Art Calendar, Alyson & Me

 

Advice to artists: When Alyson B. Stanfield puts out a call for photographs, answer the call. If you're lucky and have the right work to share, you may find yourself featured in a magazine article, such as this one in June's issue of Art Calendar!

This is the second time an article by Alyson has used one of my photos to illustrate her advice, and, I assure you, the exposure is welcome. And of course, as a fan and occassional student in Art Biz Coach workshops, the advice is always worth reading. This article about public speaking for artists includes the following tip (buy the magazine to read more and to catch the rest of the details!) Alyson writes:

"Provide a call to action.

When you conclude, don't forget why you're there....Suggesting a next step to your audience provides both closure and a transition for continuingyour relationship with them."

Believe me, I learned several good new approaches to include in my next artist's talk from the article, and I suspect you will as well!

 

New World Kids at School

The Teachers Guide for our book is here at last. Written by my colleague and lifelong friend Cindy Herbert, it's a visual treat and has lots of pragmatic information for using the ideas in New World Kids, The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking in the classroom or homeschool setting. And just in time for end-of-school gift giving to the teachers in your life. Click over to the book site for more information.

More Ties that Bind

Escape Velocity, 2009.
19" by 26.5" by 2.5' Textile on wooden frame
$400

Here's a preview of some of my new work that will be shown at FiberArt Space though June 15, with the artists' reception tonight starting at 5:30. The 8" by 8" by 1.5" pieces are a new format for me, inspired by a desire to make some smaller work that relate to larger pieces. These little satellites are $85 -- I hope they'll find good homes! If you are interested in any of the pieces in this preview (just a few of the 24 pieces I have on display), please contact the gallery.

Fiber Artspace
1414 S. Alamo St. # 103
San Antonio, TX 78210

210-633-6959

Located in the Blue Star Art Complex
In the Armon Art Suite of Galleries

They will be happy to arrange shipping. If you want to see more, email me and I'll try to have an album link up on my website by early next week.

 

 

Above top: Letting Go 2, Letting Go 1, each 8" by 8" by 1.5"

Above, lower: Dream Tree with Spines, 8" by 8" by 1.5"

(I think) Please describe these if you wish to purchase one of these, I realize now I didn't put the numbers on the photo titles!

Dream house with Spines, 2009 SOLD

8" by 8" by 1.5"

$85

 

Pomegranate, 2009 SOLD

8"by 8" by 1.5"

$85

This last piece has an unusual history and technique in its making: I love pomegranates and often feature them in my work. They have both real and symbolic beauty and are, to me, a symbol of the fertility of creativity. This was a photoshopped image of a pomegranate that I photographed in Monte Vista, an area near my old university (Trinity University in San Antonio) when I walked there last fall. The tree was a full bushy shrub with many fruit and it was just luscious. When I worked on the photo, I enhanced and saturated the colors to make the image move from real to magical. I printed the image on several materials, including this plastic packing material -- (perhaps its Tyvak, but I am not sure as it was a recycled bit found on the run). Then, last fall when teaching at the International Quilt Festival in Houston (where I'll be teaching and lecturing this fall, too) I had used all the fabric I brought for demonstrating a polychrome method of screenprinting with water-soluble crayons -- This scrap of an image fell out of the box of supplies (I'd actually taken it for a different demo) and the rest is history -- that's the swirly designs. 'Course, in making this piece, I added more fabric, screenprinted the squiggles and the wheel symbol and did some machine and hand stitching to finish the embellished image, floating there in its magical mystical presence!

If you'd like to know the checkered past for any of these other pieces, or any of the art on my website or blog elsewhere, please leave a question in the comments. Everything has a story.

P.S. Here's a complete list of my work that's in the exhibit. Any questions, send me an email with the contact box in the sidebar,.

