Adding the Details to A Deeper Sense

By now (in mid-January), the Deeper Sense art exhibit at the Paul Smith's College VIC has been open for more than a month. Its accompanying research presentations are completed and many of the Paul Smith's College student researchers have graduated and launched into the larger world. 

My own art for this show, Standing in the Stream, will be submitted soon for a juried exhibit. For that reason, I won't show the finished work here yet, but I will finish its story.

Above are some of the photos I took at the Smitty Creek watershed as well as a map scan, transformed into sepia images and printed over the textured stabilizer that was painted with acrylic washes.

The strips of text above were printed on sheer silk organza, lines by Robin Wall Kimmerer from her essay "Interview with a Watershed," published on  the website Ecological Reflections:An Archive of Art and Science Collaborative Efforts. Her writing expresses much of what I had to say about the relationship in this project between the science and the art, and Robin allowed me to use some of her poetic words in this piece. I'm very grateful to her.

 Here is some data from the project and an antique map of the study site, all also printed on silk organza. My friend David Casey adjusted the graph into a more useful form for me. Thanks to him as well.

In the photo above, I have started applying the printed maps and data to the eco printed silk panels, along with strips of hand-dyed silk in shades of blue that represent the importance of water as the basis of the ecosystem studied in this research project.

The images printed on the textured stabilizer were stitched to a central narrow panel of cotton. All three sections of the piece were hung from one curved stick that had been peeled by beavers, an animal that dramatically alters this landscape over long periods of time.

My next post will take you to the opening!

Showing Off

Showing Off

That's the name I chose for this new piece - "Showing Off." I realize now that maybe you think I'M showing off! Not really. It's this male Red-winged Blackbird who is showing off his red wing patches on his territory. In fact, using a new technique is often a lot of pleasure and a little fear, especially when it gets hung on a public wall immediately. It's headed to the Birds of a Feather Exhibit at the the Paul Smith's College VIC today.

Detail Showing Off

Detail : Showing Off

Since attending my first meeting of Studio Art Quilt Associates in early May, I am more resolved than ever to work hard at this relatively new art career of mine. My choice to work with fabric and images puts me into a category that is not exactly on everyone's radar. I (and my SAQA colleagues) see it as making fine art with a wonderfully rich and flexible medium. Others may view it as just messing around with quilts that didn't quite work out. Some of local exhibitions I have entered have prize categories that consist of Painting, Sculpture, and Photography. Not even a Mixed Media category. I am entirely left out of consideration.

Still, I have received recognition, including a recent Honorable Mention in one of the more prestigious juried art shows in our region for a fiber collage piece. And that has happened before. But I think it's time to expand the geographic area where I show my work. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to do that these days. And there are many generous artists who are willing to help.

A Bird, A Book, A Show

 I'm thinking about birds a lot. It's the season for that. On our recent trip, my husband took some bird photos that I love. This one - a Red-winged Blackbird - really grabbed me.

Then there's the annual Bird Art exhibit that is part of the Great Adirondack Birding Festival at the Paul Smith's College VIC the first weekend in June.

Mix those things up with Jean Wells' book - Journey to Inspired Art Quilting - that I have been exploring, and I have something to push me along with a new piece.

Stay tuned for how the bird fits in.









I also have to tell all my Adirondack buddies that we now have a greatly expanded selection of beautiful fabrics right here in Saranac Lake, at Beth Gallagher's Piece by Piece Studio. Go see for yourself!

The Best Kind of Limitation

Often I talk with my students about how limitations and constraints can be good for an artist. They can increase creativity by reducing the sometimes mind-numbing thousands of directions and options. At least, that's what they often do for me.

This science-and-art project that focuses on the processes of management, regrowth, and ecology in the Long Term Ecology Research sites at the Paul Smith's College VIC is a challenge. There are so many organisms, microhabitats, seasonal changes, and management types that making art to interpret any of this can feel too big and too complex.

I worked through various styles and formats for making artwork of my own for our exhibition, and I could not settle on what I wanted until a perfect collaboration occurred to me. The professor teaching the class that is organizing this project is also a poet - my friend Craig Milewski. When I realized I wanted words to combine with my images, the poem Craig is writing about this place and its ecological processes seemed like the right fit. And Craig agreed.

What you see above is a try-out of several pieces that will be layered to make one of five for the show opening on April 24th at the VIC, one for each of the parts of Craig's poem. The perfect and best kind of limitation - and collaboration.