Newsletter: Balance Expounded

I wrote and showed photos last week of the man on the Puerto Vallarta beach balancing stones. My newsletter this month continues the meditation. If you'd like to receive monthly postings in your mailbox, subscribe to my Mad Mimi list here.​

Creativity for Kids and Families -- NFamily

A couple of months ago, a new glossy magazine appeared, and I wrote an article about The Missing Alphabet, The Parents' Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids. Seems the editor liked it, and since then, I've written two more articles for the next issue and the one coming up.

Good writing practice for me, good pr for our book and good info for parents and kids.

​Although I mostly teach adults now, and usually in the realm of art, fiber art and creative process, my background and much of my work life was spent in arts-in-education work in schools, with teachers. That strand of my creative activity continues now with training young artists to work with young kids in afterschool and out-of-school programs and in working with teachers from Central America. ​This coming week though, I'll be working with both those teachers and with a group of 25 to 30  people from Central America, here in youth exchange, Youth Ambassadors program- stay tuned for for the photos.

​You can read the article here at this link.

iPad for Artists: Maxjournal

MaxJournal is a simple to use, flexible and very handy FREE journal app. I have used it to keep track of projects, as well as for travel journals -- and while I have seen some reviews that complain about software gliches that interfere with journals being saved, I've followed the instructions within the app and never had any problems.​

How to use MaxJournal? Open the HELP menu (on the top right of the main page, after you have created a new journal, or used the "start-up" journal that shows up when you first open the app. Explore that top menu of buttons and you'll pretty much get the jist of this handy journaling app. 

The main limitation is that entering text and adding photos are done with separate steps and with separate tools. You can't lock the pictures down, so you won't be able to assure that you won't move or alter their size as you add more text -- you'll see what I mean when you get into the text page view. 

MaxJournal is a simple to use, flexible and very handy FREE journal app. I have used it to keep track of projects, as well as for travel journals -- and while I have seen some reviews that complain about software gliches that interfere with journals being saved, I've followed the instructions within the app and never had any problems.​

How to use MaxJournal?

Open the HELP menu (on the top right of the main page, after you have created a new journal, or used the "start-up" journal that shows up when you first open the app. Explore that top menu of buttons and you'll pretty much get the jist of this handy journaling app. 

The main limitation is that entering text and adding photos are done with separate steps and with separate tools. You can't lock the pictures down, so you won't be able to assure that you won't move or alter their size as you add more text -- you'll see what I mean when you get into the text page view. 

Here are my notes from the course workbook that comes with my iPad for Artists workshops at El Cielo (and coming soon to a San Antonio location and ONLINE, too)​.

Max Journal is a perfect app journal for a day-to-day journal or diary. It is an electronic version of a dated day book.

You can set up different diaries or journals for specific themes and activities-- for example: A sketch-a-day project with notes
a private studio record of art in progress, steps and

experiments
A travel journal for one or more trips
An entertainment or movie journal
A record and review of books you read or movies

ADVANTAGES and FEATURES:

Easy to set up

Very clean basic design
Good variety of fonts
Find entries by date, always organized by date, month and day views. Easy to add time stamp. Easy to add photos, two ways-- on a sidebar (unlimited) and within the text page (10 photos -- may be more with later versions)

Photos within page are like thumbnails, hold down on one and you get an enlarged view

Daily page is as long or short as you need
Text is searchable within any book
Add tags to any entry, too.

Exportable by date range as text or PDF, cool way to share a trip, for example, with friends. Export to desktop or directly to email.

Easy to learn to use, intuitive and straightforward
Text size and brightness, page brightness are adjustable
Rate pages with stars
Background can be changes, covers are customized with photos
Really good Help and How-to in-app on tool bar
Backup available
You can change the font and size anytime and it applies to all pages

Works with Apple "select, copy and paste" functions, so you can paste in type from other apps

DISADVANTAGES

Text editing very limited. One font, one size, no bold or italic choices.

You can't work with pictures and text at the same time. Hint: put in all the text first before adding photos to the page, in order to make design on the page simpler.

No drawing or other tools such as highlighting, stamps, etc, so not really good for an art journal.

​This is the opening screen. Use the plus mark to set up different journals. Each will have its own interface and its own calendar, and can be exported separately.

