Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

Finally, the Fall-Winter planning is done -- it's taken me a long time to get my thoughts straight and then to plan an all-new series of workshops. I've been running repeats of some favorites during the past season, so it seemed time to develop a new group of inventive weekends.

The problem with that is, that for all the new toys and tricks and materials that we artists (especially we quilt art/fiber art/mixed media artists) are bombarded with, there are really only so many with substance and style and staying power. So, I have decided to concentrate on what I do best, focusing on creative process and on helping others to find their "sweet spots," their strong suites. Yes, there will still be fun and new and different techniques to explore during these weekends, but the majority of them will have more to do with digging deeper, loosening up, starting from scratch and pulling rabbits out of our (proverbial) hats --if any of this makes sense, then you are a better mind than I!

Nevertheless, here's the fall-winter rundown, with a link here to the brochure up in la-la land -- you can download it (in theory) by just hitting the button, or by pasting the address into your browser bar. If you don't get it and want a pdf copy to print, notify me by email --use the form on the sidebar if you don't have my email address handy. I'll email you an attachment that is sure to work!

Nurture your creativity as you come away from a weekend with renewed energy, new  materials and techniques in surface design applicable to fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work. Susie Monday leads artists’ retreats and workshops throughout the year at her studio near Pipe Creek, Texas, about an hour from downtown San Antonio. El Cielo Studio workshops are designed with the needs of the participants in mind;  free time is scheduled throughout the weekend for reading, reflection and personal work in the studio. You are welcome to bring projects in process for Susie’s critique and for peer feedback in an environment of trust and respect. You’ll share meals, poetry and stories, music and advice for living an artist’s life. Enjoy the 25-mile vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads. A spa and pool, and large screen media room are also available to participants. The fee for each workshop retreat is $160 for a 2-day event with discounts for early enrollment. Comfortable accommodations are available from $15 -  $30 per workshop. Most workshops offer a Friday night potluck option. Limited enrollment. Most supplies included. Call 210-643-2128 or email susiemonday@gmail.com
Susie has taught creative process and art techniques to adults and children for more than 30 years. Her art is in numerous private and public collections around the world.

NEW AT EL CIELO
FROM SCRIBBLE TO SYMBOL; PERSONAL MARK-MAKING
SEPTEMBER 25-27
(optional Friday night potluck & critique session)
In this workshop, start with simple sketches and doodles and end the weekend with an arsenal of new surface design tricks and tools.   Explore doodles and scribbles as sources of  uniques and personal imagery that will give your art quilts, wearable art, or mixed media work personal depth and layers of meaning. take a favorite symbol -- for example a heart, star, spiral, circle -- and by taking it (and yourself) through a series of creative generative exercises, you’ll make something new and different to incorporate into your design, composition and surface design. Tools and techniques explored include paper lamination on fabric, large scale “mark-making” rollers and monoprinting.

OCTOBER
Find Susie at the Houston International Quilt Festival, See www.quilts.com
NEW: A CREATIVE STUDY:  PETROGLYPHS, POTTERY & PREHISTORY
NOVEMBER 6-8 (optional Friday night potluck and critique session)
Many artists have found inspiration in prehistoric and archetypal imagery from caves, cliffs and ancient ceramics. This is the first of a series of “creative study” workshops that will illuminate how you as an artist can take inspiration from the images and imagination of the past, while transforming the images into something uniquely your own. This workshop models a time-proven creative study process (based on that developed at Learning About Learning Educational Foundation and the Paul Baker Theatre)  that can be adapted to many inspirational sources. We’ll go from collection through synthesis to creating, and explore textile and mixed media techniques that relate to the aesthetic and philosophical qualities and intent of the earliest art-makers. Explore some simple natural dyes; use handmade brushes as tools, make pigmented paints with ashes, earth, rust and minerals.

NEW: MEMOIR, MEMORY and MEMORIAL
DECEMBER 4-6
(optional Friday night potluck and critique session) Continue the season of Dias de los Muertos by creating a memorial altar to a person, to a personally potent memory (or past life of your own), even to a summer vacation! Learn to transfer photos onto a number of interesting surfaces including plastic, metal and fiber; add words, names and text with resist crayons; microwave dye custom fabrics, and embellish your textile and mixed media altar with all manner of beads, trinkets and meaning-full treasures. (Additional $10 fee for wooden altar frame.)

ARTIST JOURNEY/ARTIST JOURNAL
JANUARY 8-10
(optional Fri. night potluck & critique session)
This annual workshop has become a tradition at El Cielo Studio. Spend the weekend in creative activities (All new this year!) that help you set the stage for a 2010 filled with productivity, imagination, focus and artistic goals. Using some new exercises gleaned from sources around the globe, we’ll banish procrastination, make an annual love letter, and find ways to remind us of what really matters in our artistic lives. Meanwhile, you’ll work with mixed media and surface design techniques to start your artist’s journal for the year.

WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT SUSIE’S CLASSES & WORKSHOPS:
“It was just what I needed right now. I have been in a creative slump, questioning what I do and how I do it. The exercises we did this weekend were freeing on the one hand, but will also help me focus.”

