Day 2 of 100 Painted Faces in 100 days

So here I am on day two, I figure if i keep this up I will just increase my skill for faces. This one seems a bit flat but it's not about perfection for me .. it's an experiment and I think it's going to be a good challenge for me to stay motivated. For sale also .. $2. just message me if your interested.

It's all good. I'm excited just to do it.

Thanks for looking.

100 Faces in 100 days

Ok .. i have been having some rough patches this year and my motivation has been sorely lacking. I have so many varied interests in types of artistic media. I love fabric, I love dying fabric or manipulating it to create weirdness .. i love weirdness. I love the texture of fabric, I love to draw and I love to paint. I love to break the rules.(one's i somewhere learned along the way). I never know for sure where to start where to put all my energy. I love to sew my own clothes. So .. I'm going to try an experiment. I watched a video about an awesome artist that lives in Oregon .. Jolie Guillebeau. on Cory Huff's website Creative Insurgents.  I loved what she had to say about painting after she finished school and wanted to call herself an artist. She decided to paint 100 paintings a day. So that is what i have decided to do also. I posted them first on FB and decided I would go ahead and make myself accountable to everyone here and maybe just maybe i'll be able to get here every day and do the same .. posting every day. To start the challenge off I sat down to paint my one painting and did three.. I will sell each one of these for one dollar for the first day and so on. I am going to go ahead and offer all three at one dollar each. I plan only to do one a day from here on out. I have said I was going to do something or get back to posting more .. for toooooo long and not doing it so .. here goes!!!

Girl 1.

 I intend to be as fair as possible and sell them to whomever contacts me first. I'll try to update in the comments if there is anything available or sold ..

If you would be so kind as to share my posting with your friends if anyone wants to follow along on my experiment. Ask them to follow me here. I would be so grateful or follow my facebook page.

I love faces and so this will be fun. These are painted on rusted fabric and are about 9 inches x 9 inches. Drawn with paint markers and acrylic paint. They can be stitched onto something or just left the way they are .. your choice. They make me happy!!!

Thanks for stopping by and do leave a comment to encourage me to keep going. I need the momentum right now .. thank you so much. I am trying to make myself accountable to do what i love. To live the dream that I want to live. Making art every day and making a living at it. Goodness and love to everyone that passes this way ..

Boy 3.

Girl 2.

Loss and life at the beach

Some days I feel like I'm on a long never ending vacation. Some days I am homesick for old spaces. I find myself processing loss while I process box after box of fabrics that were held for some day projects. My mother loved her fabric, most of which I'd never laid eyes on until now after she is gone. Somehow that fact really has me battling waves of questions .. how come? Some  days I find it almost too much to realize that we never got to share the joys of what we both clearly loved. I find it nearly uncanny to see that she has collected a fair amount of linens and crocheted edge pillow cases and intricately stitched embroidery on delicate hankies and tea towels. And then i wonder how is it that I love those same things when I was miles and miles apart from her. Grief comes as persistent as the tide. I'm grateful that the ocean brings a steady stream of cleansing and many trinkets to make the solemn days a bit joyful. I know my mom loved the ocean and that is one thing we did share. And I still love to collect the bounty of the sea. The last visit had me in awe of the treasures i found. 

 I was amazed really to find this snail alive in this beautiful shell. I had it on my hand for a while before I put him back in the water. It was not more then the width of a quarter.

 I always find that the sea or any nature really inspires me. I thought the rock with all those lovely holes would make a great piece to add stones too for a necklace. I'll post it when i do that.

 In all my days of living or walking on the beach in Florida I have never found a fully intact sea urchin on the beach. We  found them often in another literal sea but never here in Florida. I kept this specimen and beautiful shell it left me.

Below is a beautiful piece of ocean life that also washed ashore. With those beautiful purple protrusions and the circles dotting the surface I found this a most wonderful experience. The design of it has me contemplating a new painting or something .. aren't they just fabulous to look at?

