Outtake

Tomorrow is the deadline for submissions for Seth Apter's next "Pulse." And of course I'm no where near done with the my submission. This is a photo that I played with today while attempting to create a still life. I lean more toward found-art that I discover rather than setting up a scene. I did end up with something, completely different from this outtake, that I'm pleased with. In case you can't tell what this is, it's a brown egg placed on top of a weathered candlestick pillar.

I received an expected phone call yesterday, mom will be discharged on the 14th from the nursing home. She's run out of insurance; am I ready for this? The respite has been a blessing.

Sally Huss: Resolving to be happy resolves a multitude of unhappy circumstances.

Another Month Gone!

At 11am the temp was heading for 100 degrees for the second day. Where did May go? Four weeks ago today mom was moved from the hospital to a skilled nursing home; it's taken me three weeks to finally get to a a good place, one of well-being. I imagine she'll be coming home soon. The entire breast cancer/mastectomy episode has been fairly stress-free amazingly enough. Maybe it's because I refused to get emotional over it; it seems that when I become too emotional  over something that's when I run into trouble both mentally and physically. I couldn't do anything about what was going on with mom other than to see her through it and that's what I did.

A couple of weeks ago when I was doing my daily tour of the garden I was greeted by the "conductor of the garden." I had no idea that this tall fuzzy cactus bloomed. It sends shoots out from the side and then blooms.  Four babies are growing at the base of this tall stately cactus that was once planted in an arrangement that Roger brought home about 3 years ago. Every one of the plants has been removed from the low round pot and each of the specimens are now somewhere in the garden. Everything grows here with lightning speed.

Who knew that grape stems look like leaf-less trees? I've been collecting the stems for awhile now; instant trees! I haven't altered a photo in months so I thought it was time to see if I remembered how to play with photos. This one isn't too bad for someone whose skills have become very rusty.

Quote: Another winner from Sally Huss
"Find a time each day when nothing is required.
It makes the other times more effective."

Piccola Arte

Components: background is a mono-printed discharged piece. The embellishment is a piece of re-purposed jewelry that is attached to painted fusible web. The trio of burnt orange is hand-dyed fabric. The piece is 4x6 inches. Available at etsy

     Will the brutal temperatures ever end? Even with monsoonal storms for the last few days the temps have remained over 100 degrees.

Quote: I am never wrong when it comes to my possibilities. Placido Domingo         

Give-away and Cirque du Soleil

Out of commission due to an infection. Grr! But I still wanted to work on something and I find that when the energy is lacking it's the perfect time to get out something old that might be ready for tweaking. I made a few changes to this Cirque Du Soleil piece and was immediately in memory-land experiencing the few Cirque performances I was privileged to see. Memories!

There's still time to leave a comment for the Give-away. See the post from a couple of days ago. Thanks in advance for your comment.

Get Happy here

And enjoy your weekend!
Quote:
“Always remember to slow down in life; live, breathe, and learn; take a look around you whenever you have time and never forget everything and every person that has the least place within your heart.”

Photo tricks

There is something intriguing about aged things and even though I don't use a lot of vintage items in my work I'm drawn to them. I posted the original of this photo of my photo blog and when I discovered a site that generates vintage photos from originals, well, I had to try it out. Where did I find the link? At Photojojo where you'll find more fun things to try. Instant gratification!

And yes, even if you've received a give-away from me before you're more than welcome to leave a comment on the last post for another try.

And what is the mystery photo posted two posts back? It's the top of an eggplant.

Thought for Today

"For me, it's the only goal worth aiming for: a transformation of consciousness that allows me to know that I am no better or worse than any other being. That I simply am." Oprah

And More Mail Art

Why the sudden obsession? For one thing they're the perfect size for small studies; that sounds plausible, doesn't it? How about, I need the distraction from the daily craziness. This one says, "Semi precious. Undeliverable as is."

      

Photograph image, Fleur-de-lis motif, taken in Florence last summer when life was a little more normal, or at least I thought there was a chance of some normalcy.

"Delivery failed." Photograph taken on our first night in Italy, June 5th, 2009, Hotel Villa Stanley, Florence.

