Spring in my thoughts, anyway...

The colors outside are so dreary and temperatures have been in the single digits here in the morning. The lake behind our house is still frozen solid, (although a little bumpy for skating as we discovered yesterday). Time for a little breath of spring air and sunshine, so I put this together the other night. Nothing is stitched down yet (as you can see from the lint and stray threads here and there), but I just liked the way the fabric colors and textures worked, and the whimsical feel of this combination, so I thought I 'd post it anyway! Maybe I should work on a poem or story to go with it (who is this girl in pink, picking daisies? Where did she come from and where is she going? What will happen next? Will she meet a wolf, or make a friend? Stay tuned...)

I finished it!

I finished the piece for our SAQA group show at the Mahopac Library in March. I am calling it "Serenity by the Garden Wall." Over the weekend I had to deal with one last detail: the central lower copper leaf is slightly folded over in this photo. I ended up taking it off and creating a new one out of a thicker copper sheeting. I had to do the distressing all over again, but I think it is now finished and I finally found an acrylic spray that protects the patina without changing it too much.

I was off from work Friday and my husband was gone with the kids most of the day Saturday, but somehow I still don't seem to get nearly as much done as I plan. So my word for the year will have to be balance. Creating art is one facet of my life, but there are many others, and I have come to expect that I am often scurrying from one to the other, trying to keep all the plates spinning in the air. So my life keeps spilling over into my blog and my art because it's all connected, it's all part of the art of my life. I need to keep the goal of balance in mind, day by day, even minute by minute, to meet the needs of all the different parts that make up my life.

As for specific goals for 2009 (only one month late!), I will try to sketch more and play more (both with my family and with art materials). I will try to blog more consistently and to put comments on other artists' blogs, to begin building an art network for myself. And I'll continue to create and submit and be open to any possibilities...

Snow on snow on snow...

Yesterday the schools were closed due to snow and sleet and freezing rain and this morning there is a two-hour delay. I am getting in some quick photography and a blog entry before I have to make lunches!

Here are two small snow pieces: the one below I did earlier in January, a 5"x5" "journal" piece, purely for fun and exploration. I used some recycled wrapping that came in a shoe box and some cut paper snowflakes. The other (right) is 2"x4" as per a challenge on a mixed media website (I think it was themethursday.wordpress.com). I enjoyed going through my stash of white snow-like material and layering it on. The words are from a poem by Christina Rosetti that has been made into a Christmas Carol: "In the bleak midwinter..." Anyone tired of winter yet? Still a long way to go until spring...Promise to have my goals and maybe a word for 2009 soon...

the 25th already?

Is the first month of the year nearly over? I'm still mentally composing my list of resolutions and goals and I've already missed one twelfth of the time I have to complete them!

I received the latest Quilting Arts magazine yesterday and saw two great articles by Jane Davila, the person who helped get me started in art quilting (visit her website and blog listed). One article had tips on setting artistic goals, but an important point she mentioned is looking back over the past year to see what you've accomplished. A valuable and encouraging activity: assessing where you've been before you decide where you're going. So here goes. In 2008 I:

• completed my professional portfolio of art intended as illustrations for children's books and showed it at the annual SCBWI conference in NY last February
• completed two book dummies to show at the conference
• applied for the SCBWI Don Freeman Grant
• began blogging
• submitted stories to 3 different publishers
• sent out 2 separate postcard mailings to prospective publishers/editors/agents
• quilted, designed and created 2 different Christmas cards which were mailed to friends and family
• completed about 8 new art quilts
• continued sporadically making journal quilts, some in a new 5"x5" format using scraps, paper, and recycled materials
• bought and experimented with new materials such as Shiva paintstiks, copper foil and mesh
• attended several local SAQA meetings and helped organize the group show in March '09
• attended the Rabbit Hill Festival of Children's Literature in Westport, CT in October.

I also read a lot, both juvenal fiction, and adult fiction and nonfiction. These are some of the titles I read this year:

• Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
• A New Earth by E. Tolle
• Love as a Way of Life by Gary Chapman
• The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
• Between Sundays by Karen Kingsbury
• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice
• Dewey the Library Cat by Vicki Myron
• The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan
• The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
• A Year Down Yonder, A Long Way from Chicago and Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
• The Book Thief by M. Zuzak
• Twilight and sequels by S. Meyers

So that's a summary of what I did in 2008 (not to mention about 750 hours at the library, 330-odd dinners cooked, 100 or more trips to the grocery store and countless loads of laundry...Not bad for just 365 days!). Next post: Hopes and goals for 2009...

New year, new challenges

Happy New Year! Onward and Upward! Health, Happiness and Prosperity in 2009!

Last year, I took a risk and spoke up in a local Studio Art Quilters Associates (SAQA) meeting (I am technically not a SAQA member and only make it to the meetings occasionally). But I offered up information about art gallery space available at the public library where I work, and now the group, myself included, is preparing for our show there this March! Tonight we met at the library so everyone could see the gallery space, share some of the completed pieces, and discuss our personal Artist Statements.

