Color in Context

A little color and composition project I am working on this week is causing me to remember a friend from high school.

He was smart and funny. And a bit of a smart- apple. And I remember that when somebody would express a fondness for something (I love hamburgers! I like the Beatles!) he would reply: “As compared to what?”

The artful takeaway from this is the importance of context: a color or a design element is not usually worthy of affection all on its own.  “I love blue!”  As compared to what? Alongside what? Used as a layer over what? As compared to what other choice?

My project involves two small pieces, just under 12” x 12”, which are to display together, one above the other, as a diptych. (I am creating this for a call-to-entry with those specifications.)

So far, I have a top section with a blue background and a bottom section with a green background, unified by a pattern of bubble-like shapes.

I have already printed the bubbles sections. (I created the shape edge with torn paper as a stencil then wheat paste resist for the circle shapes.) The halves are compatible, but don’t have much “pop.”

My plan is to add the complement of blue — orange — to each section to get the color to be more alive. This is an abstract depiction of above and below water. Above the water is a wading bird. Below the water are fish.

In the top section, I’ll add orange to the background and the bird will reveal as blue. On the bottom section, I’ll use orange as the foreground on the fish shapes. In each case, I’m keeping my orange transparent (pigment mixed with a good deal of matte medium) so it will be transparent.

Here’s my set-up: colors in the mixing tray, foam roller ready for application.

Now to paint. On the top half, the bird shown in the picture is a card stock stencil. It is blocking out the paint in the shape of the bird, and I have used masking tape for the edge. On the bottom half, I’ve cut card stock fish shapes to fill in.

Here is the side-by-side result at this point.

A subtle thing that occurs with transparent paints, working in complements, is the interplay of the underneath color with the over printed transparent color. Here is a close-up of the fish.

The hints of the green below with the orange on top is much more interesting than it would be as an opaque color.

I’ve experimented and played with colors and transparencies a lot in my work. I do not use fixed formulas for color partnerships or color mixing or degrees of transparency. A feel for what works with your particular working materials comes with time spent using them. (And allowing yourself to make mistakes. I’ve made a bunch!) Along the way I’ve learned what I like, and what combinations usually work out well.

This little project has some more collaged additions and stitching in its future. I’ll share it again when it’s done.

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

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  Mostly about what I am creating in the studio. If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail, please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: Mostly news of exhibits and my way of introducing new work. You’ll get FIRST LOOKS at new artwork and members-only discounts. You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---

Reaching for Stars

This feels like a week to be reaching for the stars. I have returned to this work-in-progress in the studio with enthusiasm and hope.

When it’s done, this work will be an homage to the suffragists of the early 20th century, whose work helped to get us here. For now, I’m in the fabric-creation stage and I’m dealing with the stars.

There will be a field of blue and a field of red. I want stars, but not white stars. My vision is for a hue- on-hue effect; royal blue stars on a dark navy blue background, and red-red stars on a deeper red background.

I decided to create these as resist prints using wheat paste. I’ll roll the wheat paste onto the stencils with a paint roller, creating the shapes I want to see on the final product. Then overpaint with the darker background color so the lighter shows through, after the wheat paste is washed off.

Here’s how it looked in progress:

First I painted about a yard and a half of each fabric: just solid color. A yard and a half of royal blue, and a yard and a half of red-red. (Cadmium red.)

Then, I cut stencils of stars and rolled in the wheat paste. At this stage, it looks like white stars on red or blue background. I let his  yardage dry overnight till the resist is fully dry and crunchy.

Now it’s time to overpaint.

Here’s the red fabric: solid cadmium underneath, with wheat paste stars in between, and a deeper red sponge painted over the hole surface, hanging on the fence to dry

Here’s a closeup of both the blue and red fabrics at the same stage. On the blue piece, you can see the royal blue under-layer, and you can see the outline of the printed stars, and you can see the darker navy blue paint over all of that.

Once the over layer of dark paint was dry, I dunked the yardage in a bucket of warm water to dissolve the wheat paste. To remove the paste, I spread the fabric out on my worktable and scrape it off with a spoon, then dunk it some more, then finally take it outdoors to wash off with the jet setting on my garden hose.

The result: blue on blue and red on red.

And now those fabrics are ready to collage into the finished piece.

Learning experience: Wheat paste is wet and goopy. It will destroy a card stock stencil pretty quickly. (I had not remembered this before I started, and I cut new stencils, not preserving them with medium before printing.) By the end of printing the blue, my stencil was mush. So, I quickly cut new stars to print the red. That turned out to be a happy accident. On the stencil I cut for the red I just drew freehand stars, a lot looser and less symmetrical than the blue. This worked out well, since the red fabric goes on the flowing flag and actually should be rendered with a bit of skew. I lucked out!

