What You Want to Learn

Are you stuck with your art work, or trying to build a better studio practice? Or maybe you don't have room to do what you really want to do in your home studio. Perhaps there is a surface design technique you want time to master, or a series of work that needs your committed attention... What do you want to learn, right now, at this time in your creative life?

You could solve those problems -- or at least take a stab at them by signing up for the class I'll be teaching this semester at the Southwest School of Art: Independent Studies in Textile Art.

Class Sessions: 8, Monday, Sept. 26 - Nov. 14, 9:30 am to 12:30 pm

Maximum: 10

Location: Surface Design Studio | Navarro

With the assistance of the instructor, each student will design a personal investigation of a surface design technique and creative approach to fiber art, making samples first, then culminating in the design and production of a fused, pieced and/or whole cloth art quilt. Techniques available for exploration include soy wax batik, screen-printing, dyeing and discharge, photo image transfer or combinations of several techniques. This class is suited for students who have had some exposure to fiber art, but any level of experience is acceptable. Supply lists will be developed with individual students. Some basic studio supplies are provided.

Fee: $240 (non-member)

This is how this course will work: the first part of class #1 will be devoted to discussion of what each participant wants to gain, whether a specific technique or motivation, inspiration, good practice or other less tangible results. With one-on-one discussion with me, you'll plan your 8 weeks of study, develop a supply list, and help me develop my schedule of introductory lectures and demos for the course.

The class is held in the spacious surface design/mixed media studio at the school, and there will be a large 8' by 4' work table for each participant. The wet studio is well supplied with dyeing chemicals and easy-to-use wash out area, and a washer and dryer are also available for use. There is a thermofax machine (I'll have supplies available for purchase) and a large light table, a Bernina sewing machine for free-motion stitching, batik equipment, and design boards to use as you work. Just access to this studio can jump start your work into a new dimension.

Thereafter, each class will start with 15 minutes of critique and discussion of work done the previous week, a 30 minute demo/lecture or slideshow of inspiration and examples, and then 2 hours will be yours to work with my advice, assistance, critique and demonstration of techniques at needed. At the end, we'll spend 15 minutes together sharing and planning goals for the week to come.

If you have a project in mind, great! If you want just to play with some new ideas, techniques and materials, that's great, too. Just think of this as training time for your creative practice. Hope to see you there.

P.S. I will not be teaching until November at my El Cielo Studio.

P.P. S. If you are a member of Fiber Artists of San Antonio and don't want to miss the Monday morning meetings, I will work with you to plan an individual make-up session for classes you miss for the meetings.

Round Top and Copper Shade Tree Gallery

We traveled yesterday to deliver art to Copper Shade Tree Gallery in beautiful Round Top, Texas. It was great to see Debbie and Gerald and to have my work in their new space. Here's what Gerald had to say about the move:

"Last month I reported our upcoming move. Well, that is old news, we have completely moved to the new space and we love it. The artwork looks fantastic. With the help of artists, family, and friends we began packing and moving on August 28th and finished on August 31st. The process very smooth as planned. The great news is that we did not break or damage a single piece of artwork... a miracle. We moved directly across the street to Henkel Square."

The first three photos above are some from Gerald, Linda and I took the other two, showing my work now in the gallery, and the three of us.

More Mermaid

The Lisa Call online workshop "Working in a Series" is doing its work on me. Deadlines work for me. Here's the first assignment completed. I won't give a lot of details as to the assignments, as that is proprietory information that is part of the course, but I will say that this one pushed me to a piece of work that I really like and that combines the kind of graphic clarity with my patterned texture work that is hard for me to find. 

Keeping at it, this will be the first of a new Sirena series, with five or six new large pieces to result (this [pieceis about 4' by 5'). I feel like I am breaking out of a long, slow slump into some new energy in my work. I find that the right teacher and the right learning experience for me can really help me in my studio practice. As artists, we spend a lot of time in our own little heads, solo. Having to interact in a creative setting, being the follower instead of always being the leader offers a certain kind of vacation, a kind of social interaction that is very valuble for my creative process.

I was once asked by a teacher/artist whom I really respect why I continue to take workshops. She doesn't, feeling that her focus is set and self directed, and that taking classes is a waste of energy and direction, can take her off her track. I don't feel that way -- first, I teach a lot of intro technique classes and some workshops are fodder for that mill -- I need to keep up on the latest and greatest. But others, like this one that I am taking now, are real soul food. Something I need to feed my artist self and to keep me honest, to keep me on task, to remind me of what is important in my work. 

Yes, choose carefully. Avoid being a workshop junkie, using courses and workshops to avoid forging ahead on a personal path. But a well-chosen workshop, retreat or class can be just what the spirit ordered. A time to give over the reins for a time, a time to refresh the creative flow, to have deadlines outside of one's own choosing (and divorced from "entry" deadlines that have their own baggage of procrastination) and even a time to make mistakes, to do "not-so-perfect" work and to have a failure or two!

Mermaids I have Known and Loved

Working on a Series with Lisa Call
I'm revisiting an early small piece, and several large textile paintings, all with mermaids, as the central idea to explore in Lisa's online course.
Since I love to do this kind of image research, I've been trolling around and found some interesting historical information about mermaids, both in European traditions and in Mexican folk art. Here' info from a research paper in Southwest Folklore:

The Mermaid in Mexican Folk Creches
Erika Esau and George A. Boeck, Jr.
SOUTHWEST FOLKLORE Volume 5, Number 1 Winter 1981

"The mermaid as a European concept may have had its origins in the Babylonian god Oannes, who is represented with a flowing beard and a fish's tail -- later as the Triton of Greek mythology. In an act of synthetic interpolation, this imaginary form was combined with another popular classical source: the siren, that creature originally portrayed as a half-woman and half-bird and who represented the souls of the unhappy dead. Their association with sailors and the sea stems from the fact that the sirens' singing was said to have seduced Greek sailors to drive their ships onto the rocks. A a very early date, seamen incorporated the powerful figure of the siren into their mythology. In this context, it is easy to understand the combination of the siren's attributes with the more appropriate form of woman-fish; the Spanish la sirena and the French la siréne, both referring to mermaid, attest to this transition."...

"Given this "hybridization process,"as Dr. Atl an artist and historian, describes it, one can assume that the mermaid figure was adapted by Indians who had at some time seen representations of her in Spanish sources; as Keleman states, "The leaf-sprite and the mermaid. . . may have entered the New World on maps and the title pages of books, where they are commonly found."19 The image began to appear in popular art as well as in colonial buildings and sculpture."...

"Among the Aztec deities, Chalchiutlicue was the wife of Tlaloc, the god of rain and moisture. The name means "Lady of the Emerald Robe," an allusion to the element over which she presided. She is associated with both fresh and salt water, having ruled earth during the fourth age of man, which ended in a flood, causing men to become fish; she was consequently considered to be the goddess of water sellers, fishermen, and sea-farers. Further, Madsen describes Chalchiutlicue as causing tempests and whirlwinds that resulted in the drowning of boatmen.Such associations support the comparison with the mermaid in the European tradition, since she was seen as an equivalent "goddess" of the waters.

"As for the mermaid-figure's presence at the birth of Christ, the association with Chalchuitlicue is even more convincing. The goddess was considered the Virgin Mother of the minor gods of the heavens as well as of Huizilpochtli--the god of sun, war, and one of the Aztec triumvirate. This link with Christian concepts is extended by Chalchiutlicue's connection with the "green skirt" or "jewel water" which denotes the "precious water of mortification" drawn from the Penitent worshiper and containing the "life substance" or "life blood.""