Inspiration on the Beach

On the beach. Yes, indeed. You have not heard much from me the past week or so, because most of it has been in this wireless environment! We spent a long weekend at a friend's son's wedding -- over the top -- in Puerto Vallarta. ​

The resort was spectacular, the food fab, the company of old friends best of all. Well, maybe the ocean was even better than that. ​

Since much of my work and aesthetic inspiration comes from Mexico and the Latin world, this was an artist date to die for. Color, sound, the smell of salt air, tamarind wood, toasting corn tortillas and smokey mescal, what more could a girl need?

Well, maybe just a little reminder of how tricky our lives of balance can be -- this free show on the beach with its little sign about "balance, equilibrium, patience -- and tips" was certainly a wonderful image to come home with.

​These three pictures show a balancing act on the beach. This well-musceld and beautiful young man talked to the rocks as he achieved amazing balanced towers of boulders. 

App of the Week

​Sketch made with Paper by 53

Sorry I missed a post last week. I was with my mom, post cataract surgery, all went well, but internet service at her house is dependent of the wind blowing the right way and a neighbor who doesn't have his web access password protected! But, to make up for it, I'm putting one of my favorite apps on display: Paper by 53. 

Paper is a popular, and comparatively expensive app -- I think for all the tools, you'll pay $7.99. But, think of that as an endless set of sketchpads and unlimited inks, pencils, markers and watercolors.

​The tool box and a sketch in progress.

The tools are elegant, and the interface intuitive. You'll also find interesting examples and tutorials on the Paper53 blog and website.​

​Here's a sketch from Julia, made at one of my iPad workshops. If you want more guidance at using your iPad for art, consider signing up!

Using combinations of the different tools is one of Paper's strong points -- and using "white" as a pen or marker color gives you lots of interesting effects, too.

​There are tons of examples of drawings made on Paper on the web, and tutorials, too. Here's one that features examples made with the first version of the app, it's much more versatile now, with a full palette of colors and blending tools available. 

What I Love about Thrift Stores

​Stitchery from Africa, made by Helen Lichull, found at a local thrift store, and now, on my studio wall. 

No doubt, some of my most treasured inspirational textiles come from thrift stores. I admit to having a real problem staying out of my favorites -- Goodwill n DeZavala, Texas Thrift on Bandera, Boysville in Olmos Park, and the Animal Shelter thrift store in Boerne. So I do admit that my "rounds" can take up time. However, I do find treasures to justify the time -- and these most often end up as part of my narrative textile paintings. I rarely buy fabric for my work, almost everything other than the batting and the fusible web is recycled, upcycled or reclaimed fabric and textile pieces.

What does it take to use these finds? Fearless cutting. Not being afraid to reuse someone else's creative work -- it's hard sometimes, but ​I remind myself that that piece of stitching will have a new life in my work, transformed and rescued from the "rag bin." I admit to a longing to know each and every piece of reused fabric's past and story!

A few finds end up on the wall, like these two (assumably African) embroideries stitched I think by children. The perspective is wonky and wonderful (on the one with the farmer plowing particularly), the world view is simultaneously rural and modern, universal and individual. I put extensions on the borders of these two panels, then stretched them around wooden stretcher boards made by my neighbor Rick. Now they hang on the walls of the studio inspiring some new work!

​Stitched by Acan Paska

​Mexican embroidery from a dress, now a halo on a Hill Country angel

​Mexican embroidered eagle from a Oaxacan pillow top, now part of a textile painting.

Wallpaper Maps and Map Shoes

I love maps, and have written about the Stamen group's wonderful maps before. Now I've discovered two fun applications -- one an app that makes your wallpaper an automatic map of wherever you ​open your Mac -- and you can choose either standard maps versions or those from Stamen! When you change locations, your map wallpaper changes with you.

Secondly, here are some great Vans, fabric markered with another Stamen map version -- the artist projected the map right on his shoes and copied it on first with pencil, then with the marker. Is that not a cool  textile idea?​

​A world map in Watercolor from Stamen.

Another Stamen project -- Pretty Maps rendered as a mosaic tabletop!​

These tiles are made available as part of the CityTracking project, funded by the Knight Foundation, in which Stamen is building web services and open source tools to display public data in easy-to-understand, highly visual ways.

iPad for Artists: App of the Week

​One of my favorite apps for combining text and images, TypeDrawing, is this Friday's  iPad for Artists App. TypeDrawing is neither new nor trendy -- there has been a web-based version of the software for several years. ​(I'm still using my iPhone version, but plan to update after seeing the iPad interface improvements.) The iPad and iPhone version is handy for on-the-go work and the retina screen of the iPad makes it all so beautiful.

