my love affair with words

Its not really a secret that I love words.

I write here on the blog but in reality, its barely scratching the surface. I've got notebooks and journals and papers covered in scribbles and marching sentences. I daydream of owning an old typewriter:

1. Vintage Typewriter, 2. Des mots, 3. typewriter #3, 4. vintage typewriter

I've been writing since I was a teenager. At first it was a way to get out of my own head (since I was quite shy and spent most of my time there anyway) but it grew into a shadow, a part that couldn't be separated.

A few years ago it went into overdrive during a particularly stressful period in my life. It was the only act of creating I could manage. The studio was barren during that time, anything that came out of it was forced and felt foreign but the words? The words never failed, they spilled out and pulled me away from the places I didn't want to be.

Now its become a ritual. Almost every project grows from some part of my journal, from an essay that can be manic or tidy or just random. Its the point that all things begin.

I was asked recently if I teach this - this way of creating artwork out of writing first. Its an interesting thought, I don't know how I'd give that to people but its been kicking around in my head now for a couple of weeks in a rather annoyingly insistent way.

For now I'm tucking the idea away but not out of sight. It might sound a little loony but I'm already planning projects for next year and this could be an interesting one to try to work out.

make your photos vintage

I have a weakness for all the cool photo altering apps that are out on the market. I just discovered a new (to me) one and thought you might like it too.

I took this photo from my last post (which I realized I uploaded upside down, I was obviously in need of more coffee when I was blogging):

And tortured it in the Vintage Scene app to get this:



 

What making thermofax screens would look like if someone was doing it back in the 1800s. ;-)

I did mess around with the color levels in photoshop after I aged it to get things a little more saturated.

As I have a love for all things old and worn looking, this app has earned a place on my dock on my laptop. Super easy and super fun - give it a shot!

creating order

This is my new coffee cup. About the only thing I love more then coffee is a good cup. Particularly white ones, something about the lovely contrast of drinking black coffee against a white cup that never stains gives me that little thrill. (Yes, I'm that easy to please.) I'm a coffee cup collector, its a little out of control but I can't help it. Particularly milk glass and vintage style ones - makes the coffee taste better (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

I've had about three cups this morning so far because last night I felt an impending sense of doom and chaos. I couldn't quite figure out what my problem was, I'm used to running at full tilt with tons of things on the burner at one time. I pondered the reason.

Maybe its because its the holiday season and there's so much extra to do.

Maybe its because there is a full moon (not sure on that one, didn't check a lunar calendar but its been a good excuse in the past).

Maybe I've got too many projects going at once. (This one made me laugh - there's no such thing!)

Then it finally hit me why - NO LIST.

I live my life solemnly by the rules of THE LIST. It creates order, it tells me what to do, it keeps me humming right along toward deadlines with no worry of stress or chaos.

Somehow I had not updated THE LIST lately and it was making things seems kind of dark and foreboding around the edges. It meant I could possibly forget something important or stray off track or wander off on some path that had nothing to do with anything I mean to accomplish.

I see THE LIST as a kind of leash that keeps me on track. I imagine people look at me and say, "She's got it together. Didn't you know? She has THE LIST." They won't mess with me, even Murphy's Law fears THE LIST (and we all know the great affection he has for me).

It is my super power.

I am indestructible when I have THE LIST.

Its important to distinguish the rules for creating THE LIST. Some people think they are list makers but they aren't, they don't know the rules, they just haphazardly flail around with a pen and a piece of paper and think that their lists are the bomb but they're mistaken. Its an art. Rules must be observed in order for THE LIST to do its job properly.

1. Have a pretty notepad or board (dry erase or chalkboard) on which to write THE LIST. Consider it a form of dating, creating a sort of special relationship. You wouldn't show up for a first date wearing your pajamas with extreme bedhead, would you? Wooooo THE LIST.

2. Items such as laundry, grocery shopping and paying bills do not belong on THE LIST. They are futile, never completed and will only taunt you because they are never really completed. If you add them, you will avoid looking at THE LIST and you will be conquered. Instead, segregate them off into daily errand lists, or as I like to refer to them, "I Hate You Because You Are Never Done" lists.

3. Cross off completed items, don't erase them. Leaving them there with a big old line drawn through them shows how awesome you are at completing tasks on THE LIST. Plus erasing them makes you think you don't have much to do and this is dangerous. It can lead to excessive internet surfing and knitting.

