Experiments!

I'm at Lillian E. Smith Center for a few days and I'm trying out some things that I don't have time for while at home.  A couple of directions are pulling me while I'm here and I'm trying my best to go in both of those, spending part of the day in one focus and then shifting to another for the later part of the day.

So here's some of what's happening while I'm here.  I'm working with natural materials and how they might be used for my art work.  No, not unique explorations, I know.  But they are a bit new for me.

First, earlier in the day I worked with drawing on paper that I'd dampened, using a stainless stylus.  I then dipped the paper with drawing into black walnut dye that I'd cooked yesterday.  Here's the dipping and the results.

Dipping into the dye...

I'll work on this more later with earth pigment paints.

I worked later in the afternoon with earth pigment paints, using Sandy Webster's book, Earthen Pigments,  as guide.  I also referred to The Organic Artist for info:

Grinding some earth pigment...

I've collected 15 bags of different colors of earth and here are some of them laid out to dry:

... mulling the earth pigment to grind it smooth to use as paint.

So far, here are the colors from the earth pigmets.  Five of the fifteen I've collected.

More experiments soon as I try acorn ink, using the suggestions from The Organic Artist as guide.

This and That

Well, fall is definitely underway here in north Georgia!  Cool mornings and warm afternoons abound.  It's too dry, though.  We're needing rain but none seems to be in the forecast except for maybe a few showers later today.  Fall colors may not hold the usual brilliance because of the dry conditions... a few more weeks will tell the color tale, though.

We picked up my tapestries from the Piedmont College exhibit on Thursday.  Everything is temporarily stored in our dining room.  I'm still trying to find a venue for an exhibit of my work during 2017 or 2018 but so far nothing has come up.  However, I do have tapestries to be included in several shows, either now or coming soon.

Currently a couple of my tapestries are in the Blue Ridge Fiber Show, NC Arboretum, and a collaborative piece I did with Diane Getty is at the Southern Highland Craft Guild members' exhibit at the Folk Art Center--both in Asheville, NC.  I also have a small tapestry being shown at the Australian National University along with the work of artists from Australia,  UK, and USA.  The thirty tapestries in the exhibit, Elements: earth, fire, air, water, will travel to each of the three countries over the next year and a half.

During November and December will be Time Warp--and Weft, an exhibit of woven works by several of us who do time-passage weavings: Jan Austin, Geri Forkner, Janette Meetze, Kathy Spoering, and me.  The exhibit is at NOTO Arts Center, Topeka, KS and is up during the same time that ATB11 is on exhibit at the Mulvane Art Museum, in Topeka. We'll be exhibiting our time works together again in 2017 at Lyndon House Arts Center, Athens, GA.

Getting art work out and into exhibits is a challenge!  Yet, it's something that most of us who make work want to do, whether the works are for sale or not.  Sharing about one's creative process is important to most everyone who makes art, I think.  Having an idea and bringing it into a visual reality through whatever means one uses goes to another level when others see it and engage with it.

Sharing about process is something I want to do, whether it's through exhibiting my work or teaching.  I also occasionally share through writing.  I mentioned a few posts back that I have an article in the Summer issue of Surface Design Journal.  Here are a few photos from the issue:

The article was about the value of artist residency times.  Here's the pdf of the article.

I've written quite a lot in my blog before about how important times away are to my art making process.  Right now, I'm beginning to work on ideas for the next large tapestry and I'll be spending some time at Lillian Smith Center soon to concentrate on that goal.  In the meantime, the October tapestry diary grows daily... here's where it's gotten to today, October 15:

More from Lillian Smith Center later!

A visit to the Smith-Williams Gallery at Piedmont

Yesterday afternoon my husband and I visited my exhibit at the Smith-Williams Art Studios Gallery at Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia.  It was the first time he'd been able to see the show--and wanted to before it ends later this week.

I was able to take a couple photos of the two main walls with the tapestries installed:

 

Here's my 2015 tapestry diary's place in the exhibit:

And last shot of the show, the photo Thomas took as I stood near the oak leaf tapestry that I finished just before this show.  I think it shows the scale of the piece well (I'm about 5'3"):

I'm gearing up for the next tapestry to begin--I have not yet committed to the image from which to work but I may look back at last year's paintings I made while at Lillian Smith Center since there are a couple more of those I'd like use as tapestry images.  I have warp remaining on the big loom but I may warp another loom instead.  I've got to decide and get to it in the next few days.

The black walnut adventures for 2016 are really drawing me to work more with them, though!  Here's the tapestry diary October painting... the weaving for the month is underway and I'm two leaves into it. 

 

 More about this year's tapestry diary in the future... it's hard to believe that only three months remain in the year!

 

Good Grief!

OK, just a minor melt-down here... it's taken me about 30 minutes to be able to get into my blog and to delete a spam comment, then to make a post.  I guess this is all because I've been so slow to add a new post?  Probably.  Add to that the fact that I'm at an artist residency right now where the internet connection is iffy, to say the least... non-existent, most of the time, to say the most.  You get the drift.

So-- here goes with a new blog post, straight from beautiful Hambidge Center--where I'll be leaving tomorrow!  I've had an intense two weeks--John Campbell Folk School last week to teach a group of 11 wonderful people, along with a fabulous assistant who's an art major at the University of North Georgia.  I went home for two days and left again, heading here to Hambidge for a week.

Rock House, Hambidge Center

I've had lots of loose ends and obligations to fulfill while at this residence at Hambidge (an article for American Tapestry Alliance newsletter, Tapestry Topics in collaboration with Erin M. Riley, as well as a couple of trips to Piedmont College to speak -- first day to students about my show, then the next day as part of a panel for the Lillian Smith Day events). 

John Templeton, Nancy Smith Fichter, Nanette Curran answer Craig Amason's questions about their memories of Lillian Smith during the Lillian Smith Day event at Piedmont College

Today I've spent in my studio, doing nothing other than my own work... and, now--listening to the birds in the chimney!  Right now, they're moving in for the night. During the day, I guess, they are out somewhere (probably sleeping) until it begins to get dark and then they return to the chimney to chatter ALL night long.  Should I say it remindes me of Paul Klee's Twittering Machine?  Or maybe Hickcocks's The Birds? Though, without having my eyes plucked out and after five days of the chatter, I've almost gotten used to it.

Today, I've worked on designing the image to use for the month of October in my year-long tapestry diary.  Here's where I've gotten to now... more work on the painting tomorrow before I leave:

Here's a quick overview of the Piedmont show of my tapestries: