Still here after all these months

Once again I've changed my art focus. This spring and summer I've been learning to make dolls. Not play-dolls, but dolls as fiber sculpture. My most recent figure, Self Imagined, won the Warrior Artist Award at the Fiber Artists of San Antonio annual show. Then it SOLD on opening night. I don't have words to describe how thrilling that was. When I delivered the piece for jurying, I was convinced it wouldn't even be accepted. I was bombarded with compliments on it. I'm afraid I was in a daze and failed to notice all the splendid work in the show. To see other dolls I've made, click on the Flikr badge in the left column. I'm going to try and stay more current with this. Perhaps I've finally found my artistic voice.

Lost on the Midway

The latest project at the Art Garage is altered shoes. We are making two shoes "Walk the Straight and Narrow" and "Walk on the Wild Side" I was so enthusiastic about it - after all - how hard could it be? I've been altering books for a few years now - what's a couple of shoes?

Well, let me tell you - first it's 3D. It has curves - like people do. So, I reasoned - it can't be any worse than draping a pattern - can it? No...I did get a successful pattern after a few tries. It had to be so exact - shoes don't need ease. I cleverly thought I'd cut the cloth on the bias to give me a little stretch. Things I learned....

• Shoes don't like to be covered in cloth. If a shoe wanted to be gingham, it would have been born gingham.
  
• Paint the shoe BEFORE you cover it.
  
• Gesso BEFORE you paint.
  
• Put in the innersole AFTER you collage.
  
• Get a GOOD glue.

I really went at this ass-backwards. I did things to the shoe as they occurred to me instead of having a plan. My concept for this "Straight and Narrow" shoe was County Fairs/State Fairs. My shoe went to the Fair and got "Lost on the Midway". Its bow got a bit tattered and it got dirty (walnut ink spray). But it had a really good time and got a blue ribbon for something or other.

I collaged the inside with a bunch of images from Fairs. I put "Big Tex" on the heel - an icon of the Texas State Fair. I also used some rusted steel stars and a few collaged images on the outside of the shoe. And what would something lost at the Fair be without a bunch of ANTS climbing on it!

Being a novice at polymer clay, I went at it like everything else in my art - I looked for instructions. There are no instructions for making polymer clay ants. This a very odd take for me - because I really HATE bugs. So I, eek, looked at a bunch of pictures of ants. It took 2 batches of 4 ants each to identify all the 'won't work' elements. But I finally got it down and produced 8 pretty respectable, if largish, ants.

If anyone really wants the instructions - leave a comment and I'll get back to you. The problem I'm left with is how to glue down the ants without making a mess. I think I'll let that go a while.

The next shoe will not have a cloth cover - I'm going to limit myself to paint and glue and embellishments.

Spring Forward

It has rained for two days in San Antonio - an unusual thing. Drought is so well understood here where even moisture counts. There is no name for not-drought. Just for now, the trees and lawns are green and flowers are blooming.

Bluebonnets are up - a phenomenon that equates with the first robin or crocuses poking through snow in more northern states. The arrival of the bluebonnets makes my shoulders un-tense, I feel relieved. There was enough rain over the winter. The aquifer is high, water rationing is held off for now. I feel my skin relax in the more humid air. The wind is sweet with blooming jasmine.

It is easy to understand why some ancient people saw the spring equinox as the start of a new year. In this spirit of new beginnings, I've been exploring a new medium - art dolls.
Dolls are rather magical. You create a personality, maybe a aspect of yourself. Maybe someone you'd want to be. I am looking forward to making little fingers and wild noses; crazy yarn hair and lovely clothes. It is also an interesting way to separate and identify the archetypes of my character. We shall see how this progresses.

Catching up

I am diligently trying to keep up with the art journal project. It seems to touch me at a deeper place than journaling and morning pages do. I haven't done pages in a few days...and I don't miss them. They had degenerated into the "daily whine" of this that and the other thing not getting done. Even concentrating on one affirmation a week did not help much. Maybe I'll try blogging more often.


