Susie Monday

Artist, maker, teacher, author, head cook and bottlewasher.

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The art I make is the result of a life-long love of pattern, texture and color. How I teach is a skill honed by experience (I started teaching creative arts to younger kids when I was 12). After earning a B.A. in Studio Arts from Trinity University, I helped lead an internationally recognized educational foundation, designed curriculum exhibits for schools and other institutions, wrote and edited for a major daily newspaper, opened the San Antonio Children's Museum and then, a dozen years ago, took the scary but essential (for me) leap to become a fulltime artist and art teacher.

About This Blog

This weblog is about the maker's life. The teacher's path. The stitching and dyeing and printing of the craft of art cloth and art quilt. The stumbling around and the soaring, the way the words and the pictures come together. Poetry on the page and in the piecing of bright scraps together. The inner work and the outer journeys to and from. Practicalities and flights of fancy and fearful grandeur, trivial pursuits and tactile amusements. Expect new postings two or three times a week, unless you hear otherwise. 

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    Entries in Monterrey (1)

    Wednesday
    Jan232013

    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.