A Few Questions for the New Year

 

Just to get the blog going again, I'm taking the easy way out with a link to a short little animation that says "it" (or this particular "it") more better than I have a brain for today.  As I wade through emails, real mails, bills and puddings, piles of file-ables, and the other stuff that has accumulated over the course of a couple of holiday weeks, it's a good reminder for the big sort of sort.

And a happy new 2009 to you all. Coming later this month - a new newsletter, details about my upcoming solo show at North West Vista College, reports on the conference appearance in Dallas for New World Kids and a stack of photos from Bustamante, Mexico -- surely a trip back in time if there ever was one (no big box stores, no rush, no traffic or noise, no disco or late-nights, just big rock mountains and people sweeping their streets each morning, handmade rocking chairs and wood-oven cooked breads).

At the Heart of Learning

Photo by Nan Spring, used by permission of the photographer.

Here I am with my mouth open, as usual.

All is well. The book signing on Monday night at The Twig Bookstore went really well and my appearance at a FASA meeting earlier also found Susan and I charged by an eager crowd of (mostly) grandmothers who bought New World Kids as gifts for their children and grandchildren! And it's been so much fun to see orders roll in from around the ether. Thank you to all who've taken the time, money and attention to purchase! Here's one point in our presentation that really gets to the audience:

We as grownups see the attention and money and resources being spent by folks who are trying to find their true callings, some even having made it big in the world's terms who realize that what they are spending their lives doing has little to do with what their hearts want to do. The What Color is Your Parachute series is just one of the long-running successes that help people figure out what to do next -- Julia Cameron's Artists Way books are another. So why don't we give kids the tools and means to figure this out earlier? Once children know their strengths, know something about what and how they are good at what they are, the whole focus of the educational system makes a shift. Students take charge of their own learning to a much greater degree; discipline becomes less the classroom focus; learning becomes its own motivation. Peter Drucker, the business guru, says, " The most important thing is to know what you're good at."

Learning what you're good at can push one into unexpected skill acquisition: I've spent a good amount of time setting up the NWK website with customized  Squarespace templates and then mastering the ins and outs of Paypal buttons. Valuable skills all. Next, the studio desk and work table became the site for proposal staging. I killed my share of trees sending in the paper work with proposals to teach at the 2009 International Quilt Festival, mostly in the Mixed Media classroom, but also a lecture proposal derived from NWK and the Sensory Alphabet. I hope I can teach there again as I learned so much and this time I plan to do it right.

But it seems that I've had little real art time since Thanksgiving and my soul has noticed. What I do best is make art (and teach it), and all this other folderol is just a means to that end. The little nagging ache in my heart means I've neglected the artist and spent way too much time on the support services. We have such a tightrope to walk as working artists (though I am sure this is a quandary for other sole-proprietors/one-person-offices in other fields). I teach at the Majestic Art Ranch this morning, so at least I'll get my hands into the demos and a few samples, since we're on the wind-down. And sometimes just getting my hands on a dyepot puts the momentum in action. What are you going to do today to get yourself back to the heart of things?

PS. If you'd like to see more photos of the booksigning, check the NWK blog later today.

P.s Just found a link to a nice article online about our appearance at the symposium in Dallas in January -- The Baker Idea Institute.

Seasonal Palette

There is a hint of fall in the air, even here in deep South Texas. We opened the windows last night and slept with a cool northwest breeze -- at least until the neighbor's dog cornered a raccoon or armadillo or whatever under his porch. Ah, the peaceful country life. Nevertheless, like a chef in a big city kitchen, i find my color sense turning to autumnal hues, longing for the leaf turning rusts and reds and golds that are at least a month away from the hillside!

So here's a little visual inspiration, no matter what colors your actual geography is gifting you with today. For me, it's a tiny little look into the future. 

Above: Beautiful rusted fabric -- a great way to get autumn hues --  by artist Adrian Highsmith. She used this fabric in a series of textile collages for a recent art exhibit in New Braunfels.

Pomegranates are among the early signs of autumn here. This photo has found its way into a couple of new textile pieces -- one will be part of the faculty donations at the Houston International Quilt Show -- and I just realized that I forgot to photograph it before shipping! But, the piece above, finished just today, uses a similar color scheme and another print from the photo above. Look for the companion piece in Houston.

(P.S. I hope the leaves will at least have a tiny bit of russet by the time of my next El Cielo workshop, October 17, 18, 19. The topic -- Altares: Dias de los Muertes. You'll choose the memory or experience to honor;  a person, place, former self, even the birth/life/death cycle of an idea, creating personal symbols and meaningful imagery. The techniques: constructing a art cloth altar with fusing, machine quilting, hand-stitching and embellishing of fabrics you've created with photo transfer, flour paste resist and hand-painting. If interested, email me at susiemonday@gmail.com.)

Above, Not yet, but coming. This photo was taken a couple of years ago, when our fall produced some lovely hues. That's not always the case, but these early cool fronts bode well for color on the hillsides.

Infinite Variety/Creative Choice

Infinite. Abundant. Words that have both spiritual and material connotations. One of my favorite writers, Annie Dillard, speaks of the fecundity of nature in her first book of prose, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek:

"A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate,without budging an inch; I couldn't make one.a tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes, it splits, sucks and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling."

And I worry sometimes about having too many ideas. You may worry about having too few, but my experience with artists is that's its always too many. I suggest that for today, just today, you and I take a page (a leaf?) from the elm and just make what needs making, at whatever stage that is, for whatever purpose, and if the caterpillers come, or the shoot withers, or the bud never opens. Well, there are at least 5,999,999 more to come just this season.

The photo that sparked this thought  (and, now my desire to reread Dillard's classic narrative of her year on Tinker Creek) were taken on a campus walk with friend Susan on the Rutgers campus. This little garden must have a horticulture department at its source -- the variety of late summer pods, and blooms and leaves, colors and shapes and textures, is enough for a lifetime body of work. Surface design, indeed.

Does anyone know what any of these flowers are? They were all unfamiliar to me. And If that spiny leafed plant will grow in my climate, I want it. Surely that would be deer resistant!