In a completely unrelated to quilts, here's the Rover. What it does have to say? We are so much alike, even as planets. A little lack of water goes a long way!
Coming up at Southwest School of Art
Registration has begun for classes at the Southwest School of Art. (210-224-1848, ext 317/334)
2349 | Finding Your Artist Voice
Instructor: Susie Monday
Dates: Mon, 10/1/2012 - 11/19/2012 | Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Dates: Mon, 10/1/2012 - 11/19/2012 | Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Distinguish your work by finding a vocabulary of shapes, images, marks that are personal and explored over and over - find your artist voice by refining, repeating and elaborating a process. This course will not be technique-or media-oriented, but will help you define and focus your work though the active creation of a series (five to 10 pieces) within the parameters of your self-selected direction.
You're Invited
A group of twenty fiber artists have an exhibition opening next week in New Braunfels, Texas, each with 3 to 5 pieces of work initially on display. The reception is set for Friday, August 5 from 2 to 5. Hope to see you at the new Braunfels Art League Gallery, downtown, for the festivities.
The first photo is a small art quilt for the exhibition, in progress; the second, a bit further along!
Coming up at Southwest School of Art
Here are the next two summer classes that you might be interested in. Both are at the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, and both are perfect for teachers and/or parents interested in helping kids be more creative -- the weekend course will focus on classroom fiber arts activities, including collaborative and individual projects. The parent's class will give anyone who works with kids the vocabulary of "The Missing Alphabet." a powerful tool to help kids face the future we can't predict.
|
|
Screen Printing Free Form Letters
This blog post is intended as a bonus for those enrolled in my More Text on Textiles online course that started on Joggles today.
Now, it's not too late to join in the fun, so if you are interested in this 4-week, PDF based course (with an online forum during the next 6 weeks), head on over to this link for enrollment info --http://www.joggles.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=75_1235&products_id=24165
It's an affordable way to get your feet wet with putting words, quotations, pithy comments and other thoughts (yours and others) on your art quilts, art cloth, wearable art or mixed media pieces.
Using letter forms for screenprinting stencils is another way to use your cut letters. P.S. This post assumes you have a basic knowlege of screenprinting. If not, go to this site to see a demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wogKeYH2wEE. This is a demo that takes you through the entire process, making your own screen. You can purchase them ready-made at many art supply stores. This demo shows all kinds of stencils, and you will be using your cut letters as the stencil. YOU don't need a clamped frame, I just move my small screen over the fabric.
Because these letters will be used as a one time stencil, then thrown away, I usually just use old newspaper or sheets of newsprint, or recycled copy paper. Newspaper is really great because it is really thin and adheres to the screen and wet ink really well.
Any thin flat paper will work, but if you want a reusable stencil, cut your letters with contact paper (backing side up, the sticky side goes against the back of the screen).
You can use any clean silkscreen for your tool. Occasionally I even use one with defects or blocked areas, for a distressed kind of print.
Free-hand cut your word or words from your choice of paper (instructions are in the first lesson of More Text on Textiles). Then use small folds of masking tape (one or two per letter only), and tape your letters on the back (bottom) of the screen. Your words should read correctly through the screen unless you are intentionally reversing them. This is a great time to teach yourself to cut serif letters or letters that enlarge some iconic type (like those used by Corita Kent in her work).
Screenprint onto ironed flat fabric with thickened dye (see the Dharma catalog for easy instructions and supplies), textile screen printing ink, or other inks. Use a padded surface under your fabric.
Use your word as a repeat, or as a one-time print. When finished wipe down the screen, remove the letters and wash. Let textile ink prints dry, then iron to set. Thickened dye prints need to be batched, as with any dye painted fabrics.
Time Zones
Here I am, about 10 pm, and really ready to sleep, partially because the cold I've been doing battle with since Sunday has a bit of the upper hand tonight, and mostly because we've been on the go for three weeks. Travel is exquisite and delightful and every synapse is firing all the time. Our poor brains cannot depend upon any familiarity to tune out, zone out or do-by-rote, and thus in the act of all that creative neuron activity, the poor body simply cannot keep up, no matter how many tapas are ingested.