TypeDrawing is useful in so many ways for we who work in mixed media or fabric or surface design -- and for graphic designers, too:

1. Making images for thermofax, screen-prints or direct prints of specific words, text or letters.
2. Adding words on top of images for invitations, posters and postcards
3. Randomizing text for direct printing
4. Sizing text and choosing fonts for other design applications.
5. Drawing with typography (See this website for examples!)​

​The interface takes a bit of learning - and the website has good, if short, tutorials and explanations.

In general -- Hit the + sign for a new page, T to type in your text, F to select font and how the font is manipulated, the litttle square and eyedropper are color choice and color picker, respectively, the rectangle lets you select color and opacity  -- you can also choose and import a photo to use as a drawing aid or as a background - great for using to make invitations.​

​Two images of posters I designed with TypeDrawing and some iPad art images.

Spoken Word

This beautiful performance by poet Shane Koyzcan is such a reminder of how we survive. 

Yippee! Exquisite Moments Acceptance

I'm in. Can't show you that piece until the big reveal, so stay tuned here for a link to come. Meanwhile, see the announcement on the Dinner @ Eight blog. I'm certainly in good company. This will be my fourth appearance (or third?) in a Dinner@Eight exhibit: gratitude goes to the organizers Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison.

Fearlessly Sketched Torsos

What a great weekend. Six artist participants and my co-teacher Sarah Jones and I spent the last  two and a half days in drawing heaven. Is there anything better than having nothing to do but draw? We worked in many media, from many perspectives, with lots of input and insight from within and without the room. The first exercise was a variation of a project from Jane Fasse, whose wonderful blog  delivers art quotes daily to my inbox. AND her art quote one day last week (a timely gift from the universe) was the exercise we started with this weekend.

You can read her version here. We did the same, except I asked each person to stay with their own "claimed torsos -- 3 or 4 per person) for the entire hour and a half of drawing in response to visual prompts that were projected on the wall. The prompts were also from Jane -- a Pinterest board of figerative art.

Other exercises we pursued were more about "realistic" drawing, but this one loosened us all up, and provided a wonderful visual feast to work from -- enlarging all of our ideas about figurative drawing. I'll share other results later this week, so stay tuned.

App of the Week: THINK

The app.

This week's app is one just for inspiration and information: THINK by IBM. It's a world of information, infographics and cool ideas -- I am using some of the mapping info in some new pieces of work. Most of all, THINK is an example of the new kinds of publications that web-based content makes possible: visual, nonlinear, beautifully designed.

Here's how IBM describes it on the page about the exhibit and the app.

(Some readers reported issues with the link -- still works for me, but here's the link to the itunes app page as well. )

An exploration into making the world work better

Consider the advances of the past century. The way science has improved our daily lives. The possibilities unleashed by technology. The things we can do today that earlier generations could not even imagine.

Yes, this is about better information, tools, algorithms—but that's not all. It's about the deeply human quest to make the world more livable, safer, more efficient, more sustainable. Our enduring drive for progress has given us the capacity to see the world with greater clarity... to map what we see... to understand its dynamics. All of which builds shared belief... in a better future, and in the way each of us can act to make it so.

Lesson plans that go with the app and exhibit.This is part of IBM's commerical and cultural DNA -- it draws on the same tradition that saw Ray and Charles Eames designing interesting and novel exhibits in NYC for the company.

See what you think and tell me one idea you have for using what you see in your own work in the comment section, and I'll enter your name in a giveaway for a copy of THE MISSING ALPHABET, The Parents Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids. 

P.S. I hope you'll sign up for my newsletter and stay in touch as I launch a round of great iPad workshops online. Either use the form on the sidebar or go to this link: http://mad.ly/signups/69874/join

Goal Setting/Goal Keeping

Just a little inspiration today, from kids. From futbol.

A film by El Cangrejo.

Video from KarmaTube

Surface Design In*ter*face/Sofa to Love

If you aren't a member of SDA, the conference coming up in San Antonio is reason enough to join. The speeches, exhibits and panels are fab, and the city will be filled with fiber art. AND, if you can, come early or stay late for one of the workshops -- from jewelry to magnetic fields to amazineg skyscraper sized weavings, ther eis something planned to feed every creative spirit around. I suspect the city will have a wonderful web of buzz and energy holding up the streets!

The workshops that are low in enrollment will be cancelled April 15, so if you have not yet signed up, take a look here on the SDA conference site. 