Quote:  "For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery -- back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness." --D.H. Lawrence                       

Painted stamped fabric

Let the painting and stamping of fabric commence; not much choice when the heat in the garage is ridiculously hot. Handmade stamp, white paint, over blue on top of cheap muslin. I'm attempting to create a collection of fragment pieces.

On the left is a handmade Styrofoam stamp. On the right we have stamping from Styrofoam meat trays in gold and metallic rust.

  

A scrap of pellon first stamped with impressions from Styrofoam meat trays, the dark lines/patterns. Then lots of color washes, then more stamping, then gold metallic lines.

 

Painted fusible web. I have no idea what I'll iron this onto. I might use strips of it, or? But in the meantime I've added a photo of it to my digital background collection.

Quote: Do things that make your day precious. Bernie Siegel

              

Mail art

Working on these small pieces reminds me of the 52-projects that I did last year. Everything is in the timing and this certainly wouldn't have been the year to take on a weekly project. The fabric background is a serendipitous piece created when I wiped off the squeegee between screen prints.

Have I mentioned that I'm not fond of wasting dye even if it's supposedly exhausted? The blue background fabric wouldn't exist if I hadn't spread dye print paste onto fabric; I wasn't expecting such vivid colors. The torn aged text is from a French book so I have no idea what it says. Don't you love a mystery?    

Quote and good advice: When we are unable to work, we can work at the work of getting ready to work. Julia Cameron          

Reds

The Reds turned out grand if I do say so myself. On the left, mono-printed red print paste. Top is a piece of fabric that I swiped with black print paste before covering it entirely with red print paste, actually, the grid piece is done the same way. In the center top, barely evident is cheesecloth and gauze. On the right side is waffle fabric and on the bottom is a piece of kona muslin that I poured dye over just like I did the waffle fabric, and the cheesecloth.

I seem to be slowing down as the temps rise, but then I do need to get my house cleaned up by Friday. My daughter and her guys are coming for the night and all of Saturday. They need to get back home Saturday night for one of Jack's functions early on Sunday; Jack being my 8-year-old grandson. Hopefully, my SIL and I can get the drip system going well enough so that I won't have to do much hand-watering in the blistering heat. Of course, it's supposed to be around 107 this weekend.

Do go and take a look at the outstanding tutorial Judi did about making your own rubber stamps. She spent days writing it up so do tell her that I sent you!

Quote: A day without sunshine is like, you know, night. Steve Martin

Memorial Day

1943, my dad is second from the left. And, above, with my Aunt Gladys, the only remaining sibling of four; she's now 86.

And I'm proud to be an American,

where at least I know I'm free.

And I won't forget the men (and women)
who died,

who gave that right to me.

~Lee Greenwood

Discharge experiments continued and Blogaversary

First off, thanks to Kim, Julie, Darlene, Penny, Marilyn, Nellie, Seth, and Joyce for leaving comments for the Blogaversary give-away. If you'd like to be included leave me a comment. (Forgive me for not replying but I'm a bit distracted right now, see below.) Please let me know if I've forgotten anyone.

It was 100 degrees last Thursday but a cold front moved through and we were near freezing yesterday, well freezing for us! A low in the 80's on Sat. and 70 degrees yesterday. Nothing left to do but take advantage of it and if my energy and physical strength had lasted longer than it did I might have dyed and discharged bolts instead of yardage. But I'm happy with the results, some of which I'll share. A few pieces have blown me away and when I create something from them I'll share them then. Suffice it to say that I'm mystified and in awe of what discharging can do. The variables are the key and my notes aren't helpful. I have to do better at immediately jotting down things like the temp in the garage and the age of the discharge paste and dye. . . . and so it goes.

A few pieces are both discharged with bleach and Thiox. (no examples on this post.) And, yes, I'm getting browns, greys, cream, and some white all on the same piece of fabric. Amazing. I've screen printed some and brushed on discharge paste on others; I've only scratched the surface.

Sometimes blogger can drive me crazy! None of the photos are in the right orientation or placement! Oh well, today I don't feel like coping with that as I have an appointment with the garage that I don't want to miss. It's supposed to be in the 80's again today and 90's the rest of the week. Bah!

Quote: Want to have a perfect day? Decide to have one. Sally Huss

Rust dyed

Dharma sells table runners ready for dyeing or embellishing, love that! After this one was washed it was dunked into vinegar before placing steel wool randomly over the surface. Then the table runner was rolled up and put into a bag. Magically, two days later the organic patterning happened.

