Joyce Makes Art

A Random Day

In an effort to live up to the ultimate criticism my 16 year old likes to level against me, "oh Mom, you are SO random," I'm going to offer up some moments from my day.

We've had a bit of rain in the past few weeks and it is amazing how it has perked up my late summer garden.  The Zinnias are extravagant and are blooming all over.

The cherry tomato plant Ellie's Godmother gave her is covered in little tomatoes (having been carefully watered by Mom every day, all summer long) and I'm crossing my fingers they will turn red before the cold hits.  I'm not your basic fried green tomatoes kind of southern girl, but I do have my eye on a recipe involving fresh Mozzarella Cheese and little tomatoes.

And look at this!  My Gardenia bush is blooming!  I love Gardenias.  Their sweet fragrance reminds me of my Grandmother and I love bringing them inside to grace the dining room table.  No clue why they're blooming in September, though.

Here is one of the many reasons I grow lots of parsley -- it insures plenty of Swallowtail Butterflies in my garden.

Since evil husband was off watching football this afternoon, I let Ellie pick whatever she wanted for dinner, and she chose applesauce from one of our favorite cookbooks, Fanny At Chez Panisse.  She and Ollie and I peeled the apples, and then gave them a liberal sprinkle of Cinammon before cooking them.  The result was an extravagantly delicious if unusual dinner.  We rounded it out with a Tisane of Lemon Verbena, Pineapple Sage, Peach Tree leaves, and Lavender.  It was yummy.  I'm still sipping it as I type.

Finally, a kitty picture.  This is Hermione, who although she seemed to be the shyer of the two kittens on arrival is absolutely intrepid.  We've made toys from some tree branches and yarn and the kittens have been having a wonderful time.

It's back to the studio for me.  I have two dresses I'm in the middle of painting, a journal in progress, a sort of funky collage with thick gessoed edges, and a little fabric page.  I remind myself of the 16 year old's favorite joke -- Q. how many kids with ADHD does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. Let's go ride bikes.  Honestly, that is me in the studio.  Actually, that's me in every day life.  I'm off.

A Few Quick Things

For those of you who saw a strange post full of random letters a bit earlier, that post was written compliments of Miss Hermione, but has now been deleted in favor of this one, which I was distracted from writing by the awakening wee boy.

First off, I am so happy that I am finally back to working on Ellie's Oh Jan dress that I have to show you my progress!  I'm onto the second color and trying to take the eyelet panels on faith as they sort of look like well, um, holes right now.

I've also been dyeing yarn (yes, I know this comes as a surprise).  This is my most recent silk yarn -- it is as nice and soft as the Alchemy Silk Yarn my Mom got me for my birthday, but now, I can dye it in any color I want!  I think this yarn has fabulous potential double stranded with alpaca for scarves, but my real plan is to use it for the Oh Jan dress for my adorable three month old niece (before she gets much bigger.)

And finally, a tiny bit of art.  I've been working on some odds and ends in my studio, and also finishing up my pieces for my partners in the Art Partners swap, Joanne and Angie (which I don't want to post as they are still in the mail and I hate to ruin surprises).  One of the things I've been attracted to are little boxes.  This one uses the same angel image that I used on my fabric book pieces.  I'm thinking about making some of these sweet little boxes as holiday presents for my family (I hope none of them are reading this!)

Gessoed Fingers

Have you ever tried typing with gesso on your fingers?  I have a sort of gesso obsession.  I paint with it, I scribble in it, I cover stuff with it.  A comfort in times of artistic block.  A multi-purpose cure to many evils.  I think I look at it the way my husband, a good southern boy, looks at duct-tape.  In any event, it's all over my fingers right now and it's an unpleasant typing sensation.

I'm using the gesso in my work in Beth Bricker's fabric book.  I've been diligently working on my pages for over a month and am down to some final details and the final sewing, but my studio is in such a hash that I couldn't find enough space to lay the pages out, so i'm working on my (oil cloth covered) dining room table.

I really don't sew anymore -- my machine gets more use on paper or canvas than on fabric these days, but these pages are lots of fun and Beth is a gem for having this idea!  For the fronts of my pages, I used a transparency image sewn over a painted block of (what else?) gesso that I've stamped over.

And, I've had some help from an unusual source.  We now have collage cats, real collage cats, living in our house.  We had an utterly devastating experience, that I still don't really want to talk about, involving Ellie's darling birthday kitten and a congenital defect that we weren't told about when we purchased her.  Long story short, earlier this week my wonderful husband, a man who has never seen a puppy or kitten he didn't like, refused to choose between kittens as a "replacement" (I was still to devastated to do much more than go look and acknowledge that they were really cute) and decided we would get the little girl for ellie and the little boy would be our anniversary present to each other.  So we are now the proud parents of two adorable, enchanting Maine Coon Cats, Harry & Hermione, who are winning our hearts and helping to ease the pain of losing our wonderful kitten Amy.  Harry & Hermione are fascinated by art and have been only too happy to help out with a random cat paw print here and there.