However, Spain outside our windows,is just gearing up for the dinner hour, the few more hours of gestation and conversation. Thankfully, the apartment has fabulous double-paned windows, the like of which we need for our Pipe Creek winter norther howling winds (where does one buy these, we ask?). Xevi has told us he rarely sleeps before midnight, and that those with jobs do show up at 8' but, yes, most businesses close from 2 to 4 or 5 and then work resumes til 8, when it's time for tapas.
It is perhaps emblematic that the morning TV show goes on until 2 pm. (at least) with a cooking show segment so slow, relaxed and with every step done in real time, that I watcher for an hour without one dish being completed.
Frankly, we are still not certain that anyone in Spain does actually sleep. Or that anyone is not actually eating all of the time. Why this country rather than the US doesn't have weight issues is a mystery to me.... Between chocolate and churros, tortillas Espanola, jamon, quesos, patisseries three to the block, three courses at lunch, tapas and wine then dinner, another 3 or so courses, maybe liquor and cafe....Well... Who knows, except that all that eating, shopping and talking means that one is moving all the time, and basically for most without the benefit of the automobile. And shops there are, each a tiny jewel box of enterprise, with it's own customers and passerbys. From organic bread to olives, to truly functional mini "supermercados" the size of large shoeboxes, there is an energy around the doing of daily chores that is so human scaled.
Of all the curses I think we Americans must own up to, our cities and lives designed around automobiles rankle me the most. At least in our southwestern sprawl, We don't have real neighborhoods where old ladies can meet with their dogs, where kids of all colors can shoot hoops, where there is something to do and watch and care about that is not on a little screen of some kind. Bravo Barcelona, may we really take to heart your urban lessons. I love my country life, but I realize that someday it will all be too much for me, too far to drive, too much house, too isolated from others. I hope other kinds of neighborhoods and communities will prosper, moRe European in impulse, less individualistic, perhaps.
Picasso Plate
Just a few sketches from the visit to the Picasso Museum yesterday:
The Textile That Is Barcelona
Never have I seen a city that is more like fabric, or specifically, like art cloth. Shimmering with light and sparkle, layered with pattern upon pattern. Of course, much of that is due to the master, Antoni Gaudi, architect magician, who somehow imprinted much of the city with his spirit, an influence that lasts to this very moment of street graffiti and orange and black taxis that zip around like shiny beetles through the otherwise reserved for pedestrians streets of Born, the old Gothic city where we are staying.
From street patterns to walls, to layers upon layers of light, color and texture, I think no textile artist could leave this city of wrinkles and weaves without a trunk of ideas and inspirations. Much of the iconography is itself inspired by nature, a string strand in the work of Gaudi and his collaborators and disciples.
Then add to the mix the many stalls and storelets selling trinkets and beads, baubles and tiles, Indian gauzes and cotton pareas, Thai pantaloons and touristic renditions of shawls and fans and polka dotted flamenco shoes. And then in a twinkle of the eye, you come across a solemn plaza of stone and citadel, or make a turn onto the human river of La Rambla, walled with flower stalls and cafe chairs.
Crowning the entire affair is, no doubt, Park Guell, Gaudi's home garden project for 20 years. Here are the tiles and mosaics, "practice" columns (I think) for Sagrada Familia, and layered gardens that flow in bands of color and texture as far as the eye can see.
Sacred Segrada
Sitting in the Segrada Familia I feel like I experienced a soul-touch that I never felt in any church before; perhaps my inner spirit speaks modernist more fluently than Gothic.
I have been inspired to awe in churches around the world, the soaring spaces of Notre Dame, the somber beauty of the church of Santa Maria del la Mar here, near our home away from home, the confectionary delight of the altars and retablos of the Mexican colonial cathedrals. But something clicked in me upon walking into this amazing space, a feeling that no photograph or drawing can capture, the scale and layers of light and space are simply too complex -- and too simple, too.
