In my spare time
On Monday, I was trying to explain to Stephanie and Elise that Lucy, in theory, should eat, play and sleep in a three hour cycle. That is optimistic. A lot of times it is actually a 2.5 hour cycle. And other times it extends to about 3.5 or 4, but rarely. So that means I have a very few minutes in each cycle to take care of myself, clean up, run errands and try to resume my artistic activities. Typically that is the order of priority.
It seems that I go in waves of what I am working on. Last week (or maybe it was the week before), I stayed up super late to update the slide show on the front of my web site. I began with over eighty pictures and whittled it down to about fifteen. I even added information to the captions with links to additional info about the pieces. I also edited my bio. But I was unable to finish updating the workshops and projects pages. Maybe I will get back to that after our trip. Slowly but surely…
My goal is to be ready for Arts on Foot, which is a big street festival outside of the National Portrait Gallery. It is being held the weekend of September 12th this year. Some people in my studio are well connected with the Arts on Foot and help draw a lot of foot traffic. So my goal is to have at least a dozen pieces for sale. These same items will be available on my Etsy store, which I still need to set up.
So far, I have created two of the pieces, which are part of a new paper weaving series. These are based on the tobacco rug piece, but do not involve any tobacco. (I really have no desire to work with tobacco again.) Last week, I was in the studio and working on a very tedious project I thought of a couple of months ago. I stopped myself, realizing that this is not the most productive use of my time. One thing a baby has helped me to do is really focus. Maybe I should have had a baby years ago. Instead I picked up a small piece of the hardware cloth I had used for my tobacco rug sample and cut some strips as Lucy began to cry. I was working as fast as I could. I think that is the key to accomplishing anything. I went home and started channeling Josef Albers from my class with Ati Gropus. Granted, I don’t think that my piece is minimal enough for Mr. Albers, but I was listening to what each strip had to say.
This first piece is made out of some old sheet music that Cheryl was tossing out of the church. Plus I included some other random papers I found in my quick scurry. It is based on a Psalm, but I was in too much of a hurry to figure out the roman numerals.
The second piece is made out of Chinese joss paper, which translates into “gold paper” or “ghost money.” I love the orange and gold. Although something about it is very Seventies/early Eighties to me.
I have discovered that your source materials need to be double sided or at least on colored paper. Otherwise it can get pretty boring. I tried to make one using color copies of my childhood paper dolls, The Ginghams and then again using a 60s Simplicity pattern. So this weekend I will be searching for old ephemera that can easily be shredded, meaning I won’t hesitate to cut it. Because I have that hoarding problem! I hope to make a few more next week once I return from our vacation.