Thanks for the comments about the flour paste resist. It seems to be true that one person's trash is another person's treasure; I wasn't pleased with the FPR over the screen printed fabric but now I'm starting to look at the results in a new light. A similar thing happened when I parfait dyed another 10 pieces of muslin. Even though Dharma cautions that each bolt can be a lot different than previous ones I still expected the same results and I didn't get them. There are so many variables that can go wrong and one can go nuts trying to determine exactly what they are or one can accept the results and know that every piece of fabric is useful in some way. After scouring the heck out of the fabric, maybe the fabric wasn't accepting the dye as easily, and dyeing a small piece to check if that worked I finally came to the conclusion that I'm being too frugal. Dye mixed and used within 3 days was glorious, but dye left to sit in the broiling garage for longer than 6 days lost its vibrancy. Lesson learned, stop being so frugal! Or, try freezing the mixed dye after 2-3 days. I'll let you know how that goes.


Quote:Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers,
and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of
life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are
inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex.
- M. Scott Peck

Nugget of Joy

The duo who is busy building a nest in the grape vine. Aren't they sweet? More of them here on my photo blog














Quote: Since childhood she had walked the Devon rivers with her father looking for flowers and the nests of birds, passing some rocks and trees as old friends, seeing a Spirit everywhere, gentle in thought to all her eyes beheld. Henry Williamson

In the Studio

Parfait dyeing of which can be found by googling it, or I think that Vicki Welsh has some outstanding recent examples of on her blog. Strips of fabric were dampened and I only used a small amount of from left to right rust brown, medium brown, and camel. The middle piece looks grey, but it's not, it's brownish. The camel color turns more olive than I care for, but the rust brown is a color I like to use. I folded the first two fabrics, left to right, and twisted the one on the right. Why only a small amount of dye? I wanted to use up what some remaining dye from a recent dyeing session. This is a technique worth pursing. So, it seems that using dry fabric and lots of dye are the way to go; we'll see.

What happens when you use Honey Brown, Terra Cotta, Burnt Sienna, and some black acrylic paint on wet fabric? Well if you smoosh the colors together and allow the fabric to dry in a tight ball you might get this. Just playing around, but I like the textures. The fabric is stiff, but will be great for a few things.

Deconstructed Screen printing. I adore the serendipitous of it!

Quote: The richness of friends cannot be overvalued. Sally Huss

Mail Art

"Embrace Mistakes," Seth tells us in the current article at MMCA. And I couldn't agree more. One of the mail art pieces I've been working on absolutely refused to behave itself. I should know better than to use StazOn ink over top of dyed fabric, the ink prefers a clean slate. The Fleur de Lis was barely evident. Okay, now what? I painted some wonder under, stamped the Fleur de Lis image on the back of the dried fusible, cut it out and ironed it over the stamped image on the fabric. Oops! left the iron on the wonder under too long. Okay, now I'm annoyed, but wait, the result is something that would never have happened if I hadn't kept making so-called mistakes. I'm fond of the distressed effect, so much so that I attempt to achieve it in  nearly every piece, perfection is over-rated, at least that's the way I see things. I'm hoping to over-iron some wonder under on another piece that I'm working on. Wish me luck!

Quote:  The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.
Pierre Bayle

In the Studio

Just portions of larger works-in-progress. I will say this though, they're both break-down screen prints except for the tree and the red found-objects stamping.

In the 88 temp range again today, no complaints from me! I can't get enough of sitting on the patio watching the garden grow, of the lizards stopping by to check me out, and of the birds taking baths in the fountain. One of the larger lizards seems to greet me every morning while the smallest one can't scoot away fast enough; I understand the feeling.

Quote:
You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.



Ken Kesey

The wait is over

The book "1000 Artisan Textiles" arrived yesterday and these are the two out of four pieces of my work that were chosen. I was pretty certain that 713 would be in the book but I thought that perhaps one of the other two would be in the book rather than 714. To see all the 52 creations go here: The one following these two, #32, is the one that I assumed would have been chosen, and the other piece I entered for consideration is in the process of becoming something else.

