New work from the Guild and things to come

 

I was able to squeeze one day in the studio, making my own work, while I was out at the guild. I wish I had been able to stay a whole week, working every day, getting settled into a good rhythm. But, I am happy with what came as a result of that one solid day. Working next to Shannon was a great reminder of the invaluable resource of critique. She encouraged me to push farther, and edit tighter than I would have on my own. Thanks Shannon!

I have been thinking about all the cells that make up our world. I wanted to find a way to celebrate their shape as well as their function as carriers of all manner of information. The shapes are layered with pieces of book pages. I experimented with carving down into, and building up areas in the wax. I am excited to keep exploring this kind of shape making and revealing in my next pieces.

Detail

Since I came home I have been working on, of all things, sheep! I was asked to make a piece that included sheep and it was such a challenge to figure out how to make them look elegant. I have been taking pictures of lambs this week while spending time on a ranch in Texas, so I am ready to make a whole series of sheep pieces this summer. 

This piece is the kind of thing I will be selling in an etsy shop I am opening this summer. My goal is to provide a source for beautiful devotional objects. I think the embedding, carving, and layering techniques used in the encaustic tradition lend themselves so well to this kind of work. My hope is that the sale of this type of object would support me in the making of art pieces that don't appeal to such a broad audience, and might not be as affordable. I'll have more news on this endeavor in the next few weeks! 

Julia Humpfer: HerbstKind and Dreams

This morning, while I was drinking my coffee and browsing the web for some inspiration, I stumbled across these wonderful prints. I love the simple palette and intricate line work of Julia Humpfer's illustrations. Her drippy watercolor backgrounds remind me of the series of drawings I made last spring.

I have had some very vibrant dreams lately. I am hoping to put some of the images into some new drawings. Last night I was befriended by a beautiful deer, after I had run away from home and sought refuge in the wild forest. When I was re-captured, I hid the deer in my room between my clothes hanging in my closet. I could talk to the deer and it could understand me, but it couldn't talk back, it just made soft grunting sounds.  I was quickly sent away to a mountain school for witches, housed in a cold stone castle, where I learned to interpret secret messages coming from a small silver figure of a woman with a large bell skirt. The messages were from Xena the warrior princess.

Spring Bird

A few nights before this, I was escaping from two talking mountain lions who had the ability to walk on walls.  They were after me because I had not packed my suitcase fast enough. Interestingly, gaudy costume jewelry was the only thing I packed into the suitcase. The whole dream took place in a retail store that had closed for the night.

As I remember, David was calmly shopping in the dark while I was being attacked. 

Dragon

Of course my favorite dream of recent weeks is the one where I am living with giant (as in the size of a house) talking bunnies in the woods. The rest of the dream was pretty complicated and it involved escaping (yet again) from bad guys who I believe were trying to smoke us out of the forest with torches. There were some gruesome scenes that took place in a castle, but the talking bunny part was pretty wonderful. I believe Albus Dumbledore also showed up at one point. 

Balloons

So: themes of forests, bad guys, castles and talking animals. Pretty good material for some new pictures I think. Today, however, I have to make a trip to Raleigh (30 minutes away) to stock up on some panels for encaustic work and an encaustic workshop I am teaching with my friend Shannon in Washington State next week. I am sure I won't even get to start on any new drawing today. But the ideas will roll around in my head while I am driving back and forth from the art store. I hope that actually being in a forest next week will provide the perfect environment to begin the new series.

Have a happy, creative Friday everyone!

Gird with Birdy

Things to love and St. Thomas

Tomorrow is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas. He once said: " The things that we love tell us what we are." In honor of that idea here is a quick list of some things I love. I don't know if they will tell me what I am, but I do think it will be a fun exercise. What things do you love?  

1. Green things

2. Poems

Jiyong Song - Poem Pavilion

3. Old Paper

4. Books

5. Red Stitching

Cathy Cullis

6. Seeds

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak

7. Scarves

Vaida P.

8. Kids

9. Food

10. Words

Frank Plant

11. Tablecloths

12. Maps

Shannon Rankin

13. Birds

Paula Swisher

14. Old Boxes

Laurie Frick

15. Wax

Shannon Newby

We are fields before each other

How is it they live for eons in such harmony–

the billions of stars–

when most men can barely go a minute

without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,

though that does not keep casualties

from mounting.

Out hearts irrigate the earth.

We are fields before

each other.

How can we live in harmony?

First we need to know

we are all madly in love

with the same

God.

-St. Thomas Aquinas

All is well, don't send the St. Bernard

I have not died, nor have I been raptured and left you behind, nor have I become Amish. I have, however, moved to North Carolina, and now live in a house without an internet connection. When you're unpacking a whole house, driving out to find one of only 4 (Alas!) coffee shops in town is rather low on the list of priorities. Today I am camping out at Joe Van Gogh catching up on many emails, connecting with people to find a job, and finishing this blog, which I started last week.

