poetry in the banal.

The work of Zhang Enli just feels a lot a like poetry.

A poem that you don't totally understand but which simultaneously breaks your heart and makes you grateful to be alive.

I really love this work.

See more here.

I am really wanting to explore some word work again. It feels like a good direction instead of treading water. But not sure what I want to say...

thread, candy and prolificness

I feel like this work is kind of all over the place and I am not sure how to write about it unless I were to focus on one or 2 works. None the less the work of Shane Waltener is interesting.
Conceptually driven the subjects vary from honoring the dead, the history of craft and a work in homage of an aunt.

Her installations are mostly some variety of thread installation but also include explorations on cake and sugar graffiti.

Her drawings and earlier wall works are lovely to say the least.

No cohesive statement and an annoying to navigate website. But lots of great art works to find. I will let you wade through and come to your own conclusions. See here.

in print.

A little more then a week ago I got an email from a gallery I worked with some years ago...unbenownst to me they had published a catalogue for the exhibit and the publisher was no longer going to make them so last chance to buy.

I bought one and was surprised to find a very well done catalogue arrive at my door. The curator wrote very eloquently about my work and that is always so wonderful to have done. When a curator or critic cans peak about your work in a way that you feel is accurate and meaningful it makes one feel like your work is actually a successful communication.

Eventually I will get around to scanning and appropriately posting the pages but you probably can read the little bit under my bio here. (if you click on the pic it will get bigger.)

I am in such a funny state. I so much want to be once again showing and being written about and all that wonderful stuff. But my footing with my work feels so disconnected.  I guess when you feel truly done with a series that is what happens. I actually remember when I finished undergrad feeling a lot this way. I was done with the work, I had exhibited it, and that just felt so final.  But in truth I need to get off my lazy butt and try to get some of that work out there as it is great work even if I have emotionally moved on to whatever comes next.

 

 

I love the simple exploration of lines in these works by Audrey Stone.  She is conceptually driven by lines, lace, the grid, and so many other things but in the end I just want to be lost in the line.

Kind of like the paintings and pencil works of Agnes Martin, they are best left without words and simply looked upon and into.

 

FYI all the works have thread and drawing in them.

See more.

share, words

I feel like psychologically I am in a strange place. All artists and all people must visit these places during life--- but it is uncomfortable.

I am happier in some ways then I have been in years but scared and confused by that very happiness- mainly of letting my "art career" be neglected. While in NY I was so focused on my art it flourished but my relationships, my finances and the rest of my soul suffered. If I wanted to  live in a vacuum of my art that would have been ok. But I do not.

So now I am able to financially be self-sufficient- which is a huge confidence builder and empowering experience- but it leaves so much less time and energy for my studio life. Simultaneously because of moving my community of artist friends has shrunken to a paltry size (at least ones that I can see and hear in real life and real time.) This makes me want to spend the time I do have to create community and dialogue -something I fall more and more in love with doing as the days and experiences go buy.

As I get older, continue to be mama and all that stuff- I wonder what the purpose of being so insulated and isolated in the studio is?  I feel the urge to find a way to make my art more about the very community and dialogue that I yearn for.  Also starting to feel the urge to find a studio outside of the home if I can find a way to afford it.

But then I wonder where does sewing fit into all of that? Does it? As an artist who is pretty conceptually driven at all times and who always starts with an autobiographical seed-as my life changes my work changes and it is all in such flux now.

In NY maybe because it is so large and at times overwhelming it made sense and was easy to make work about my little insulated world of the domestic but now in a community that needs to feel more of a sense of community, in my opinion, it feels selfish and unimportant to focus on my small world.

so many rambling thoughts, so many questions.  Such a deep desire to make and share but such uncertainty of what it is I want to share.

glitch

woven blankets inspired by the "glitch" by Phillip Stearns.

today is a studio day and I am feeling nothing but unmotivated. I really want to just go play in the sun with my hula hoop- deny my attempts and desire to be a relevant artist. But of course not willing to do that as today is my only dedicated day to my work.

annoying.

relic.

enjoying the simplicity of this series Relics by photographer Robert Moran. Though not a unique thought the images are so simple and straightforward that they pulled me in off the street into a gallery in Maine while on vacation.

He says this about the work:
Relics is a collection of portraits of everyday objects that are past their prime. Once relied upon they have become the touchstones of an earlier way of life.