Here's a tantilizing look at one artist who is teaching: FerroFabric by Jenny Leary, and more here on her award-winning collaborative blog, Puff&Flock.

And, as the internet is such a gift-giver, here's a totally unrelated post from other members of Puff and Flock, a sofa to love:

And here's more from Jenny: (icecream is a bonus,love the music)

Art Advocacy Week with YoYo Ma

Here is a notice that showed up in my email today. I have heard on of YoYo Ma's wonderful talks before and I bet these will be just as great. YoYo has initiated a wonderful arts education program, in addition to his championship of music as an international connection. 

One of my favorite quotes from him:

"The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing."

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yoyo_ma.html#OXRYmXMI8UGE2V5k.99 

Tell your friends about this SHARE THE PHOTO  It's Arts Advocacy Week We have two special events taking place in Washington DC, and you can participate from anywhere in the world. Monday - 6:30 pm EST - Yo-Yo Ma delivers this year's Nancy Hanks Lecture titled, "Art for Life's Sake: a Road Map from One Citizen Musician" Tune in live here:  http://links.causes.com/s/clJYgq?r=zrnS Tuesday - 10:30 am EST - Yo-Yo Ma and , Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses) - google Hangout http://links.causes.com/s/clJYgq?r=zrnS Send questions in advance via twitter using #AskYoYo or email them toartseducation@artusa.org

  Hope you'll be able to fit it in your schedule, too!

Artful Getaway on Airbnb!

The sleeping porch -- great for naps and birdwatching

Are you looking for a wonderful getaway in the Texas Hill Country? We've decided to try booking a private suite of rooms at our house on Airbnb.com, both to fund some new projects, and because on our Airbnb stays in Madrid and Barcelona, we had such a wonderful time with our hosts. These kinds of "home stays" provide wonderful opportunities to make friends and find out about people's different lives around the globe. Of course, you may live almost next door in San Antonio, but we'd still love to have you as a guest. Check out the site on Airbnb -- it's a great way to find places to stay near to home and around the world. We are total believers in the site -- the interface is great, the security features wonderful, and for hosts and guests, the booking system is secure, easy and safe. 

In addition to the suite of rooms (bedroom and sitting room with fold-out futon for a second bed, bathroom with large shower) you'll have access to the kitchen, breakfast each morning, pool and hot tub, sleeping porch for naps and dining and the media room with its big flatscreen and netflix or DVDs. And if you'd like to include a private or small group art workshop or access to use the art studio and its big work tables, just ask and we'll see what works for all of us. 

Our calendar of available dates is on the Airbnb site, as well as rates, restrictions and house rules. Hope you'll check it out!

Art App of the Week: Drawing Pad

How to choose? How to choose?

(And how to remember -- if you checked in earlier, I had the name of the software wrong, and the wrong list! Drawing Pad -- not free, but it is only $1.99 with some optional in-app pruchases, like coloring books, available.)

As I work towards getting my iPad on-line courses up and running, you'll find a weekly APP reccommendation here on the blog on Fridays, each with a few examples of drawings, photos, journal pages and more. 

I admit to an ongoing addiction for new apps -- OK,  consider it a line item in my art supply budget! Consequentlyly, after sampling free and paid versions of several hundred, I've found some really great ones and some real dogs. Some are simple "one-trick ponies," others are perhaps too expansive and overwhelming that unless you devote a LOT of time, you'll find them a bit overwhelming.

The iPad is such a powerful, intuitive creative tool, and the mobile software designers out there are certainly running though the paces. When my online course launches (next month, I hope), the format will include step-by-step tutorials, specific projects with step-outs, adaptations for use as fiber art tools -- both as part of your process and your works of art. If this sounds interesting, I hope you'll sign up for my newsletter HERE, in order not to miss the launch of the online series of workshops -- they'll start with an "iPad for Art Basics" and proceed through Photo Editing and Manipulation, Drawing and Sketching Tools, Keeping Track, Art Journaling, Photo Filters, Collage Tools and -- who knows!

This week's app is Drawing Pad. The interface is bold, easy to understand (the tools are in drawers, so explore them carefully! Some of the drawers give you the option to scroll right and reveal a whole other set of tools, colors and options. You can import a photo from your own camera roll and use it as a guide to trace or alter or paint, or you can start with a blank "sheet" of paper. If you wish, you can import a photo, sketch over it, then go back and change the paper to white or another color and have only your sketch! It's a very SIMPLE layering process, with only two layers. Of course I have other tricks for this -- to make it a multilayer tool. but you'll have to wait for the workshop for that!

