Happy New Year's Eve.

I wish all of you a wonderful and safe new years filled with laughter and friends.

I know I have been m.i.a over here in the last 2 weeks but with being sick, lil't's first Christmas, holiday travel, being sick again and just enjoying family I took a break from over here.
But I will be back in full force posting about what's going on in my studio and other fabulous fiber news. Until Monday Cheers!

Thanks for a little feature here and here. Lots of new small works are in the works to be shared next week.

happy...

I am sick. sick, sick. So just the energy to do this is exhausting me. But just wanted to check in and say a ...

HAPPY, MERRY, JOYFUL Christmas!!!!!

With much love from me.

For those of you that celebrate enjoy your holiday. I will most likely be away from blog world until Monday while I enjoy family and lil't's first christmas. He loves lights and paper so it should be a success.

Joy and Laughter to you and yours.

wonderful windows.

This weekend my sister came into town so that we could go to all the Brooklyn holiday craft fairs and then spend a day in Manhattan looking at Christmas Windows. So fun.


As usual Bergdorf Goodman was amazing. They always have the most beautiful, elaborate, and incredibly opulent windows in town. There theme this year was very much travel but not just plain old travel. Why not head to the moon, or a fantasy world while you are at it.


Seriously- would be the coolest job. You would be able to be so incredibly creative and work with such amazing stuff. One of my favorite features was the macrame? crochet? horse outfit in this image.

They also had amazing depth in general, the paper cutting was phenomenal, and they had a slew of sculptural animals made of paper that were so detailed.


These images just do not even begin to touch on the beauty of the windows so if you are lucky enough to be in the city it is worth the trip uptown, and Tiffany's wight next store had some lovely windows too.



Barneys was very disappointing, Macy's as always was fun, mechanical, and kid oriented, and the Anthropologie at Rockefeller Center rocked it as usual, plus had tons of stuff on sale. I hope you get to see some lovely windows yourself.

little suit.

I trekked out with the baby carriage and made it all the way uptown to the Whitney. I was really wanting to make sure that I saw the Charles LeDray exhibit that is there now. I had never heard of Charles Ledray nor had I ever seen his work but I saw a little blip about it online and they had one image and I knew it was a must for me.

Photo: John Kennard

Charles mostly works with fabric, and from the images you do not realize it but does so in miniature. He meticulously makes each piece of clothing by hand on a small scale, embroidering patches, being mindful of the re-creation to reference the class of the clothing, and considers everything down to the last stitch.

It is very interesting to see his work in a space such as the Whitney, this large expansive symbol of the American Art world and his small, meticulous "doll" clothing carefully placed on the wall. It made me, as an artist, think a lot about the role of scale and how scale affects the way the viewer responds, experiences, and thinks of the work.


His work is very interesting and quite lovely in his simple but seemingly casual style of display. I especially love the works that seem to be deconstructing themselves in some way.

He often uses the clothing to reference class, gender, sexual preference and all the other myriad of identities we walk through life with.


His work the party bed made me smile- that ever present pile of mismatched coats of such variation piled on the bed. But in the small scale it made you see the charm and beauty of such a place where everyone just mixes up and gets cozy on the bed (metaphorically of course.)


Surprisingly one of my favorite works was not of his clothing pieces but one of his 3 works that use thousand and thousands of individual, unique, miniature works of pottery. The one I liked best is the 2nd work he made in this way, oasis, where each small vessel is painted colorfully- truly celebrating its unique nature. The individuality and sheer number is amazing but the display allows you to walk around look down, look up and see the beauty of such diversity and yet connection and similarity. It was a truly lovely piece that does not even begin to translate in any photos I have found.

Photo: John Kennard

I cannot say that the exhibit blew me away but it was definitely worth the visit even with the pain of trekking through the subway system with a baby. There is also a very thoughtful and lovely exhibit on Edward Hopper's work on display. His gallery, Sperrone Westwater, has plenty of images and info on him here.

for the holiday.

an appropriate new work for the holiday season... I will be together with my sister this weekend.
She is coming in to do some holiday fun, mainly see the awesome window displays of Manhattan and go to some super awesome craft fairs in Brooklyn.

not- in the moment.

Normally I go into the studio on Thursday but I just could not muster it this morning. My brain is SO scattered and not focused in my work. Luckily I have a few new smaller text works that I have at home to play with so I will be doing that and plan on going in tomorrow.

But... I feel very floaty at the moment. I have a lot I need to be doing: like applying for things. But I seem to just want to hang out with the babers this week. Kind of driving me crazy.

I am thinking about heading to Manhattan to look at some art and perhaps get inspired? We will see how Tesla's naps go.

Here is a review where my work is mentioned, though not my name.

concrete softness.

I have been enjoying looking at simple, more minimal work this week. Maybe because my daily life is so not "simple." Anyhow, Joanna Mattera has been writing about her experience visiting all the art fairs down in Miami and I have had a few of the works that connect to fiber catch my eye. This work by Christopher Astley was some of it.