a) Title: Escape Velocity
Size: 19” by 26.5” by 2.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price: $400


b) Title:Escape Velocity, 2
Size: 12” by 12” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price: $115


c) Title:Dream Tree with Spines
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


d) Title: Dream House with Spines
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


e) Title:Escape
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


f Title: Dream House with Spines, 2
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


g) Title: ”I’m Out of Here”
Size: 19” by 26.5” by 2.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price: $400


h) Title:Escape
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


i) Title:Dream House with Spines, 3
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


j) Title: Pomegranate: Fertile Earth
Size: 19” by 26.5” by 2.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price: $350


k) Title: Earth Niche, 1
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


l) Title:Earth Niche, 2
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


m) Title: Pomegranate 1
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


n) Title: Pomegranate 2
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


o) Title:Fig Leaf
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


p) Title: Rose Grotto
Size: 12” by 16” by 3.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$200


q) Title: El Cielo Dream, 2
Size: 19” by 17.5” by 2.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price: $350


r) Title: El Cielo Dream, 3
Size: 12” by 12” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$110


s) Title:Letting Go, 1
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


t) Title: Letting Go, 2
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


u) Title:Letting Go, 3
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


v) Title:Letting Go, 4
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile on wooden frame
Retail Price:$85


W) Title:Michael of a Thousand Eyes
Size: 8” by 8” by 1.5”
Media: Textile , art quilt
Retail Price $750

 

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?


 

The Ties that Bind

I've spent most of the past two weeks in a storm of productivity -- and I'm quite happy with all the work I've gotten done, if not a bit chagrined that it seems to take deadlines to get me into this heat of energy in the studio. The show is a three-person show at the newly relocated FiberArt Space and Suchil Coffman organized the theme and put all of us in action.

I've a whole slew of new work -- but it's also old. The theme called me to revisit some small paintings that I had made sometime, I think, in the 1980s. The pieces were made from dreams and some untangling personal work that I did in the 1980s, reclaiming some old stories and rewriting my own past and some painful memories with compassion.  I made new textile pieces from a couple of these paintings, and made some photo copier prints from them, then reshaped them into some new small 8" by 8" by 1.5" pieces.

I also made some small new pieces from photo prints made of details from earlier work -- hands that were part of larger pieces,  turning them into a small series called "Letting Go." And also made some small companion "satellite" works to accompany a larger altar piece now retitled and reworked, "Pomegranate: Fertile Earth."

I won't post the new work (other than these little teaser details) until the show opens, but once the reception is over, I'll put some of these new pieces here on the blog and on the website. If you can't make it to the exhibit, maybe you'll find a piece that needs to be in your collection here on the web. I will, of course, pay FiberArt Space their commission for any work sold as a result of this exhibition!

 

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?

Art Workshops at El Cielo, Summer 2009

I just realized I've not posted the new and revised dates for workshops this summer. Text on the Surface is all but full, as is The Shape of the Matter, but a couple more people could squeeze in if you're not too picky about where you sleep. If you're interested email me in the message block on the sidebar.

Workshops in fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work

Nurture your creativity as you come away from a weekend with renewed energy, new materials and techniques in surface design applicable to fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work. Susie Monday leads artists’ retreats and workshops throughout the year at her studio near Pipe Creek, Texas, about an hour from downtown San Antonio. El Cielo Studio workshops are designed with the needs of the participants in mind; free time is scheduled throughout the weekend for reading, reflection and personal work in the studio. You are welcome to bring projects in process for Susie’s critique and for peer feedback in an environment of trust and respect. You’ll share meals, poetry and stories, music and advice for living an artist’s life. Enjoy the 25-mile vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads. A spa and pool, and large screen media room are also available to participants. The fee for each work- shop retreat is $160 for a 2- day event with discounts for early enrollment. Comfortable accommodations are available from $15 - $30 per workshop. Most workshops offer a Friday night potluck option. Limited enrollment. Most supplies included. Call 210-643-2128 or email from the website comments on the sidebar.

TEXT ON THE SURFACE

May 22 - 24

In this workshop participants experiment with a number of different ways to use written language, letters and text on surface of fabric, for application in the making of art cloth, art quilts and art-to-wear. By putting ideas and personal vision/story into work, artists deepen their own expression of individual voice, using words that are important, using STORY in

a quite literal way,all can be part of that personal way of expression. Some familiar and some new techniques: sunprinting with foam letters, thermofax collage & printing, phototransfer print- ing with copier/printer, soy wax batik with text, mixed media collage. Participants will also see a wide variety of examples of the use of text in fiber and other con- temporary work, broadening their conceptual under- standing of using words in art. Optional Friday night pot luck, no additional fee.

