improvident and glanced

 The thing about art is that life is in no danger of being meaningless

-Robert Genn

A few days ago I posted some observations about the jury process-  you can reread it HERE if you missed it or it looked too wordy.  Today I found a great article by 

Renée Phillips, founder of Manhattan Arts International, and thought you might like the perspective of a professional in the field.  (Phew, we agree on most points!)  That article is HERE and I do suggest you read it-  her perspective is of larger urban shows and might offer some tips for the bigger events we might enter.  

To my point, I have always maintained that a juror is doing a job and her personal taste shouldn't enter the picture, but Ms. Phillips has swayed me to rethink that point in her first remarks where she addresses researching the juror.  For instance if you researched *me* you would probably think I like more avant garde and 'ironic' art and you would be right.  The things I love are not necessarily my own work so your research would have to go further than my woefully incomplete and ignored website.  But frankly I don't know much about sculpture (heh heh, but I know what I like...) and would be a lousy juror for that.  

So I'll go HALFWAY against my prior thoughts and state that you should research the juror to make sure she is well versed in the type of work you want to exhibit.  In that case I am perfectly well qualified to jury a quilt show and do a good job.  I know little about fancy machine quilting, not my area of expertise so therefore I cannot JUDGE it, but what I can do is put ten fancy quilted quilts against each other and come up with the ones with the best design attributes.  So, there ya go.  Now go read her article, I'll be here when you get back.

Netherland-based artist Peter Gentenaar, whose billowing paper sculptures were born out of what he couldn’t do with commercial paper. As a printmaker, Gentenaar’s search for a better type of paper led him to an unexpected process of creating his own custom beater that processes and mills long-fiber paper pulp into the material he now uses in his artwork. “My sculptures start as totally 2-dimensional,” says Gentenaar, describing the process in which his organic forms come to life. As the wet pulp dries around the bamboo framework it begins to shrink and curl, “just as a leaf when it drys.”

Imagine this- a  hooked rug self portrait!  Stellar work by Wanda Kerr

helena natal buss

To float like a cloud you have to go to the trouble of becoming one.  

 (Robert Genn, May 15, 1936 - May 27, 2014)

Sound familiar?

More time at the studio, the alligator got drawn out last night to scale and piles and piles of fabric are laid out next to the drawing for official 'try-outs'.  Ready to ROLL!  I'll go first thing in the morning and get it organized a bit more.  And I need to order a roll of Misty-Fuse before anything goes permanent.  I also finished (YEAAAA!) all the 16 frames for the prints-  I think arranging them 4x4 is the way to go so it will cover almost a 5' square, and whammo, there goes a whole wall.  It felt so good to get that project put away, tomorrow I'll wrap it all in brown paper and set it somewhere safe.

Today I went through the calendar and changed all my various appointments for me and the dogs to after Labor Day.  I am still having scheduling issues with getting quilts back to me, but I have time to get in touch and have them held.  And I found some figure drawing classes I can sign on for.  That will be between cleaning out a condo, getting it on the market AND finding a new smaller cheaper pied a terre, a mere place to keep the coffee maker and my heavy boots.  It will be a full 2 month load.

Shoot me now.

Hmmm.

Yipes, Stripes!

This is the colourful candy-striped land snail (Liguus virgineus), and it’s only found on Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba. For years its colourful shell made a popular souvenir for travellers visiting these Caribbean islands, but now a law forbids people from harvesting the shells and selling them.

Back in the day-  Fordite, also known as Detroit agate, is a beautiful stone and a wonderful relic of urban history. The extraordinary gem looks very much like a natural agate, rippling with layers upon layers of the most vibrant colours there are.

The stones were produced by car painting techniques that are no longer practiced – layered spray-painting by hand in automobile factories. This practice produced layers of enamel paint slag on the tracks and skids on which the painted cars and parts stood. As the painted cars were baked numerous times to dry and harden the paint, the overspray below them would also be baked repeatedly before eventually being removed.
Keen-eyed workers who recognized the aesthetic value of the dried paint stones collected and saved them until now, when this car painting practice no longer exists. Their history makes them almost as valuable as real gems.

And finally, some Paul Smith designed fabrics and clothing items-  all made of stripes!  I still like the shells best.

No Stripes.

daddy wholesome mcfadden

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Work is love made visible.   (Kahlil Gibran)

•  Incomplete Manifesto   Bruce Mau
•   Read only left-hand pages.
  Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
  ******************

Welcome back everybody-  I've missed you.  Everything caught up here-  I was up doing laundry until the wee hours.  *Somebody* around here changes his/ her shirt three times a day, and both dogs must be wearing his/ her underwear.  Anyway, things are piled high on the couch to put away this morning, just couldn't face it last night.  I have reached the Single Phenomenon-  that is as soon as the remote is in my exclusive control, there is absolutely nothing on to watch.  If it weren't for CSI I would have had to watch Housewives of the Ozarks or Contemporary Family which suddenly seems to be on 12 channels.  We'll see what's on tonight-  I may just have to learn the Roku.