4. Be bold. And confident. THE LIST can smell fear and it will not hesitate to crush you. You must respect THE LIST.

5. Understand that THE LIST is here to help you. Don't give it dirty looks or threaten to run it through the washing machine with the laundry. Growling at THE LIST is also ineffective and will serve no other purpose then to put you behind schedule.

6. THE LIST has comrades that you will want to become familiar with. These range according to your personality type but can include: coffee, vodka, hysterical laughter and trash cans.

7. Some lists are portable and others are not. Portable lists are for the "I Hate You Because You Are Never Done" tasks (see point 2) and stationary lists (like the one in my studio) are attached to the wall so that when you realize the deadline is only two days away, you will have something to hang on to as you slide to the floor sobbing.

8. Get THE LIST a calendar. This is crucial. Not having a healthy sense of how many days away a deadline actually is is like setting your list on fire and laughing with glee while you do it. Also keep in mind that when you are creating things (particularly by hand), a deadline that is seven days away is equivalent to about fifteen minutes. Work ahead.

9. Update THE LIST regularly. (This is the most difficult and one that I struggle with regularly.) There comes a point when you just need to create a new list, with updated priorities and new goals. Don't fear this process, it is not the same as piling more work onto your schedule. THE LIST is your schedule. Don't fight it, it will only cause pain.

Now that I have an updated LIST in my studio, I feel like I can conquer anything. In fact, because I have the list, I am working on item #1 today (and no, its not blogging but it is blogging related so I feel that I am in the correct ballpark and will get to work on obliterating #1 from THE LIST as soon as I hit "publish" on this post).

Me and THE LIST. THE LIST and me.

There's no stopping me now! Muahahahahahah!

The Studio is alive

The spring cleaning bug is practically chewing my face off. I've cleaned the studio (twice) and my bedroom and part of the pile of the junk in the basement that I moved home after the store closed and I'm planning a ninja sneak attack on my storage unit soon. (I find it best to take that mess by surprise, its far too intelligent to reason with.)

I've also gotten my projects in order and its a stark contrast from where my mindset was last year. (Hell, let's be honest, I was lucky to peel myself out of bed each morning and remember to change out of my pajamas before leaving the house. It was not a good year.)

So I have several baskets lined up like proper little soldiers, waiting to be attacked in order of their due date. The first one on my list was getting my pages together for a fabric journal round robin I'm doing with the fiber art group I belong to, Running with Scissors. I picked "Pet Portraits" as my theme and I finished up Dooley dog's page this evening:

I went for a vintage type feeling for the background fabric of the pages. I'm disturbed that I had that pink tablecloth-like fabric in my stash. But it worked well. (I think the pink is starting to wear me down.)

I went to Joann's today to pick up some stuffing for some plushies and it was insane in that store. Sales had women bouncing off the aisles and sprinting about. It was crazy. I ended up picking this up:

That's my quilt for the Michigan Quilt Artist Invitational due in July. (Can't you tell???) The theme this year is 'Adventures in Italy' and I have to say, I enjoy it when they pick countries as the topic. Everyone ends up doing something different but its still tied together.

I know what I have so far is horribly impressive. I'm hoping to start it tomorrow. There is some weird voodoo magic going on whenever I do a quilt for that exhibit. I always paint them. And that's not something I generally do. And yeah, I know those aren't fabric paints. Trust me, they work just fine since my quilts never see the inside of a washer.

I'd tell you the topic but I'm not sure it will work out so in case it turns into a train wreck, I can say it was supposed to be something else and show you that instead and you won't be any wiser. (Ah the wonders of the Internet.)

I also took these knitted misshapen things:


Briefly drowned them:
(Looks disgusting doesn't it? Smelled like wet dog, too. I love wool but not when its wet. Ick.)

And subjected them to pinning torture:

Yes, leaves. I plan to make a brilliant quilt-like fiber art type thingie for the upcoming botany art quilt exhibit RWS is doing. I seem to have an issue with my botany quilts. The two that I've started have turned against me. I'm not sure why they have such attitudes but they have me considering using them for cleaning rags. No worries, I'll work something out but I learned a long time ago that when a project fights me so hard, I move on. I have to bicker with enough humans during the course of the day, I don't need to do it with fabric as well.

