I recently sent out my “quarterly” art newsletter about my work. I say quarterly in quotes because quarterly is the goal. The actuality is more like meh, I don’t feel like doing that today and maybe semi-annually is better! It could be said I do it because people ask me all the time about what […]
time management
what i learned on my late summer vacation…
Last week I drove 1281 miles to San Diego (from No. California) and back for a 3 day art conference. Hubs rode along as extra set of eyes, as he no longer drives. It might seem silly to some to drive 4 days to stay 3, but I counted on all 7 days being an […]
art making in the time of Parkinson’s…
I continue to be both amazed and amused that I am able to make art while living through one of the most difficult time periods of my adult life. As I bear witness to my husband’s steep decline into Parkinson’s; as he loses more and more of his independence and thus becomes more dependent on […]
is this actually December 32?
Well, aren’t I the tardy one? I try to blog monthly but seemingly missed December entirely. I know artists who blog daily, although I doubt anyone’s life is THAT interesting? Weekly is also a challenge I don’t need; monthly seems doable. And yet here it is January 1 and I missed out on December. Unless […]
scraps as a metaphor…
When I first became a quilter in 1999, after 25 years as a weaver, I joked that I chose the former as I discovered I could buy cloth already woven. What I really discovered was how taking a whole cloth and cutting it into pieces and then sewing it back together is really such a […]
well it finally happened…
As a retired workaholic, raised by a workaholic & related to another workaholic, I am one of the most organized artists I know. I have curated, juried, packed and unpacked a number of exhibits, and know all too well that many artists lack this organizational skill-set. I have always been super proud of my organizational […]
drowning in paperwork…
Never have I claimed to be a voracious reader. That would be my daughter! How could two lousy comprehension slow readers produce a kid who reads everything she can get her hands on? And if she can’t find it, she writes it! It simply astonishes me. No, I am the plod along, always distracted (multi-task, moi?!) eventually […]
musings in the night, part 47…
The other night’s musings brought me some awesome titles for new work. Not the work itself, just the title! I particularly love ‘the writing on the wall was in invisible ink.” Or “how I became an activist on my way to becoming an old woman.” The funny thing about night musing which most often follows […]
Too Much Information…
I spent the morning sorting through my Inbox. Not my email inbox but my IRL inbox. Yea, it’s a holdout from my office days that I still have a real life inbox. This one has no sense of urgency however, but rather a place to stash papers I want to remember, revisit or read later. […]
loose ends…
I’ve been fraught with anxiety for much of the past four years. I made a lot of art about subjects that got me fired up and am now exhibiting it as much as I can, in a pandemic. After the election I calmed down a bit until the domestic terrorism two weeks ago. Today on […]
grief and paying it forward…
Before we went to Ireland and very nearly after we returned I was hammered by deep grief. This is definitely one of those subjects people do not want to think about, let alone talk about; which becomes part of the problem. I remembered the ‘stages’ of grief from my hospice training twenty years ago, and yet […]
the loss of civility…
Yesterday I was reminded why I quit the lecture circuit. I really enjoyed speaking to guilds and groups for the years I did it; until I didn’t. I remember exactly what group I spoke to when I decided to stop. I told people I was no longer giving lectures because of the wear & tear […]
catching up…
I have lost all inspiration to make new work since Marion died…well actually before then. The muse slowed down earlier this year. Immediately after her death I was occupied with returning files and quilts to her family, and then started in on my own to-do list, which had grown to mammoth proportions. I received the shipment […]
with gratitude…
Yesterday my dear friend Marion Coleman died. While I have known the end was near for months, I have been unable to articulate my sorrow until now. Marion was my fourth close friend to fight and lose the vicious battle, that is cancer. The one thing I have learned, other than cancer sucks, is how […]
editing within an inch of my life…
I recently received a request to be interviewed and featured on a blog titled Create Whimsy. I read the interviews of several colleagues and decided it was a good idea, so I have been answering the interview questions, then editing the file within an inch of my life. I also needed to take some photos […]