“This workshop was a fabulous, uplifting, nurturing environment to create in. The journaling was particularly helpful, I would definitely recommend it to a friend.”

“This weekend was totally awesome! I am humbled by Susie’s talents, her teaching abilities and her hospitality. I will come back as often as possible.”

susiemonday@gmail.com
www.susiemonday.com

210-643-2128
3532 Timbercreek Road
Pipe Creek, TX 78063
Read Susie’s blog at http://susiemonday.squarespace.com
You’ll find a downloadable pdf version of this flyer on a front page link on Susie ‘s blog.

It's a blur. Big Trip screams by in a whirl of 3 weeks. St. Petersburg buildings, too.What? You didn't notice I'd been gone. Well, that's OK. I'm sure you've been busy, too. And it's not like I haven't been back  (at least in the real world) for a while.

Admittedly, I've been working some since returning home from the "big trip*" some teaching, some studio redo, another profile article for Quilting Arts magazine, sorting and clearing out, making sure the energy flows in and around El Cielo. But there's also been a good deal of lovely late summer just plain lazing around (while musing on next steps).

When I go on vacation, I REALLY go. I stopped blogging (oh, yeah, maybe you did notice); I didn't tweet but twice; I ignored FB friends; I didn't even go to "meetings." I felt as though all the batons that I'd been juggling --flinging around in the air with at least some degree of grace and style -- fell suddenly to my feet . Dropped, unloved, undone. Thank goodness for roaming  and overseas data charges or I might have been tempted to keep all those lovely little flinging objects up there. But no, I spent my money on pepper grinders, handwoven linen, museum admissions and sundry souvenirs, instead.

But here I am, almost the eve of September '09, back in the virtual studio, having thought about it and decided, yes, I like this little part of my working life, this time on the page that records my studio life and the time away from the studio that informs and inspires it. Writing this blog is part of my practise as a working artist. Writing this blog is part of keeping track of what it is I'm doing and why I'm doing it. It's also a way to market my wares, be it art work, classes, workshops or ideas. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. I'll try to make it worth your while.

And to get back into the swing of things, and to catch up with my own recording nature, I'll be posting a few images from travel over the next week, interspersed with a preview of the workshops we'll be hosting here at El Cielo this fall and winter. Expect a flurry of activity on this site over the next few weeks -- then, no doubt, once I have the momentum going with the juggling act, we may find time for something pithier. (how long have I been promising to do an on-line course?)

The travel photos will be arranged not by place or narratively (you'll have to come over and see the slide show in person for that), but alphabetically  -- that is -- Sensory Alphabetically. Starting now, with MOVEMENT. Can you jusst imagine taking inspriation from some images to create a great zoom, a sudden start, a dance, a circling, a splash, a slippery slide, a flit or flurry of a feeling in your next work of art?

Plaster cast of Medieval carving in the V&A, LondonOn the way from London to Dover.

Matisse at the Hermitage

Gate near Church on Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

How we moved.

Rodin at the Glyptotek in Copenhagen

From teh top of a doubledecker in London

Ditto.And wouldn't this make an interesting composition?

I just realized I've not posted the new and revised dates for workshops this summer. Text on the Surface is all but full, as is The Shape of the Matter, but a couple more people could squeeze in if you're not too picky about where you sleep. If you're interested email me in the message block on the sidebar.

Workshops in fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work

Nurture your creativity as you come away from a weekend with renewed energy, new materials and techniques in surface design applicable to fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work. Susie Monday leads artists’ retreats and workshops throughout the year at her studio near Pipe Creek, Texas, about an hour from downtown San Antonio. El Cielo Studio workshops are designed with the needs of the participants in mind; free time is scheduled throughout the weekend for reading, reflection and personal work in the studio. You are welcome to bring projects in process for Susie’s critique and for peer feedback in an environment of trust and respect. You’ll share meals, poetry and stories, music and advice for living an artist’s life. Enjoy the 25-mile vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads. A spa and pool, and large screen media room are also available to participants. The fee for each work- shop retreat is $160 for a 2- day event with discounts for early enrollment. Comfortable accommodations are available from $15 - $30 per workshop. Most workshops offer a Friday night potluck option. Limited enrollment. Most supplies included. Call 210-643-2128 or email from the website comments on the sidebar.

TEXT ON THE SURFACE

May 22 - 24

In this workshop participants experiment with a number of different ways to use written language, letters and text on surface of fabric, for application in the making of art cloth, art quilts and art-to-wear. By putting ideas and personal vision/story into work, artists deepen their own expression of individual voice, using words that are important, using STORY in

a quite literal way,all can be part of that personal way of expression. Some familiar and some new techniques: sunprinting with foam letters, thermofax collage & printing, phototransfer print- ing with copier/printer, soy wax batik with text, mixed media collage. Participants will also see a wide variety of examples of the use of text in fiber and other con- temporary work, broadening their conceptual under- standing of using words in art. Optional Friday night pot luck, no additional fee.

