May 08 2012
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Some treasures for the $5 sale

Seed with a caduceus stem, poster paint

There are treasures, like this one from when my young daughter and I would paint.  I had to be fast and I had to be bold.  It’s not gallery art, but it captures the potential.  We painted out on the back porch when the weather was good.  This one was created in the winter on the floor of our sparse living room.

The sea rose, Conte

And then my personal response to the tsunami in 2004.  Very powerful earth energy.  I expected something wild to flow onto the page, not this geometric, rather balanced piece.  I still wonder at the sense of unfolding, of a plan.

Like many, I use the backs of pages to take phone messages, make lists for shopping, whatever.  With lists and messages, comes doodles.  The Sudoku calendar offered a year’s worth of pages and the perfect size to let my inner doodle live.  Don’t you love gel pens?

Noise on the back of a Sudoku page

The mess of logic.

Sunshine morning doodle

May 07 2012
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$5 sale

The studio has been quiet.   It’s still not quite right.

Handmade, half-filled sketch book with drawings and notes.

Now I’m looking at what attachment means.

Recently, someone said that it’s one thing to draw and fill pages in a sketchbook, but it’s another to make a business of selling art.  He’s right.  Although I’ve studied art and practiced techniques all my life, I’ve never seen my art as a business.  It’s come from a purely creative need.

And ultimately, it’s meant for sharing.  I get such a giggle looking back through sketchbooks and in my portfolio.  What was I thinking?  It makes me as happy as when I made it.  Like a drug, I want to do more.   I believe that’s why the arts thrive in economic downturns.  We use creativity energy to heal, to regroup, to celebrate.  It’s a way to share loves and vulnerable wishes and passions.

That’s where the $5 sale comes in.  I’m pulling out all my sketchbooks, the drawings on paper, watercolour paintings and prints I’ve managed to hold onto through the years.  I’m cataloging them all, then I’m letting them go.

For $5, you could make up a little portfolio of work that speaks to you.  You can have a collection of art to kick start your own creativity.  You can have a book to look through, then pick up a pencil or paint brush and start a conversation.  Or you may just want an interesting  piece for the coffee table.  All I’ll ask is that you sign off on reproduction rights and the work is yours to adore and use as you want.

Not the greatest business plan, but what a great way to exchange creative energy.

Love,

Laura

Pencil drawing of the kitchen on Langarth Street.

From the series I drew for Stratford Art in Park. Pencil and reflective Mylar film on paper.

Goofing around with watercolour on paper.

Mar 18 2012
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Push

I am a selfless soul, one among many on the planet.  There must be at least a billion other people like me who quickly get down to brass tacks when it comes to helping someone else out.  On my own, I could die of clutter.

The studio has been a mess all winter and you know about the piles.  I’ve got a corner of the table clear for working on the sweater pattern and I can get to the sewing machine.  Otherwise, the room is occupied.  Files of work-related documents, binders and books cozy up beside the art and textile projects like they are old pals.

So here’s the push.  Last week I bartered expertise with a friend–his in business for mine in watercolour painting.  Only, where will I put him when he comes to the studio?  As you know, there’s fabric piled on the chairs.  At least, I think there are chairs underneath.

For the sake of this person, for this relationship, I’ve literally pushed everything not related to studio practices out.  Just pushed it out the door.  Now I have space–floor, table, shelf and closet space.  Soon, I will have chairs.

Never mind what I’ll do with the boxes in the hallway.   Never mind how great it looks to my friend.  The push from helping someone else has helped me out enormously.  I can work in my studio again.

Love it when I discover what everyone else knows.

 

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Mar 05 2012
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String Theory

I handle the wool for this sweater project like it’s string theory, like somehow it will explain everything.  Like why the trees are bare for months on end and I accept that as normal.  They will leaf out but until they actually come out, it’s all theory and calculations, statistics, science.  It’s a wonder.

The pattern is marked out on graph paper and I have my measurements and stitch gauges.  I watch it from the corner of my eye, as I watch the trees outside my window, buds growing but it’s still months before they will leaf out.  Little seems to be happening, but I’m full of wonder–though of a different kind for the sweater.

I will confess that I lied, and you know I did, on February 22 when I said the fit of this sweater doesn’t matter.  Of course I want it to fit on the first try.  I want homemade to look unique and good. Not unique, nice try.  I want the sweater to be to warm and flattering.  I want to wear it outside the house.

If I’m honest, the project is beyond my experience in knitting.  There’s lots to wonder about.  I just don’t know how it will turn out.  I’ve researched and theorized.  I have fit clothing before.  I can knit.  I can play with string.

There’s nothing left to do but try.  If it works out, I’ll be a step closer to knowing the theory of everything.

 

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Mar 02 2012
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Potentially Stellar

I’m wondering about potential, about energy explosions and implosions, big bangs and black holes.  I’m looking about my studio space and at the number of projects that remain visible, that swirl in space.  There is a sense of organization into two camps — painting and sewing.   The easel and the sewing machine are both accessible.  Horizontal surfaces are covered in piles of stuff.