Another learning experience; Why didn’t I just print light colors on top of a darker fabric and avoid the whole resist process? Because the acrylic paint is not completely opaque. The darker underneath color would have distorted the over color. Only the addition of white creates opacity, and I didn’t want white in the final product.

More to come with this work in weeks ahead.

And now - oh boy! - one last chance to promote the FRESH FISH book

 The special promo ends February 1. It’s been such a pleasure to be part of this project and to design the book. SAQA is promoting it through the SAQA store for a SPECIAL PRICE of $15.95 each with FREE shipping. (With regrets, the free shipping special can only be for residents of the contiguous United States.) The book sales benefit SAQA Florida exhibits and programs. And (well, I’m biased) I think it’s a book you’ll really enjoy reading. The textile artwork and poetry complement each other wonderfully. To order the promo, order here www.saqa.com/freshfish

Your book should arrive about mid-February. If you want a book sooner, or if you live outside the contiguous United States, you can order on Amazon HERE

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post blogs once a week. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---

Letting Each Color Do Its Work

I’m so grateful that it is a new year, filled with possibilities. I feel a great burst of creative energy

This week I have been working to complete the blue-trees artwork that has developed into an art quilt. It is making me think about color and how it works.

I try hard to use my colors intentionally.

Colors have purpose; I find my work is most effective when I let each color do its job.

Generally, I compose works with one dominant color. I work almost monochromatically through a lot of the creation. Then, I add accents and splashes of (usually) the complement or near-complement.

The dominant color in this work is blue. A blue palette with tree images evokes dreams and memories to me. Although I have added a lot more complexity in monoprinting multiple layers and values in the individual sections, the overall palette reads as blue.

This section is monoprinted with blue acrylic on rice paper, then collaged to muslin

This section is mooprinted with multiple colors on sheer polyester, then collaged to muslin

Using MOSTLY one color throughout a work provides unity. Using ONLY one color throughout would just be boring.

In this work, I love the splashes of orange and mustard yellow. Their job is to wake up the blue and make it more lively. (Complementary colors next to each other create a visual “pop.”) Here are the two sections from above next to an orange hue.

I created the tree with the complements of orange and blue. Orange was the underneath color. The tree was formed with a hand-cut stencil on a gelatin printing plate, with some organic grass pieces providing the texture.

Even where the blue overprints the orange, that bit of orange shows through and gives it some depth.

Here is the reverse. I have overprinted orange shapes through a stencil onto a blue background. But the magic ingredient here is not the complement, it’s a little bit of white.

If you put blue and orange (complements) NEXT to each other they each “pop.” If you put orange on TOP of blue, you get mud. The orange is not opaque unless there’s a bit of white mixed in. The white is what has transformed this pure orange into a cantaloupe—like color. White adds opacity.

I also used the opaque quality of white to create the window shape around the tree.

I am enjoying this quilt, but I am also anxious to complete it. My new year energy has stirred up all kinds of ideas of what to work on next.

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

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post blogs once a week. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---

Thank You, cream cheese and butter

As if we needed any further reasons to love cream cheese and butter…

The little cartons in which they are packaged are just right for hand-cut small stencils. The boxes are a nice thin card stock, with a bit of waxy or plasticized coating so they hold up to a bit of paint or other liquid. They cut easily.  And it’s just a weird little pleasure to open up the seams of the box, flatten them out and have them waiting for the work that requires a small shape.

These stencils are for small branch-like shapes that will be part of underground roots. I am using these as a positive shape. (That is, the shape I see cut out in the stencil is the shape that will receive the painted image.)

One of the great things about a stencil is that it can also be used as a negative. If I put this little limb shape down on the fabric and then painted over it, the paint would go onto the background, and the limb would show through as the color of the fabric underneath.

The cardboard stencils are opaque, so I use tracings of the shape to position over the place I will be printing. That way the stencils will hit in the right spot. Position the tracing, then put the stencil on top, then pull out the tracing paper (I usually use wax paper,) tape or hold down the stencil, then apply the paint. Experiment with different brushes, sponges and rollers to see what you like best for paint application.

Here’s how the little root ended up in underground rocks-and-root quilt:

I did not start out to be a fan of stencils. It’s just something that has happened as I have worked out many studio experiments and come up with surface design methods that work for me. So, a few things I’ve learned:

Using stencils helps you to think about positive and negative shape.