I have a whole bunch of stuff cluttering my desktop that all seems to be yarn-bombing.  No relationship to each other, different countries and different people, just a sort of cozier graffiti that's easier to take down-  a pity.  Personally I think it should be left up until it looks really groady and disgusting, maybe after a season to two in the rain and road crud.  But here it is, mostly new and bright, and fun!

Love the lace 'teeth'

A lot of work to dress a parking meter!

Paul Smith-ish striped trees-  so pretty!

A bit overwhelming, and hard to find your glasses!

Love this idea-  wonder if people actually sit on them on the train?

Your basic overachiever

A smart beany-  you can't see when the truck is behind you way too close!

At first I thought this was woven into the storm drain but looking closely I think it's a mat sewn onto the top.  Quicker get-away!

Cracked road?  No problem!  Custom shaped to your every fissure!   

Yarn bombing CAN be done on movable objects!  But just slow ones.

Now, for the last yarn-y picture, a couple of baby chipmunks (close enough to squirrels, don't you think?)sleeping in their yarn covered nest!  Love the pops of color under the fluffy part.

mockingbird bay tenspot

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and starting on the first one.   Mark Twain


Well, as you probably know if your a 'frequent flyer' here, I am back in Florida with my doggies at my feet.  I had to get the plug for the computer replaced today but the first stop was the studio to see if I already had the extra part and I di.  But once I get there all hell breaks loose and I lose all sense of time and place.  It happened today-  I was thinking I should get home to walk the dogs and eat some lunch, looked at my watch and it was 3 PM!  So I shut all systems down and locked up-  I had been there since 9.

I got four more of the Fornasetti faces framed and started doing it assembly-line style and it did go faster.  I have 6 to go now so I'll be able to finish it up in the next day or two.  I also cut and assembled another paste paper box with (I think) 6 more of those to go too.  Then I tackled finding two quilts for the shows I am included in.  I had decided on 'August' as a tongue-in-cheek offering for the Garden show, 

but in unwrapping the logs of quilts I found 'Phalaenopsis' 

which I think is a better choice in spite of August having a couple of squirrels!  Whatja think?  #2 is much smaller and has more work on it, as well as an attempt to sew nori on as tropical leaves.  #1 is a bunch of layered collaged 30's tablecloths.  Anyway, now I don't have to work on that so I turned my attentions to three Calls for Entry.  

One is due in July and limited to Florida artists so I really want to send something along.  The problem is tha the size is preordained at 20"w x 52"l, odd to say the least.  But I found a photograph I took this spring and it will work so I pulled fabrics for that and did some photoshop to make it fit the space.  Now I have to start on this asap because I MUST take the picture before the end of the month to get it out.

BECAUSE ....wait....wait....

I am going back to Boston for July and August.  Against my will.  TY is flying down with Nate to pick up the dogs and drive them back to Boston.  So I am doing this on a trial basis and the first minute I am sitting there watching daytime tv bored out of my mind, I make a reservation back!  I can't stand to be away from my studio.  

Meanwhile I found some figure drawing classes nearby I'll sign on for tomorrow.  I gotta be doing something.  I'm also looking at some other classes at Bennington, the MassArt summer program.  The other thing I need to do is see the Pilgrim Roy show on my own time, and get out to MassMoCA for an overnight-  it's been a long time and I love western MA.  

So, my days are cut out for me for the next three months.  Any spare time I can get the condo more ready to sell at a moment's notice, and get some boxes packed of stuff I want to send down here for the new place.  Oy.

Want some art?  Let's start with some suit-case cities!  Grab your traveling' shoes-

There’s packing for a trip, and then there’s this. Popping out of soft shell luggage we see towering city blocks, skyscrapers and bridges in a rainbow of colors. It’s as if someone packed up the city and brought it along. The works are part of Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen’s series Portable City, and fittingly, each piece is made from second-hand clothing.

Perched at the window of his Cessna 172, photographer Klaus Leidorf crisscrosses the skies above Germany while capturing images of farms, cities, industrial sites, and whatever else he discovers along his flight path, a process he refers to as “aerial archaeology.” Collectively the photos present a fascinating study of landscapes transformed by the hands of people—sometimes beautiful, sometimes frightening. Since the late 1980s Leidorf has shot thousands upon thousands of aerial photographs and currently relies on the image-stabilization technology in his Canon EOS 5D Mark III which is able to capture the detail of single tennis ball as it flies across a court.

OK, I think you're caught up.  

Acrobatic practice.  Next he goes for TWO squirrels.