NEW AT EL CIELO: THE SHAPE OF THE MATTER

June 17-19

How does an art quilt idea grow from a shape? Learn two-dimensional design skills though an investigation of paper-cut silhouettes, Japanese Notan ex- ercises, black ink drawings, stencil and silkscreen de- sign. Explore personal imagery, symbols and mean- ing as touchstones for de- signing for the decorative arts in fabric applicable to quilting, art cloth, garment design and embellishment, as well as learning techniques for simplifying and abstracting images to produce original designs on paper and fabric. Take home a journal quilt ready for stitching. Optional Friday night pot luck, no additional fee.


NEW AT EL CIELO THE KITCHEN ALTAR

July 17-19 and repeats August 21-23

This year’s “Burning Woman Workshop”!
Participants design and make a small art quilt “altar” for kitchen or dining room using sun-printing, vegetable prints, fusing, hand and machine stitching and “found” fabrics from attic, thrift store or kitchen closet. We will recycle napkins, tea towels and other like objects and design a thermofax featuring a meaningful symbol, favorite fruit, icon, saint, culinary heroine, an- gel or other meaningful de- sign as the centerpiece for the altar. These altars can be serious or sentimental, comic or universal – it’s up to the individual artist. (This workshop has an additional $12 fee per person for the altar boxes that the quilts are stretched upon.)


GIRLFRIENDS’ WEEKEND

Dates to be determined


Plan a weekend with your artist and should-be artist friends. Susie will design a custom weekend workshop with fiber, mixed media and creativity exercises with your interests and skill levels in mind. Possibilities: soy wax batik, art journals and hand-made books, art dolls and totems. This is the ultimate play date, with great food, the Texas Hill Country, a Saturday night rodeo or music outing (options, not in stone) and fun with “stuff.” Ttherapeutic massage services available from licensed masseuse. Minimum 4 friends, maximum, up to 8 depending on accommodation with shared rooms. The topics and techniques covered are up to you -- and any of the previous El Cielo Workshops can be adapted to your desires.

www.susiemonday.com

Beautiful, Bewitching. Abloom in the Hills

Happy Easter, Happy Rebirth, Happy Reminder to rebirth yourself, resurrect your hope, replenish your energy, renew your faith in all that sustains you, remember to love, cherish and honor your co-creativity with the universe.

Matthew Fox, one of my favorite theologians and spiritual leaders puts it this way (and quotes Meister Eckhart):

"Creating is our imitating of Divinity. We are hear to imitate Divinity. Nothing less. All of creation is generative. Why would the human species, so powerfully endowed with imagination, not also be generative. But we do not generate alone, we generate in common with with the Divine who dwells and generates within us. We tap into the work of the Creator whose power is 'unceasingly glowing and burning with all the Divine, wlth all the Divine sweetness, all the Divine bliss.'"

Go outdoors and see what's going on under your nose. Pay attention. The world right now is a message in creative being.

P.S. I am heading off into the non-connected sunset for a few family and friend days. See you Monday. Don't eat too many chocolate bunny heads. Sorry for all the typos. I was "touch" typing the quote and didn't check it! So much for touch typing.

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

 

 

 

A Sense of Humor

It's my first (juried) appearance at the International Quilt Festivals!  (Detail above is from Sea Dogs)

From the SAQA member's newsletter:

A Sense of Humor
Laughter makes the world go 'round! This exhibition celebrates the laughable, amusing, comical, whimsical, incongruous, and absurd aspects of humor. This exhibit will travel to IQF-Chicago and IQF-Long Beach. SAQA is looking for sponsors to create a catalog.
Premiere location: International Quilt Festival Houston, TX
Dates: October 15 - 18, 2009
Juror: Pam RuBert
Curator: Patricia Gould (patriciagould@msn.com)

Artists and Works Selected:
Laurie Brainerd       The American Dream
Judith Busby           Thanks, Miracle Grow!
Sheri Cooper           Joan of Park #1
Jamie Fingal            Molar Eclipse
Monique Gilbert       No Milk Today
Terry Ann Hartzell    Jumbo Shrimp
Terry Ann Hartzell    Sock Poppin' Kickapoo Kangaroo
Beatrice Hughes      Ties at the Office
Harumi Iida             Lost Bee
Ellie Kreneck            At Home with St Jerome and His Lion in West Texas
Pat Kroth                 Sweet Tooth
Cat Larrea               The Dark Side of Quilts
Carol Larson            Anti-Aging: Chemical Warfare
Salli McQuaid           Starry Flight
Susie Monday        Sun Dog and Sea Harpies
Susie Monday        Too Much Information
V'Lou Oliveira          Digger's Dream Date
Robbie Payne          Waiting to be Kissed
Helen Remick          Walking the Dog
Kim Ritter               A Snowball's Chance
Joan Sowada           Late Bloomer Learning to Surf
Joan Sowada           Busy Purple
Susan Walen           Self Portrait: If You're Happy & You Know It
Laura Wasilowski     Threading the Needle
Deborah Weir          That's A Moray
Marianne Williamson Child's Play
Kathy York              Duck and Cover