Using stencils allows you to create mirror-image shapes: Print from one side, then turn it upside down and print in the other direction.

Using stencils can help you to develop your own personal vocabulary of textures and shapes. I think it’s fine to use commercially produced stencils for learning. My preference for creating art is only to use my own hand-cut shapes. They will be uniquely mine.

Stencils allow a mix of precision and looseness. Get a tight fit between stencil and background, control the paint amount closely, and get a nice clean edge. Or, try sponge painting wet over the shape for a looser look.

These fabrics show the result of wet over-paintng, plus using the stencil to create a wheat paste resist in a pattern.

Creating artwork in fabric is important and very rewarding to me. I love the creative methods of high-tech, photography-based imaging that are available. I also enjoy very low-tech methods that allow me to mix things up.

And, of course, the excuse to enjoy a nice Everything Bagel with cream cheese!

PS – If you would like to look at more details of works I’ve created that use a lot of stencils, I invite you to browse the fabric-and-paper collages on my website. You’ll find a variety of color, patterns and subject matter. HERE

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post blogs once a week. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

---

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 Collage-in-progress

Time for a little collage!

This is a festival-prep week for me. I will be in DeLand’s Fall Festival of the Arts this weekend. At my last Festival I was very happy to have a good response to the small, matted collaged pieces I was showing. So, I need more. (What a wonderful problem to have!) Since I will be showing a few large storytelling quilts in DeLand, I want the smaller works I show to be compatible, to look like part of a unified body of work. I have already created some photo transfers that I like. Now it’s time to put them together.

Starting with two elements

The window will be the dominant element in this work. It takes up a good deal of the space. So, the image will actually be about the window. Everything else is to accent the window and tie things together. Here, I’m collaging the window onto watercolor paper with matte medium. The blue transparent fabric on the left softens the image and implies water.

I use a brayer to get a good bond. The background piece is 140# watercolor paper.

I am weighting the composition with some heavier fabrics at the bottom. These two pieces are muslin that I created with acrylic paints, using stencils and resist.

I especially like this piece. Even though it’s a very simple pattern, when I painted the stencil I was working wet-into-wet, creating nice fluid edges on the shapes. I like the way this pattern can connote either rock-like forms or bubbles.

Now I want to add some transparent texture over the window to soften the edges and tie it in to the rest of the composition.

That’s as far as I got today. I will be adding some painted textures over parts of the surface, and possibly another recognizable object or two. I need to let thing s dry and look at it fresh tomorrow.

Stay tuned.  Next week I’ll post a picture of the finished work.

If you would like to see some of the larger quilts
I have created that use similar imagery,
I invite you to look through the gallery
 “Home is What You Remember”
On my website HERE

If you are near central Florida, please visit the DeLand Fall Festival of the Art this weekend. (Nov 23-24, 2019) It’s my hometown and I am very proud to be in this event. Downtown DeLand is a great place to visit, and there is an impressive group of artists exhibiting. See you there!

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbibaughart@gmail.com

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.

---

Enjoying the big (tedious) reveal

I’ve been writing about a quilt I am creating based on Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Morning in the Burned House.” It began to take shape this week.

I am very much in experimentation mode. I love the poem, and I have a vision of how I want the finished composition to feel as an emotional statement. I have a hunch that working as a mostly whole cloth creation will be an interesting way to get there. But I really can’t tell until I’m pretty far along in the process.

This week I printed all the sections using acrylics and wheat paste resist. Here’s how the revelation proceeded.

At this point, I had already masked the fabric with wheat paste resist and painted over it to define pattern and design elements. I’ve soaked the fabric in water for a few hours to get the wheat paste softened. Now it’s time to get the wheat-paste-acrylic sludge off.

A plastic worktable cover helps. This will be wet and messy

I use large metal spoon to scrape off the bulk of the wheat paste. (Remember that by now it’s mixed with dried acrylic paint. It’s a plastic-filled gunky mess. Definitely scrape up all the sludge and dispose of it in a garbage bag, not down the drain.)

More patient scraping gets almost all the sludge off. After that, I took it outside to the garden hose to remove the remainder.

Now – for the first time in the process – I can see the composition taking shape.

Here’s a detail of the foreground – a kitchen table with checked cloth. I like the way the crackle of the resist gives this a look of age and texture. That fits the emotional tone of this work.

Next I’ll be adding the stitching, and working on surface design patterns to tie all the parts together. Stay tuned!

LOOKING AHEAD: I’ll be exhibiting in three Central Florida Festivals this year. If you are nearby, I hope you’ll stop by and visit.