Christopher take "bags" and fills them with concrete, allowing the concrete to expand and change the original forms. He then paints the resulting objects in a pseudo minimalist and pseudo abstract-expressionist style. His work is an interesting mix of influences and references.



oh, the color palette is so gorgeous.



His website says:

Each of the individual cast elements that he creates add to the particular vernacular of the overall form - the stacked wall takes shape as holes and spaces are filled with painted forms that are on hand or with new bags that are sewn quickly before concrete dries. The process is sometimes a kind of triage where decisions are made urgently to fill immediate needs. Bags burst and need to be sewn by hand with large sewing needles forcing their way through cement-saturated material. Wet heavy bags are gingerly leaned and stacked - vulnerable until they cure. The wall's overall needs supersede preconceived aesthetic considerations - design is drowned in a flood of necessity. Everything is up for grabs - favorite forms are sacrificed to a more ham-fisted whole. The element of chance is welcomed; the working process is a matter of adventure and discovery.

I really like the organic shapes and off kilter balance of the pieces. They reference so many things such as a large pile of luggage, sandbag walls used to slow flooding, a pile of rubbish from a disaster, junk in a rural yard, or pillow forts from childhood. I can experience the work in so many diverse ways as I imagine walking around it.


I have always loved the shape of pillows and have thought of doing a series of concrete pillows for years and looking at these shapes reminds me how compelling it is to see a soft object made hard.

See more of Christopher's work here.

following Line.

I was visiting my alumni's website for some reason yesterday and came across the work of Line Bruntse and love it. (as well as love her name)


Line explores space and its sensual experience through her sculptural works.

She states:

Experiences other than visual are the most sensual carriers of personal history. Sense of touch, whether imagined or real, is a potent memory trigger along with smells we remember. Sense of space - confined or expansive, safe or unsettling - is a physically felt experience related to architectural context. I combine these memory triggers and architectural references in my installations to make the intent of the piece “universally personal”. I am interested in the state of mind represented and enveloped by my installations.

Line's work often utilizes fiber or references fiber processes particularly quilting and crochet.

See more of her work here.

distracted.

I went to the studio yesterday and started on this new text based work, I am really loving the idea and linen so it took me 3 try's to come up with the right thread color and my fingers are still crossed that I went the right way. Sometimes it is so hard to know which color will be the best since you can only imagine it and cannot see it until all the time has been devoted. Nerve wrecking on such a large piece.

Also worked some more on the portrait of my parents in bed... coming slowly but I am excited to be working with different subjects and explore different colors of skin, hair, body types etc...

But even though I got work done it did not feel like a very productive day, I was feeling very distracted. Always happens around the holidays.

bind and pile.

Something wonderful and gorgeous to see by Derrick Velasquez.

Pieces made from book binding tape.

It looks like his other work might be lovely too, but none of the links on his website work:(

images via.

happening.

What's new in the studio....

Reminder.

In case you missed my late post on Friday just a reminder that I have put up quite a few more things in my shop. Just in time for the holidays.

collective thoughts.

Last night was the meeting for Collective Thread our little and super awesome Fiber Collective. I am so delighted and happy that I started this group it is such a wonderful opportunity to share with each other what is going on but also to have a truly wonderful discourse about art, art vs. craft, the life as an artist and all that fun stuff that you really want to talk about as a artist but rarely do. I especially love the fact that everyone is super honest and at the same time respectful.

We do critiques each meeting of individual artists works and they are very valuable to all of us, not just the artist being critiqued. But last night it was my turn. And it was great to get some feedback on the ideas that I have for proceeding with the large figurative works. Everyone seemed to really like how the work was becoming more and more 3-dimensional and we discussed different issues and possibilities in this. As well as presentation ideas.


But in all honestly I am feel pretty solid in the direction I am heading with the figurative work and feel a little more lost with my text based work. So we talked a lot about that- the group, as well as myself, feel this work is a huge part of my practice and portfolio.

And pretty much I got reminded of how important "rules" can be in regards to your work. I started that work based on a set of simple rules and am thinking I need to get back to that for now. Lately, I have felt very "what the hell do I write and say?" so a simple way to take the pressure of is just to put some structure around how I come up with the words and work. In short rules. I have not figured out what they are yet, but am planning on thinking on that today. So ...

It was wonderful to get feedback and just see all these wonderful and talented artists again. Hopefully you can join us next time.

books.

Jonathan Whitfill

Books. They are such a special thing and as a member of a household of avid readers a huge part of my daily life. I am in short SURROUNDED by them. This is an ever present problem in NY readers lives. Our homes just do not have enough space for all our books. So I am always trying to come up with ways to deal with our books. So when I fell upon the Flickr page of the Abecedarian Gallery's amazing images of book art and altered books I swooned. And perhaps if I was surrounded by books as lovely as these I would not
need to "deal" with them.

a fiber book by Catherine Nash

a gorgeous altered book by Peggy Johnston.

a book of linen and steel by Susan Porteous

a sweet little book by Diane C. Gillespie.

Julia Nelson-Gall

So pick up a book and get reading or making.

Barbara Miner

See more of the amazing book arts featured at the Abecedarian Gallery at their flickr here.