The Feb journal quilt is called "Opening a Door". I am mentally preparing for a directed diet starting April 2. Being thinner would open so many doors. I feel that I am standing at that doorway and the good things are in there spilling out to me. It is a picture of anticipation and reluctance too. The center "door" is see through organza. The orange parts are a shiny silk that doesn't show up so well. The plant at the lower right is 3D - its leaves are movable.


Yesterday I started my first "art-cloth" These will be for day-bed bolsters. I went to my friend Susie's studio for the day and came away with 8 pieces of nicely dyed cloth. It is marbled and rayed and splotched...a perfect background for further embellishment.

I often tell myself that I, too, would make wonderful art if only I had lovely, organized studio space. It used to be "if only I had the time". Now I have the time that others envy and yet I don't do any more art. I just do it more slowly.

I used to be able to be driven by deadlines. I told myself that I did better work under pressure. What really happened is that I had to be happy with the first shot - there was never time to consider or revise or start over. Over the years not revisiting a piece became habit and I convinced myself that I did not need to revise. What ever I did on the fly was "right".

I think this has led to what I call the Wiley Coyote Syndrome. It is the drive to go on to something completely different rather than reexamine and rework a project that didn't turn out as expected. This year - I'm going to strive NOT to be the Coyote.

Journal Quilt Journey

In January I took Susie Monday's workshop "Artist Journal, Artist Journey" http://susiemonday.squarespace.com/coming-up-workshops/ . We were introduced to the

concept of the Journal Quilt - an 81/2 X 11 art quilt that chronicals or commemorates who we are at the time. For all the dressmaking I've done, I've never allowed myself the freedom to "paint" with cloth. It is an exhilerating process for someone whose fabric work is ordered by measured lines and careful seams. Susie challenged us to make one little art quilt every month for a year. Part of the process is to journal about the process. So here is my January installment - "Breakthrough". It is hard to see on the scan; the parts of the hand that are under water are foiled with gold and outlined with holographic thread. The fish is outlined with metallic copper thread. Above the water, there is no metallic. I wanted to convey the idea of changed perceptions in a changed environment.

More on the Show

Its funny how much I need the approval of other artists. I was so excited all summer about entering the Fiber Artists of San Antonio (FASA) Annual Show.

I worked at my pieces with an incredible intensity. I learned new techniques and spent a, ahem, well, whopping load of cash on the materials. I found that it is hard to make art without the right materials and they cost money, serious money. I've had to admit that I will never have the resources to be more than a dilettante.

As I worked, I was so very sure that I would be chosen for the Show. I even imagined winning a prize. This was the best art I had ever done. And then I recieved that dreaded phone call..."we regret...". My friend - whose things were also not chosen - saved me the agony of picking up my rejected pieces. I was too humiliated to even attend the opening reception.

So what do you do with reject art? The smaller pieces went back on the wall. But the big piece, the expensive piece, still sits on a table in the hall. I have no room to store it. Shall I dismantle it and box it up with other large rejects? Should I just throw it away? Should I leave it behind me or re-work it into a "better" piece? I can see how I'd change it now. But should I?

It would seem that I have less a passion for art than a hunger for approval and admiration.

Lost and Found

The Show came and went and my pieces were not selected. My intellect can accept that this was one person judging on one particular day. But my inner artist was wounded. I reject myself so much that having an unknown judge reject my work feels like a cruel affirmation of some sort. Does this mean I am not mature enough to be showing my work? And yet I am hungry for admiration, for confirmation that I AM an artist; and I am competitive – I want to be “better than” whatever.

For six weeks I’ve done no art. I felt lost. I worried that I was not an artist at all – just a collector of art supplies. I’ve sat at my worktable and played around, reorganized, put things in rows and drawers. And I’ve journaled. Finally I picked up an unfinished altered book that I started for an Artist’s Way exercise. It is tiny – just 2.5X3 inches. My artist voice felt small and this small thing was what I needed to find myself again.





So here it is…”Songs to Aging Children”. I’ve used the text from the Joni Mitchell song because text IS important. Maybe what I’m doing is illustration – but that is art too.