My Artist Residency

I arrived at the Huyck Preserve in Rensselaerville, NY on Friday near the end of an absolute deluge here in the upper Hudson Valley (and elsewhere). We had 5 inches of rain in about 24 hours. That afternoon seemed all about water! In any case, I am finally here in this beautiful place for my week as one of several ComEnArt Artists in Residence over this season. This program allows artists to stay for one or two weeks at the beautiful Preserve to work in a retreat-like setting. In return, the artist donates one or two pieces of artwork completed during the stay. I have contemplated applying for this residency for several years - finally got it together this year and I was pleased to be accepted.

I have been taking lots of photos (these are from my twilight walk to Myosotis Lake on Friday) and started some drawings that are helping me to narrow my focus and decide on a project to complete by Friday this week.

Now I am off to set up my studio in the research building. Rain is expected today, so it will be good time to settle in there.

Abundant September

Hands Full of Beach Treasure

I LOVE September. The evenings cool off, the colors and light change, the summer memories are still fresh and satisfying. And usually life slows down a tiny bit, so I can take more deep breaths. This year I am in the middle of abundance of all kinds and although deep breaths are a little harder to come by most of the time, I am not complaining.

August finished with a successful show of my art work in Saranac Lake. The opening was a wonderful party - loads of friends (including my mom) and some new friends came, all very supportive and making for a festive event. Several friends even bought my work, so now my collection of 10 little fiber collages is 6 in number and several other pieces went to good homes as well.

 

This weekend I participated in the Adirondack Artists Studio Tour (Sept. 25 and 26). I met some lovely people, saw some friends, and led a wonderful mixed media collage workshop this afternoon at the theater. It is always so amazing to see people claim they have no creative talents producing amazing little works of art. Thanks to all of you who attended. I loved working with all of you!

Next - a show of my work in Old Chatham, NY at the sweet little Old Chatham Country Store and Cafe (up on Sept. 29th with the reception on Oct. 10th). Lots to prepare and think about.

So, our birding trip to Cape Cod two weeks ago was a welcome break. Nothing like the beach, wind, and sun to restore some equanimity. The bird migration out there seemed to be either slow or mostly past. Or the weather was just too nice. (Experienced birders know that stormy, miserable cold fronts in the Fall bring the birds through.) Well, we settled for nice, without too much complaining. Our last morning there, we were getting ready to walk from the ocean beach across to the salt marsh when at least 500 Tree Swallows arrived and proceeded to make themselves at home for the day. It was quite a spectacle, with swallows sitting in groups on all the vegetation with any substance in the dunes. Imagine a goldenrod clump with 3 or 4 birds sitting on each stem. They all rose into the sky again every 15 minutes or so, then settled back down. We assumed they had just landed after a night of flying from somewhere to the north and were resting and feeding until evening arrived to make another leg of their long journey.

Tree Swallows at Sea Gull Beach

EXPLORATIONS Exhibit

Layers of beach

My artwork is hung now at the Pendragon Theater in Saranac Lake. It is an interesting venue - the lobby of the little community theater here. It is just the right size for the number of pieces I wanted to show, and apparently people really do look at the art. I already sold two large-ish pieces. I am gratified at the nice response I am getting in this community.

My little fiber collages are nicely mounted and framed, and the series looks complete in the simple maple frames my sweet Ron made for them. The last of the ten was based on an mental image I had while riding in Gail's tiny boat with my Silver Fox girlfriends one Sunday afternoon, after swimming and picnicking on Lower Saranac Lake. It was such a clear blue and green day, and I imagined - almost believed - I was soaring above the river, floating in that blueness.

Raven over Second Pond

 The next two weeks will be full of family and friends visiting here at our little cabins. It will be a pleasure to slow down and enjoy the last beautiful days of summer with all of them.
 

Ghost Orchid

Remember the Pink Lady's Slipper photo from my last entry? The pale image incorporated into this piece is the water transfer made from that photo. The early spring wildflowers are also called spring emphemerals - those that bloom and set seed before the deciduous leaves are fully out and then disappear until next spring. I am aware when I walk in the summer woods that many of those plants that were blooming so gloriously in May are now invisible.

The indoor activities become less engaging once summer arrives in the mountains. So, the daily practice becomes weekly or even less frequent when family joins me here. A beautiful day nudges us out onto the Outlet in the canoe.

More Fiber Collage Adventures

The Fabric Embellishment experiments continue! These projects all are in quite an extensive book, which I should tell you about. The name is Fabric Embellishing: The Basics and Beyond. (Thanks so much, JoAnn!!!) I'll say! It goes way beyond, in my humble opinion. The authors are Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas, and Lauren Vlcek - all apparently incredibly creative souls. I'm working my way through the book, more or less from page one. I am skipping some of the projects that use materials I don't have or can't get easily, but I'll probably go back and do each of them at some point. Some techniques I have tried in the past but even some of those inspire me to try something new. Today I am transferring some inkjet images printed on transparency sheets onto fabric, actually using neither technique recommended quite as described by my "textbook" and instead using some transfer techniques I use often on paper but not on fabric - water on one piece and acrylic matte medium on another. The photo you see above (Pink Lady's Slipper orchids on the Hays Brook Trail) was transferred to muslin after being printed on a transparency (3M brand - not ideal but okay for this) with water as the transfer medium (sprayed onto the transparency image). It is drying at this moment and will be made into another 7 inch square later with some other materials (maybe some paper) for a collage.