Travel Venues:
1. International Quilt Festival
Houston, TX
October 15-18, 2009
www.quilts.com

2. International Quilt Festival
Chicago, IL
April 2010
www.quilts.com

3. International Quilt Festival
Long Beach, CA
July 2010
www.quilts.com

Color Workshop for Weavers

Friday through Sunday the Contemporary Handweavers of Texas (lots of weavers, spinners, felters and other intense fiber types) met at the Airport Hilton. I was on the faculty -- the non-weaver of the bunch -- with two workshops, The Artist's Journal and A Field Guide to Color. Both were well received and I had fun hanging out on the fringes of another group of texture folks, most of whom have more patience and precision in their little fingers than I have in my entire body. None the less, my workshops went over well and I had some great feedback and suggestions, too, in case I ever run into another teaching op for such a group. Thanks Trish Ashton for the excellent organization for instructors!

 

Here are a few more pics from the color workshop bunch. I'm sorry I don't remember everyone's names, another of my attention deficit issues, but perhaps they'll leave comments and identify the happy faces. The colors speak for themselves. We did a bunch of hands-on projects, one of the favorite, and a surprisingly simple way to exercise one's color sense and sensibilities is to try to match swatches of color cut from magazine photos. This is good to try after a few basic mixing experiements: taking a hue and adding various ammounts of black, white and grey to make shades, tints and tones; and mixing complements to see the effect of the hues opposite one another on the color wheel. I use student grade acrylics for these paint mixing exercises: a good cadmium red, cadmium yellow, some mid tone intense blue, black and white. It really does surprise everyone at how quickly they catch on to the mix -- this is, I think, the equivalent of a musician doing scales. Just a way to get nimble and quick, to spot the ingredients for mixing coors, even with dyes, which while not exactly like paints, do mix according to their own rules and regulations.

After we did more color scheme/harmony exercises, each person dyed a couple of silk scarf ties with a color scheme of her choice -- that's the lead photo, today. Leave it to weavers to figure out a myriad of different tie patterns with simple rubber bands!

P.S. I have my spring and summer schedule for workshops figured out at last. I will post tomorrow I hope, but if you want a copy of the brochure emailed, please send me a message via the sidebar message block to the right. Thanks, Susie.

Reverse Auction Starts Today!

I'm one of the honored invitees to participate in the 2009 FIber Arts for a Cause Reverse Auction.

My donation is the Pomegranate Cross shown above, one of a series that celebrates the abundance in our lives, the fertility of ideas and imagination and hope. This piece is pieced, machine quilted from original dyed and screen-printed fabrics that surround a small original photographic print on cotton. All the leaves and the pomegranate images are from the native plants and familiar vegetation of our Texas Hill Country.

The Fifth and Final Reverse Auction opens today, March 24, at 10 a.m. CST
with 100% of the proceeds donated directly to the American Cancer Society:

The minimum donation will drop each day through Thursday, March 26. Today is
Gold Donor Day for those who wish to acquire an artwork at a premium
donation before the regular Reverse Auction opens.

The generous artists who have donated their fiber artwork include:

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

For several days, Virginia Speigel has been featuring the guest artists on her blog and on the Auction Site -- today Gerrie Congdon is the featured artist -- her story is an inspiration to us all! Read more about Gerrie’s artwork on her website and blog.

Here's how it works:

The Invitational Reverse Auction of Fabulous Fiberart opens today at 10 a.m. CST.

Virginia explains:


 Gold Donor Day
Opens 10 a.m. CST Tuesday, March 24
Closes 9:59 a.m. CST Wednesday, March 25
Artwork offered for a premium donation.

