slept

today I let myself sleep in because I was exhausted.
but now my body is so stiff and achey that I wish I had gotten up and done yoga as usual.
I really wish I could both sleep in and yoga...
that darn 24 hours thing!

Via Waking with you

...

long shadows,
warm sunlight,
and hours to
embroider...
if only that was
my daily life.

with a cup of tea,
a cookie,
and a kiss from C thrown in.

wow!

muse

As I posted yesterday I am very excited about the opening of the MAD.
And in creating the post I was really drawn to the Paul Villinski images online...
Well now that I have seen his website all I can say is wow!

all the butterflies are cut from found beer cans, now that is creative recycling.

The butterfly series "explores themes of transformation"

In a way each series seems like it is made by a different artist but with
every version of Paul I am taken and... every version has wings...literally and figuratively.

Lift

I remember seeing one of these pieces at MAD last year and found it very moving.

Lost gloves? The city is full of them. Do they stand in for the people who wore them? Instantly you wonder: whose was this - their sex and age and body type - their laugh? What work was done? You begin to construct entire identities, for the gloves are replete with memory, with personal history. They are almost the hands themselves, in ways even more telling. There is good reason for all the folkloric wisdom of hands: idle hands are... many hands make... like a hand and glove... if the glove fits...

Lovely

Pilot

Kindness

many people I am sure are inspired by the childlike quality of wanting to fly mixed with the heaviness of life as an adult seen is his flying machines:

Dreamer

and his poetic artist statement is truly worth the read.
His work is kind of a different inspiration as I feel his work is drastically different from mine and do not feel inspired by the literal "work" but more inspired by his vision.
Essentially inspired to dream and believe in my own.

look at all the amazigness...

Paul Villinski, My Back Pages

Susie MacMurray, A Mixture of Frailties

at the new MAD museum.
I cannot wait to go and see all this amazing work in craft and...

Sergey Jivetin, Intersection Brooch

see the amazing new building with handmade tiles on the facade...


and check out the schedule of all the events at their new auditorium.

finally..

I got to the studio this weekend and it was oh so nice...
I was only there for a few hours but it is great to be in that little room of my own.

I finished the pillow piece I mentioned earlier...now I just need to buy some stuffing and stuff it...
and I started 2 new pieces this weekend...

and am diligently working away on the 2 that I am in the middle of. Someday they will get finished.

Rainy weather can make for a great weekend if you let it.

dinner with friends

We attended a most delightful event that our good friends have started to create.
They are working to start an organic farm in Pennsylvania with a CAA and
the creative way they are generating interest in it for next summer is a fabulous monthly dinner.


The dinner is a professionally prepared seasonal 5-6 course meal made from products and produce from their local area. They take the time to share the personal stories of all the people they get the food from.


Dinner included homemade peach brandy and microbrewed beer.


Local flowers abound...



delightful company and a great view.

If anyone in NY is interested in hearing about these events let me know.

fresh off the hoop...

another one fresh of the hoop.
This one is for a commission.

I am hoping with the rainy weather expected over the weekend that
I can manage a nice long day in the studio this weekend.
With my open studios coming up I would love some new work to be done.

What is your weekend looking like?

delightful evening with delightful food...

more to come on the surprisingly wonderful event put on my wonderful friend...

inspired by C...

this one was inspired by my husband, C.

It is appropriate that I just finished it as we met this week ten years ago.

Ten years...fly by and at the same time is an entire lifetime.
And though we have screamed, cried, and all kinds of dramatic stuff we have mostly loved.

In the time that we have been together... He has taught me so much about life, myself, and love.

learning to see something that you were not is one of the best things you can learn.

opening our eyes to our lives, our world, and our lovers.

a little more on Uta..

As I was posting on Uta Barth I peeked in in some of the work her gallery Tanya Bonakder has online and I just got so seduced,
so inspired and just had to share more of her with all of you...


I am sure you all will be able to see why I love her work so much.
So simple....all that negative space...gorgeous.

Deceptively simple, Uta Barth's photographic works question the traditional functions of pictures and our expectations of them. By photographing in ordinary anonymous places - in simple rooms, city streets, airports and fields - Barth uses what is natural and unstudied to shift attention away from the subject matter, and redirect focus to a consciousness of the processes of perception and the visceral and intellectual pleasures of seeing.
words from here. a great article to read on her work

Sometimes I look at her images and think I have that same image on my negatives...and that makes me feel really good...

I get concerned.

With the gorgeous quality of autumn light I am being inspired to pick up my camera much more often of late.
But sometimes I get concerned about the fact that in general I only photograph in my home...
will that be too repetitive? Especially when my home is a 750 square ft Brooklyn railroad apt.
Is it boring that viewers see the same white cabinets, rumpled bed, 1950's table, red couch...

And then I think I never worried when I took all my picture in the same studio every time.