There is also The-Project-Which-Will-Not-Be-Named. I'm not willing to fess up to this one yet. Just know that if I do decide to pursue it, it will most likely break my will and send me away to a place where knitting needles are considered sharp objects and prohibited. Still...I'm considering it.

All in all its been a good day. It started out with meeting up for coffee with Jackie and catching up. The Coffee Bean has seriously good caffeine and Jackie makes seriously good art. Doesn't get much better then that.

replenishing the studio cupboards

Oh what a week.

Nothing out of the ordinary, just seemed to drag on for eons longer then it normally did. I blame it on the six days of constant rain, somehow the steady storms make time move slower. The sleepy days make me long for the comfort of my print table in my studio and the meditation that comes with creating fabric. So even though I haven't been able to grab any time in there this week, its been on my mind constantly.

I made a vow earlier this year that I would not buy supplies unless it was for a specific project and there was nothing I already had that couldn't be substituted.

I sort of slipped on that lately. Ah well, what's a girl to do? I'm helpless in the face of all the awesome fibery goodness out there. Want to see what's wandered its way into my studio?

First up is this little beauty:


I've been thumbing through it every night. I now have the desire to bury fabric in the backyard and dig it up in the spring, rummage through the small area of woods behind my house and trample across cloth with muddy shoes.

So I guess its working its charm. :)

Its an awesome book on natural dyeing. Beautifully composed and easy to follow and I'm really glad to add it to my bookshelf. (Although I've no plans to print fabric with cow poo. I have limits.)

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I was feeling a little melancholy on the drive home (again, SIX days of steady rain - cold and overcast I can deal with but rain really gets to me after a few days) so I stopped off at Michael's for a little pick-me-up.

I needed some supplies for the class I'm teaching in a couple of weeks and decided a wander about the store would be a nice treat.

Did you know about these?



I didn't and boy am I ever glad to have found them. Granted, I'm a paint junkie. (Which is putting it kindly.)

But what really caught my eye about the new line from Martha Stewart is that her general all purpose craft paint can be used on fabric. I plan to give it a try tonight to see how it does. She also has different tops you can screw right onto the bottles so you can use the paint in different ways. I grabbed the fine tip one you see up above, got all giddy thinking about how those can come in handy printing fabric.

And even though its shallow, I'm smitten with the packaging too. Kind of vintage, super graphic and just makes me want to gaze at them and admire their colors. :)

I'll do a little review of them once I give them a go, I'm hopeful it goes well. Her color range is outstanding. (Yay! Paint! Paint! New PAINT!)

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Today the magical mailbox portal coughed up some new yarn I ordered. Yes, I need more yarn just like I need more paint but I'm sure you'll agree, its worth having:

I've pledged my love for Blue Moon Fiber Arts' sock yarn (aptly named Socks that Rock) on the blog before. She released the halloween colors and I regretted not snapping these up last year so I treated myself and got them.

The one in front is Frankenhen and the one in the back is Black Magic. Someone bring me my needles.

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Speaking of needles (but of the embroidery kind), I scored at the American Sewing Expo last weekend when I found a vendor selling perle cotton:


These are the colors I use most in my work and I've worn the ones I have now pretty much down to a nub. So it was time to stock up and it seems to be getting harder and harder to find hand embroidery thread at the shows. I know the machines are nifty and I expect in another year or two they will be able to cook and clean for us as well as sew but I still love hand stitching. It will always be my go-to way of working and with my stash replenished, I'm good to go for a while again.

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But lest you've think I've been sitting around eating bon-bons and ordering things online with abandon, I offer proof of productivity from last weekend:

These are my version of jelly rolls (which is not at all food related but refers to fabric collections in the form of strips). They're hand dyed fabric that I've printed and they'll be for sale during my class coming up. Depending on how they do, I may put some up in the shop. I'm rooting for the little fellows!

This weekend is cleaning the studio up from new projects I executed like the freaking Tasmanian Devil, prepping for the class and writing my e-zine. (Don't forget to sign up to receive the e-zine if you don't already, always fun stuff!)

Lots to do and hopefully an upcoming week that has more art around the edges then this past one. No matter how nutty it gets though, there is always fiber lurking about and that's at least something. :)

leave it whole? cut it up? stitch it? what would you do?

After cleaning the rest of my studio up, my design board was really starting to annoy me. I've tacked so much stuff up there that its impossible to use it for what its really there for in the first place.