Shall we start by naming the planets?  I mean, the piles.

There are two stacks on the work table.   Pushed to back are large quilt squares, protected from dust by a square of old flannel.  A block of soapstone sits on top.  This pile is not going anywhere even though it’s planned and the materials are gathered.  The cutting has started.  Why, I ask you, has it sunk into a black hole?

The answer lies under the second pile, a twin-star system.  It is really two piles covered by one piece of linen sheer drapery fabric.  I like the white, semi-transparency of the sheer.  It allows the piles to breathe.  One doesn’t need a telescope to remember the contents. One star is fabric.  More  material for the quilt, two pieces of jersey for dresses, and some lovely green wool that I bought fifteen years ago along with the black wool.  This pile, I believe has the potential for greatness.  It’s waiting for the big bang.  Its twin-star also has potential.  It’s a pile of sketches, files, art-related books, patterns and brown paper pattern blocks.  The raw materials of genesis.

On the seat of a chair that’s pushed under the table is a rogue planet.  More fabric and old clothing (kept, because I like them and wore them to death, for their patterns).  It’s hidden potential.  A possible colony of retro style.

On the floor is a stack of primed canvases that I bought on sale, on speculation.  I like to think, that I’ll get out and paint, that I’ll wander the universe and record the wonders.  They are prepped with fresh gesso and ready to go.  Beneath them is the anti-matter to this painting potential, a box of vintage clothing patterns.

A pile of ephemera lies on the small table beside the easel.  Paints, a box of drawing tools, brushes, envelopes of past monthly financial receipts, lots of rags, researched information, a how-to guide from a portrait painting class, a jar of solvent, some Christmas toys, a pen and ink drawing from 1982.  That’s all I see without moving anything.  A virtual asteroid belt, distracting and unstable.

I’m not a collector, I swear.  I’m an optimist with raw potential piled about the studio. The canvases and fabric, the tools and patterns are ready for the Big Bang.  The question is, which universe?  And how to chose?

 

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Feb 22 2012
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She’s satisfied today

I’m satisfied today.  I spent most of yesterday’s holiday putting together a pattern for a sweater.  In contrast to the black wool fabric, I’ve had this yarn for only two and a half years.  For the last four months, I’ve been knitting swatches to see what combinations of stitches might look good together.

At this point, I’ve probably knit and torn out the equivalent of a sweater and a half.  Knitting from the yarn rather than a pattern is challenging.  This yarn knits up stiffly and has a lot of bas-relief potential.  But I’m quite stubborn in my intent to stick to a certain theme and make a unique sweater.  It’s come at last to a place where I’ll be able to relax and start knitting the real thing.

If it doesn’t fit in the end, I’ll try again.  Isn’t this a waste of time? you may ask.  I’ll have to admit I just don’t care.

For me the process is a valuable meditation.  And grounding, as my hopes and worries become metaphors in tangible form.  Sometimes the project comes together and sometimes life does.   I end up with renewed energy (or patience) for work and relationships.  Problem-solving through the proxy of yarn or fabric, perhaps.

More than anything, the projects are imbued with the memories of a specific time.  Nothing as bad as those of Madam LeFarge’s as she knit her way through the French Revolution.   But certainly markers. The last summer on my parent’s farm, I knit my first and favourite bulky sweater while tanning in a two-piece bathing suit.  The sweater held the ripeness of a garden and welcome shade of huge maples.  As my grandmother died of cancer, I designed and sewed my future sister-in-law’s wedding gown.  The gown came to symbolize a generation passing and another one to come.  My daughter’s graduation dress was a collaborative delight in layers of pink.  She trusted me to make it and I learned the first steps in letting go.  Clear, beautiful images with a tactile quality.  I wouldn’t trade the time I spent.

Yesterday my friend’s second grandchild was born.  This event will be in held in the final graph paper sketches and in the wave pattern cables that will remain part of the finished design.  So many months to get this far.

Quite satisfying.

 

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Feb 20 2012
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Classic Laura

Classic wool fabric

Just want to congratulate me on the black wool skirt.  I remember buying the fabric–a great scoop from the sewing store just down the street from my house.  They had some really good quality stuff that was priced to sell.  Mind you, the wool smelled a bit like smoke.  But the texture, the subtle earthy brown in the weave.  It was destined to be a great skirt.

I’ve washed the fabric a few times over the fifteen years since I bought it.  I  found a pattern about seven years ago and purchased quality black lining fabric.  Maybe it was five years ago when I finally cut the fabric, and then I sewed it up.  It needed a little adjustment, so I pinned it.  Then I put it away.

Last November I fitted the skirt, having realized that I’ve stayed the same weight for at least ten years and cannot realistically, or even magically, believe I will lose those twenty pounds.  I’ve lined it and hemmed it.  The zipper is in.  It’s ready to go.  The best news is that winter, technically, hasn’t ended.  Still, it seems more like a fall or deep winter skirt.

I am sincerely impressed at my persistence, and with the foresight I had in buying this particular black wool.

It’s classic.

 

 

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