Texas Original

I'm back on line. And out on a line, too. Speaking metaphorically, at least. Seems that getting one's hard drive back in order, with scattered (or nonexistant) backup files is enough to tangle my very cockles. Good thing Real de Catorce was as wonderful a trip as I can imagine. (See the next post.)

Meanwhile, catching up with events in the etherworld and the real planet is the day's challenge -- and probably tomorrow's, too. And here's one of the happy notices in the inbox, an official notification and an accompanying press release that I have been selected as one of this year's 38 craft  artisans to be part of the Texas Original program. Check the website "SHOP" page for the others, last year's and this. Of the fiber artists, Kim Ritter is another quilt artist selected for 2006-07.

AUSTIN, Texas – Nov. 15, 2006 – The Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) has selected 38 of Texas’ most talented craft artisans to be part of its Texas Original (TxO) program. The skilled artisans represent 22 different cities across the state and they work in a variety of mediums including glass, fiber, metal, wood and stone.

 

The 38 selected artisans were among nearly 1,500 craftsmen from across the state invited to participate in this year’s TxO program application process. TCA chose the artisans based not only on their ability to create high-quality, authentic and original works, but also on their high business and artistic standards.

“Each of these artists embodies what it means to be a Texas craft artisan and we are proud to promote their work,” said Rick Hernandez, executive director of TCA. “The TxO program taps into Texas’ flourishing industry of arts and crafts and we hope that, as the program grows, so does the visibility of the craft arts in Texas.”

The TxO program, in full swing after a successful pilot period, aims to preserve Texas’ unique arts and crafts heritage by promoting Texas craft artisans and their original works. To assist TxO artisans, the TxO Web site, www.txoriginal.com, functions as an opportunity for the artisans to successfully market their products, supporting each individuals’ career in the arts. Through the Web site customers can link to member artisan’s sites where they are able to purchase original pieces and learn about the cultural influences that shape each individual’s work. TCA will promote the TxO program with coordinated studio tours, through participation in existing craft festivals and galas and by organizing special events featuring TxO artisans.

 

More Moo

Moo cards came a few days ago and they are just as delicious as I hoped.

How shall I count the ways?

Moo cards instead of business cards: lots of choices, thicker paper, distinctive but not distracting shape, still fits in the wallet

Moo cards for hang tags: what could be easier to punch and string to the edge of a scarf or a table cloth?

Moo cards to put out at exhibits and openings: small, easy, relatively inexpensive

Moo cards to tuck inside thank you notes and correspondence

Moo cards to hang on my Christmas Tree

Upload another set, put a Christmas greeting on the back and send as the world's smallest greeting cards. OK, I know I have to put them in a bigger envelope for the USPostal Service, still it's a tiny surprise inside.

Make a family photo set of images to send to all the sibs -- I could get two fun gift sets out of each package of 100

Make a miniature tarot moo card set, with my own designs

Invitations (gallery show, sale, studio open house, party with the right 5-line invitation) Slip them inside mailable sized glassine envelopes with a sticky address label on the outside. Different, more noticeable than the standard postcard.

HeArtCloth Quarterly

The fourth wonderful issue of HeArtCloth Quarterly has been posted at Art Cloth Studios. This subscription-based magazine/journal/communize from Jane Dunnewold is on my must-have list of studio resources. Jane's teaching style and generosity come through with grace; the articles by other contributors and gallery sections of guest artists always introduce me to someone new, something intriguing, some way to look at the work I do differently. I get to know a burgeoning international community of those who love to make beautiful fabrics  --- all on one or more of the 50-odd pages that make up each issue (by the way, advertising-free). 

Jane always also includes work or words or both by least one YOUNG artist  -- sometimes I feel a bit stranded in my own generation and these features from art schools provide refreshing voices and also help me to feel that while I may be aging, the work I love has connection and relevance to artists of all ages -- and that there are still people coming along who want to work with their hands, hearts and the one-of-a-kind tactile art that gets me going.

 So, if you buy  only one fiber related book a year, this would get my vote. Click here for a few sample pages, and subscription information -- and while you are at the site, don't forget to check out the other offerings, essays and information.