Many of us, some quite accomplished artists, found this seemingly simple task to be very challenging. How does one sum up, in a few succinct and meaningful sentences, why or how one creates art? I think, being visual artists and not verbal ones, we found this particularly tough. I had drafted something three paragraphs long and ended up scratching the first and third paragraphs. Here is what I had left (with a note of thanks to group member Melanie who is a professional teacher of writing and made an excellent suggestion that improved the paragraph greatly!)

"Lace is snow or sea foam, yarn is moss or hair, thread is sunlight or rain. What I love about fabric collage is that it is so transformative: one material almost magically becomes another. I choose materials as much for their texture as for their color and use burlap, felt, velour, organza, upholstery fabrics, natural found objects and copper foil and wire. Nature's colors, shapes, textures, and contrasts are often my inspiration."

The completed pieces many of the members brought were just beautiful and inspirational, each one unique and special in its own way. Of course, mine is not finished yet, but it must be done by the end of this month, so I'll post it then. I am using more of the copper and turquoise contrast materials I used in a piece I did this summer. The show promises to be fantastic. I think anyone unfamiliar with art quilting will be utterly amazed, and even those who have some experience with the level of talent out there will be quite impressed. I hope to post more once the show is in full swing! I'm so glad I spoke up about the library gallery! It's nice to have the group support and be a valued contributor.

What have I been doing lately?

Wow, the holiday rush is already over! Here are some photos of what's been keeping me from blogging lately. At least I had the presence of mind to photograph a few things along the way...

Here are most of the lavender sachets I managed to get done as gifts or additions to gifts. I started with a piece of lavender fabric and used bonash fusible powder to adhere on scraps of yellow, green and purple fabrics as well as Angelina fibers. I covered parts of it with tulle or netting and fused everything together, then free-motion stitched over the top to hold it down better. Then I sliced the piece up into about 12 rough squares (about 4" square) with a pinking rotary cutter. I embellished each square individually with flowers, lace, and additional stitching, then sewed a backing on like a pillow and stuffed in the dried lavender I collected in August. I just finished the last two last night...who

will I give those to? I think I owe one to my youngest daughter...

Next, here is a sample of some

of the baking I've been doing. As teens, my sisters and I used to start baking after Thanksgiving and freeeze each batch as we baked them. By Christmas, we had four or five varieties of cookies to eat and give away. This year I also managed to get in four or five batches, only two of them being particularly labor intensive (the thumbprints and the gingerbread). The thumbprints (the recipe calls these "Jewel Brooch" cookies) are my family's absolute favorites, as they are mostly butter and melt in your mouth. The recipe (which I usually triple) is as follows: Mix 1 cup plus 2 T flour with 1/3 c sugar. Add 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter and mix as for piecrust until coarse crumbs are formed. Add 1 egg yolk and 1/2 t. vanilla extract and mix with fingers or pastry blender until dough holds together. Form into a ball and refrigerate 20 min. or until stiff enough to handle. Using a measuring teaspoon, put pieces of dough 1" apart on cookie sheet, the shape into balls with floured palms. Make an indentation in the center with the handle of a wooden spoon (or the little finger). Press garnish into the center and bake at 350 for 15-20 min or until golden brown. Garnishes include raspberry jam, semisweet baking chips, an almond half, candied cherries or other fruit etc. (The raspberry jam is our favorite by far, but chocolate chips and nuts are also delicious!) I usually use the egg whites leftover from this recipe for a coconut macaroon recipe (also a family favorite!).

Here is a photo of one of the kittens we got in late October. We are earnestly trying to keep them indoors and they are full of energy so of course they climb. Here is Tigger in the small artificial tree we keep downstairs in the family room.

Maybe I'll use this for Christmas cards next year! Tigger and Honey are loads of fun and extremely soft and cuddly. I managed to get a decent shot of them snuggling together and printed it on an iron-on sheet to make sweatshirts for my daughters.

This was sort of like three blogs in one, to make up for my lack of posting this past month.

I hope to get back into some creative work soon. Meanwhile, Happy New Year everyone!

Here come the holidays...

Even though I haven't blogged in a while, I have been anticipating the busy season ahead. I completed these little quilts last week, photographed them, and ordered prints for our Christmas cards! It took a while to research an on-line printing service that was affordable and easy to use and I chanced upon Vistaprint.com when an ad came in our local "Money Mailer." I just hope the quality is as good as the prices and website...those of you who receive Christmas cards from us will see the proof in the pudding, I guess! There are little words in some of the snowflakes in the quilt on the right, if you click on the image to enlarge it, you should be able to see them. It's kind of interesting that the Nativity scene shows the side of me that plans everything out, draws everything, measures, and proceeds in a rather left-brained way, for an artist, but the trees show more of my right-brain tendencies: more spontaneous, intuitive, and experimental. When it was almost completed, I realized I wanted to add in words and wished I had planned it out better from the onset, but I think it all worked out alright in the end. Most, if not all, of the materials for these pieces were leftover from previous projects. It's nice to finally have enough of a stash to be able to throw some things together without having to run to the store! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Don't eat too much...!