This week I am experiencing how much artmaking (like other elements in life) is subject to evolution and change.

Rhythms. Patterns. (And bummers!)

Last weekend I hosted my studio on the Artist’s Studio Tour in the DeLand Area. What a great experience! Lots of visitors. Wonderful conversations. Good Sales. Working the event is like being onstage for two days. Constantly “on!”

Monday I put my studio back in order. Took down most of the display panels. (I decided I like having a few up and will leave them.) I cleaned. I sorted. I did computer follow-ups.

This morning when I walked in my studio, it looked beautiful to me.

I had cleaned and organized prior to the tour. So when I put it back together I had good trashcan-quantity of less stuff.

Aaahhhh.

Several weeks ago, I had also built a small shelf in my primary work and storage pallet rack sections. Such a little thing. Such a wonderful difference!

And as I looked around the studio this morning, at the artwork I had decided to leave displayed for a while, I took a moment to think about pattern.

This is one of the new works I created for the tour.

I enjoyed creating several of these small quilts and presenting them in framed shadow box frames. (Another simple pleasure of accomplishment: I took standard frames and built half-round molding inserts behind the glass along with ½ x ½ square dowel additions on the back to transform them into shadow boxes, for a float mount presentation.)

And then this morning I stood back and looked at the new small works hanging next to a large work, “Stepping on the Cracks,” which incorporates some fabrics printed with the same branch-pattern silkscreen.

I love this. I love how a simple pattern can be used in different ways, in different colors, on different artworks, yet provide some continuity between pieces in a body of work.

And now I am in between stages. I do not have short-term deadline projects facing me. I do have several large works that interest me, and I am beginning the mental preparation of beginning them.

I spent several hours over the weekend beginning the process of incorporating words into fabric. One of the next pieces will be a semi-autographical storytelling work incorporating images of leaves. So I wrote and wrote, in a stream of conscious style, about leaves. Walking in them. Kicking them. How they remind me of other things. What they symbolize.

I am hoping that incorporating these into the background in places will add both visual texture of writing plus depth of meaning to the finished work. (If you look carefully, you can discern a few words. But it is not really my intent that a viewer will read the text. It’s just there. An underlyng pattern.)

And, as life happens, into this week of reorganizing and finding my way, a bummer. My digital camera and my computer have stopped communicating to each other (again!) and my first round of attempted repairs at the computer store did not solve it. Not the end of the world. But very frustrating. (Taking images from my camera into my computer is a regular part of my working.)

So, I did what I could do. Took the computer apart. Sucked out gobs of dust into the shop vac. Reassembled it. And I will start again at the beginning with my camera manual and googling trouble-shooting advice to attempt to solve the issue. (Not my favorite thing.)

Wherever you are in the rhythms of artmaking and life you may be this week.. May you find your way to the next stage and find meaning in it.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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