So interesting to think about the objects that were once "must haves" for every home that have fallen out of need... and what will be the next relic?

See more of his work here.

what...

what do you do when everything you have been making art about for years seems... simply uninteresting to you anymore, too isolated, too insular, too lonely. How do you find your way to what is next?

I need to walk some new streets...

street art is really getting cool and getting me inspired, for what I don't know but something....

Colorful and playful pothole amendments in Paris by Juliana Santacruz Herrera.

more truckin

speaking of trucks... albeit this is a very outdated post since this happened way back in 2009 it is still super cool. As a project of the Mural Arts Program they painted garbage trucks with historical textile designs. Read the article here.

truckin.

things are indeed trucking along. I am working away at blanket stitch after blanket stitch on the above work. Still need to photograph the most recent finished work of the highchair.  Finally think I might have come to a presentation conclusion that I can be happy with for the last sleepers piece that I did. And while on vacation got 2 new drawings on linen and have started stitching. trucking along.

what's on your truck?

what "the space" did to me.

I have been thinking about my art and the little shifts and unfamiliar moves that have been going on...
and today or yesterday, some recent day, I realized that the work the space between took me out of the bedroom and into the rest of the home and now I can't go back.

I don't know if that makes sense- but it does to me. I started that piece, and it truly was one of the only figurative works I did out of the bed, out of that liminal strange place of bed and sleep.  The piece pushed me into the reality and present state of the rest of the house. But I have been laying in the bed for so long it feels totally terrifying.

With that said things are moving in the studio and that is good.

written words.

I have an article on the very talented Kelsey Viola Wiskirchen in the current Surface Design Journal.
The issue is all about gender and has some really great work featured from familiar and wonderful faces to some new work, like the cover art by John Westmark, gorgeous!

Get a sneak peek here and order your copy. I will get a pdf of it up on my website soon so everyone can read it.

Let me know what ya think!

contrast of culture and texture.

Not even sure how I fell upon these designs by  CTRLZAK Studios, perhaps a google image search?But their series flagmented is really cool.

Read about it below:
Flagmented is a series of works which integrate traditional fabrics from two diverse cultures, the European and the Chinese, blending them to form a single textile. The project represents a possible future able to surpass normal cultural borders and expressions. Classical European embroidery and Toile de Jouy are coupled with traditional Chinese fabrics forming unique pieces that stitch together the two diverse realities. The unexpected results mark a new era of globalisation becoming the flags of a new hybrid culture.

They have done plenty of other super cool projects like this entry way to a doctors office.  Check them out here.

And check out the original source I found them at The Public Art Initiative where you can purchase products by designers and help fund public art in your state at the same time.

a little heirlooms for me...

This month Mr. X Stitch has been featuring all of his writers on his wonderful blog, journal, place of extraordinaire... so in lieu of my normal future heirlooms you can read a little mini feature on little old me.

Read it here.

Also you have just 3 more days to see my 2 newest works on view at a faculty exhibit  at the Sidell Gallery in Lawrence MA. But if you want to get a bang for your buck sign up for my class THIS Thursday at the art center and see the show before it comes down. Class details:

Applique Portraits 

Thursday 08/15/13 9am-3pm Adult

Work from a photograph or drawing to create a textile portrait incorporating techniques of embroidery, applique & surface design. Learn how to apply these techniques to create work in a larger scale. In addition we will cover transfer techniques, learn appropriate stitches, stencil techniques and more. All levels welcome.

Contact the center for registration.

Last but not least if you or anyone is interested in taking classes at UMASS Boston I am teaching a Photography and installation class this Fall. The class will look at breaking down boundaries of the fiber medium and researching artists that have taken it into installation via different directions. You can call the art department for details.

Also my Fall classes at the Eliot School are now listed and you can register for them.  They generally sell out so if you are interested check them out and sign up.

Ok that is it for the announcements.

Friday Flashback- remember to play

About a year and half ago I posted about the amazing play structure created by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam. In my research this week I fell upon on interview with her, read it here.  So I decided that she made a perfect flashback.
remember to play.

Sometimes it is good to just remember that you have to take time to play. The amazing installations of Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam do that.

The use of color and pattern is so joyful and to just imagine my little t running around in this wonderland is enough to bring a smile to my face.

I only wish they made them in adult size, how fun would that be?

Read an article on her work here. 


And thanks to this lovely lady for bringing my attention to the work.