I decided that the only way I would force myself to deal with it was to take it all down and pile it on my newly cleaned off print table. It'll bug me even more since I just cleaned it off and its also my primary work space so its impossible to let things linger there for any length of time.

Here's part of the pile:

  

 I really have to break the habit of tacking paper items up there. I've even started tacking up images from catalogs of the style of house I love (I dream of owning a craftsman one day, Restoration Hardware catalog is great for that kind of vintage inspiration). Design board = artwork critiques. I must remember that.

While cleaning I came across this piece:

I put this together quite a while ago when I was going through one of my "I must work larger" phases (which I still haven't discredited but keep ignoring as I plod forward with new work).

After I printed the orange squares, I stalled. For many reasons. Here are a few:

1) I'm not sure I like the orange squares anymore. I don't know that they add anything. I could cover them with more fabric and it would be like they were never there but I don't know if I want to do that.

2) I don't think stitching will do anything good for this piece. I just don't think it needs it.

3) Its lacking a focal point. But does it need one? Could I just enjoy the colors and shapes and leave it as a soft abstract piece?

One thing this piece did teach me is that when I work larger like this I won't be working on felt. I don't like the stiffness it adds so I need to decide what the base layer will be but rolling this up and shipping it anywhere if it was ever accepted into a show? Wouldn't be much fun.

I'm feeling like I want to at least decide its fate. I'd kind of been thinking mean things about it when I first started digging through the layers tacked up on the board. I'd have off ideas about chopping it up into smaller pieces or tucking it away in a closet or printing the snot out of it.

But now I've no idea. After I tacked it up to take this picture, I felt an attraction to it again.

What would you do?

More Open Studios...

I've got more to talk about for Open Studios. First off, here I am:

This was on Sunday, which explains why I look the way I do. Tired. That's all I have to say - tired. But completely happy.

I feel like a complete dork because I didn't snap any pictures of the other artists while they were working. It really was a whirlwind, it all went by so quickly. Still, its one of those things. When I downloaded the photos off my camera yesterday I smacked myself in the forehead over this one.

Virginia and Judy were much better about it, go check out their blogs to see some of the other ladies. I was really in awe of all of them, so much good stuff flying about.

Most of the time I was working in Open Studios I was sitting at the tables that were up against the classroom area. On Saturday night, Pokey ran her infamous Surviving the Runway class. If you've not seen this one, its really something to behold.

Its a mixed media project challenge in which you are given a pile of supplies and told to make something good out of it. Participants dance for supplies and jump around. The more you hop about, the more stuff you get to use on your project. It is not for the faint of heart. At one point they decided to dance The Hustle. I had a front row seat for this:

The editors of Quilting Arts are right there leading the pack. They did a good job. Women were having so much fun they were practically falling over. They are a merry bunch!

At my first time slot for Open Studios on Friday I had decided to work on the same piece each day and have two other pieces out with their embellishments strewn about to show what I had picked. I thought it would be more interesting to see the path that a piece takes as I work on it rather then having a couple inches done on each one. I chose "Vintage" as the victim for this.

Here it is before I began working on it:



Here it is at the end of the show on Sunday:

Not bad for eight hours of playing with it in between talking with people. Its not done but well on its way. It needs more stitching now and some beads. I don't think it needs any more large elements and I'm fairly happy with it.

I had a realization this weekend. I shouldn't be calling these art quilts. I spent some time Sunday morning before my slot in Open Studios walking around the exhibits looking at all the work. (I took some photos of the ones that really caught my eye and I'm going to share them with you in another post. You've gotta see these things, they totally rock.) There is a big disconnect between what I do and the quilts on exhibit. During the course of chatting with people over the weekend, several referred to my work as collages. And you know what? I think they are right.

I am somehow feeling more in touch with my work now that it has a different label on it. It seems more appropriate to call them stitched textile collages then it does art quilts. It may just be semantics but the primary element to my work is not the stitching/quilting. Its all the mixed media elements and 'collage' seems more fitting.

Its funny that it would take me so long to identify that and that it would take complete strangers tossing the term my way for me to realize it but there it is.

I learned a lot about my art this weekend. And I remembered how much I love it and why I started doing it in the first place. My life over the past few years has been rocky and difficult and it finally is settling down. I'm turning back toward my studio and this weekend really helped me realize I wanted to be there.