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

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.

You’ll hear from me by e-mail about once a month.

---

Three Projects Brewing in my Studio

Studio inspiration sometimes comes in spurts and sometimes In waves. I must be in a wave now. I have lots of ideas that interest me and lots of projects brewing. Here are three that are coming along in my studio this week.

PROJECT #1… The brown and black village: This will be the base of a quilt I am designing for a SAQA call for entries, “Aloft.” This is a 2020 traveling show, with entries due June 30.

The concept is two girls in a flying armchair in the sky over their village. Everything in the village will be dull, and the sky will be built of deep layers of brown. But there will be a magical element to the story – and that will be the splash of color. (I’m not ready to reveal yet.) I created a good batch of monotyped sky today, and I like the way it interacts with the opaque muslin of the village.

PROJECT #2…  “Overlooked.” Here’s the next stage of the girl in the garden with windows.  (I posted some about this piece on April 25 with more detailed photos of the sun-filled windows.)

 Now I have created the character of the girl. I was pleased with how her layers went together. There is an under-drawing on muslin, with some collage applique of sateen for her dress and sheer for the skin tone, and a little more top layer drawing with oil pastels and some acrylic washes. And I got her to blend in with the garden photos in a way that pleases me.

PROJECT #3… For “Perspectives.” This piece is what I’ve been working on for the Florida SAQA summer show. (Deadline June 1 for this one.)

 And, though I started it with plenty of time to get it completed, it has taken unexpected turns. I had a composition for this one and I followed the plan. But, when I got it all put together… well, it just wasn’t done. What I thought would be a completed work ended up feeling more like a background. The stage set, but no characters. So I’ve been living with it for a few days, and I just got the inspiration for the way to pull it all together.

 I’ll show more when it’s further along.

 (Re-reading this blog post, I realize that I have mentioned SAQA several times. For readers who are not familiar with this organization, it’s Studio Art Quilt Associates. From their website:

“SAQA is an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the art quilt and the artists who create them. We are an information resource on all things artquilt related for our members as well as the public. Founded in 1989 by an initial group of 50 artists, SAQA members now number more than 3,400 artists, teachers, collectors, gallery owners, museum curators and corporate sponsors.”

This is a wonderful organization and I am happy to be one of its juried artist members. You can learn more about SAQA at SAQA.com.)

THANK YOU for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail about once a month. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

There’s life on the edge!

I spent the morning in the studio doing hand sewing and listening to NPR.

Sewing by hand is not my normal mode. I don’t use handwork in the body of my works or as added embellishments. The only hand work I do is attaching binding edges.

So as I stitched and listened, I thought about the edges as a chance for creative decision-making..

Painters who work on cradled boards have discovered this. Once it became acceptable for gallery-hung works to display without a frame, painters began to use this space creatively. Some wrap the image around the edge. Some leave the edge a natural wood color or paint it white or black. It’s a nice way to tie a series together.

For quilts, I generally use a strip binding edge, or strip binding combined with facing the quilt, and I try to do so creatively.

Here’s one edge of the piece I was working on this morning.

I painted this fabric strip to match other areas of the work. I attached it by machine, trimmed the seam allowance to ¼” edge, then turned the strip so that it would show on the face of the artwork. That’s the top. On the side, I turned the binding to the back so the cream color went off the artwork edge.

I did not want this work to have a boxed-in look with a contrasting binding on four sides. Here is the lower right hand-corner. I have incorporated the black-teal fabric to function visually as a border in the lower corner, although it is actually a part of the face of the quilt. On the bottom edge, I have sewed on the binding strip so that it shows.

Along the side edge, I turned the strip to the back as a facing so the shapes and patterns of that portion would go off the edge of the piece visually, without being “stopped” by the binding. This work, “Growing Unseen” is 99% done. I’ll be posting it on my web site soon. (Stay tuned.)

Here’s an example of one I completed last year that has no visible binding. “Sometimes you can’t see in.” I feel like this work has a painting-like complexity, and I wanted everything to go off the edge, no stops. (This work has been accepted into the 2019 Juried Art Show at Rocky mount NC, and will exhibit there May 3 – August 18)

I like the way this one looks on the wall.

(More info on “Sometimes you Can’t See In” HERE)

In “Every One Has a Different Story”, I added a visible binding on the bottom edge only. (I remembered this one as an example because it is currently hanging in my home, right above my computer screen. As I was typing I looked up and thought “Now there’s a good example!) The colored blocks along the bottom function almost as a sidewalk, and the strip anchors it.