Save the images to your email or camera roll or FB, Twitter, or an album inside the app -- think of this as a kid-friendly (for the kid in each of us) sketching and painting tool. I

These tools in the main drawer are options for saving, erasing, coloring book, colors of paper, stickers and, scrolling right, different tools.

 Sketching on top of a photo of San Fernando Cathedral, then replacing the photo with plain paper.

Sketching on the road. 

Looking and Seeing

When one takes on a new endeavor -- I'm looking for a small (read, inexpensive) studio/workshop space/informal gallery, AirBnB offering and overnight in-city haven -- the eyes take on new importance. What we see is so shaped by what we are looking for... and it's remarkable how emotions that we don't really have words for take over. 

As we've looked at dozens of little houses, condos, thises and thatses in person -- and hundreds online (the real estate market must be as affected -- or more-- by the internet as any other of our modern commercial efforts and activities), my eyes have learned how to read the sites and sights beyond what shows up on the screen. Oh yeah, that looks great, until you see the actual streetview map! And interior photos -- especially those where the residents' belongings are  still in place (or out-of, more likely)-- show a depressing degree of what rampant consumerism has made of the American household. No wonder they want to move, not a square inch to stand in, much less a space to rest the eye upon. The empty houses start looking pretty darn good. I see why house staging has become a career in the realm of house sales on the upper end of the market!

Amid all this looking, there have been only a couple of places that pass the see-test. I guess it's no surprise, but those couple or three have been houses that speak with their own distinct visual styles. The heartstrings otherwise are disengaged. And, believe me, I want to be practical, to be investment-wise, to pick something that meets all the criteria that I've described in lists and conversations with our realtor who's on the job. But I have a feeling that the heart is going to insist on style, honesty, imagination on the part of the builder (whether in 1910, 1949 or 1977) and at least some sense of potential beyond the present state of affairs. Do I need another project? Hell, no. Will I get one? Probably!

 P.S. NO, we are not leaving the our heavenly space in the country. I will continue to live here and to offer artist retreats out here in the future, alongside the pool, hot tub and 20 mile view into the valley. In fact, a spot just opened up in my Fearless Sketching workshop April  12-14, the last of the workshops for several months. One of the group  who was signed up has family issues to attend to. For info, see the previous post here.

Teacher Bragging Rights

Gloria's big flower -- her first ever art quilt!

Here are a few detail shots of work in progress by the students in the Southwest School of Art class that I just completed. Although most everyone is still working on their "big" art quilt projects, we count the class a success at getting us all (including teacher) moving in the right direction. I'm not listing last names, but I have permission to post these photos!

Ms. Bidet's exquisite stitching

Detail of Suzanne's deep dive.

 

Detail of Robin's kundalini spine. 

Rain in the Studio

 

I wish!

We are in the middle of serious drought here, no rain to speak of for months. 

I added my voice (visually) today, as I started work on a series of Rain Dances. These are a couple of in-progress photos as the day and the ideas developed. This piece is in the vein of a couple of large textile paintings I did several years ago for an exhibit at the Martin Museum of Art at Baylor University. As you can see, I work on a large table rather than a design wall -- I want to be able to put down as many layers of image as I need to and pinning to a wall is just too time consuming. Thus, I stand on a foot stool (or climb an 8 ft ladder) and take a photo when I need to get a better distance view. Works for me!

This one is going to be called Pond Prayer, I think.

Here's a little bit of ethnographic info from Wikipedia:

Julia M. Butree (a wife of Ernest Thompson Seton) in her book,^[2] among other Native American dances, describes the "Rain Dance of Zuni."^[3] Feathers and turquoise (or any sort of blue shade) are worn during the ceremony to symbolize wind and rain respectively. Many oral traditions of the Rain Dance have been passed down^[4] In an early sort ofmeteorology, Native Americans in the midwestern parts of the modern United States often tracked and followed known weather patterns while offering to perform a rain dance for settlers in return for trade items. This is best documented among Osage and Quapaw Indian tribes of Missouri and Arkansas.

I also found this line beautiful prayer for rain from the Sehardic Jewish tradition:

"So open, we pray, Thy goodly treasury of rain, to revive all in whom a soul is breathed, as Thou makest the wind to blow and the rain to fall."

I am expecting this to become a series of ongoing pieces ... I have been searching for a theme that had real meaning to me, and right now, this prayer is that, this dance is that. For all of us in the drought and all of us in the floods, let's have our blessings reversed!