Unintended Consequences

It has been one of those beautiful weekends here -- early fall in Alabama is a time of perfect weather and lush foliage that returns from the death knell of summer drought for one last burst of roses, flowers, and blooming herbs before the season comes to an end.  Miss Ellie and I spent Saturday afternoon making Strawberry jam with a friend from work.  It was blissful.  Ellie was almost as taken with the jam as she was with the two big, friendly German Shepards, Elvis and Jenny.  And this morning, husband and I took the littles to the zoo and saw such oddities as the Victoria Crowned Pigeon.

We came home and I painted some roving, Blue Face Leicester, for a bag I want to felt later this week (this is about three ounces extra of this, and I'm going to offer it for sale at www.middayfaire.com this Tuesday, at noon, if anyone is interested) and worked on some different silk waste products that I want to experiment with incorporating into felting -- some throwster's waste and cocoon strippings. 

While that all was batching, I decided to start in on the short ribs from the Barefoot Contessa Family Cookbook, so that Monday night dinner would just be a warm up kind of thing.  I should have noticed the surreal quiet that rarely descends on my household, but I didn't.  I was in the groove -- mincing fennel and making small herb swatches using chives instead of string to tie up the packets of rosemary and oregano.  Suddenly I heard the husband -- "Ollie, what are you doing?"  I could tell he was torn between laughter and horror.  This is what Ollie was doing.

It's Nars Tobago lipstick.  Looks nice on him, doesn't it?

A little art....

Just a quick late night picture...

This is my work in DJ Pettit's uber cool vinyl book.

Knitting & Felting

I have a couple of things to share.

First off, I have been so happy with the short sweater that I knit for myself, based on Peony's Anthropologie inspired capelet, that I decided to do one for my sister in law, again out of Noro yarn.  I hope she will like it -- I thought it would be handy for keeping warm and snuggly while open enough to nurse a wee baby.

   

Then there is felting.  I am still feeling so inspired by the chance I had last weekend to work with Julie Williams.  Here is a much better picture of the scarf I did with her this weekend.

And here is a mohair-embellished piece I worked on the last few nights.

Artwalk

Artwalk was a lot of fun.  More than I could have ever anticipated.  It was really great to put all of my art on the beautiful copper stands my friend Joyce Darby built, and stand back and enjoy the effect.  The pictures really don't do the stands justice.

The whole set up was special because the law firm that hosted me and two other artists was a really incredible renovation of an old, downtown, hardware store, and it was beautiful.  I had a small set up and was able to move around and talk to people about my art and just generally have a lovely time.

Overall it was a great experience and although I don't think I'm going to quit my day job just yet, I'm certainly having delusions of doing this again in the future.

The Sunday after Artwalk was over, I headed over to Atlanta to meet my friend Karen O for a day of felting with Julie Williams, who was visiting from Australia.  Julie's method of laminate felting was completely different from mine and I learned a lot from her.  The scarf I made, of 18.5 micron Australian Merino wool is soft and beautiful.  For now, a bad picture will have to suffice.  (Karen and I are both far prettier than this, but we had been felting since 9:00 and this picture was taken around 6:00 pm -- plus, something about getting up to leave for Atlanta at 3:45 am seemed to have wiped me out).  Karen's scarf was my favorite one from the entire class.

On a serious note, I want to share a link to a 9/11 site, that I used to watch with my daughter on my lap, later that fall.  It always touched me in a very unique way and I thought it would be nice, in a very somber sort of way, to share it with y'all, here is the link: http://www.cantcryhardenough.com.

One Last Piece of Art

I wanted to share one last piece of art before I pack up and take everything off to exhibit at Artwalk, which starts this afternoon.  Thanks to all of your kind comments and emails, I'm passed the jittery stage and onto the excited and ready for fun stage.  I'm off to set everything up and then pick up a case of wine -- that way, people will either like my art or they will be having so much fun that they will think they like it.

                        Her Memories From Before

                                       The War

Yarn!

I've got two 3.5 oz. skeins left of this handpainted organic suffok wool.  They are on sale at www.middayfaire.com.  This is a great wool for diaper covers, but with the color movement on this yarn, it would be irresistable for mittens and a hat or for a scarf.  Please, someone come and buy it before I start one more project.  That would be bad, because I picked up some Rowan Big Wool for a scarf and then had to dive into a sock earlier this week.  I think I knit like some people drink.

Birmingham Artwalk

I've spent the whole week sort of torn between utter panic and a concern that i may have lost my sanity somewhere along the way.  Really.  What was I thinking when I decided it was a good idea to enter an artshow?  It seemed pretty easy.  Fill out an application.  Write a check.  Figure you won't get in.

It starts tomorrow.  It is www.birminghamartwalk.com and it's an almost queasy feeling knowing that the I'm going to display art in the community where up until now I've just been a wife, a mom, a professional.  Not to make too much out of it, but I have this sort of "when worlds collide feeling."

Here are a few of the small collage pieces I'm going to display.