(More information about “Every One Has a Different Story” can be found HERE)

Now on to some new projects. I have about six sketches for new work ready to tackle. Hmmmmmm. Where to begin?

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail about once a month. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Work in Progress… Surface Design to get the fabric talking

I’m in the middle of a new art quilt that will be 40” x 40”. I’ve printed all of the parts and have begun the composition.

I’ve been working this one in sections, quilting as I go.  These sections will function as background, intended to be part of the emotional storytelling. So, I want to get an overall harmony, while still creating splashes of interest that warrant taking a second look, and maybe a sense of surprise.

It’s about “talking to each other,” or that’s how it feels a I create. The pieces don’t have to match, they just have to talk to one another across the whole composition.

Stitching across the patterns: This block has five pieces, and each one is a pretty strong color pattern. The surface stitching here has a unifying effect. The strong diagonal lines criss-cross the different blocks, giving them a texture that’s in common.

Theme and variation:  I relief-printed this squiggly line pattern on two different fabrics.  They are not right next to each in the quilt. But I like the harmony created by their same-but-different appearance.

Stitch and spatter: This block of three also has very strong patterns and I used two ways to bring them into relationship with each other. The stitched pattern is again long connecting lines, but this time in long arcs. I also spatter painted the sections after stitching, creating another unifying element.

Some of my favorite spattering supplies.

(Confession: I just love to spatter. I take the fabrics to the cement area outside my studio, lay them down on the ground, grab my favorite little spatter-producing brush and go for it. I am generally barefoot, and often wear the spatter pattern on my toes and feet for a few days.)

I love the spontaneous and unpredicted things that happen as part of printing and painting fabric. It’s  where the delight and surprise happen. For the overall piece - I am a planner and a sketcher. I definitely have a finished composition in mind when I begin. These small parts will work together to accomplish the quilt’s concept — I hope.  Or they may introduce something new I hadn’t planned.

Thanks for reading. I always welcome questions and comments.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

The old neighborhood... (and the CHAIR - Part II)

Looking through my studio files today I found myself looking at this work. This is where life started for me and it’s the place of my earliest memories: a neighborhood of row houses in Baltimore. My family lived there from the time I was born till I entered second grade.

For those who have not lived in row house cities — Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston or others throughout the country — the neighborhood may need some explanation. It is not a tenement or slum. It is not a fancy affluent neighborhood of Brownstones or Townhouses. It’s just a family neighborhood. Each block has six to eight houses with no space between them, and then there will be one “end house” that has a side yard and a little bigger back yard. All the houses have street parking out front, no garage, and a small fenced back yard with a gate leading to the alley. The alley is where kids ride bikes and play ball.

As I worked to capture memories of home in my artmaking this past year, recreating the feeling of a row house neighborhood in fabric seemed like a good fit. I had printed a number of fabric pieces with lively colors and patterns, and they spoke to me of the varied lives and stories inside each home. I also created photo transfers of actual windows onto muslin, and I liked the mix of the photographic reality with the printed fabric. I added the suggestion of leaves and trees.

Like the neighborhood itself – the whole work is one large unified structure. But it’s made of all kinds of pieces. Lots of lives. Lots of stories

“Every One Has A Different Story” - Art Quilt - more information on my web site here:

bobbibaughstudio.com/home-is-what-you-remember-gallery/every-one-has-a-different-story

THE CHAIR – Part II

I’ve done a little more on my chair project to be auctioned at an event in January. (Chair creations by local artists will be a fundraiser for public arts projects here in DeLand.) Today I started some structural fixes. The seat had been cracked and glued back together. Extra reinforcement seems like a good idea. So I’ve sanded the bottom, cut a piece of plywood to fit the bottom, and will glue and screw it in place. I will probably cover all this with felt.  Next: Beginning the fabric printing of the upholstery.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Speaking of Mary Poppins…

Thinking about my art talk tomorrow at Arts on Douglas Gallery, I remembered today the movie “Saving Mr. Banks,” a wonderful on-screen portrayal of P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books. It is providing a vision.

In the screen version, one of the opening scenes shows Travers as a girl, a close-up shot of her lying in a field of grass constructing a tiny house out of twigs and grass. She was making a little home. The unfolding of the plot revealed how much she needed a make-believe home, because her real home life was so full of hurt and sadness.

Emma Stone portrays P.L. Travers as an adult during the transformation of her Mary Poppins books into Disney’s well-know musical movie version. It was a heart-wrenching journey for Travers, as her story became everything she did not want it to be. In one poignant scene, she leaves a stressful meeting and retreats to a place outdoors, sits on the grass, and begins to construct a tiny home. A refuge. I was sobbing and sniffling!

