don't forget about...

my photography project mamahood... I am periodically uploading photographs all related to raising a child.

conceptually drawing the everyday.

One of the artist's that I have been looking at is Danica Phelps. She is actually someone that I have done very little research on but always felt inspired by.  Her work is simple with no fuss but so deply integrated into the experience of life and conceptually sophisticated.  From the first work that opened me up to her which included gorgeous drawings of her and then lover making love- they are so sensitive and alive coupled with lists of what she did that day. To eventually the very systemized work that represented the financial loss and division that comes when a long time partnership dissolves.  Her more recent work has been connected to her choice to go through IFV and raise a child. Again the depth and simplicity all happening at once. I admire this so much in her work as I am always afraid my work is too simple in its concept, too direct.  Then I see work like this and think I could strip away even more and am reminded that the daily moments  of life are never that simple.

 

See her work here.

this choice

what the... I am so frustrated and defeated as I cannot seem to get into the studio enough but simultaneously when I get here I kind of have no idea what I am doing. 
I am overwhelmed with ideas but also have total artist's block.

Why am I embroidering? But when I just draw it it seems so flat and lacking.  So then I go back to embroidering it.  But the conceptual reasons that I came to embroidering seem to not make sense to me anymore but finding the language for why I do it  all by myself seems impossible.  When I was building up my statement about my work before I was in the cocoon of graduate school and even though it has subtly evolved it is still mostly that. So now that I feel such a change of tide in myself and what I hope will come into my work I am scared to have to find the contextualization all by myself.  But I also feel and know that I have the need to do it.

I have been looking at artists a lot lately, specifically Annette Messeger and the photographer's that inspire me.  Which has been wonderful and also daunting, seeing all these personal artistic giants. I kind of just want to come to my studio and look at artists and read books and write but then I feel like I am wasting that precious time to make and create.   I want to get lost in words and images but not really in my fingers.

It is so strange this life. This choice.

stitch with me...

I have finally updated my teaching page and have links to all the wonderful workshops and such that I am doing this fall into winter. I know some are already full and most of these places do fill up so if you are interested sign up and come stitch with me.
I have added a new place, the Concord Art Association, where I am also doing a public demo, and a new class dealing with cyanotype. So scroll through and find the perfect fit for you.

All the information here.

And if you want to invite me to teach with you just email me joettamaue(at) gmail com.

Also this weekend....

Get all the info here.
Opens Saturday September 27 from 6:30-8:30.

the dance...

when the light hits just right, the sounds of it are around you...
the car alarm,
your sons laughter,
the breeze on the trees.
The wind is warm.
The light coming through the window is just so...
a photographers delight but you do not get your camera.

You look around at the objects around you-
the colors-
the colors of the objects-
you see your entire life in this moment.
It is beautiful,
it is sad,
it is perfect...

What the fuck am I doing?

getting back out there.

I have work in 2 shows opening this week so, yay. I have actually been very bad at applying for shows and all that stuff for the last year and now that I am back in the studio and quite frankly feel like my head is above water on a personal level again I have started that fun process of applying, writing proposals updating stuff, fun, fun, fun.
It feels great to be doing it again. I kind of did not even care if I got into things I just wanted to reconnect to my habit of applying and trying but now that I am indeed getting in I am so delighted to have my work back out there.

 

Material Matters

National Juried Fiber Art Exhibit @ Union Street Gallery

Juried by Joan Livingstone

September 24-October 25, 2014

Reception Friday September 26th, 6-9pm

So here is the first one for you midwesterner's a great sounding group show in Chicago at the Union Street Gallery.  The card looks interesting it is a great roster of names and the space looks beautiful so seems like a win, win, win!

I wish I could be there at the opening but alas cannot so if you go take some pics and let me know how it is.

new.

This is a new piece I am working on... for the series that I have been calling "toys" but in response to a text I sent my husband about the work have come to realize that a much more appropriate and correct title is "boy" so that is what I am going to call it now.  The series "boy."

It was simply that as I was preparing these new drawings and looking through my images I realized that my process of working from and documenting aspects of being a parent are so specific to parenting a boy.  Not because me or my husband push this agenda but simply because it is. This is both interesting and enlightening to me.

I am really wanting to push this seed of a project and body of work into something big. I am considering applying for a research based grant that if gotten would allow me to really dive into the subject matter of motherhood, gender, and societal expectations of these things. It is a very competitive grant so I am unsure if I will apply this year of wait until I have developed it more as you cannot reapply with the same project. 

I have been reading an incredible compilation of writings that I have mentioned before, Mother Reader, and it is simply very inspiring and validating to me. The writings are so well curated, all fascinating and all about motherhood. It always has driven me totally crazy how neglected this subject is in the arts and finding this source really is giving me courage to go with it as subject and go deep.  I really do not know where it is headed but it feels like a project I am embarking on like when I embarked on my thesis project in Graduate School. You start with a seed, you start the work, you dive into the research, the writing, the deeper understanding, the discussing and then you create something wonderful.  I feel that way now.
I have been doing the work I started in graduate school for about 8 years and I have produced a body of work I am so proud of but I feel the need to conceptualize something new and introduce more mediums back into my work and this project seems the way I am going.  I feel excited.  I feel hopeful. I feel totally overwhelmed.

a studio tour...

 

The stairs that lead up to my space with my super rad new bicycle at the bottom.

 

view that I see from the top of my stairs.  My studio is quirky, just how I like them, in that it is a lofted space perched over a larger open sculptors space. So far I am loving the perch- it is totally private feeling but I am not in this closed off alienated cave of my own mind.

 

Kind of my little storage corner, all my junk is over here on these huge shelves so I can keep my work space open and clean.  This is soooo exciting to me not to have to be in my supplies and storage while making.

 

 

my first day working, before I had any furniture.  AMAZING to have so much wall; I was easily able to project to the scale I needed to get some work done.  I got 3 new drawings laid out for future pieces.

 

 

2 of the new drawings.

moved in, ready to go with a lil yellow couch and a big nice white table. I had no idea how much I missed my studio until this week and I am so grateful to have one again.

Where in the hell did August go?  My life has been a blur as of late. Guests in and out of town, friends staying with us, vacation, crazy change and transition at work, T starting school this week but was delayed by 2 days, test riding, ordering and now waiting impatiently for a new bike AND moving into my new studio...  Oh how I welcome the routine of fall.

I am not yet with my head above water but I feel it coming- I do.  I am technically in my studio but since I have super limited access to a car I am very much just slightly in. This afternoon I will be heading over to settle what is there but that does not include any furniture so its still a little bare. But at the same time I kind of want it to be a more minimal space then my usual studio vibe.  I am REALLY looking forward to being settled into the new space and the new schedule that I have now that T is in school and with my studio days shifting around.  But I am also not putting pressure on myself to make it happen too quickly. I kind of want to savor this time of transition as opposed to letting it speed by.

But the good news is I am shipping 2 of my works off to Chicago today for a lovely show, my teaching schedule is full with new and familiar places this fall and things are starting to settle down in my "other" work life too.  So I hope to breath a sigh out soon and show you some new work and oh it would be so nice to say hello a little more often.