A Bridge To Don't Ask Why

Ducks to see
They Follow me

To where chimneys
hold up the sky

The brow fell down

To the sacred ground

A bridge to
Don't ask why

See I told you I paint anything that isn't tied down

My Friend Charlotte Richardson used to say:
"She was a thoroughly Modern Milly
Trapped in trendy times."
Me, too.
I am a country girl, now,
but, I always lived in a city.
All three coasts.
I love to comfort my
minimalist
art spirit with
softness.

This is part of my studio
Won't you come for coffee?
I just came inside from outside
It is so beautiful today!

One Way To Make A Box for many items

Origami interlocking modules form partitions
inside of handmade box
The paper for the origami is from a digital painting I did for this purpose
Printed onto heavy cotton paper
Then folded and interlocked
I am contemplating what sort of box I would like to make
This is an experiment.
I am thinking of a night sky with stars
inside each cubicle would be something like
a folded star
a wire spiral
a glass marble
I really do not know right now.
That is the fun of it.
Where will my mind and feet take me?
Who wants to join Sara and I on this excercise?
We can find any box
It could be on any idea
Then we could share.

Contemporary Museum In A Box

It is Museum In A Box Time

Consider this:
What if this museum is a contemporary museum?
What if it were a minimalist box?
What do I put in this museum?
This is what I am thinking about!
Tell me what you would do!

Letters and words?
Or
found objects?
Or
What?

Art of Arts - Work in process

When will I finish?

When I do finish, I will hold this to a mirror,
 So you can see me holding it in a mirror,

It is the concept that means most to me.

Morning in the Evening

If I were to sit here in this rocking chair very long
I would be covered in morning glories

To This Point

Noro Yarn and Jared Flood  is where it began. I have worked with Noro for
years and love to use it because it is never boring in that I am fascinated
with the little dots of color and how they are manipulated in the dyeing and
spinning process. I took some classes with Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton at
the Purl Jam Retreat put on by Mosaic Yarn Shop in Blacksburg Virginia
A few years ago and she has a book on Noro yarn with her patterns.
I took her classes because of Noro.
All the while I was thinking of painting.
I have been a painter for most of my life. I paint on anything that is not tied
down. Porcelain was my main medium for years. I painted small hearts using under-glazes of
my interpretation of masterpieces with the figures
 as rabbits. You might have
seen these in Galleries around the country and in Museum Shops
I did sculptural boxes, as well..
But, when my father passed away something inside of me died.
I began working with fibers.

But, earlier in my life when Kaffe Fassett came out with his first book I found a great interest.
 My best friend Sara taught me how to knit right then and I knitted a huge
triangular shawl from that book. I would tinker with this now and then
but it took many years for it to really take.
All the while, I still worked with painting, porcelain, origami, graphic design,
I studied with Christopher Pane, illustration, back when I was taking classes for
a degree.
I took a summer session at a university on paper making and later I spent
a few summer sessions at Arrowmont where I met Nancy Crow and Yosika Wada.
These influenced my thinking about art and craft.
I stopped showing my work about 15 years ago.
I am now on my way out of my shell.
Sometimes I feel a kindred spirit with Georgia O'Keefe in that I live in a remote
area because I love nature and I need peace to work.
I teach children art/craft that might not have this experience otherwise.
I digressed a little here from my intention.
How I got here.
I continued with  my fascination with color, all the while.
I wanted to do what I do now but I just didn't know what THAT was.
One day, I thought about painting with thread, so I tried it. I found a book, "Freestyle
Machine Embroidery" by Carol Shinn
I got out my new Pfaff machine and started painting with thread. I quickly broke
that machine and found another that works great and is tougher with heavy use.
I enjoy changing colors and layering and layering until I get what I feel.
I showed some work in Charlotte North Carolina a few years ago but that gallery closed.
I have had a computer since the early 1980's. For me it is just a tool.
I taught myself how to use it and it is so easy to do things now. I design using Corel Draw
and Painter.
Now, because of this blog, I am trying to teach myself how to use a digital camera.
Bear with me, on this, I want to take great photographs of my work and my life but I am
very busy painting with thread.
This article is in response to a fellow blogger who tossed the idea of us sharing
HOW WE GOT HERE.

Sometimes I would use a different yarn and do a different design that I
would invent but it was always stripes of one kind
 or another and always about color
the hours  morphed into days and weeks and months all the while
I found I was always thinking about painting. 

