'tis the season...

LOVe to all in bloggerland today!

small packages: the LAST MINUTE MAUL

this is what i do in my day job. i work at a local art center in baltimore and was asked to put together a craft event this year. so...what could i do that would be different from all of the other myriad of excellent craft events in our city? i came up with 'Small Packages: the LAST MINUTE MAUL. Locally crafted art no bigger than a fruitcake.' we will see how it goes tomorrow. i can't wait! lots of good local crafters will be there.

scrap crochet scarves for christmas

i have been having a great time using up the yarn in my stash...making scarves for everyone, including me! i HEART crochet.

portland and baltimore in stitch

for my level 1 opus personal specialism i was working in the theme of cities and combined my two favorite cities - portland maine and baltimore maryland. this piece has wrapped wire, stitched bicycle tubes and a background of maps and a painted cereal box!

contrived work?

i am exploring the idea of contrived work...when is my work contrived and when is it me? here is a piece i just submitted to a show called GATHERING. i was very excited about the work as i was planning and working on it, but the final product is kind of 'so-so.' i am not too wild about it. i guess that 'so-so' work is ok if i am just making a sample for a course, but wondering what happens to my work when it is planned vs when i am doing it just for fun and experimentation? my work that is done just-for-fun seems so much more me and more spontaneous... what do you think? is there a difference between your spontaneous work and your planned work?

a veggie happy thanksgiving

where have i been? i am not sure what has kept me so busy...opus work, for sure. also been busy planning and organizing my new and very fun event at work the LAST MINUTE MAUL.

if you live in the states, thanksgiving is on the way...the annual carnivore fest. it's a hard time to be a vegetarian. thought i'd play along, by showing you one of my altered thrift store sweaters.

xo!

stitching LOVE

playing with paper and paint and stitch and glue and other stuff. LOVE!

more stitched cities

still working on some samples for my opus module, combining the features of two cities: baltimore and portland. i traced the outline of the cityscapes from various photos i took of each city. then i cut up the tracing paper into small square, rearranged the squares into a new arrangement. i took the design from that arrangement and stitched it onto the piece of an old felted sweater.

O yay! for democracy

i am going on a tangent from what i usually write about and opening a door about my personal side. i grew up in a city that was segregated and watched the city go up in flames during the '68 riots. last night, in that same city, i heard sounds of celebration on the streets. i watched my kids generation lose interest in the political process, after i had marched on washington when i was their age. today my kids, and other twenty-somethings told me how excited they were about having voted and having watched Obama's speech. last night BH called me from iraq and we listened to the speech together over the phone. TODAY is a new day in our country, and I think, in the world. O yay for democracy!

there is probably some good art inspiration in all of this, but i am up to my ears in opus homework...back to the drawing board and love to all.

stitching cities

working on my current opus module, focusing on the appearance of line in a cityscape. i took images of the two cities where i spend most of my time: baltimore, maryland and portland, maine. i combined the images in several mediums: photocopies of photographs, wire and stitch. more exploration on cities to come!

painted circles!

playing around with oil pastels. inspired by sue dove's work with color, i am playing with some of the exercises she recommends in her book, painting with stitches.

collage face

playing with the collage style of anne grgich. anne is not only a talented artist, but a good friend. if you get a chance to take a workshop with her, it's well worth it.

banned names list - in stitch!

a while back, i had some involvement with an arts organization, that had a 'banned names list.' this struck me as kind of funny, since we were not a group with any kind of policing authority. one day i was in a mood to stitch that phrase on a piece of cloth that reminded me of lined school paper. then i photocopied the stitching and stitched over the photocopy. it's hard to reproduce your exact same stitches. i guess it's the random spontaneity that i like about stitching - no two stitches are the same, as least not on my work. i have an idea to repeat this odd shaped paper over and over and hang all of them beside each other on a gallery wall.

stitching on a thrift store sweater

i am away for a few days. love to all!

experimenting with textiles

for my personal specialism module, i have to experiment with unusual materials using layering and cutting and twisting and lots of other things.

here are some photos of work samples using paint rags, plastic bags, melted wax, cut up bicycle tubes, wire, fabric strips, pieces of felted sweater, glue, tissue paper, magazine pages, paint, etc. i machine stitched many of the samples, which was experimental for me, as i am much more comfortable hand stitching.

happy bday to BH.

line drawing in stitch

i have been working on stitching some of my line drawings of everyday life. here is a sketch of BH and me having lunch last year in a park when we were living in portland, maine. BH is eating his usual lunch time hotdog and i am having vegan food from little lads.

while i was working on this piece i discovered a kindred stitching spirit in the work of Iviva Olenick.

still life with chair, mug, window, blue ball!

still practicing how to paint. i am working on color and contrast. this is an invented still life - a little sedate for me, but was a good practice tool.

slop sink

another language assignment for my opus BA course in embroidery in cultural context. here i photocopied a painting i had done of a slop sink.
then i stitched words onto the photocopied paper.

typography and stitch

my cultural stitch assignment on language is evolving more into an experiment on typography. here i have stitched onto a magazine page from vogue - kind of a play on the more conventional typeface of a table of contents. and then, of course, i had to take a pix of the back side of the stitching. looks like it fits in pretty well with the adidas advertisement.

meltdown

here i am having a meltdown over bh suggesting that we buy a lemon tree for our living room. hmmm... well, in hindsight i did think it was funny, so i made this drawing which will soon become an embroidery.

stitched sketchbook

i like to personalize the cover of my sketchbooks. this is a new one i bought for my opus homework: paint, magazine collage, stitching. yay!

stitched painting palette

more on my recycling theme! i love the look of paints mixed on a palette. i mixed paints for a painting on a paper disposable palette. let them dry. added strips of newspaper and covered with a gel medium to give it a little strength. after that dried, i stitched on top of it. i kind of like the look!