SYNERGY: An Artistic Process

Oaxacan Doorway - small try-out

 LOTS of art work was made in my little cabin studio this summer! Many fabric collage pieces for the gallery, a large piece for submission to a juried quilt show, and many small pieces (4" by 4") like the one above as my friend Catharine and I worked on our own interpretations of our photos that we shared for several months. Catharine worked in watercolor; I made little fabric collages.

We finally choose four of the photographs and the resulting small experiments and larger (11" by 14") finished pieces for our exhibit as the September featured artists at our NorthWind Fine Arts Gallery. We decided at the very beginning of our work together that it would be a synergistic process and it truly was that. Now it is time to get everything on the wall for our opening on Friday, September 5th. We will include some of our sketchbook pages and other planning work as we made our decisions. The exhibit is called "Synergy: An Artistic Process." Below is a page from my book with the beginning of the little collage shown above, the original photo, and a sketch.

Interpreting a Photo in Fabric & Threads

Between a wonderful trip to Oaxaca, Mexico and the more mundane stuff of life, I have a head full of ideas and images and a calendar too full of To Dos.

But a friend and I started a weekly project together, as we try to generate ideas for our joint exhibit coming up at our gallery, NorthWind Fine Arts, in September. The idea is that each week one of us chooses a photo we have taken that we really love and share it on Wednesdays. Then she interprets the photo in watercolor and I do it in fabrics and fibers.

The photo here is one I took of the ARIPO gallery doorway in Oaxaca. The sight of that blooming jacaranda tree at the back of the gallery's courtyard  against that blue sky woke me right up one morning as I walked to my breakfast cafe.

I loosely interpreted the image with several fabrics and some hand embroidery, which I have been itching to do recently, incited by the fabulous blog "And Then We Set It in Fire..." The lavender jacaranda flowers are done in French knots - a favorite stitch.

Daily Practice Redux

I'm back to a Daily Practice (How do I let that slide? So important!!), using the exercises and gorgeous images from Jean Wells' book Journey to Inspired Art Quilting as my initial guide. The photo above of the orange peppers and knife with a Japanese dish was already in my journal. I drew some of my ideas on how I would turn the photo into a fiber piece, using Jean's exercise on Journaling to get me started.

Lots of other projects happening now as well, which I will include here in bits and pieces. Below is a fabric and digital photo collage I completed last week, now framed under glass and hanging in our gallery, NorthWind Fine Arts. The beginning of this piece - the torn-and-sewn pond lily photos on fabric - began as one of my Daily Practice experiments last March.

Heart Art

Our co-op gallery, NorthWind Fine Arts, opened our Valentine show last night. Three other galleries in Saranac Lake had openings as well, and I got to each one. Some pretty fine work all around. 

Ginger Leaf Love

Morning Glory Love

My contribution to our group show included these two mixed media collages. I used photographs of my once-was garden, fixed them up a bit with Paint.net (very cool editing program), and printed them on sumi paper. The sumi paper is great for collage. It runs through my printer beautifully with no carrier sheet and adheres perfectly to the acrylic-painted canvas with acrylic matte medium.

And Valentine cards! Who doesn't need Valentine cards?! In addition to selling my cards at the gallery, I have printed several designs from my original watercolor cards to sell at Saranac Lake's Community Store. Some samples:

The Holiday Flurry

Here it is December already! There is a dusting of snow this morning, with more on the way tomorrow. I love the earliest of the snow falls, transforming the landscape.

The Big Holiday Celebration is beginning here in Saranac Lake - art openings, The Nutcracker, school chorus performances, craft fairs, little and big parties. I am involved in three of them this weekend - an opening at NorthWind Fine Arts on Friday evening (from 5 - 7 PM: a collaboration with The Left Bank Cafe, right next door), the opening of the Big Little Show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts on Saturday afternoon (1 - 3 PM), and the first Saturday (of two) of the Enchanted Christmas on Helen Hill. 

This morning, I was delighted to see that one of my "mountain collages" entered in the LPCA show was featured as the Artwork of the Day on North Country Public Radio's website. Here it is - a study in complementary colors, based on a view near the ADK Loj road outside of Lake Placid.

In the Mountaine - mixed media collage