The Mary Poppins stories are not autobiographical. But their essence was informed by the author’s life. She took what she had experienced and translated it into her art: children’s stories. A few details were specific. An Aunt who came to visit and take care of her family was a non-nonsense umbrella-carrying woman. Mary Poppins? But, for the most part, the author’s works are a combination of dreams, memories, emotions and her artist’s craft to create a new reality.

This has been my experience in creating the series “Home is What You Remember.” It’s about home. And my experience of home, with an intentional memory of a child’s way of looking at things, has informed the images and the process. While not strictly autobiographical, it reveals realities I know to be true:

Outside and Inside do not always match.

It may or may not be possible to know what’s inside by looking from without.

Homes can be fragile.

Things change.

People experience home in time: as experiences unfold, and later in memory.

We carry our homes inside us.

The lives of the people in homes are varied, colorful, richly textured.

And, in all of this, I hope to use my artmaking methods and abilities to create realities that are interesting, pleasing to look at and discover, and offer new discoveries over time.

All the works in the series “Home is What You Remember” are on my web site, HERE.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

On the Other Side of the Ugly Stage… at last!

I wrote about this piece a few weeks ago when it was in an early stage of development and when it was – well, ugly seems harsh, but definitely not working for me.

Some pieces seem to fly together. This one has not. But, I completed almost all the surface design this afternoon and I’m pleased at how it has come together. At last! Phew!

Some lessons. First, a work may not go in the direction you originally envisioned. In this one, it changed from being all about the twigs. That’s what drew me to the reference photo. Those were the patterns I wanted to explore. But, when I had laid down the first stencil layer of twigs and branches, the pattern seemed awkward, not fascinating.

But, second lesson, auxiliary ideas may arise. For awhile, I left the twigs to let them simmer, and worked on other more abstract branch shapes. Some are straight, some have a gentle curve. They are definitely graphic elements, not pictures of twigs. But I like them a lot. I like that the piece is big enough that I could play with positive and negative variations with this linear pattern.

Third lesson – hold on to the things that you like and seem to be working. I have been very drawn to this teal and purple palette. I like the fabrics I printed. It seemed to me there was something good in there that should work. So, I hung in with the project.

Fourth lesson – scale. I had originally drawn this composition with just two small birds. But, even though finding the birds among the twigs and branches was part of what interested me from the get-go (in other words, I did not want giant-sized immediately obvious birds) two birds in this space just got too lost. So I added more. There are now five birds. And as I added more, lesson two – auxiliary ideas – came into play. The positioning of the birds implied an overall arc through the quilt. This became the composition solution I was looking for, as I developed up a pattern of foliage.Almost done. I need to stitch a few sections for texture. (Previously learned lesson: Don’t sew the same day you collage. Wet glue is generally not like by your sewing machine.) Once it’s bound I’ll be able to look for final details that may need a little paint tweak or two.

I’m glad I stayed with it. I’m glad I have a piece I like. I’m glad they are not all this hard!

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

Working through the ugly stage… a work in progress

Maybe ugly is too strong a word.

I’ll go with “isn’t-working-for-me.” Yet.

There’s a lot I like about this work-in-progress. I think the sketch and composition are strong. I was inspired by a photo I had seen from a bird watching group. A single song bird among an intricate thicket of twigs and branches created a strong silhouette. I envisioned those twigs creating an abstract, linear background in which to discover the bird. I flipped the bird mirror-image to add another one. I like the addition of the leaves as solid abstract shapes. Here’s the sketch at full size on my easel (about 36”H x 45”W)

I also like the palette a lot. The background teal-violet of the washed-in trees was painted wet-into-wet on sheer fabric. I like the patterns and colors.

And to accompany the background fabric, I have printed new fabrics to put into the composition. The monotype roots pattern in shades of blue is especially pleasing to me.

Here’s what I have assembled so far (collaged and stitched) on my easel.

I am going to complete the stenciled images of the two birds and the balance of the twigs as I have sketched.

Then I think I will have to sit back and ponder this awhile. My hunch is that the branch and twig shapes I liked in the sketch don’t recreate sufficiently the complexity of what I loved in the photo. I can add more, finer twigs and increase the abstraction. I may also be able to relief print some organic twig shapes from the same bundle of roots I used to monotype print the two-tone roots at the bottom. (Those were done as stencils in multiple passes on a gelatin plate.)