 This is a shovel head shark that was just caught as I was walking nearby. I waited to see him get reeled in. It was whipping it's tail so fiercely that the fisherman had a hard time cutting him loose from his hook. But finally he wiggled off and had to be helped back into the surf .. so tired from fighting for it's life. I was glad to see it swim away.

 The metallic of my car paint is kind of distracting the lovely white polished degraded shell with holes. I really loves these holey formations. They intrigue me. And below a spiral even though it is an incomplete shell it is still wearing it's spiral and this .. is a pattern i find repeats itself in my stitching and my painting.

I hope to increase my words here .. as my productivity increases. I am working on an outdoor space that is my own .. a sanctuary for work and meditation. I hope to share it with you also ..

Thanks for stopping over.

Still going...

I am still adjusting to some big changes. Grateful for some things and missing others.  I am very happy though that stitching remains in my life. I started this while I was still in my old house and now I am in a new space ...i just picked this up again. It is about 13 x 13 .. my lucky number. I am going to just keep going and maybe make it the center of something. 

I still seem to want to have a clear picture of my journey but I'm not sure you can ever fully see the path in front of you. Some sameness is reassuring and I am grateful that I can find the beauty in nature no matter where I am. I am painting and gathering photos of the land around me. One thing this humid climate has are lots of always growing leaves. I have taken a keen interest in Sea Grape leaves. They are almost round but not exactly. Nonetheless they are big and bold and I love them. They will show up in my work .. and my work will show up in them or on them. What iffing .. like others i know and follow. I am enjoying the sunshine not always the heat. I want to keep up with this .. i miss the exchange I once had however small it seemed. I am lonely some days but I also enjoy the quiet.

I am also painting in blue.......of things that move me.. happy colors,

joy colors, colors of hope and possibilities.

Changes of life and beyond...and new creatures to photograph

 So many things have happened since my last post. If you follow my blog I did mention my mother I think ... if not she was struggling with illness for the last several years and last year it wore her down. She thankfully did not live long years with Alzheimer's. Her diagnosis may have come late but the progression was so rapid it was mind boggling. Truly, a most malicious and devastating way to leave the world. She died last October. It seems so recent and also so long ago. Sometimes I can't believe it. She loved the ocean, she loved the beach. I am now near the beach, gone from my mountains and walnuts which I sorely miss. The ocean does have a way of lulling my sadness and I am excited to start something new. The photos here were taken two days ago on a foggy morning walk on the beach. It was a magical morning. I love the softened sunrise. Peaceful. A cloak of privacy where you could see only so far and yet so close.

And there were feathers. Many many feathers. And many many birds. When I lived in the mountains I would see meetings of Turkeys. Below are Royal Terns. Their head feathers look tufted from the wind. I like to think they are having a meeting about the weather and the water and what's for breakfast. Then the meeting grew before they all flew away. I found a new past time, watching the birds at the beach. And .. a wonderful place for treasure hunting.

 The feet move swiftly to catch a sand crab or little fish. And somewhere in that sand below is a sand crab that I spied. He was watching me carefully and I was watching him. Where .. are you??? Aha .. gotcha .. just in my view. And then another blessing .. I am getting to spend time with my sister and her husband .. at the beach on a beautiful foggy morning.

Hopefully, you will see more of me and what I am creating in this new space. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Interview with Sophia

I had the pleasure of attending the wonderful weekend contra dance at Table Rock State Park earlier this month. It was a great weekend for reconnecting with old friends and making new friends. I met Sophia who was attending the weekend with her mother and sister. Sophia is 11 years old and I learned about her from her mom during another weekend dance. She has just recently started her own blog called Cat Eyes and Kitten Heels. She is very articulate and very focused. We enjoyed the exchange because we are both into making our own clothes. I have to say I don't know as much as Sophia about different fashion designers although I do often look at fashion magazines for inspiration I don't always remember their names. Either way we both had a love for sewing and designing. I found myself revisiting my childhood and remembering the enthusiasm and excitement that I embraced art with during that time. It was really really wonderful to get in touch with that energy by spending time with Sophia and her sister Esther. It's amazing to me to imagine being so young with such lofty goals at 11 and considering my age and where I am. If anything I hope to encourage Sophia and any young person to follow their hearts into whatever will give them happiness and joy. I'm grateful I found my way no matter what my age.