Regular Reverse Auction
 Opens 10 a.m. CST Wednesday, March 25
Closes 5 p.m. CST Thurday, March 26

How does a reverse auction work?
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. The minimum donation required for each day of the auction is shown beneath each artwork. The minimum donation for the current day will be highlighted in red, beginning March 24.

But if you wait too long, your favorite artwork will be gone.

What is Gold Donor Day?
Artwork is available for a premium donation one day before the regular Reverse Auction opens.

How does the American Cancer Society receive the money?
E-mail me at Virginia(at)VirginiaSpiegel.com during the Reverse Auction that you wish to choose an artwork for at least the minimum donation listed for that day.


 

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?

Arts and Inventions

 

What does Morse Code have to do with arts, innovation and creative thinking? See the article link!

What a great blog about the links between arts and scientific and technological invention on the Psychology Today site! Alyson Stanfield posted the link and it's one that I hope goes viral. As people use financial "wisdom" to scale back to what we/they think are the basics, I hope some sense prevails that speaks to the value of hands-on making, the role of "artistic" thinking in realms far outside the concert hall or museum gallery. More on this later, just take a look at the article!

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)

Color Us Fine and Dandy

This weekend's "Field Guide to Color" put us elbow deep in hues and harmonies. Five of us went to the edge with hands-on explorations, more than a little bit of theory, and enough dyeing to keep the inner kindergartener happy indeed.

I'll get a few more pictures to post later from my new studio assistant Laurel Gibson (yeah, Laurel), since I have a major problem taking photos while I am teaching. However, the lovely swatches above should give you an idea of our color box projects.

Meanwhile, here's a sample of one exercise that is really helpful in training the eye to look at color:

1. Tear out a magazine photo or illustration and cut out a 2" square of one hue (color).

2. Try to mix that color using only primary colors (cadmium red, cadmium yellow and a nice medium blue -- throug in a fuschia red for colors that cabn't easily be mixed with a warm red) and white and black. See how close you can come to duplicating the shade, tone or tint. (shade=hue +black, tone=hue+gray or hue+complement, tint=hue plus white.

That's it. But you'll dind it a remarkable challenge and you'll also be surprised I think at how quickly your ability to mix these colors improves. You can also do the same thing with swatches of fabric or paint chips from the home improvement store.

We let them dry, then cut them out and added our paint chips to a handy file box of colors each participant put together -- in addiditon to the beginnings of a dye diary/dictionary. I forget how handy that is until teaching a workshop like this one reminds me of its use.

My next "Field Guide to Color" will be presented as a one-day workshop as part of the Contemporary Handweaver's of Texas conference in San Antonio on Saturday, March 28. My small art quilt, "Pomegranate Cross" will be part of the faculty exhibit for the conference, on display at the Southwest School of Art and Craft March 18-March 28 in the Russell Hill Rogers Lecture Hall at the Navarro Campus. The workshop is open to conference attendees, so if you are interested, please check their website for enrollment information.

For more color fun and games, try a peek at one or more of these color site links:

Color the White House purple or ??? (Shades of Sandra Cisnero's purple house controversy?)

shape+color

This one is a designer's almost daily links to fab color and design sites around the weboverse.

livelygrey

Here's where to find a color blog that has lots of interactive games and posts. Look at the ones on saturation, hue and brightness.

Big Huge Labs

One of severyl sites that generate color schemes from your photos.

Sherwin Williams

The paint company has a cool site that lets you look at ways to find good color schemes for rooms -- and art.

Wet canvas

Good info and online series of lessons.

And finally, on this long, but I hope helpful post, an excerpt from New World Kids; The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking -- here's a few ideas about color from our book. If you comment on this or any of my posts or my guest posts on other sites at any time this month from Feb. 15 to Feb 28, your name goes into the raffle to win a free copy of the book.

Color
Human vision is distinguished by the color-detecting
ability of our eyes, and so for us color is often the
element of discernment — and the visual language of
emotion. Green with envy, seeing red, walking around
under a black cloud, emotion transforms itself into
colorful characters, colorful language, poetic passion.
Paint on canvas creates sunny weather or an emotional
storm; and music paints a picture solomn or spritely.
Where is your color sense alive? In cooking or
chemistry, stargazing or paint mixing, finding
rainbows, delighting in a feather’s iridescence or
in an outlandishly fashionable fashion sense?

So, where is your color sense alive?

 

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!