And, somewhere, I’ll need at least a splash of something that’s not blue so this is not so monochromatic.

This is going to work. I am telling myself that, believing in what I see already working.

I’m just not sure how to do it yet!

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Revisiting the Night

I recently submitted this work for an exhibit. That process caused me to look at it closely again, as it was on my computer screen in detailed enlargements. I remembered the process.

Some things went as planned. Some things I had not expected.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted the feel of nighttime. I wanted to recreate the sensation of being outside on a cool evening, dipping one’s toes into the night air.

I had a nice reference photo to work from. My neighbor, a lovely young woman, had come over to my house to pose for me. The porch is my porch. But, in the process of creating the composition, I did some angle adjusting and some perspective playing, making it more interesting than the original photo had been.

I worked almost exclusively with sheer fabrics as I printed the images. This created a watercolor-wash feel that worked well with the feel of dream and memory I hoped to create.

I worked this piece in squares. That’s not my normal way of constructing pieces. But it created some tensions that I found interesting. I don’t think the squares jump out immediately, but they are there, as a background architecture behind the trees. The trees overlapping the grid and working in relation to it create a nice tension of foreground and background. And, because I did not use squares in the section with the young woman, she is in a reality somewhat separated from everything else.

Finally, as I look again closely at this work I think of the woman it depicts. What is she thinking? What is she remembering? That is the mystery of the work

Becoming One With The Night  2017  35" x 45"
In the Journeys and Stories and Galleries Gallery, HERE

Three Simple Houses. And More.

Three simple little houses.  Child-like in their form.

But there’s a lot going on in these houses, and I want it all to be an invitation to enter the story and to bring to it your own memories and dreams of home.

What’s inside the windows? Some reveal the interior, some reflect back the outside world.

Look inside the houses. Trees and growth. How would they be a part of the narrative?

The background is filled with the colors of forest shadows, with a horizon line that’s askew.

Two houses are broken open. One is not.

Yet the houses themselves are filled with crayon-box cheerful colors and lively, dancing patterns and shapes.

Like real homes, these three structures reveal that inside and outside don’t always match and that stories are usually not simple.

The video shows my process of creating this art quilt. I constructed each house from fabric -- printing, collaging and stitching -- and then placed them in the background. As I worked it felt very much like creating a play: constructing characters, building a set, and then placing them together onstage.

I hope you enjoy seeing the process.

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

---

Deep Down Roots… Where do they Go?

Deeply rooted in our homes are memories… histories…stories…   (Video below)

This work has recently been completed. I finished up the binding and backing. This gave me a chance to look at it again and remember some of what I thought about as I was creating it.

I am interested in combining realities. First in this piece is the combining of photographic reality with patterned monotypes. The photo transfer appears inside the house (the closeups of twigs) and also in the underground section (the pattern of water). I created patterns of hand-printed fabrics to be a visual metaphor for the richness and complexity of all that’s gone before.

The use of the spatial plane has also been mixed up a bit in this work. This functions in one sense as a landscape; there is a horizon line and the house has suggestions of perspective.  At the same time, it’s a flat plane, not a realistic foreground-background. I view these roots and all the underground patterns like a cut-away view, as if we took a vertical slice of reality and could see above and below at the same time. Yellow sky above. Patterned blue textures below.

This cutaway view then also suggests the passage of time. The roots are not reaching down into a static moment now. They are reaching into all the history and story that compromise the home.

I remember that I started this work when I needed an emotional respite. Just before this, I had created a work that is quite chaotic. Trees grow up and uproot homes and the mood is dark, like a fairy tale story. I felt the need for a new palette and was drawn to thee colors as a soothing change. But, as it developed, I began to see that the complexity of the patterns created an opening to more meaning. Some family histories are warm and cherished. Some entail secrets and hurts. The exact nature of the past is not defined at in this work.

Like real life… It’s complicated.

Here’s a video with closeups and some insights into the work in progress.

Creating a portrait that tells a story

Portraits are tricky. At a minimum, a good portrait should look like the person being depicted, or at least capture their gesture or something characteristic about them. Portraits with a photo realistic quality concentrate on exact likeness, and frequently are duplicates of a photograph. (And I admit to being biased against many works like this. Producing an image that is an exact duplicate of a photo is not very interesting.)

When I created this portrait of Lillian -- my grandmother -– I was intrigued with trying something different. I wanted to create a portrait that suggested something of her life story. It helped that I created “Lillian’s Expectations” to submit to the SAQA “Balancing Act” exhibit. (It was juried into the show and it traveled for two years.) The concept of depicting balance – or an attempt to balance things – gave me a starting place.

