Dancing Crow

material girl?

I have a lot of thread. I have a lot of different threads. They inhabit two large boxes, roughly sorted by color. The greens are tricky because some are with the yellows and some are with the blues. The purples are all together, the reds and pinks are all together - the sorting is courtesy of Alice and Red Kate who brought order to the jumbled box and put like with like.

In a long conversation with Jane (Hi Jane!!) on the ferry home from Long Island we talked about fabric and then I started waxing rhapsodic about threads. The above shows a tiny bit about why.

Variegated cotton threads from Valdani, Sulky and King Tut are relatively easy to find. Handdyed threads from Oliver Twists are gorgeous, and luxurious, but expensive. Rayons are shiny and pop, but cotton sinks into the surface, and gives a more cohesive look to the finished piece.

 

barn and forsythia

Timna correctly pointed out that this barn is more integrated into the work than the previous barn. I am very pleased with this one! I'm looking forward to Lesley's reaction when I bring it to the gallery on Wednesday.

the river, looking west

"Stand in the place where you live
now look north
think about directions
wonder why
you haven't before."

An REM song called Stand, one of my favorites. So I stood today and looked west, and north, and up at willows and over at a wonderfully gnarled copper beech tree on Hadley Common.

These will be some of the next works. I heard from the gallery that the big Mt Toby piece sold, which is great news!

fiddly heads

Even if I'm not making much, or talking about it, I can still show you what I've seen lately.

cardboard horse for the white knight

still busy!

ANNIE is over and done, and the current show is ALICE IN WONDERLAND, directed by a student. I've been making rosebushes, cardboard pots and pans (so they can be flung at Alice's head in the show [not my Alice - the show's Alice]), cardboard keys, and dozens of other amusing things.

the best going to school conversation in a while

*passing the local tv station truck with its extendable dish raised high, and a wire wrapping around it, making it look... sproingy*

Lee: put a hamster up there and pull back, you could launch it into low earth orbit
Alice: but, you like hamsters. You want to get rid of raccoons
L: true. But raccoons are larger and heavier - they wouldn't get into orbit, they'd be sub-orbital
A: and land, lightly scorched, in...?
L: Russia, depending on where we aim
A: so Russia is over-run with smoking raccoons? cool
L: Maybe, if we dipped them in barbeque sauce, the sauce would caramelize as they sizzled through the atmosphere, making a crunchy protective shell?
A: it would crack on impact though
L: releasing the overheated but now protected raccoons into Russia

*a moment of reverent silence*
*Lee, unable to keep from voicing her grudge*

L: with the credit cards they stole from my wallet, they could continue to order solid but cheap tools that are made in Korea but sold through Home Depot, and create a new kind of DIY havoc on the Russian populace. Think of the garbage bin openers, the barbecue grill food extractors, the other random things they could make!
A: *reminiscing snerk* sub-orbital raccoons!

dusty in here

I'm still neck deep in the high school musical, but today I do not have to be at school until noon, so I marched into my studio and started something. Before I could start anything I had to sweep a good deal of dust and crud off various surfaces - I hadn't realized it had been so long since I sewed something that wasn't a dinosaur. 

The weather is definitely transitioning to spring. Days are warm if they are sunny, but kind of grim if the sun isn't out. the snow is melting and grubby, the ground underneath the snow is also melting and muddy, and the horses are shedding in giant handfuls of loose hair. I am alternately coated with white hairs from Nuada and red and orange ones from Kaboose. It is a different kind of look, especially when combined with the layers of paint from the set; white primer, and gray, pink and brown.

 

bison in hadley

via www.flickr.com

The ground is frozen so hard there is no riding at the moment, not unless I shoe the red mare. Instead we've been playing games with following, circling, and changing directions with me on the ground. She thinks this odd, but it wins her treats which makes her interested.

On the way home I stopped to admire the bison at the bison farm. There are youngish ones, that stagger and bounce, and very large ones.

tobacco barn, snow

via www.flickr.com

The first finished piece of the year. I was driving around when the weather was soooo cold, because i could turn up the heat in the car and I'd been riding, and I wanted to take pictures of tobacco barns. Sadly, on review, all those barns i thought were so distinctive, aren't. One looks much like another. So my grand plans for barn portraits may have to be modified.

I think part of what pleases me about these barns is the rhythm of the hinged boards on the sides. I'd like to take some pictures from the inside too, looking out through the slats at the changing seasons.

reviewing 2012

Goodness! Generally I have reviewed last years work and made plans for the coming year by this time in January. I can only offer in my defense that I was busy coughing. Since I can now type without stopping to cope with excess phlegm, I can write again.

In retrospect 2012 had some major high points.A year of circles, a new relationship with a gallery, summer camp (or art boot camp, depending on how I think of it), and a series of craft fairs meant I learned some new and crucial skills.

You've seen the daily circles here, and on flickr. I am proud of working steadily, and keeping myself entertained. I did complete 340 circles, I think, with random days missing due to illness or back issues, or vacations or traveling. One of the best things I did was give them away - it became a challenge on several fronts, to be able to walk around with a box of mysterious, small stitched artworks and ask complete strangers if they would like one. I got better at talking to people about my work. I have more faith in the quality of my work. I practiced every day, so I know I improved a handful of skills that are important to my process. And I made friends. It was all good.

I connected with a gallery in Shelburne Falls, Grow Gallery, and the cheerful and talented owner and chief Lesley Grow. I couldn't ask for a more enthusiastic person representing me! Several small works have sold, and four larger pieces showing four seasons on the pond I love. Some newer pieces are hanging now, and I am working steadily on a series of tobacco barns that will be going there soon.

I spent two weeks on the coast of Maine at Haystack Mountain Craft School. I loved the place and the people, and the food, and the views. I loved my teacher, Marian Bijlenga. I feel like I am still processing things I saw and did there. Apparently I am very slow at processing things!

At the end of the year I had participated in several different craft fairs. I am not sure yet how I feel about the craft fair part of selling my work. It is a very different set of skills than making the work, and requires that I be gregarious, relentlessly cheerful, have legs of steel and feet with no nerve endings what-so-ever, and develop social skills in reading people that I have not much needed before. All of these are useful and necessary skills, mind, and I admire people that have them. Developing them in me is hard.

Lastly, the blog turned 6 years old on January 2. I have written 1220 posts, and you have written back over a thousand comments, questions and compliments. Thank you for participating!

So, over all - a fine year, thank you. I hope yours were all as fine in retrospect, and here's looking forward to 2013.