Honored

The Mansfield Art Center holds an annual all-media juried art show, The May Show, open to artists living in Ohio and must be work completed within the past three years. The show is eagerly awaited by local art lovers. 

The entry process involves bringing work to the Center for jurying instead of submitting images of work online. I entered this year and enjoyed seeing the competing entries when I dropped off my work on Wednesday. Submissions were plentiful and impressive. I waited for juror Michael Martell to make his decisions on Thursday, then for a phone call to learn whether any of my work had been chosen.

The call came on Friday. Two of my three works had been accepted, “Hello Bufo”, and “Advertise”. I had won one of the  monetary awards, the Susan B. Smith Award for Fiber. I am honored!

When I went Saturday to claim my unaccepted work, I asked the question, “Which of the two works won the award?” The answer was that the award was made for both, recognizing them as a body of work. Since I have been working for several years to develop a more consistent ‘voice’, I am very pleased to learn that the juror saw the results of my efforts to define a personal style.

The May Show is open to the public from May 9 until June 6 on Tuesdays to Sundays 11 am to 5 pm. The Mansfield Art Center is at 700 Marion Avenue, Mansfield, Ohio 44906. Admission is free, masks are required and the building is wheelchair accessible mansfieldartcenter.org 

Mansfield Art Center

Up for Bids

I just sent this very small quilt, entitled “Ginger”, off in the mail. It is my contribution to the SAQA Spotlight auction. The quilt is 6″ x 8″, mounted in an 8″ x 10″ mat with a 4.5″ x 6.5” opening and placed in a clear cellophane sleeve. It will be up for bids online at between April 15 and April 25, 2021. Information about the auction is on the website: saqa.com

I was tidying up after a fabric dyeing day, using a bit of old bedsheet as a clean-up cloth to wipe down the counter and table. When I laid the cloth out to dry, I could visualize a face in the smudges of color on the cloth…just like one can imagine shapes in clouds. My Inktense colored pencils were handy, so I began drawing, coaxing detail from what was already on the cloth. The small drawing bumped around my studio for months, until I identified it as just the right size for an auction quilt. I added a few bits to make the work rectangular and quilted it onto a piece of felt.

The girl in the drawing had developed personality, but the work was nameless. I asked my husband to help. He suggested the very literal “Red-headed Girl in Bowler Hat”. I wanted something, but his idea nudged me toward the title: Ginger! It conveyed red-headed, could be a girl’s name, and reinforced the idea of a feisty, spicy personality. I could finish the work with a backing that is also the label.

Fille paresseuse

When I was 20, young and single, I had the privilege of being a student in France. I learned many things about running a household from my host mother, Mme Ingold. One of my favorite lessons popped into my head today as I was untangling thread that had twisted as I was hand sewing.

Mme Ingold had quoted a phrase which translates as “long thread, lazy girl”. She warned me that a suitor judges a potential wife through several observations: If the young girl threads her needle with a very long thread, it indicates that she is not willing to apply adequate effort to a task. If she pares potatoes with a thick peel instead of a very thin one, she is not frugal. If her shoes are not new, spotlessly clean and polished, she lacks wealth and care about her appearance.

I have learned to use a short thread, because it ultimately takes less time and effort to re-thread the needle frequently than to untangle twisted thread. I’ve always been frugal and peeled my vegetables with the thinnest possible peel. But I have rarely lived up to the pretty shoes criterion…and I’m happily married in spite of that.

Jumpstart

I have said before that deadlines motivate me. A flyer arrived in the mail with a call for entry for an all-media May Show exhibition at a local art center. It seems worth the effort to enter because it is a prestigious exhibition at the state level. I view the exhibition every year to learn what is currently being created in my region. The goal of meeting the mid-April deadline should jumpstart forward progress on my current work that has been developing far too slowly.

Jurying for the show is not the usual process of sending a good quality photo of a specific size. Instead, potential exhibitors bring actual artworks to the venue and leave them for jurying. They are notified of acceptance or rejection within three days. Rejected work is picked up on day four, accepted pieces after the exhibit closes. Monetary prizes are being offered. I can enter four pieces of artwork, so here are photos of the four I’m considering. Two are done and have already been shown in other exhibits, one is newly finished, and the fourth is in-progress.

Hello Bufo

Glass Ceiling

Advertise

Wishes (in-progress)

Thousands

Creative folks sometimes have trouble staying organized. Sorting is just not a favorite activity. When I had a project due this past week and needed photos of art-in-progress to complete it, I realized that I have thousands of unsorted photos dumped into my photos folder on my computer. Thousands!

I went through all the photos and dragged all artwork and art-in-progress pictures onto my desktop. Over the next two days,
I sorted them into folders labelled with each project’s title. Now they are findable and that feels great. I’m scheduling a block of time each week to gnaw away at the project of organizing the rest of the pictures, taking time to cull the duds and duplicates.

I have thousands of pictures just of trees.