The scalloped shapes and pointed rays have a dance going on. The detail and contrast of the work of all the artisans and workmen, carvers and ironworkers still working from Antoni Gaudi's vision and plans are the closest I will come to that experience many must have had over the ages as those Gothic Cathedrals were constructed. So the sounds of chisels and cranes mingle with the recorded organ music, making a counterpoint of time and sound in the vast parabolas of space.
As we have settled here out of the heat to watch and write, the angle of the sun outside has changed and the space with it, reflected greens from the window above us show up with purple hues on the columns, the families of columns, each clan a different stone and a different shade of grey/pink/taupe, ever changing. The timelessness and the temporal, the infinity of patterns, this space is like looking into a mirror reflecting another mirror.
The feeling for me truly is that of a forest, perhaps one sent from another planet. I wish all the people here would really take the silence please signs to heart, but that is too much to hope for. I think we will try to come back for mass one evening.
Sketching along the way, Way
Here are just a few sketches from our walk along. I am using Paper 53, because I decided that I really liked its limitations .... Other sketch Apps I used were either too clunky to manipulate, made lines that all looked the same, or took too much time to master as tools. Paper has serious limitations, such as the color palette, but I love the lines it makes. Yes, as an app, it is a bit pricey, $7.99, but I figure that is about the cost of one pad of paper!
And, one thing I learned from Lisa Call, setting limitations as rules can be a good thing.
Textile Sampler
The textures are mostly stone, slate and tile, forest and path, sky and bird sound. But lace making is a cottage craft here and most inns where we stay have lovely embroidery and lace-edged linens. Our hostess at Casa de la Samoza in Coto said that the winters were long and quiet and lacemaking filled the days.
This season, the textile inspiration of the day is that of flowers, amazing colors and form and thousands of them making a carpet of every meadow. I have never seen a country as full of flowers as Texas in a good spring until now. In addition to the wild vistas, every garden is festooned with roses, enormous camellia trees, honeysuckle and wisteria.
Continuing the Journey
As we walk, our bodies adjust, complain, grumble, and our spirits at times weary of one or more of the rituals of the walk, or take on a complaint about the sun or wind, or the kind of path underfoot or the highway noise on a particular stretch. But as Linda reminds me, we, almost miraculously, recover with a night of sleep, renewed for the path, ready to take on patience again, ok with trying to find wi-fi only when it appears.
We've now competed 5 days of walking from 8 to 12 miles a day, more than half our journey to Santiago de Campostela. Each day has its surprises, beauties, frights, frustrations and delights, many of them culinary, I must admit. In addition to my journal and sketches, I am keeping a food of Spain journal, with images altered and original, and some sketches, too.
So, with walking, eating, sleeping we refresh and renew. At the inns we meet and talk more each night, a kind of moving feast of stories.
Walking in Stones
Galicia is as unlike ones stereotypes of Spain as it could be. The music is Celtic with its own harp and bagpipes, the lanes are green, green, green. The stones here are slate grey and rich browns and all is covered with mosses, succulents and wild flowers as thick and varied as a good Texas spring.
We are staring day four of our slow easy last 100 k of the Camino de Santiago, we will be on the way until next Saturday when we will attend the Pilgrim 's mass at the cathedral where relics of Saint James are venerated.
Internet service is a bit sketchy so my posts will be sporadic, but once home I will upload a PDF of my trip journal for anyone interested.
Madrid and Art
Small town girls enter the big city.
This is the subtext of the Madrid leg of our adventures in Spain. Not so much culture shock (more on those issues later) as size shock. Our Pipe Creek life is quiet and rural; even San Antonio reads as small ciy with its familiarity of 40 plus years. Madrid is major, we remind ourselves as we walk past amazing monuments,more museums than I ever remember seeing in a city, more plazas and churches and cafes and people....When faced with such abundance of sights and sounds and input, I have learned to go for deep rather than wide. I don't feel compelled to see or sense or experience as much as I can in three days, an approach that makes me crazy. Rather I find the one or two do-not-miss experiences for focus.
We saw two exhibits yesterday, went to the bullfights and ate at the San Anton Mercado. The art exhibits were both incredible, and the photos on this post show my attempts and learning as I use the iPad for art and journaling.