Some things are different in this land of Norte Carolinia, and I have made a little list to organize a few of the more entertaining differences. If you make it to the end of the list you will also find some images from my show at the Laity lodge, which I hung one week before the big moving truck came to our door. I have been dying to share the images with you, but it seemed more important to unpack the dishes first.

Our carito rojo driving under the Durham sign

Things to know about living in the home of The Mountain Goats (listen here):

1. It rains a lot. Almost every day right now. Sometimes all day, sometimes right in the middle of the day for an hour. Regardless of when it rains it's fabulous after the drought of Texas.

2. The grey squirrel is the state mammal. No Texas red squirrels here.

3. Humidity is a real and tangible force to be reckoned with. It deserves personification.

4. Per number three my hair is curlier and a bit more frizzy.

5. Southern hospitality is alive a well. Two complete strangers stopped by this week to invite us to church.

6. Street lights are few.

7. Street signs are low and small.

8. Street names change frequently.

9. Per numbers six, seven and eight, it's pretty hard to get around. Goggle maps can't even help.

10. Limes are really expensive.

11. A Texas accent aint nothin' on a North Carolina accent. Charlotte is "Shaw-lit", tower is "tar". Hearing it makes me want to slow right on down.

12. Don't wear light blue.

13. People still smoke inside buildings.

14. Spiders are huge! HUGE!

15. Food on a biscuit is a pretty big deal roun' here.

All joking aside, I quite like Durham and all its quirkiness. Adjusting to a new place is always rather fun for me. Getting our lives in order just takes a long time. So, until the studio is up and running again, here are some promised images from the show. I was quite happy with the way it turned out. It's always so satisfying to look at all the pieces hanging together with their big fat mats and plain black frames. Thank you so much to Ginger Geyer for inviting me out, for all her work hanging, writing up statements, and making title cards.

These images are just a taste. As soon as we have internet at the house I plan on blogging on each new piece. I'll explain some of what I was thinking when I made them, and a bit about the themes of this new series. I am working on getting all the images onto my flicker, with sizes and prices for those of you interested in purchasing. The work will be on display at the Laity Lodge until the end of October. Any pieces not sold will come to North Carolina where I am looking for a space to show them.

With Gladness and Singleness of Heart

All the pieces in the new series have to do with actual memories or memories of feelings from childhood. The show is titled: "Adventurers and Adventuresses".

Help Appears to the Kingfisher Unexpectedly

Bears! No, Small Horses.

Dreamy Autumn Days

When I signed up for this blog I had every intention of posting something substantial within the first week. Only now almost 3 months later am I sitting down to write something!
After a helter skelter fall full of travels and birthdays and deadlines I am finally able to sit down with a cup of Cappuccino Rooibos tea (which can be found here among other treasures) and write. Hooray!

A ceramic piece made by our friend Rick Van Dyke given to us for a wedding gift.

I am working almost every day now in the studio, other wise known as our garage. I am currently finishing a piece that my friend Ben commissioned and can't wait to post pictures of it as soon as I am through. It has been a fun and challenging project for me. I feel like it's a great start to a whole new body of work. I spent most of last year making block prints and it's time for a bit of a change into something more risky. So, I am experimenting with drawing and collage again and finding that I love the immediacy of it after all the printing. It's just fantastic to be making marks on paper again.
It has been so fun to be puttering away out there in the cold weather with a warm hat cutting paper and drawing mustard greens and ships and nests all onto wonderful seagreen/grey fabriano paper.
I am losing hours while split pea soups simmers in the house on the stove and I am loving it.

Since it's been a long haul to get a space cleared in the garage I am posting a few pictures of my work space and some of things around the house that make me happy right now.

My inspiration board.

The wee art space.

Inks and things.

Paper Waiting to be made into something beautiful or pasted onto my drawings.

Organized colors.

Picking our first Mustard Greens on Thanksgiving day. It was unfortunately rather balmy at around 70 degrees, thus the t-shirt. Thankfully the next day it was back to chilly.

The Autumn is my favorite season for just about everything, food, clothing, weather, holidays and light. It's the perfect time to be cozy, the perfect time for dreamy music and mohair scarves and the perfect time to settle into a rhythm. We have been gone so much of the last few months that being home and quiet is a real treat for me. It's also really exciting that the cool weather seem to finally be here for good.
Now, I know it's December 1st and for many of you living in the northern states I am sure it seems silly to be talking of Autumn this late. But it takes a while for Autumn to reach Texas. I really appreciate it when it gets here no matter how late. I am content to be carving out my own little rhythm of working, learning, making, cooking and gardening. I hope it becomes steady and solid and at the end of the winter I discover that I have a treasure of creative projects to show for it.

Ornaments waiting for their tree.

Sunday was the beginning of Advent and we got out all the Christmas stuff... I guess that means I have to admit Autumn is almost over. :(

Almost

Working on putting the machine together.
Blogs coming soon!
Stay tuned.