the medium. Fluency is the brainstorming equivalent but with stuff, not just ideas. Fluency also requires “just sticking to it” long enough to get beyond the first easy idea, and this I think is the dirty little secret behind developing facility and technical skills -- ie craftsmanship.


Many artists want their first of something to be fabulous, but most of us who have stuck with art long enough know that expertise does clarify the voice. Experience with the technical handling of the media, the tools, the physical material of one’s art and craft means that the message becomes clear, the hand of the artist is consciously visible rather than intrusively visible. You’ve simply got to keep at it and the “it” has to be something you like enough to carry you over the drudge, slog and boring parts. Paints gotta dry. Dye needs its temperature. The ink line needs the right brush and the paper that lets it do what you want it to do. If you break the rules here, it's because you want to, not because you can't do it "right." 

Sounds a bit like a teeter-totter and it is. Too  much attention too soon to craft and you may end up with a dead something instead of a living idea. Too little attention to skillful handling, and your idea may disappear under the clutter of incompetence. And of course, all of these aspects are ever moving targets for most of us!

PS All these photos are from the recent Baker Idea Institute Workshop, where we did a lot of playing around with materials/media. Exercises are among those included in New World Kids, The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking.

 

Finding Your Voice, Your Path

 

We all want our work to be distintive and unique. Really, don't we? No matter how much we admire the work we see of other artists, when we embark on the journey of living the artist's life, we want our work to sing with our own voice. I think there are several parts to finding that voice, that path (if voice in a visual sense seems too mixed a metaphor). I also think the process is similar no matter your medium and whatever the field you pursue, be it art, quiltmaking, physics or cookery. As I've been teaching this past week, and heading into two more workshops this week -- one in Austin for the Austin Fiber Artists and my own recurring Artist Journal/Artist Journey retreat this weekend -- this piece I wrote a couple of years ago -- and revised for the upcoming events -- bears repeating. Today, Part One:

Think about "Pure Form:"

I believe – and my belief is supported by more than 30 years of work with children in creative learning environments – that each of us is born with an innate preference/leaning toward a particular way of perceiving and giving form that is directly connected to what I (and my colleagues in this work) call the Sensory Alphabet. This vocabulary of non-verbal qualities – line, color, shape, space, light, texture, movement, sound and rhythm -- is a way of thinking about and organizing one’s individual strengths of perception and invention. Looking at one’s preferences and natural tendencies through this lens serves as both a way to self discovery and as a bridge to understand other creative work. This vocabulary is not just an artistic one – it can hold as true to creative work in business as in design, in science as in art.

If you think about letters of the alphabet as being the building blocks of literacy (both spoken and read and write) and numbers as the building blocks of mathmatics and physics, then the Sensory Alphabet is what can be a symbol system for everything else (and even math and words, sinces it's more primal, more connected to our bodies and minds in a very basic way.)

Think about which of these constructs is easiest for you to notice, to manipulate, to play with –is it pattern (rhythm) or texture or color? What did you love as a young child? Which of these elements are most important to you in your home, your environment? What artists do you resonate to? Design exercises and experiences for yourself that feed your mind’s natural interests, or find teachers that share your sensibilities (look at their work and see what they say about it) who can provide classes that feed your perceptual strengths.

An understanding of your own creative style in terms of this vocabulary can be the starting place for finding your voice – and even help you find the best and strongest medium for work. For example, if color is my strong suite, I might take time to do dye and discharge samples, study Albers and other colorist’s work, take photos exploring color themes, investigate watercolor and glazing, look at color as understood by chemists and physicists, etc. If movement is a strong suite, I might see how to incorporate moving elements in my textile work, take up techniques that use my body in strenuous and challenging fashion, look at how movement blurs an image and how to capture that sense with dyeing or printing, I might even want to dye fabrics and construct garments for dance performances or architectural installations with moving components.

Most of us have three or four of these strong suites that interact in interesting ways and can pose intriguing puzzles for our work. Tracking down your strongest perceptual elements is usually just a matter of paying attention to preference, to what you notice in a space, to the materials that call your name. Journaling about childhood preferences and doing detective work in your closet, your home, your memory bank can help you name your sensory strengths.

Our book, New World Kids, The Parent's Guide to Creative Thinking includes investigations and invention activities for adults as well as for adults and children, despite the title. We think parents need to nurture their own experience with this alphabet in order to recognize their children's strengths and learning styles. Here's an example for TEXTURE -- since most of us who end up in the fiber arts are almost certainly drawing on some interest and facility for texture, I figure it might spur you own with some Sensory Alphabet play!

From NEW WORLD KIDS, all rights reserved.