Many many thanks to the Quilting Arts/Cloth Paper Scissors crew for inviting me to participate. I had a fantastic time and I can't thank them enough!

Cathy and I stayed a day longer then Mary did so on Mary's last night we went out for a nice meal. The two of them together is really something to behold. I laughed so hard I almost spit my food out. (Of course, they are hysterical to begin with but I had just gulped down a taffy apple martini so I was really giggle snorting. I wonder what the locals thought.)

Here we are at the restaurant:


Thanks guys, I haven't laughed that hard or that long for a really long time.

a little parade

I am doing two holiday markets this year, the first one is this coming saturday. I'm a little nervous that despite all my efforts to make sure that I'm drowning in stock (my poor studio is about to stage a protest, its growing weary of the abuse) that I won't have enough for both shows.

I've cleared everything out of my schedule (even going so far as to buy frozen meals from Trader's Joe for the week) so that I can hunker down and work and make sure that there is plenty to go around.

It makes for dreadful blogging. It would be a lot of me waving things at the blog saying "Hey! Look at this!" and "Hey! I took a couple stitches on this! Isn't it thrilling?"

Yeah. Not so much.

So I've been quiet and so has the blog and the whole circle makes me all twitchy. (I do love the blog so.)

In an effort to keep things alive and well here, I decided to do a mini parade of a couple of the things that I'll be selling. The things being shown are getting a little mention here because they have, in one way or another, managed to torture the snot out of me over the past week. In fine fashion, I have turned my studio time into yet another I Love Lucy episode and I figured that in itself is entertainment enough.



Wishing owls:


I made these little guys last year. I love their chubby stumpy little bodies. They are small, about the size of your hand. I've been hauling them around between the sofa and the studio, stitching and fussing over them like you wouldn't believe.

See their adorable little eyeballs? (Click the photo to make it bigger so you can admire them.) They are fabulous in every way humanly possible - except when you accidentally bat them off your work table and watch helplessly as they fling themselves across the room onto some freshly screen printed fabric. (My fault really, I lay things out on the floor to dry. I need a better system...)

The up side? The paint I use truly is water based with easy clean up...

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Mini tote bags:



I've been itching to get some tote bags into the shop for a while. I've debated dyeing canvas ones to print or sewing up my own. In the end, I decided to give these charming little fellows a try.

They are 13" square and sport 14" long handles. They are made of simple cotton fabric. They won't be hauling all your groceries or other heavy fare.

But they are friendly and sweet and just the perfect thing to fold up and keep in your purse for when you have something small that needs carrying. They do also work well for smaller scale knitting projects (I've forced myself to test this over the past month. It was a hard task to take on but I endured.)

Since its my habit to lay things out to dry on my studio floor, it became crowded quickly. (I've got 18 printed up and going to the shows. If they get a good response, I'll bring them to the etsy shop.) You see where this is headed, right?

The really impressive part is that I managed to walk across one and not notice it. The paint was not quite dry and tacky enough that it stuck to my sock so I drug it down the hallway before noticing it was there.

Graceful, aren't I?

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Crocheted scarves:




I found a really cool vintage ripple scarf pattern and since I have a healthy yarn stash, I decided to put some of it to work.

I knew which yarn I wanted to use. Finding it was another matter. As I couldn't find the yarn I wanted, I employed another kind but could never quite warm up to it. But you know who did like the second choice yarn? The westie.

I came downstairs one afternoon to find little man carrying around a half crocheted scarf in his mouth. He was rather proud of himself as he tripped over it and then proceeded to hack from all the fuzz he managed to inhale.

I guess I should thank him because it forced me to go back into the stash (not a place for the faint of heart) and find the yarn I wanted to use in the first place (which is what the scarves above is made from). Even the westie knew better that the second choice sucked. See? He's looking out for your well being too, I've trained him well.

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Assemblages:


You'd think that after this I would have had enough but nope, I can't help myself. And yes, that is screen printing on the background. Honestly? Are you surprised? If I can screen print it, I will. Rock on. :)

Several people have asked me what the obsession with birds and eggs and nests is about. Dunno. Your guess is as good as mine. Truth is I just like them and sometimes that's good enough.

I discovered that my tube of Weldbond glue was nearly empty when I sat down to glue the eggs in. In my effort to see if it was simply clogged or if there was nothing left to be had, I can now offer you this advice: don't point the tube opening at your face while checking. (Glue and glasses don't mix that well. Neither does glue up the nose. Just sayin'.)