Here is the interview:
How long have you been into fashion?

I have been into fashion since I was 2. When I look back at photos of me in childhood I was always stylishly dressed and wearing accessories and carrying a purse. I have always been attracted to pretty jewelry and was careful to look closer at someone's earrings.

What is your favorite quote?

I don't do fashion, I am fashion -Coco Chanel

Why is this your favorite quote?

Because it's true about me. I was born to be fashion and it's not just something I saw in a window and decided to get into it. It just kind of happened.

What do you do in fashion?

I design stuff at my house, I sew to dress myself. I like making clothes, and I care about my appearance.

Do you use patterns?

I make my own patterns. Using a pattern that someone else made is kind of like a cheat. So I want all of it to be handmade.

Have you learned how to make patterns?

Yeah, my mom gave me some pattern paper and I look on pinterest.

Do you use a dress form?

I don't have one but I want one some day!!

Who is your favorite designer?

I alternate, for one month I like one designer and then I find another one. I like Kate Spade, I like how her stuff is colorful because I am a colorful person. I like bright colors.

 

I also like Tory Burch because she has a lot of pattern in her designs.

 

 

What is your favorite color?

 

Teal and turquoise are my favorite colors and blues.

 

What's your style?

 

I practically like everything especially if it's my favorite color. I like things in the fashion world not the teenage world. Because in the teenage world everything is the same and just what is in trend. Designers do what they want to do and each have their own style. They design something and make a line.

 

What do you want to do?

 

I want to design clothes and if I need to I might hire people to make more of my designs. I don't want to sell my clothes in another store. I want to sell them in my store. I also want to make wedding dresses and they will be one of a kind and I will custom make them. I want to follow a theme for the persons wedding and be inspired by that. I was inspired by Vera Wangs wedding dresses. Gucchi, Prada, Louis Vitton design mostly purses and I like them but I want to be mostly focused on just clothing not accessories or purses.

 

Do you have a sketchbook?

 

I have a lightboard and I put a figure on it with some tracing paper over top to draw Croquis ( ME: I had to look this up .. all my life an artist and somehow I never learned the French word for sketch, proof that you can learn something new every day) I've been to a professional camp where I learned about this. I want to learn to sketch a quick one. Croquis is a quick sketch.

 

What is your process?

 

This might sound a bit crazy but sometimes when I am looking at someones clothes I think I see something on their outfit. It looks like something that I like. Then when I get a closer look and find that it wasn't what I thought, I use what I thought it was as my inspiration. I can't sit down and just design something from the top of my head, I have to wait till the juices flow and I get the idea. I never know when it will come up. Sometimes I can be in class and as soon as I can I try to get it down on paper. If you give me some colors and textures I can find a way to circle around it.

 

Why do you want to do this?

 

When I was younger I wanted to be a singer or an actress but I really just wanted to be famous. I found out that being famous was stressful so I got back into fashion and I knew that's what I wanted to do!

 

Sophia was a delight to interview and hang out with. I also got a personally drawn portrait of my self from her beautiful sister Esther. I will treasure it. If you get a chance check out Sophia's blog and leave her a note. Thanks for stopping by. :)





Letting go and hanging on.

I took this photo some years ago. One morning I woke up and  looked out of my kitchen window and saw this incredible light streaming through the trees and the plants they were just glistening. I quickly grabbed my camera and ran outside. I wanted to capture these moments. 