First, a Chagall exhibit at the ThySsen-Bornemisza Museum. I rediscovered my love and affection for Chagall, and also acknowledged how much his work influences my own narrative work, with flying figures, rich colors, textures and interlocking stories and images.
Next we went to see Guernica at the Reina Sofia. I had seen this monumental and powerful painting in New York several times, before it returned to Spain. Although the gallery was crowded with school groups and the San Isidro visitors to Madrid, the painting holds its presence. Of most interest to me we're the sketches and related paintings in the adjoining gallery and I spent about an hour making iPad sketches, to much interest of bystanders, I admit. We had to talk our tablets into the musueum as photos are not allowed, and the guards were suspicious until I explained that this WAS my sketchbook.
PS
I also have art news:
+Susie Monday is the featured artist on the d@8 artists blog http://dinnerateightartists.blogspot.com/
PPS Linda has more to say about the bullfight here: http://cuellarsblog.blogspot.com.es/
España en la mañana (almost)
We are off to Spain, with family and friends entrenched at home for dog , cat and bird duties. Even that will be a vacation in itself. I am giddy with the travel bug and have plans to keep my travel journal this year online, a big and different step, but one I think I'm ready for.
In the past I have taken a small, but substantial bag of art supplies and a blank sketchbook; this year I am taking an iPad. An adventure in itself. In case you want to peek at my tools, I am going to use PAPER 53, a sort of free app (you really need to buy the $8 worth of expanded tools to make it worth while) Max journal, a really nice interface for a diary format, easy to add photos, download,etc; and a slew of photo and drawing apps, I will try to keep notes on the tools I use and how I find them, but my focus will be on the travel experiences and how they give me ideas and inspiration for art work when I get back home.
I thought about taking a back up stash or "real" art supplies, but figure if I give myself that out, I won't really experiment with the digital ones now available. My iPad is not G4 enabled, so I will be dependent on wifi, but, from the travel notes on the hotels and the Camino, I don't think that will be much of an issue.
In the Trenches, Teaching via Video, en español.
The catch-up: The past two weeks we've been working on the global stage, as part of a teaching team at Palo Alto College, one of the Alamo Colleges in San Antonio. One of my hats this year is as a creative learning specialist for international programs here. I've been working with this program for about 10 years in various capacities -- some of which relate to my fabric/textile life, but most to my creative process and arts education interests.
Teachers from Central American and the Dominican Republic come here for scholarship residency education programs, funded by USAID to us through grants from Georgetown University SEED/SEMILLA project. I also work with teen youth ambassadors from the same region, and these two weeks, through distance learning via computer, with 6 univerisities in the border areas of Mexico. Whew....
This most recent project also involved our teacher/students as demonstrators of activities on our little makeshift television studio in the portable buildings at PAC that we are lucky to have use of for the program -- this is only the second year we have had permanent space at the university and it's been wonderful as we can use the design of the space, changing the space and making exhibits of work that mirror the kinds of classrooms our teachers go home to -- a portable here is a space that in most cases would be a luxury classroom in their rural hometowns.
Our new website is in progress, but you can see more here -- take note of the student blogs! And here.
Here's one of the videos informing this work. It's quite controversial, as you will understand when you see. it
New World Kids (1) Now on Sale!
My co-author Susan Marcus and I and Dr. Cindy Herbert, another colleague from LAL days have been working on a rewrite/expanded new book for parents, to be released this fall by Greenleaf Book Group. It will be titled "The Missing Alphabet." (Isn't that cool?)
And to get ready, we are having a great sale on the last book for our readers and supporters., So if you would like another (or a first) copy of NEW WORLD KIDS, and the accompanying teacher's guide don't miss this special deal. If you are interested, please order through Foundry Media directly -- the info is in the letter below (YOU ALL count at "a person at one of our events" since I consider reading this blog an event, so you are eligible for the special pricing):
Dear New World Kids reader:
This Fall, the authors of New World Kids, the Parents Guide to Creative Thinking, will be publishing a new book, The Missing Alphabet, a Parent's Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids. In preparation for the release of the this book, we want to extend a special offer to of our customers:
Now until May 30 we are offering New World Kids, The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking at $7.00 per copy and New World Kids, The Teachers' Guide at $10.00 per copy both with free shipping! That compares to the list price of $14.95/$19.95 + shipping! This offer is being made only to those people who purchased from our website over the past couple of years or in person at one of our events.