Kudos to Sandra Salamony and Gina M. Brown for putting together a marvelous book; the volume is truly beautiful and very inspiring.

A  mono-print from this weeks marathon session of screen printing and fabric dyeing. The results from spending hours in the garage studio have left me in a quandary. What do I do with all of the screened and dyed fabric? I have vague ideas that most likely will become solid ideas when the time is right to work on them. Right now I need to get in as much time as I can before the desert heat keeps me indoors of which it nearly did today. I wanted to shout at the universe, "Not yet! Bring back some cooler temps!" It's been about 88 degrees for a couple of days now. And if that isn't annoying/worrying enough I was awake after 2am when a gentle aftershock from the earthquake that hit 6 days ago reminded us that the earth is still shifting on her axis. So, if you feel a little out of balance it could be that Mother Earth is having a difficult time finding her balance.

Quote: Our primeval Mother Earth is an organism that no science in the world can rationalize. Everything on her that crawls and flies is dependent upon Her and all must hopelessly perish if that Earth dies that feeds us.

-Viktor Schauberger

Challenge

The challenge following the word Puzzle (see below Feb 28th) is Passage, in case you didn't figure that out. How to get letters onto fabric? Well, one way is to use sticky back foam letters that were purchased for $1 from Target some time back. I took a gamble that they would work and ended up more than satisfied. The thickened dye seeped under the letters just enough to color the white fabric that remained from printing the same screened design twice on the same piece of fabric. The tree design was applied to the screen with blue school glue gel and rather than thickened dyes I used textile paints on the screen. Why only a detail? The reveal isn't until the week of April 24Th. Besides, I'm not sure if I'll even use this beginning for the challenge.

So, if you've heard about the 7.2 earthquake in Mexico yesterday that was felt in CA you  might wonder if this area shook as well. Yes it did! I knew from the rolling of it that we weren't in the epicenter but if the rolling didn't stop when it did I think there might have been considerable damage here. The floor looked like waves.  The wind was starting to blow around the fabric I was working on and I was reaching for the button to close the garage door when the earth started moving. My but that's a strong wind!  The rolling lasted about 45 seconds and a few things fell but happily nothing broke. It's believe that we what felt was around 5.1 which is enough to get our attention. Rocking and rolling yesterday and strong monsoonal winds today.

Quote: as artists, we run the risk of staleness if we close ourselves off to fresh experience. Each day must remain an exploratory expedition. Julia Cameron

Phew

March Madness is nearly over, the month that in the past has been fraught with stressful events and a few losses. My trip to see Roger was spectacular. The weather was amazing and the traveling was okay even waiting in line to get the rental car. The wait was over an hour and when I discovered that the two women in line behind me were heading for Carmel I couldn't resist telling that I had lived in that area for 31 years. The hour flew by while we chatted.

The above photo was taken near where the nursing home is in Greenbrae. Nice area, though, a bit too crowded for me. The desert is so peaceful compared to anywhere that I've lived so I find it difficult sharing my space with so many people. The high-light of my visit happened on the last day when I was told that Roger  had been pulling himself out of the wheelchair while hanging onto a parallel bar. He's paralyzed on the left side so that's a feat. The PT decided it was time for Roger to take some steps but that didn't happen on the first time out of the chair, but it did on the second and third until he'd taken 16 steps. To say the least I couldn't be more thrilled and I was the one who got to see it. The PT moves his left foot and he did the right. We were told in the beginning that he probably would never be able to stand, he's sure proving the doctors wrong.

We sat outside quite a bit and the image of a wisteria vine was shot through an umbrella. I am always drawn to lines, texure, and patterns.

Quote: Find some nice moments and hang onto them. Sally Huss

First Day of Spring

I've spotted some huge grasshoppers in the yard lately and I thought that one was on the grape vine, nope, a bunch of grapes forming. I gave this plant to Roger on his birthday in 2008 and while it grew very well last year it was void of fruit. I'm taking the 10 or so bunches of grapes I counted as a good sign, especially on the eve of the day I start heading his way. It's been over two months since I was able to visit him in the Greenbrae Nursing home but by Monday afternoon I will be at his side. We're off to Redondo Beach tomorrow where mom and Stacy will spend a few days with my youngest daughter and her guys.

Quote:    “It's spring fever.... You don't quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” Mark Twain