Yes, you are invited.

OK, this is kind of ridiculous, I know. I have done nothing on this blog except ask you to stuff for a few weeks now. So, this is my life, lovely. Busy. And full of flat out get it done.

Sometimes life is like that, and we who are lucky enough to work at what we love get the benefit. I have been a bit crazy, stitching my way into a solo show, getting ready for quilt festival, trying to think about next year with that half an ear on the future. NOTHING, NOTHING,  has been done exactly the way I'd wish it to be.. but it's done (or nearly). I hope to post a link to an online gallery here in the next couple of weeks. If you can't make the opening but want to see the show, call or email me and I'll make arrangements to meet you at Don and Jacob's for lunch sometime before it all comes down in January. There will also be a couple of other parties and special events there over the holiday season.

The solo show opens on Sunday, and you are invited.

Tomorrow and Monday I prepare for the festival workshops and demos. Saturday a dear friend has asked me to "do" a special workshop with him, for a birthday gift of creativity. The book is out. The website launched.

http://www.themissingalphabet.com/

You can order here on Amazon (Kindle version, too).

Please, if you have any desire for this book -- great for kids and parents and grandparents, order it soon, so Amazon reorders! On such, books are made and lost. We have spent money, lots of time and it's kind of a legacy thing for me and my co-authors. You won't regret the purchase -this is the real thing with lots of great ideas for getting kids off to a creative thinking start.Save & Close

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.

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!