NEW AT EL CIELO: THE SHAPE OF THE MATTER

June 17-19

How does an art quilt idea grow from a shape? Learn two-dimensional design skills though an investigation of paper-cut silhouettes, Japanese Notan ex- ercises, black ink drawings, stencil and silkscreen de- sign. Explore personal imagery, symbols and mean- ing as touchstones for de- signing for the decorative arts in fabric applicable to quilting, art cloth, garment design and embellishment, as well as learning techniques for simplifying and abstracting images to produce original designs on paper and fabric. Take home a journal quilt ready for stitching. Optional Friday night pot luck, no additional fee.


NEW AT EL CIELO THE KITCHEN ALTAR

July 17-19 and repeats August 21-23

This year’s “Burning Woman Workshop”!
Participants design and make a small art quilt “altar” for kitchen or dining room using sun-printing, vegetable prints, fusing, hand and machine stitching and “found” fabrics from attic, thrift store or kitchen closet. We will recycle napkins, tea towels and other like objects and design a thermofax featuring a meaningful symbol, favorite fruit, icon, saint, culinary heroine, an- gel or other meaningful de- sign as the centerpiece for the altar. These altars can be serious or sentimental, comic or universal – it’s up to the individual artist. (This workshop has an additional $12 fee per person for the altar boxes that the quilts are stretched upon.)


GIRLFRIENDS’ WEEKEND

Dates to be determined

Plan a weekend with your artist and should-be artist friends. Susie will design a custom weekend workshop with fiber, mixed media and creativity exercises with your interests and skill levels in mind. Possibilities: soy wax batik, art journals and hand-made books, art dolls and totems. This is the ultimate play date, with great food, the Texas Hill Country, a Saturday night rodeo or music outing (options, not in stone) and fun with “stuff.” Ttherapeutic massage services available from licensed masseuse. Minimum 4 friends, maximum, up to 8 depending on accommodation with shared rooms. The topics and techniques covered are up to you -- and any of the previous El Cielo Workshops can be adapted to your desires.

www.susiemonday.com

This weekend's "Field Guide to Color" put us elbow deep in hues and harmonies. Five of us went to the edge with hands-on explorations, more than a little bit of theory, and enough dyeing to keep the inner kindergartener happy indeed.

I'll get a few more pictures to post later from my new studio assistant Laurel Gibson (yeah, Laurel), since I have a major problem taking photos while I am teaching. However, the lovely swatches above should give you an idea of our color box projects.

Meanwhile, here's a sample of one exercise that is really helpful in training the eye to look at color:

1. Tear out a magazine photo or illustration and cut out a 2" square of one hue (color).

2. Try to mix that color using only primary colors (cadmium red, cadmium yellow and a nice medium blue -- throug in a fuschia red for colors that cabn't easily be mixed with a warm red) and white and black. See how close you can come to duplicating the shade, tone or tint. (shade=hue +black, tone=hue+gray or hue+complement, tint=hue plus white.

That's it. But you'll dind it a remarkable challenge and you'll also be surprised I think at how quickly your ability to mix these colors improves. You can also do the same thing with swatches of fabric or paint chips from the home improvement store.

We let them dry, then cut them out and added our paint chips to a handy file box of colors each participant put together -- in addiditon to the beginnings of a dye diary/dictionary. I forget how handy that is until teaching a workshop like this one reminds me of its use.

My next "Field Guide to Color" will be presented as a one-day workshop as part of the Contemporary Handweaver's of Texas conference in San Antonio on Saturday, March 28. My small art quilt, "Pomegranate Cross" will be part of the faculty exhibit for the conference, on display at the Southwest School of Art and Craft March 18-March 28 in the Russell Hill Rogers Lecture Hall at the Navarro Campus. The workshop is open to conference attendees, so if you are interested, please check their website for enrollment information.

For more color fun and games, try a peek at one or more of these color site links:

Color the White House purple or ??? (Shades of Sandra Cisnero's purple house controversy?)

shape+color

This one is a designer's almost daily links to fab color and design sites around the weboverse.

livelygrey

Here's where to find a color blog that has lots of interactive games and posts. Look at the ones on saturation, hue and brightness.

Big Huge Labs

One of severyl sites that generate color schemes from your photos.

Sherwin Williams

The paint company has a cool site that lets you look at ways to find good color schemes for rooms -- and art.

Wet canvas

Good info and online series of lessons.

And finally, on this long, but I hope helpful post, an excerpt from New World Kids; The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking -- here's a few ideas about color from our book. If you comment on this or any of my posts or my guest posts on other sites at any time this month from Feb. 15 to Feb 28, your name goes into the raffle to win a free copy of the book.

Color
Human vision is distinguished by the color-detecting
ability of our eyes, and so for us color is often the
element of discernment — and the visual language of
emotion. Green with envy, seeing red, walking around
under a black cloud, emotion transforms itself into
colorful characters, colorful language, poetic passion.
Paint on canvas creates sunny weather or an emotional
storm; and music paints a picture solomn or spritely.
Where is your color sense alive? In cooking or
chemistry, stargazing or paint mixing, finding
rainbows, delighting in a feather’s iridescence or
in an outlandishly fashionable fashion sense?

So, where is your color sense alive?