Creative Success

Artist Lisa Call sent me via blog to marketer and cartoonist Hugh McLeod's site where I found his most popular page "How To Be Creative".

His compilation of a series of posts about creativity and marketing one's creative products is worth more than a casual read. MacLeod seem quite on target to me, but I wondered if I could come up with my personal top 5 "How To Be Creative" rules. Today was a perfect opportunity to keep a little thread going in my back brain, since much of the front (as well as hands and feet) have been devoted to a much-needed house cleaning (the studio still awaits).

Here's what I came up with:

1. It helps to narrow, not broaden, the field.

My most creative and interesting work has come after erecting some interesting parameters and staying within them. I could only develop a "body of work" when I made some decisions to focus on a personal vein of expression that could be mined again and again. Skipping around between media and content was, for me, a way to avoid getting beyond the facile.

2. Persistence is more important than inspiration.

And persistence means getting my hands on my work as many hours, as many days each week as I can. No excuses. No waiting for the muse.

3. When it's not working, back off.

While this sounds like the opposite of #2, it's actually a call to have more than one project on the table, more than one stage of the process in process. If I let something sit around on my big table in the studio, at what ever stage it starts feeling forced, eventually something shifts and the next step appears. Meanwhile, I can keep keeping on with another project that's in another stage of development. This is one reason I like dyeing and printing fabric. I can ALWAYS go mix up a bucket of dye.

4. Don't scrimp on the good stuff.

Eat beans and rice if you must, but don't expect to make art without the stuff of transformation necessary for your creativity. I gotta have dyes, paints, thermofax film, lots of fabric, WonderUnder and batting. Fancy tools and materials may not make the artist, but if you don't have the things that are essential elements for your art, you won't make any. Know your basics and keep them stocked. Do without the rest if you must. I still use a 1950s sewing machine because I haven't been able to justify the expense of a new fancy one, but in truth, it does the job, and I'd rather know I have the cash for new batch of dyes, a bolt of silk noil and -- OK -- a trip to Italy next May.

5. Know what works for you. Honor, protect and defend it.

I think the creative process is different for each of us. We each need feedback and interaction with others at different times in the process; we might need solitude and quiet, or raucous hubbub and a loud stereo at another point. Maybe you start with with your hands or maybe your ears or a swatch of red muslin. You might need a grand map and a fountain pen. You might need three days alone or five minutes looking out the window and the next four years collecting images and facts. Whatever it is you need, you better have it tagged and sorted. Know when to hold, to fold, to keep it very, very quiet.

This isn't as easy as it sounds, because it requires a good deal of self observation and tolerance for your own foibles. I've been fortunate. From childhood -- even professionally -- I've been nurtured by a culture that honors self-knowledge in the realm of creativity -- something quite different than personality, by the way. This culture of nurturnance of creative work and individual process is what I strive to shape for the workshops here at El Cielo Studio.

Tooling Around

I guess you could say it all started here:

cuneiform writing and hieroglyphics

Both images from art in the collection of Emory University 

I've spent the morning playing with the Squarespace tools creating a special members-only area on this site for the ArtCloth Network (you'll see it at the bottom of the right sidebar). As with any endeavor, learning to make use of the powerful tools on this host site is both frustrating and invigorating. Now that I have made one area for a special audience, I think it might be fun to make another -- perhaps for participants in El Cielo Studio workshop retreats and/or those in my other classes, both in SA and around the country. Several students have commented that they wished they had an easy and fun way to stay in touch with each other -- including visuals --they just don't work easily as email-- and with interactivity that has a degree of intuitive communication.

We are entering yet-another next-generation era of electronic conversation --  Yahoo group memberships seem clunky and not very visually satisfying to someone like me, who listens with her eyes first. I have such a problem with the visual clutter of Yahoo Groups that I get frustrated before I begin. Blogging is wildly colonizing the ether between us, and blogging tools and software are getting better and more flexible. (I highly recommend Squarespace if you are willing to pay a bit more to get a whole lot more -- and, no, they are not paying me to say this!)