The piece at the right was discharge dyed using a Clorox gel pen. It is a somewhat crude method (which is sometimes exactly what I want)  but I like the way it works. I used an old kitchen spatula for my design - just traced around it with the gel pen tip, then added a few embellishments.  It is free-motion stitched with batting and a backing, and it's not quite finished - stay tuned for the rest. (And don't look too closely!)

  This little piece (my favorite, so far) was made for my "printing on ribbon" lesson. Well, I didn't have any ribbon of an appropriate size on hand, so I made ribbons by cutting apart some fabric, although in this case I left most of the square of fabric in one piece until it was printed. Then I cut it apart and placed it on my background. The basic idea is that you print out the text on a piece of paper and then attach the fabric or ribbon over the text with double-sided tape. (Pretty cool, I think.) Send the whole thing through the printer again (keep the original file and don't change anything!!!) and remove your printed pieces. I used some fabric scraps (donated by Amy D. at our play date in December!), a bird I drew and then printed on fabric ages ago, and a National Geographic photo of a crashed plane on its original paper. Free-motion stitching holds it together. By the way, the text is by Brian Andreas from one of his several books. This book is titled Strange Dreams, and I just love his funky little drawings combined with his poems (?). Each page really is like a strange dream - a little odd, leaving you wondering where it came from but knowing there is some truth from your waking life that you can't quite remember. If you want to see more about Brian's wonderful art and books, this site will be a treat. And be sure to buy something! Brian, if you see this I would be greatly honored to hear from you.

A Lovely Mix

A lovely mix this week of birding, paddling, work, and art-making in the Adirondacks. In spite of the apparent health of the Star Flowers and Canada Mayflowers, it has been very dry (until this weekend). While paddling down the Saranac River with Myra and Tony, we frequently ran aground on the sand bars - usually not even a glimpse of them, especially this early in the season. The water level was at least a foot lower than normal. Lots of birds and other wildlife out there though - A Hooded Merganser mother with 10 scuttling little ones, a Wilson's Snipe at a nest site, several warbler species, a muskrat, huge Snapping Turtle, among others. Wonderful!

In addition to all this outdoor fun, I continued my daily art practice with my fabric embellishment experiments. This piece with the moth was made by printing a digitally-altered moth photo onto an Extravorganza printing sheet, then sewing it onto an altered fern image on rayon, along with other stitches and fabric scraps. The letters were stamped onto twill tape to spell the moth's scientific name - Grammia virgo. 

I learned how to make a fabric window in this little bird piece - the sheer embroidered fabric was sewn into a 4-piece square and faced with turquoise cotton. Inside the window is a bird and piece of a scientific article on a background made with a CitriSolv-altered page from a National Geographic magazine. (Really fun and interesting to make!)



 
The waterlily was my "printing on fabric" lesson. I used some stamps I made awhile ago (to print waterlilies in my bathroom) on batik-printed cotton. I like the way it looks but I really prefer the collage pieces. In any case, I plan to make some kind of wall quilt once my experiments are finished. (Well, they'll probably never really be finished... So much to learn.)  

A Renewed Daily Art Practice, at Last

Hard to believe it has been over two weeks since the Art & Garden Party! The weather was perfect that day, the flowers were gorgeous, and a couple of close friends tried the morning drawing lessons. They both claimed they haven't done any drawing since childhood, but they took to it quickly and made a couple of lovely watercolor sketches each - beautiful! Many thanks to the many friends who came and enjoyed the day together. I am grateful to each of you. Perhaps it will be an annual event.

Now I am in Fernville, our Adirondack property, and enjoying all this place has to offer, even though Spring is late to unfold here, and in mid-May the Beech leaves are still softly opening, downy and rosy. In addition to the things I love so much here - the rivers and lakes, wonderful birds (Mourning Warblers, among others, the other day), a lively arts community, and fascinating people  - I have found a life coach who is helping me enormously by getting me on track with my art making and art business. With her encouragement, I am again making time for a daily art practice. For now I am working with a book about fabric embellishments that I received as a gift several months ago. Below is the piece I made with "Tucks" - inserting various bits and pieces in each tuck. I included fabric scraps, photos cut from old natural history encyclopedias, and embroideries cut from sheer fabric. It makes me think of a beach scene.

The next day, my project was "Deconstructed Quilts." Taking small scraps of fabric, the pieces are assembled on a square of fusible web and then ironed to bond them together. For this one, I used some of the off-white embroidered fabric I used for the beachy piece, as well as an old fabric piece made by printing a photo of one of our cabins onto muslin. It has faded somewhat, and I cut it apart to reassemble the pieces with other fabric scraps. Here you see the piece before I did any of the machine embroidery. Four pieces are in progress now, and I am so glad to be learning some new things! Thank you, Jane!!!