TEXTURE investigations to do on your own:

1. Examine your wardrobe and make a texture inventory.
What textures really suit you? What feels good against your
skin? Make a point to buy something with a pleasing texture
the next time you shop.
2. Cook a meal with a conscious plan to include contrasting
textures, as the Japanese do. Do certain kinds of tastes correspond
to certain kinds of textures? Think temperature as well
as crisp, creamy, grainy, smooth.
3. Where can you experience coarse, slimy, mushy, matted,
abrasive, elastic, sleazy, itchy, silky, downy, frothy, fuzzy?
Consciously create one new tactile experience each day for a
week.
4. Listen to different music with an ear toward texture: contemporary
jazz, baroque, chant and heavy metal are a few contrasting
genres to try.
5. Visit a museum’s textile or fiber arts exhibitions or explore
some online exhibitions or galleries. Try one or more
of these key words for a search: fashion, art quilts, traditional
quilts, art cloth, knitting, weaving, wearable art, basketry, fiber
arts, shibori, batik.
6. Study and write a poem about the textures of your body,
inside and out.

Color in Bustamante

 

 

 

Imagine painting your doorway pepto pink. Imagine what it's like to open your eyes to a chrome yellow wall, and another, and another? What's not to love about the colors in the little town in Northern Mexico that we visited over the holidays? Folks in Bustamante seemed typically Northern Mexican in their conservatism; our hotel owner was more dour than debonair; the sidewalks emptied by 8 p.m. and we never did find a bar, much less the website-touted mescal factory we had read about. BUT, in color sense, the town was anything buy shy and retiring. Even with many storefronts and homes shuttered in the winter (perhaps to open come summer visits), walls were freshly painted, the door frames bright, and every possible color combination seemed to work with its neighbor -- killing the rather limited notion we seem to have for color harmonies and proper color schemes. Of course the nature played its part, as well, with pink and orange bouganvilla blooms reaching over walls, and branches laden with limes bending over porticos. Then, there were the more subtle hues of the mountains, the early huisache blooms, the clear spring waters and blue skies at the ojo de agua.

 

 

We're planning to stretch the limits of color play at my February workshop, too.  "A Field Guide to Color" is coming up mid February 20-22. If you'd like a hands-on  take-no-enemies  time to work with color, stretching your understanding of the rules, taking on, learning then breaking them, sign up now while there's still space. For details, see the workshop page here. We'll have dye play, painting with hue and value, chakra color meditations and more. The economy might mean fewer long trips or major workshop weeklong outings for many of us artists, so I hope you'll consider this closer-to-home affordable opportunity for an intensive improvisational dye workshop with color at its heart!

 

A Few Questions for the New Year

 

Just to get the blog going again, I'm taking the easy way out with a link to a short little animation that says "it" (or this particular "it") more better than I have a brain for today.  As I wade through emails, real mails, bills and puddings, piles of file-ables, and the other stuff that has accumulated over the course of a couple of holiday weeks, it's a good reminder for the big sort of sort.

And a happy new 2009 to you all. Coming later this month - a new newsletter, details about my upcoming solo show at North West Vista College, reports on the conference appearance in Dallas for New World Kids and a stack of photos from Bustamante, Mexico -- surely a trip back in time if there ever was one (no big box stores, no rush, no traffic or noise, no disco or late-nights, just big rock mountains and people sweeping their streets each morning, handmade rocking chairs and wood-oven cooked breads).

Kreativ Blogger don't need to spell it right!

I was nominated by Carol Larson over at Tall Girl Tales to receive this award, and it's fun to get the tap on the virtual shoulder. Mostly it's a hoot to have the excuse to peruse the other nominees and track back through other's blogs to find some real gems. Of course Carol is one of my regular reads -- she is honest, talented, wrestles with many of the same issues that I find wrapped around my brain. (Please Carol, use up the stuff, but don't give up making your beautiful art cloth.)

If I had all the time in the world, I might do nothing else except read great blog posts. Alas, the real world interrupts! But this award was a great excuse to take do some recreational virtual sight-seeing. Like to see these rainy day photos from Rayna Gillman, absorb these practices for being present from Jeanne Beck, and throw up my hands at the wild and wonderful rants from Lauri Smith, a former (and I hope future) participant at El Cielo (and you think you have an excuse for not blogging) and well, a lot of other eye, brain and soul candy.

I have been reading more and more that "the blog is dead" -- seems like the corporate/collaborative blog has taken over the field, with those like Huffington Post taking the top traffic and top readership awards. Not that I ever aspired to do more than keep tabs on my own work, remind myself of what's important, stay in touch with friends and family with a slightly more formal stance and a bit more care in the writing than the run-of-mailbox email. But I still think the blog has a place in our creative, social and collective culture online. (So does Seth Godin, by the way, and if anyone is a blogger to emulate, it's Seth). Tweeting on Twitter is fun, but you can't really say much in one sentence!

I find that it's difficult to write some weeks, but I try to manage a tiny post, or at least a picture. Sometimes I need to stretch out and make long theoretical posts and deep-swimming pool philosophical diatribes. Sometimes it's just fun to have a place to record successes, completions, challenges and goals, and share them with an audience of more than the kitchen table. I love writing a blog and don't plan to give it up, even if the trend is overrun, overwrought, commercialized and co-opted.

As a nominee:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog. (done)

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog (done)

3. Nominate 5 blogs.

4. Put links to the blogs. (below)

5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Here are my nominees:

Lauri Smith at Artsmith, because she needs to keep writing, kidney stone or no kidney stone. And her last post is about the funniest thing I've ever read by someone who's just dodged the big one. And also because she is young, and mostly I read stuff by people mine own age.