I have a photo of Lillian seated in a wicker chair like the one I depicted. She is the essence of a strong and self-possessed woman –- completely confident and assured. I was really drawn to the gesture of the single finger supporting her head. The colors closest to her are also calm and soothing.

But, all around her, things are off balance and chaotic. Two large rectangles are askew. The patterned squares across the top are on an angle. The colors are hot. Knowing Lillian’s story, I knew she had to balance strong and opposing forces in her life. Her ability to stay in command in the face of that is the point of the story.

Well, and then there are those birds flying out of the jar. Some things are beyond being controlled. Forces become unleashed. People’s stories and events can just spill out, tossed about like a small bird the wind.

I rediscovered this artwork today as I was going digital through images of my work. Much like discovering a faded family photo in an album, finding Lillian’s portrait caused me to remember. I remember the process of creating this piece. I remembered all the sketches I created before I began, working out the relationship between idea and composition. I remember printing these fabrics. I remember drawing the figure.

And I remember Lillian. I hope my work does justice to her interesting and complicated story.

For more information about this work,
visit the stories-and-journeys gallery of this website, HERE

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

Abandoned… Rediscovered… Remembered…

Discovering this abandoned house in South Carolina was an art inspiration. I blogged about in January, writing that the experience of finding this spot was a gift discovered by taking the long way, the off-the-highway path driving home to Florida.

Since then the house stayed on my mind. A work-in-progress in the studio now is beginning to take the images and create a new reality. (Video below in this blog post.)

What was so compelling, standing there by the house, was looking through the door and the broken windows and seeing trees and vines growing up inside the house, filling it. In a strange way, although the growth filled the space, it emphasized the emptiness. Homes are expected to hold people and life, not overgrown vines.

What interested me was this feeling of unreality. Instead of depicting the house realistically as we discovered it, I wanted to translate it into a dream-like memory.

Photos of the paint-peeled door and the overgrown windows have been transferred onto muslin. (I use a gel medium transfer from a laser color printout, pieced together to fill the size I need. These are tedious, but I like the final effect.)

The photographic images are being placed in a childlike, two-dimensional house shape, along with other fabrics, colors and textures. I will be adding tree forms behind to recreate the sense of loneliness the place held for me.

As I work on all the pieces in my “Home is what you Remember” series, I am trying to listen. To the images. To the memories. To what they stir inside me.

                  What happens when the people leave the house?
                  Something else will grow there.

You can watch the process unfold in this video.

NEWSLETTER: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories,
as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts,
I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.
You’ll hear from me by e-mail every two to three weeks. 
Subscribe here:   STUDIO-INSIDER-NEWSLETTER

BLOG POSTS: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,
please subscribe here:  BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

Once She Could… take a look and let the poem tell the story

This  textile collage was juried in and will be headed to Woodstock, Illinois to be part of the 31st Annual Women’s Works exhibition at Old Courthouse Center.  It’s a fine art exhibition of work in all mediums.

As I packed up the piece in its shipping box today, I spent some time looking at it more closely. There’s a lot going on in it, and I remembered both the memories and meanings I put into it and the technical process of making it.

I have created several works featuring a young girl depicted as a black silhouette. It evokes memories of a paper doll and, without specific features, has universal appeal. Here she’s writing at the blackboard. Writing, drawing… what? I feel her reaching on tiptoes to complete the image. (Having always been among the shortest in class, I relate to this.) Rather than place her in a physical, recognizable schoolroom I have suggested a blackboard, and created an otherwise dream-filled environment. There is soothing water with tree reflections. There are tangled roots. There are blossoms on branches, loosely connected to what she is drawing on the blackboard. There are blocks of non-representational color and texture. Whatever this environment is, it is complex. I want to draw the viewer in to taste some of the forces and feelings that are part of her world.

As I created the piece, words for a poem were in my mind. I did not write the whole poem till after the work was complete. I was an elementary aged student in years when girls were not taught or encouraged to think about their potential or their possibilities. This sense of entrapment is part of what I was feeling as I created her environment.

The collaged layers make this work almost rigid, although it is fabric bound and backed as an art quilt. I used gel medium photo transfers of original photos onto muslin for the water, the roots and parts of the branches with blossoms. Other areas use monotype printed textures, stencils, direct painting, and varied patterns of machine stitching. The backing is hand painted muslin in colors to match the work.

I love this little girl. I fin myself thinking about her and all she might be. Girls should not feel trapped, and – like imagined characters they draw – they should soar!