Of course, the downside is that most of us are probably spending too much time on-line and not enough time on-life these days! At any rate, I think I have had my fun for now, but if any of my former class participants are reading this, let me know if you would like a "members-only" area where you could post work in progress, brag on your accomplishments and get feedback on the art in your life and the life in your art. Leave your comments by clicking on the subtext below this post.

It's Moo for Me

Sometimes a girl's just got to have fun. And MOO cards are it for me today. Moo cards are smaller, but usable (especially for a nonconforming artist) business-- or whatever -- cards that are printed from a set of photos in Flickr. Falling in love with the cards first, that meant I had to tackle another internet challenge, setting up a Flickr account, uploading photos, and trying to stay detached enough not to get lost in the scores, hundreds, thousands of incredible images that live on the Flickr pages.

 This detail from Our Lady of Guadalupe/Tonantzin was one of the 20 or so images I ordered. The card will actually be a slice about 1.5 inches wide through the middle of this picture.

 

I had a blast. Flickr was fun; Moo was fun. I cannot wait to get my 100 little cards, each one with a different image of my art work on the front, proper business contact information on the back. Seems to me its the next best thing to ATC and at $19.95 for a pack of 100 cards, they are, if not inexpensive, certainly an affordable luxury, like eating raspberries. 

To be Inspired

Inspiration has a linguistic connection to breath. We breathe in the world and transform it into our work. This week away from the studio, I am inhaling images that will find their way onto my work tables at El Cielo. Breathing lessons. Slow down. Take time, take photos if you wish. Fill your chest cavity and your solar plexis with otherpeople's everydays.

For more of what I'm seeing:  

Maker

Confession. My home page is not -- exactly -- an art related site. But, on www.boingboing.net I always find something that stirs my artist's interest.

Today, it was a post that linked to an article in "The New Atlantis" an online magazine, where essayist Matthew B. Crawford explores the state of manual competence. After my last post, driven by the frustration of my own manual incompetence at a particular task, I found the synchronicity compelling and the writer's words a good reminder of why I call myself a "maker."

The term is more often used by artists and artisans in Great Britain, and I like its leveling of all the distinctions that drive me into drivel. Am I arts or crafts? Is my work Art with a capitol or damnably artsy? Is this work fine craft, fine art, product or object? A recent discussion on a very large online listserve centered on whether the Gee's Bend quiltmakers were artists or not drove me off the list after only a week of lurking.

Anyway, Crawford, who is exploring the educational trend away from vocational classes, has this to say near the beginning of his article:

"A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our mode of inhabiting the world: more passive and more dependent. And indeed, there are fewer occasions for the kind of spiritedness that is called forth when we take things in hand for ourselves, whether to fix them or to make them. What ordinary people once made, they buy; and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves installing a pre-made replacement part.

"So perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world."

Welcome to my view

This is about the maker's life. The teacher's path. The stitching and dyeing and printing of the craft of art cloth and art quilt. The stumbling around and the soaring, the way the words and the pictures come together. Poetry on the page and in the piecing of bright scraps together. The inner work and the outer journeys to and from. Practicalities and flights of fancy and fearful grandeur, trivial pursuits and tactile amusements.

It's also about this particular place and time --in my life -- and in the life of this studio space as it and we become the next thing on the list. The view from this studio space on this Texas Hill Country ridge is awe-inspiring and ever-changing. Blink and the light shifts, but the seven hills that stretch out on the near horizon are as old as, well, the hills. What you see below foot -- crushed caliche, jagged limestone, shaped and sharp, smooth and honeycombed, dusty and chalky -- is what makes the contours, the rounded nubs and gentle peaks. The limestone shapes the hills beneath their green cloak of cedar - ash juniper - that stretches as far as the eye reaches. And, despite this present aparition, the rock was once alive, once the skeletons of sea creatures, the living reef.

So this is about nature and art and people as we come together in communion on this patch of old reef, a ridgeline about 20 minutes drive from any named place on a map, although the post office address is Pipe Creek.

Expect this chronicle to be as changing as the rock.