On father's day I phoned home to wish my father a Happy Father's Day. He sounded a bit frazzled. I know that my mother has not been well and her age is finally slowing her to the point where her days are filled with only the bare necessities of life. I ask how things are. And so the news is difficult always to hear. She is sleeping. My heart begins to feel this pang. I tell my dad I love him and we say our goodbyes. And like the light ... the tears stream through my consciousness. My mother is slipping away to another place and I feel time going quickly. It's funny how life seems to have a pace about it that changes aren't always so noticeable and then suddenly it seems to be going so quickly. Already nothing will be the same. My mother is suffering from Alzheimers and it is like saying goodbye before they go .. only you know it and they don't really. Its undescribeable confusion intermingled with glimpses of true happiness or peace at seeing someone you love. IT's a loss .. I feel grief before it feels I should feel it. It's death before death. Goodbye before the end. Strange words it seems ....Feels like standing on the edge of a big hole which is deep and dark and scarey.  It's all a lot to manage in my head and still try to make a living being a creative person. 

I guess the work is a welcome distraction from reality. I am barely hanging on. Trying to hope above hope that I will sell some work so I can keep doing what I love. Trying to resolve my own fears so I can get it out there. Grateful to have a mountain of ideas and time to execute them. In my ideal world I can trade art or clothes or jewelry that I make for everything that I need. Everyone everywhere loves all that I create. Not sure how to get from here to there. 

Now for some showing and telling .. after discovering http://www.spiritcloth.typepad.com/ I realized how much I loved stitching. I really find that I love to do the running stitch and am totally addicted to the texture that it creates on cloth. I love the boro cloths and even the whole idea of them and that they are mended japanese kimono's that the peasants wore. In repairing them and passing them on from one generation to the other, the cloths became infused with memory of past generations. The fact that they did this and gave such meaning to their cloths .. kimonos or blankets really resonates with me. They had a belief of not wasting any cloth and used everything they had. It seems like we have become such a disposable society any more and I like the idea of hand made even hand me down. Hand stitching is especially appealing. So partly to make something that is not like everyone else .. to have an air of my flavor, to feel my artsy self .. to fit me in a way that makes me comfortable. I started to make my own clothes. I feel good in my clothes. I put my self .. my sense of design into everything I make. I feel good when I can add hand stitching to my pieces and sometimes they are hard to part with. I often alter the fabric with dye or design either with extracting dye or adding .. with deconstructing a garment and putting it back together in a way that fits me better. No two pieces are alike. They may appear similar but they are all different. I hate to throw out even a scrap. You can imagine how my studio looks !!! ha .. I make jewelry with the scraps. I am convinced that I can make something beautiful out of anything .. lol .. it reminds me of playing dress up .. it feels like pretend .. what if i do this? I wonder what it will feel like to wear this? Thats a big part of why I do it. It's fun!! 

I was talking to a dear friend that has several of my pieces and she told me that she was comfortable in my clothes. I have to say that many times I make clothes that make me feel good .. this is such a wonderful feeling to give another woman a feeling of comfort .. and good sense of individuality. And I cannot escape the wonderful feeling of knowing that I did infuse my good will into each piece. I remember a while back a fellow stitcher Arlee Barr sent me a book that she had two of and in the pages of the book she stashed some of her fabric and piece of stitched fabric .. it was an anatomical heart. I was so so so excited to get it. And I was deeply moved to have it. There was something very profound to just have the knowledge that she had touched it and made all the stitches on it. I can't explain why it is but I was aware of how I felt about that. And then there is my wedding dress. I designed it and my mother sewed it and hand sewed 2000 seed pearls onto it. I am not married any more. Friends have suggested I part with the dress. I just can't. I can't let go of my mothers stitching and love that I know was infused into that dress. I DID take it out of the box that it was in for over 30 years. It's now hanging in my closet. I WIll do something with it. Not sure what yet but I will. well this is turning into a rather long post .. so I'll just share one of the pieces I did with stitching and old doilies and a shirt. I even made a rose with leaves from some eco dyed silk. Thanks for stopping over. I feel better now that I put it ALL out there haha ..