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!

How to Make an Art Quilt -- at the Southwest School of Art

Starting today at Southwest School of Art in San Antonio (and the word is that there is still room for 3 students).

If you're on a textile path of your own, this class is structured with plenty of independent work time -- and the emphasis is on design process and creativity, rather than one or another sets of technical skills. I'll be demonstrating my own approach to making an art quilt, you'll make at LEAST four small journal quilts and a larger work -- no patterns provided, just some fun approaches to getting it out of your mind and onto the wall.

2369 | Art Quilts

Take your quilting skills into a more personal realm or your art skills into a new medium in this introduction to a variety of techniques for making wall art from fabric. If you have been exploring dyeing and printing, here's the how-to for putting your one-of-a-kind fabrics into art. Or if you've got a stash of cloth or scraps from traditional quilting take your skills into personal narrative. This class will introduce you to piecing and fusing fabrics, design and construction approaches that insure a personal creative vision, and time on the sewing machine as you learn various methods to free motion quilting. Each student will make a series of small journal quilts and work on at least one larger project. Sewing machine optional; please see SSA website for a list of materials.

Level: All Levels  Instructor: Susie Monday  Dates: Mon, 2/4/2013 - 3/25/2013 | Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Studio: Design Studio | Campus: Navarro   PS: I just counted and there is room for one more participant at the last El Cielo workshop of the year: Fearless Sketching, co-taught with artist Sarah Jones, on the weekend of April 12-14. If you are interested send me an email through the contact form on the sidebar!

How to Get Unstuck.

Two of the Hill Country Angels, part of an on-going series of flying funky angels (alterego me doing a freedom/escape flyover)

I walked into the studio yesterday after a prolonged time away -- I've been either sewing already designed pieces, finishing up final bits like facings and hanging sleeves and final touches of hand embroidery, doing other art-related activities like teaching or well, eating and hanging out with family and all the other fun that holidays bring. My partner had an extra long break from teaching at Northwest Vista College, so the pleasant and necessary distractions were plenty until she went back to the classroom yesterday.

Consequently, I found myself stumbling around, unable to focus and at loss for a starting place. It seemed a lot easier to do the business of art, especially the part that has to do with roaming around on Facebook or Pinterest.

BUT, with intention in mind.

I turned off the screens and considered my options. 

I have a few completely new ideas I want to explore for some entries to exhibits, but the momentum to go from flat stalled out to full speed ahead was daunting and scary. With relief, I realized that I could get back into the design swing of things by working on a commission piece that is a continuation of a series of flying angels over landscapes. A collector wants a piece for a wedding gift -- an angel over Monterrey, Mexico. It's one of the reasons I promote and adhere to working in not just one, but several, series that stretch over years of work.

Although the deadline for this commission is further out than the other new pieces, I know that if I can get in action quickly, get my hands and mind working with the actual materials, and not just the idea of materials, in the end I'll make more efficient use of my studio time.

Coming along just fine:

The first two photos show my sketches on the wall -- these were done using projected images; the angel from a previous piece (for size and placement mostly, she will change), the famous Saddleback Mountain profile of Monterrey and a Joshua Tree silhouette -- this is one of the area's signature plants.

The photo above is a rough audition of some of the colors I plan to use -- the view will be a sunset late twilight view of the mountain with cityscape below, and angel above. This is coming together very nicely!

Moral of the story: turn off the screen, dig into colors, and go with what you know as the doorway into what you don't know.

Stitching Stories

 

TELLING STORIES WITH STITCH

If you've ever had the impulse to tell a story through your art work, don't underestimate the power of stitch. While we textile artists often lose ourselves in the colors and shapes that make the bold statements in our work, the elements of stitch are no less important. I use machine and hand stitch both as textural lines on my work, but also as expressions of rhythm and energy and movement.

THE FINAL CHAPTER

Stitching is the final layer of story that I try to tell. Think about it: do you strive for even regularity? For an all over even steven precision of stitch -- nothing wrong with that! Or do you let the speed of machine, the size of a by-hand seed stitch take on some of the emotional content and context for your art. I know that the second approach is mine. I gave up perfection long ago, and while I admire the skill that that kind of quilting requires, I don't even pretend to aspire to it -- I prefer my own rather higgledy pigglety kind of approach to stitching and it suits the kind of work I do.

FIND OUT MORE IN THE E-MAG

If you'd like to know more about my approach to stitching, there's an article in the new issue of the electronic magazine In Stitches. Included is a short video interview and demo, as well as the step-by-step how-to of my process for making an art quilt. I can't share the link to the article, since that's the point of selling an e-zine, but I can share the links to the store for various platforms! If you do make the purchase (or subscribe -- I have found the e-mag full of great content) you'll find a variety of videos, step-outs, reviews and helpful and interesting stories. In this issue: articles by Janet Lasher, Carol Anne Grotrian, Jill Jensen, Norma Schlager, Cloth Paper Scissors editor and author Barbara Delaney, Carol Sloan, Kathyanne White, Eileen Lauterborn, and editor Jane Davila.

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