Jane Dunnewold for her new image-a-day blog. Eye candy (and food for thought) indeed. And anyone who has ever taken a class from Jane knows why her brain and eye are worth following around.

The collective posts at RAGGED CLOTH CAFE. Thought provoking, always. Wisdom-provoking often. Probably won't pass along this award as that's not the kind of place it is, but I wanted to put the link here anyway!

Sabrina Zarca's political creativity and textural art. "Sometimes creativity comes in different forms. The art of organizing and standing in solidarity in the face of injustice is an art form worth perfecting! "

And finally, Serena Fenton's Layers of Meaning. Says it all.

Not all of these folks (most of them actually, except for Jane's daily practise) post daily or even weekly. But when they do, it's almost always worth reading. And, as you can see, I like the glimpses into worlds different from my own, the stretch and pull from outer limits that don't fall across my usual path. If I didn't read these blogs, I probably wouldn't have the richness of ponderings that I do!

Yikes. Where I've been in cyberspace

No posting for two weeks, that's a sad state of affairs. But, I've been busy in another sector of cyberspace (among about a million other things including parties, memorial services, outings, FASA's Holiday Sale -- but that's enough about me, how about you this time of year? - I thought so).

So, take a look at the new New World Kids site, not quite up and running and taking orders, but on its way. We'll have the books in hand (or at least in the Austin warehouse) on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, assuming all goes as planned. By then, we'll have a Paypal link so you can order at the site (and here on this one, too).

Please take a look and see what else you'd like to see on the site. We have some free downloadable excerpts we plan to add, and a few other ideas in store as well. But, in order to quiet the fears that I have dropped off the face of the ether, here's a slightly premature link to New World Kids.

UPDATE on TUESDAY:

I'm still tinkering with the New World Kids site and don't have an order form enabled yet -- promise, it's coming soon. There is also a PayPal link coming to my sidebar, but PLEASE hold off a few days, as the shipping and tax aren't quite all right yet. I'm peddling as fast as I can. NOTE TO SELF: e-commerce has its challenges. Take time. Breathe.

More Houston: Artist's Altar

Well. I didn't win the tiara parade. I don't think my garden glove, yarn, shredded fabic, needles and pins entry was quite tiaraesque enough. But I had a great time all day. I did a "Meet the Teachers" session early in the day -- 10:30 am and believe it or not, people, a few, showed up to hear me (or the person who was next on the list). So I continue to learn a lot. and continue to meet wonderful teachers, quilters, artists, all. Here's the basic outline of my presentation, I hope you can follow along:

An Art Quilt Artist’s Altar

By Susie Monday, artist, coach and teacher
3532 Timbercreek Rd.
El Cielo Studios, Pipe Creek, Texas
http://susiemonday.squarespace.com
www.susiemonday.com
210-643-2128

Making an artist’s altar is one of the creative exercises suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. I’ve adapted her practice by combining it with the process of art quilt journaling. Art quilt Artist’s Altars start with an acknowledgement of our human heritage of creativity. Episcopal priest and radical theologian Matthew Fox has written, “We are creators at our very core. Only creating can make us happy, for in creating we tap into the deepest powers of self and universe and the Divine Self. We become co-creators, that is, we create with the other forces of society, universe and the God-self when we commit to creativity.” The act of creating an artist altar honors this deep connection to the Source.

Here are some prompts, suggestions and techniques that will help you make your own art quilt artist’s altar. First construct or purchase a simple box or altar shaped frame that will determine the size of your art quilt work. I build simple 1 by 3” frames in a “house” shape for the ones I make, but you can use a pre-made gallery canvas as the structure.

1. Start with your favorite colors. Pull fabrics from your stash that represent your most beloved hues and shades. You can use one or 50 different prints. No rules, here. Combine a rainbow or stick to the subtlest shades of white you can find.

2. What symbolizes creativity for you – is it a person, a goddess or mythological figure, a place, a shape, a sound, an image from nature or from art history? Is it all of the above. Collect, draw, cut, photo transfer or collage a central image for your art quilt artist altar by starting with what speaks the name of creativity the loudest.

3. Use your favorite quilting techniques to assemble the top of your art quilt. I use fusing, piecing, machine quilting and hand embroidery for the ones I make, but you should honor your own favorite techniques. Assemble with batting, but a back layer of fabric is usually not needed.

4. Make the top of your art quilt large enough to wrap completely around the frame, whatever its size. Wrap and staple the top around the frame, fitting and folding the corners neatly. If desired, stitch fabric to the back

Good news of the day: when I went to pick up my art materials for the demo, I found a note from Leslie Riley (she organized the mixed media classes). Pokey Bolten of Quilting Arts magazines. (Cloth, Paper, Scissors, etc.) wanted to talk to me about writing for the mags. That's incentive to get my proposals in to the editors. Hold me to it.

On other quilting fronts: check out Ragged Cloth Cafe's last month post by Kate Themal,  food for thought as we look at the amazing variety of quilts here in this venue: traditional, antique, contemporary, cutting edge, stange and digital.