Texas residents will have to pay 8.25% sales tax (sorry!) and we will only accept checks. Purchases will be shipped Media Mail.
Please place your order by replying to this message to foundrymedia@me.com, calculating the total cost (with applicable sales tax per above). We will ship your books immediately and you can send us your check.
If you have any questions, email us at newworldkids@me.com or call us at 512-328-1920.
New Workshop Schedule
The new (and somewhat revised) schedule is out and about. Here's a copy:
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, hot tub and pool time, and strolls down the country roads. The fee for each workshop retreat is $175 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.
Susie has taught creative process and art techniques to adults and children for more than 30 years. Her art is in private and public collections around the world.
TEXT ON TEXTILES
ONLINE course at JOGGLES.com
JUNE 15-JULY 14 includes 4 fully-illustrated weekly lessons, plus a bonus week, $45
Have you ever wanted to incorporate a favorite word, poem or quote into an art quilt, garment, art doll or other textile project -- going beyond simply writing or embroidering the text? This all new surface design/mixed media class will give you a set of process tools for making text and words an integral part of artfully designed fabrics that you can use in a wide variety of projects. Learn soy wax lettering, freeform cut letters, sunprinting and more.
JUNE 15-17
Optional potluck
Friday night
FROM SCRIBBLE TO SYMBOL; PERSONAL MARK-MAKING
In this workshop, start with simple sketches and doodles and end the weekend with an arsenal of new surface design tricks and tools. Explore doodles and scribbles as sources of uniques and personal imagery that will give your art quilts, wearable art, or mixed media work personal depth and layers of meaning. take a favorite symbol -- for example a heart, star, spiral, circle -- and by taking it (and yourself) through a series of creative generative exercises, you’ll make something new and different to incorporate into your design, composition and surface design. Tools and techniques explored include paper lamination on fabric, large scale “mark-making” rollers and monoprinting.
JULY 6-8
CHANGE OF DATE
Optional potluck
Friday night
KITCHEN ALTAR WORKSHOP
Embrace your inner goddess of summertime. Design and make a small art quilt “altar” for kitchen or dining room with tools and materials that depend on heat, sunlight and passionate delight: 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 relative, heroine, angel or other meaningful design as the centerpiece for the altar. (Altar frame, $12 supply fee).
AUGUST 17-19
NATURE INSPIRED
SURFACE DESIGN
Optional potluck
Friday night
Let late summer colors, shapes and even heat inspire your surface design. The weather is perfect for dyeing, dye-painting and soy wax! Sketching from nature, and from collected natural objects (don’t worry, you can do it), we’ll design one-of-a-kind fabrics, silk scarves and mixed media pieces.
SEPTEMBER 7-9
FEARLESS SKETCHING
Face your fears of drawing head on, as Susie takes you on a sketch and draw adventure, with no failures allowed. You’ll try different approaches, learn so me classic tips and tricks, and find out how drawing is a learned skill, not something you had to master as a 6th grader who “couldn’t draw horse like your best friend.”
WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT SUSIE’S CLASSES & WORKSHOPS:
“ The exercises we did this weekend were freeing on the one hand, but will also help me focus.”
“This workshop was a fabulous, uplifting, nurturing environment to create in. The journaling was particularly helpful, I would definitely recommend it to a friend.”
“Thank you for creating such a fun, yummy, comfortable, and inspirational experience...”
Get out of the Middle
Sometimes the universe delivers just what you need to hear/see right to the mailbox.
I susbscribe to the BOX OF CRAYONS newsletter and always enjoy it. Here's their latest video message:
Stretching an Art Quilt on a Wooden Frame
Here's a stab at explaining how I mount my art quilts around a wooden frame. It would be better with video, but until I get a tripod mount for my phone or iPad, I can't quite manage to do the work and video the process!