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Felted bowls:


I dig these. I made some last year too. All things wool make me happy. I decided this year to shape the bowls a little bit differently and add a penny rug detail to the bottom. I still need to stitch the circles, that's my activity after this post is done.

The only real challenge these fellows posed is the fact that wet wool smells like wet dog. A lot. No matter what you do. So the felting process was loads of fun.

I plan to burn a bunch of screens to take along too. Its my personal goal to convert everyone I possibly can to screen printing. Come on, you know you want to...

I have several other items but for the most part, they were behaved. I'll grab a few shots at the marketplace, I'm hoping we have another good turnout like last year. The group worked hard to promote it and there's going to be tons of cool stuff there.

For all the hard work that goes into it, I do have fun making the stuff. I am, however, looking forward to getting back to making some artwork that isn't for anything particular.

But for now? I've got more stock to make, time to get back to work!

new ready-to-print designs in the shop!

While I know that one of the greatest appeals of thermofax screen printing is the opportunity to have screens made from your own artwork, I also know how enjoyable it is to grab a screen that's all set to go and get right down to printing.

With that in mind, I'm really pleased to bring you 25 new ready-to-print designs. And I gotta tell you, there really is something there for everyone.

Your favorites from the past year have remained and I've retired several older images to make room for new, fresh designs.

I've created an easier way to find the type of screen you want with new categories. Screens can now be found by looking in the following categories:

Graphic screens

Floral / Nature screens

Text / Number screens

I'm really happy to work with super talented designers. And I thought you might like to meet the people that create these wonderful images for your screen printing pleasure. So without further ado, please meet the lovely ladies who are behind the designs!

Jackie Lams

Jackie is a mixed media fiber artist. Her non-traditional cloth and mixed media creations incorporate hand dyed, commercial & vintage fabrics, drawing & painting, hand & machine stitching, Thermofax screen printin, metal embossing, and whatever else sparks her imagination.

The fundamentals from which Jackie creates her pieces are her studio art and graphic design degrees. She combines these with the raw materials of her experience as a professional graphic designer and as a mother, wife and homemaker. 

For Jackie, creating art hasn't been a hobby, its been a need. No matter what limited resources she has at her disposal - tools, supplies, techniques, and (most elusively) time - Jackie is able to turn them into something the world has never seen before.

Unraveled by Jackie Lams

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Judi Hurwitt

 I am a mixed-media and textile artist living and working near Houston, TX. The last ten months has seen me obsessed with developing a very personal marking-making technique I call Stacked Journaling. Using only my handwriting as a design element in my art has intensely focused my creative energies while allowing me to inject much more of myself into my work than ever before. I utilize paper, paint, fabric, dyes, inks, wax, and a myriad of tools, as well as my thoughts, hopes, worries, memories and family stories to create my art.

 

Handprint by Judy Hurwitt

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Jennifer Solon

Jennifer Solon is a collage artist who creates abstract compositions from hand-dyed textiles, papers and paint.  Using a variety of surface design techniques and pigment, Jennifer transforms plain white cloth into multi-layered constructions that often incorporate nature motifs and digital imagery. This process is highly improvisational, guided by intuition, a sense of play, and the joy of experimentation.

Inspired by her walks along the Maumee River, Jennifer often references the natural landscape with her use of organic forms such as seed pods and river rocks.  While not a literal translation, her work evokes the memories of a certain time and place. Jennifer's collages explore the simple and complex relationships between color, shape, and texture. 

Originally working primarily in fabric, Jennifer has transitioned to a more mixed media approach. Textiles - and the tactile texture they impart - still play an essential role in her collages. Recently, Jennifer has drawn upon her background in technology to create a series of digital collages that combine images from a variety of sources (including photography from her travels, digital renditions of earlier pieces, scans of the fabric she creates, and hand-drawn elements). Many of Jennifer's mixed media collages include digital imagery as a component. These images are also available as prints and custom fabric. 

In addition to being a featured artist on Quilting Arts TV, Jennifer has been published in Quilting Arts magazine. She enjoys teaching others and offers local workshops in a variety of surface design techniques. Jennifer lives in Perrysburg, Ohio with her husband and two daughters. For more information, contact her at info@jennifersolon.com.