WINTER

Return

I have let this blog languish for over a year and I found that much has changed in that time. Our whole world has changed with a pandemic. Technology has sped forward. My personal life has settled into new patterns. I have time to rethink what I wish this blog to be.

I began this blog as simple sharing of my artistic efforts with whomever is interested in similar things. I also wanted to test my willingness and ability to maintain the self-discipline of posting weekly. I will return to posting with those same goals, then ponder what else to add.

Here is a photo one of two entries I made for a regional SAQA exhibition. This work was made because of a call for entries with the theme Circles and Cycles. I decided to use some rust-dyed fabric that I had made years before, because the rust design was made with circular gears. But I always need more than shape and color to create a work; I need a concept, an idea I wish to express. My concept for this work is the internal self-talk in which we all engage. I want to express that it is vital to give ourselves permission to create, take time for ourselves, and value our own efforts. The sweeping red lines and mesh contrast with the rigid symmetry of the circles and neutral colors. They represent the random, uncontrollable qualities of life.

This is the final version of a work begun last year just for the Circles and Cycles exhibition.

Necessity

As the saying goes, it is the mother of invention. My laptop computer and I both came down with viruses. The laptop is at the workplace of our local tech guru. The invention? I’m posting from my phone. While home keeping my germs to myself, I am still sewing. I’m working on a three-dimensional piece. It began on a whim when I fished some H-shaped yard sign holders out of the recycle bin. They reminded me of animal legs and body, so I cut and bent them until they became an armature for a horse. I covered the wire with batting around which I wrapped in fabric strips to shape the form. Now I am fitting a quilted “skin” over all. I guess at appropriate pattern shapes and try out a paper version. When I get the paper trial to work, I cut the shape from quilted fabric and hand-stitch it in place. There are no instructions.

Friends

I had been very discouraged for several days. The urgent — dealing with cold weather, car troubles, and the need for household repairs — was usurping my time, taking over time I preferred to spend on what is more important to my life goals. I had not had time to work on art-making and that made me grumpy.

I was brought back to good humor by timely bits of encouragement and fun. Friends invited me and my husband for dinner and euchre playing. Another friend telephoned, relaying her experience of being stranded in the same hotel as quilters at a retreat and how kindly and generous they were to share supplies and instruction in their craft. That made her stay delightful. And finally, I spent a day helping a beginning quilter enjoy making her first baby quilt. My head was filled with pleasant images of gentle pastel prints as I drifted off to sleep that night.

So I remind you, don’t hesitate to make that call or invitation. Small kindnesses make the world so much more agreeable for both giver and receiver. Thank you, friends, for encouraging me.

My refrigerator drawer repair.

The Art of Teaching Art

When you take a class, a great deal of what you pay for is the time and the trial and error learning experiences of the teacher. Trial and error experiences include tests of possible materials and comparisons of the level of difficulty for alternative methods of construction. The teacher may need two or three or even a dozen trials to decide the best materials, methods, and sequence for making an item.

The teacher must do more than know how to make the project. He or she must give good instructions. Instructions should be delivered in multiple modalities: written, drawn, spoken, and demonstrated. Steps must be logically sequenced. Directions must be clear, using simple language with no unexplained special vocabulary. Instructions should never assume knowledge, and should explain basic details that might be obvious to experienced makers. Instructions should encourage, never create doubt.

Then, there is timing, the balancing act makes teaching more art than science. Experienced students will catch on quickly and beginners may struggle. The teacher must have enough content that the experienced student can grow and feel happy that he or she is learning, yet not so much that the beginner feels frustrated or overwhelmed. There has to be something useful for the fast worker to do while the slower ones catch up.

Personalities come into play. Some people demand more attention than others. The teacher must make sure the more forceful personalities don’t take all the time and attention. The quiet personalities deserve an equal amount of nurturing. A clever instructor also facilitates a dynamic of helpfulness between students that augments his or her teaching efforts.
A major benefit of a live class over online or independent study is the interaction between students and the opportunity each student has to observe other ways of thinking about and solving the assignment.

If the teacher has done well, the student has the pleasant experience of thinking, “Oh yes, This isn’t too difficult. I can do this.” Best of all is if both teacher and student can think, “This is FUN!”

trying a pattern

Disco Ball

I think discos balls are magical. When I saw one in a resale store 15 years ago, I wanted it. But, I decided the idea was too silly. That evening, I did tell my husband about  my fascination with disco ball light effects, seeing one, and my shopping self-restraint. The disco ball appeared on my next birthday! 

This past week I finally gave my disco ball an appropriate place of honor in my sewing studio. The ball had come without a loop on top with which to hang it. I had tried and failed at several attempts to install it. Finally, I carried it into a local hardware store where I knew the employee enjoyed problem-solving challenges. I enlivened his workday, and he devised a hanging loop. A little wood-cutting, painting, and affixing an arched hanger finished the job.

A studio workspace should be a pleasant and inspiring place so one is eager to go to work every day. My disco ball encourages me with a light show every sunny afternoon. What encourages you in your space?

flinging sparkles around the room