for my next number…
Finally I have finished the dreaded replacement queen bed quilt and it’s off to be stitched. So for my next creative endeavor, I am designing the catalog for Defining Moments, the joint project of Marion Coleman and I. Our first exhibit opens in July at Visions Art Museum in San Diego, so this is top […]
year end wisdom
At the end of each year I make a list of goals and intentions, primarily for my artwork. This year I also made another list, in Notes on my phone. This bonus list contained all the things I NEED to do in the new year, or if not then, when? It was a list of […]
on intentions…
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because to me they imply something needs fixing and one is bound to fail. Who needs that? I’ve spent the last 40 years shedding things that make me feel badly about myself. I need not conjure up new ones. Instead I prefer intentions, or art goals. What would I […]
lack of sleep…
After several weeks of contemplative staring at the wall, I am hard at work on no. 20 in this Defining Moments series. This one is about the harried years and my biggest challenge again was figuring out how to depict it. Finally I decided on a screen-printed background, with imagery & letters overlaid describing that […]
musings…
In 2012 right after my Dad died and I was recovering from my second knee replacement, I felt like I needed a lifeline. I had been ruminating for at least two years beforehand about creating a mixed media women’s art group. So I chose 7 regional artists to join me, and six accepted. One from my past […]
stop making small…
One of the problems of being creative in a capitali$t society is people always say you could sell that. As an exhibiting member in artists’ co-ops, that has often been music to my ears as I have had an outlet for $tuff I could $ell! It is also appealing from the sense that it is a […]
long arms vs. my arms which are also long…
For most of the time that I have been working on this series of 25 large pieces, I have been ruminating about my machine. I actually have three at present. I have a Pfussy Pfaff workhorse which does great free-motion stitch, I have a Janome 3000 for when the workhouse is in the shop and I […]
it has come to my attention…
…that my dog may need a blog! This weekend I caught her editing my work when it was suggested to me that she needs her own blog. Personally I cannot imagine this being a fruitful enterprise as it would require my giving her my passwords, and I am not sure she can be trusted with […]
this and that…v.12
I have been preoccupied with life for the past month. I continue to work on #12 in the collaborative series, with 13, 14 and 15 fermenting in my cranium. And we continue to work on dog training. Mops is coming along so well, aside from the times when she chews up something important. I work diligently […]
reflections…
I spent hours today looking for ‘new work’ to submit to two juried exhibits. It was a fruitless effort which brought up a major pet peeve on this subject. Dated work is something that happens predominantly in the quilt/art quilt world. It doesn’t happen so much, if ever in the fine art world. Galleries seldom, if […]
how long did that take you?
There are two very predictable comments made to any person who works with cloth and thread: My grandmother was a quilter and how long did that take you to make that? Today as I finished stitching #10 in the collaborative series Defining Moments I was reminded of the latter. I was reminded when the stitching of the […]
odds and other things…
This month other than the collaboration it has been a bit of odds n’ ends… I have finished #8, which I have yet to photograph, in the 25 pc collaboration and am in process of designing #9. I am loving this series so much as it continually challenges me in how to express each […]
studio purge…
Like several of my friends I got bitten by the TIDY bug and have done my clothes, most of my office and now taking a quick break from the collaboration to do the studio. The most important thing to mention off the top is I do not like clutter so I’ve continually sorted the studio […]
daughter of the war bride, part tres…
I have long joked about being ‘the daughter of a war bride,’ which essentially I am. This explains why for most women of my generation it is next to impossible to just throw something out without finding it a good home. This coincides with saving for a rainy day which leads to today’s post. Two friends have […]
going backwards…
My daughter, when once asked if she would date an old boyfriend said…life is too short to go backwards! This is really kind of how I feel with my art. Once I finish something I hate to go back and rework it; although I have been known to paint over something about which I was not […]