Along the River by Jennifer Solon

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Leann Meixner

 

I enjoy many forms of art, including embroidery, doll making, watercolors, art quilts, printmaking, collage work, and all things strange. 

       

watercolors by Leann Meixner




The next item to be featured from the shop is something I've been working on long and hard to bring to you so check back to find out!

photographing, archiving and twittering

It’s been a day. I’ll leave it at that.

But there were some fun parts. After I drug myself home from work, I set about pushing around the mess in my studio.

It’s graduated from being cluttered and unruly to resembling a toxic waste dump. I need to clean in there in a big way. And now that our weather is making friends with the 50-degree temperature range, its time to open the windows and change out the air.

My main goal for venturing in there today was to photograph some new work. One I’m going to hide from you because I’m submitting it for a show and I have this weird thing that its bad luck to show it off before you know if its made the cut or not.

But I can show you this:


This is “Vintage”. I made it for Art in Stitches and didn’t have time to take a good photo of it before the show. So I did today. This is one of those pieces I have labeled Stitched Textile Collages. There is just too much of assemblage vibe on it to call it an art quilt.

In order to take pictures today I actually had to strip everything off my design wall. Normally I bungee cord my tripod to my ironing board and shoot down on my work since my habit is to produce small pieces but I ventured (way) outside my comfort zone and made something much larger.

Which meant I had to make a choice on how to photograph it. I could 1) attempt to raise my ironing board high enough so that I could do my normal shooting down thing (in which case I would most likely need a step ladder to reach the camera since I am so stumpy) or 2) I could suck it up and clear off my design wall and hang it there.

Needless to say, we chose self-preservation and went with option 2.

But something strange happened. As soon as all that older work was taken off the design wall, I felt better.

Way better.

In a big way.

I kept thinking it was the cluttered mess in there that was making me avoid it like the plague, but now I’m wondering if it was that wall of unfinished work that was bugging the snot out of me. I need to archive away (aka stuff said object into my UFO box to never see the light of day again in my lifetime) the things I know I will never finish.

Sort of like a spring cleaning of the mind.

Oh, and I don’t know if you are all mind-numbingly sick of me gushing over Dooley but I have to show you this. He usually flees from my camera like I am trying to give him a root canal but he wandered into my studio today while I was taking pictures and I was able to snap this:



I think this is my favorite picture of him so far. (Be sure to click on it and make it big so you can revel in all his cute splendor. Go on. Do it, you know you want to.)

So my plan is to hopefully do a kamikaze cleaning attack on the room that has been my studio in name only for the past month or so. And starting with a blank design wall should be interesting, perhaps it will be a kick start I didn’t even know I needed.

Apparently I also do not have enough of an online presence and have now joined the rank and file of twitter users. If you look on my sidebar you’ll see the status widget for me.

If you look super close you will also notice that there was a two month time gap between my update today and the last one. Why, you ask? Good question.

Because for whatever reason (I was half asleep every time I logged in, the stars were never properly aligned, there was a conspiracy put into motion to defeat me, Dooley did a voodoo dance to prevent one more thing from taking attention away from him), I could not figure out how to use it.

It is painfully easy to use.

*sigh*

But I have unraveled the mysteries of twitter and am finding that there is a huge networking thing going happening there that borders on being viral. So if you are inclined, I can now be found there as well.

Tomorrow will be filled with art stuff. There are a couple of shows I want to enter (also another motivation for the photo taking today) and have some exhibit paperwork to finish up for a show I’m curating.

Should be a pleasant day as these are all things I can do while laying like a slug on the couch (back is hurting again). Laptops are the best things since sliced bread.

lovely rust

I don't know if its because I spend my day designing metal parts or if its because quite often the color combinations are my favorites but I have a special affection for rust.

Just gorgeous...


(click the photo to see it bigger, its so cool...)

1. Rusted, 2. Rust , 3. rust on old car, 4. Rust Texture, 5. Rust macro, 6. Rust, glorious rust!, 7. Rust, 8. Cuba Gallery: Orange / vintage / retro / car / door handles / rust / texture background / grass, 9. Rusting Through, 10. Study in Rust, 11. rust, 12. Rust roest - 3, 13. Rust roest 6, 14. rust never sleeps, 15. Rust, 16. Tractor rust, 17. colors of rust, 18. Rust macro at Filey, 19. Rusted Sheet Metal Horizon, 20. Rust We ┘d

i'm going to have nightmares...