And I always find comfort in knowing Uta Barth's work (directly below). She has made almost her entire career out of photographing by or out of the same window in her house.




I feel like I know her yellow couch as well as she does. and am actually disappointed when I go to her shows and it is not in any of the images, I look for it, I expect it, I want it.
And I never get bored of getting lost in her images.



So I will keep on photographing the ever changing light on my white cabinets, rumpled bed, and beat up red 1950's kitchen table.

I hope you don't mind.

new work...

So here is the piece that I finished embroidering on recently. But it is not finished yet as it is going to become a thin pillow laying on a shelf. I like it when the fabric objects become more sculptural.
One of the best parts of using re-purposed linens are the details that already exist in the linen.


I also got another small piece done this week, and got most of one done yesterday on my long train ride to here.
Its funny I like having long car trips and train rides now 'cause I can get work done.

I'm excited about the cooling weather as it will allow me to pick up some work that I was doing with knitting. It was just too hot to work on that this summer. So hopefully my needles will be clicking soon.

farmers flowers...

Oh how lovely the flowers are that I bought at the farmers market this weekend.
and they helped me during all the work I did at the table Sunday.
Grant applications.
Show applications.
Figuring out what work I need to ship and when and why.
If only I made it into the studio!!!

But I do have images to share soon of some work that has been moving along... just in my living room instead of my studio.
And I decided I was unhappy with the one work I did for my commission so I am starting a simpler one...simple words are so much more profound.

if only all these things could fit into one day.

Making work, and making money, and making a life is hard to fit into one day and one lifetime.

we are all a little tired...

this was my family this Sunday...




and I think that deep down we all still feel this way. EXHAUSTED!!!

Recently seen...

the work of photographer Dan Boardman...
a trigger finger after my heart.

Banality.


Beauty.


Simplicity.

Light.


All the things that make my heart feel more human and my life seem lighter.

He also takes some really compelling portraits.
and has a very lovely blog...

mornings should last longer...

looking for...

looking for new inspiration.
I feel a shift in my work coming.
When you work so autobiographically you work changes as your life changes.
I am desiring something.
But am not sure what it is yet...
More simplicity in making but less simplicity in display, perhaps?
My language needs to evolve but to what direction?
My stitches need to layer, but how?

My story has changed and so must my work...but where do we go.
Where do I go?
Where are you?

p.s. after writing this I shot 3 rolls of film yesterday of a new potential series.
Piled. Above image is a sneak peek...but the film will be much better.

wisdom in image and word..

I recently was just exposed to the work of artists Marlene Dumas. Dumas is a well established and successful artist but someone that 2 years ago I would have had no interest in...
But as my work turns more toward a form of drawing through my fabric work...
And more toward simplicity in my photographs...I have become aware and open to an entirely new community of artists.

Dumas' work exudes a quiet, raw, emotion and I love the simplicity of shapes and lines that she uses to tell so much. The piece that opened me up to her is at the exhibition at work and I have to be honest none of the work online lives up to the beauty of that work. I will have to try to get an image to share with all of you.

But what I did love was the words I found on Dumas' website. Half painter/ half poet/ all artist.

My best works are
erotic displays of
mental confusions
(with intrusions of
irrelevant information).

I paint because I am a woman.
(It's a logical necessity.)
If painting is female and insanity is a female malady, then all women painters are mad and all male painters are women.
I paint because I am an artificial blonde woman...

(I believe in eternity.)
Painting doesn't freeze time. It circulates and recycles time like a wheel that turns. Those who were first might well be last. Painting is a very slow art. It doesn't travel with the speed of light. That's why dead painters shine so bright.
It's okay to be the second sex.
It's okay to be second best.
Painting is not a progressive activity. (…)

receding out of view...

our house guests leave this morning, and though I always love having guests, especially family...
I equally love getting my normal life, apartment, and routine back.
So hopefully this weekend will be filled wit quiet days, open windows, no quests, and sleeping in.

'Cause I am exhausted!

my favorite tourist trap...

One of my favorite things to do when we have guests to NY is to take the Staten Island Ferry...Especially at sunset.
There is nothing like floating on the water as it turns pink with light...watching the power of the Manhattan skyline recede, the barges pass, the cranes silhouetted against the sky and then as the cool darkness of night descends watching the glisten and twinkle of the lights of the city and bridges coming toward us as we return.

This is the moment where I am convinced that NY looks just like the emerald city from the wizard of oz...
our own little emerald of a place....

last one, but still inspiring...

The last post on artist Donna Ruff but she just makes such lovely work I wanted to take time on her...and I have had house-guests and very little time to find other artists.
But these burnt pages and books are so lovely.

They are like lace, our bodies insides, snowflakes, trees, and nerves...So much lies in such a simple process and simple shapes.

I promise to have new inspiration tomorrow.