I'm into vintage feeling stuff. I like traditional crochet afghans and some of the traditional quilt patterns like grandmother's flower garden. But this?

This frightens me on a whole new level...

There's chatter on Ravelry about a crocheted potholder swap. I'm thinking about joining. Do I need potholders? Hell no. But it looks like fun and from the photos that people are posting, they are pretty darn cool. Plus it would be something different so off I went looking for inspirational patterns that I could work with. I did not expect to find this horror:


Yes, my friends. That is a potholder with a plastic baby doll face attached in the center.

Aside from my issues of always whining that the creepy dolls give me nightmares while they stare vacantly at me (I suspect they are plotting different ways to suck out my soul when I'm not paying attention), does this strike anyone as incredibly sadistic?

I'm sure (I hope) these are meant to be decorative only but suppose someone decides they need to be functional? That means they are willingly melting the doll face under excruciating heat and torture. (Which I'm not entirely opposed to, they are creepy as all get out and we have to get our revenge somehow.)

I am going to take a break from looking at the potholder patterns for a bit. Who knows what other horrors may be lurking there...

And so it begins...

IQF began today and as I was walking to Open Studios to set up I heard an announcement saying that due to the large number of people waiting in the lobby to get into the show, they were opening the doors twenty minutes early.

You could hear the panic ripple through the vendors as everyone (including myself) shuffled quicker to get everything in place. Nothing will wake you up and get you going like several hundred quilters chomping at the bit to shop and soak in all the fibery goodness the show has to offer.

Here was my table at Open Studios:

Each artist got a table to herself and I was glad for it. I got to make a mess. There were a lot of people that came through the Open Studio area and I had fun chatting with everyone. The most popular piece of information I possessed was about glue. It appalls some people, fascinates others and the remainder just kind of stare at me like my head has obviously fallen off when I tell them I glue a lot of the elements of my art quilts down.

Here's the skinny on the glue: (1) for fabric to fabric attachments, I use Sobo and (2) for hard materials (otherwise known as things that don't belong stuck on art quilts) I use Weldbond, which I find most often at Meijer in the automotive department. You could stick an elephant to the ceiling with that glue. Its as strong as E6000 but is a fluid white glue that dries clear and has no odor.

Go my children, glue things and be free.

(Oh and I thank the woman today who told me that obviously I was able to make these type of quilts because I had to be an art student. I was flattered that she liked my work but very tickled she thought I was so young. Thanks.)

I only worked for two hours and then I was free to wander the show floor. I decided to make today my shopping day because tomorrow I'm scheduled for four hours and then I figure you're going to have to peel me off the chair on sunday (I'm already tired, its not bound to improve) so today was going to be it.

I was completely enthralled with all the wool booths. I blame Deb. Here's what I picked up:

You can't tell but the plaid piece on the right is an acid toxic green. It also reminds me of the uniform I wore during my twelve year stint in Catholic school. I plan to make an evil plushie creature out of it. Seems fitting.

The little dude sitting on top the pile is an oddball keychain fellow with tons of googly eyes. He promises to "find all things lost" with all those eyes. I figure it should help with my issue of loosing scissors. I should be drowning in them soon if he does what he is supposed to.

I picked up this wool and doily to make a wall piece for my mom:

As the hotel cares nothing for the quality of my blog pictures, the lighting in here is horrid. That wool is actually a blue color and the doily is dyed in some vintage pinky tones. Very girly. Very much my mother. ( I swear, if I didn't look so much like her, you'd really question how a skull loving engineer chick like myself could have been produced by a pink loving froof lady. But I respect the foof and make her appropriate things.)

Mary and I also came across a booth selling rust dyed fabrics. I'd not seen ones like this before. The piece on the left has grey on it produced by tannins. I plan to use this in an upcoming show quilts so I was happy to find it:

The metal tag is rusty and has a stamping of a primitive crow on it. I love that primitive crows have Xs fo eyes. Its creepy and cool all at the same time.

We ordered pizza when we got back to the room and proceeded to have a burping contest after guzzling vernors. We are such ladies.

Tomorrow will be a long day as well but surely a happy one. I'm working twice tomorrow during Open Studios (12:30-2:30 and 4:30-6:30) so come on by and say hello.

P.S. Hey Sidney? Your name was called for the pincushion class. You totally missed out.