I thought about this all the time while I painted

I thought about the push pull affect how color changes color. I considered
background and foreground. I thought about paintings I have seen and
how size and space and light affect a painting. I remembered visiting
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.
I thought about the Van Gogh museum I visited in Amsterdam.
I thought about all of the Vermeer paintings I have seen in my travels
I questioned myself
I wanted to know what IT is to me.

This format is very difficult in that I can not make things move around like I want.
I have spent a lot of time trying to get this right, but at this point, I want to
go and paint with some thread. I will let this stand as it is.

The story/the evidence

Bright Angel Peak at the Grand Canyon
With my father
was the inspiration for  this Sculptural Box
He bent down on the trail to pick up a twig of pine needles
for me to put into this box
It was in a show I had a long time ago
It has been put away
I found this
cobwebs and all
Porcelain
under-painted then glazed
the goony bird is inlay colored porcelain

See Last Post

Cobwebs & Inspiration

This journey trying to find. . .
things lost/things found
not to lose it again
involves digging deep
finding cobwebs
where once was beauty
To live right here
right now
is it.
is all
How To Be An Explorer of the World ~ Keri Smith
This is my starting point
and
SaraMuse who sent me the museum in a box

Charlie Rose interviews artist Clemente Francesco

Not to miss, this interview with Clemente Francesco the painter. Just another thing I found. I am compelled to share this while I am into looking at every detail of life as if it were a scavenger hunt.
They say: "God is found in the details."
I am spending the rest of this summer working with the book, "How To Be An Explorer of the World" by Keri Smith. I am teaching my classes this fall by leading the children into making museums in a box.
What would you find, if on a walk, to put into a museum in a box? I would put this video, for one thing.

Another Found

Cocoon Fiber Sculpture
One of Many
Spread out into the world
I wonder where they are?
Porcelain wrapped with Old Linen and Lace
Hand Stitched

What is not on my mind

Some pretty strange things have happened in my life. They are so strange that I hesitate to believe them. I have questioned my memory. Have you ever done that?

1. On the way to my grandmothers house, when I was a child, I watched the blaze of atomic bombs going off in the distance.
2. At a condo in the DC suburbs I saw a miniature burka dyed in indigo blue intricately stitched and interesting, covering a wine bottle.
3. My father was sent to Hiroshima to help clean up the aftermath of the bomb. Some little ladies gave him a paper fan that I have saved. I wonder if it is radio-active?
4. My dog has a pet. It is a toad. She carries it around in her mouth then sets it down on our front porch and barks at it all night long. It has a huge bubble on its' back.
5. I am always losing something that I put in a safe place so that I will not lose it.

Things I Lost/Things I Found

Mindscape

The Chanteuse Hears Angels

Photographic Collage
Jacob's Ladder Box
and
The Chanteuse
Paper Sculpture and Photograph
2010

A Button

I find beauty
in the
strangest places. . .
LOOK
inside of the bag.
No! No!
Not WHAT is inside
but
what is
the
inside
of
the
bag?

A Learning Experience About Blogging

Seldom does a moment come around like this in my life, when it does, I try to pay attention. I ponder and  question myself as to what is my intention. So, I will share this thought process with you:

Why do I blog? I blog because it helps me to work at becoming better at what I do.

It is always a risk to put yourself "out there" for people to see. So. . . should I blog? Yes, of course.

Why not? No one will know that I make mistakes, or that I am not always on point.

Why can I not be crystal clear as to the purpose of this blog? I think about this quite a bit and I have concluded that this blog is very organic and ever changing; it is a reflection of who I am each day.

Am I focused on what I do? Yes, I am very focused in that I do. I just do not do only one thing.

Why am I so willing to share my life experience with people who read blogs?
Because I read blogs. This is an amazing time to be on this planet. I ask myself, everyday, What would Leonardo do? Can you imagine what it would be like to read his blog?

How to be an expert at everything: You can not be an expert at everything. But, you can try.

This brings me to the point of why I am writing this particular post: Yesterday, I decided to share an art piece that I have been working on for a while. I am in a "finish what you start mode", right now. I was trying to take a photograph of this piece and I just couldn't get a picture of what it is. So I decided to put all of the photographs, good, bad, and ugly, on the post. At least, it would show how hard it is to get a good photograph. I am not a photographer, obviously, but it was pointed out to me that it is sad that no one could see the piece because the images are so tiny. I should tell that if you click on the image it can be enlarged.
Well, I put a larger image on the blog. See this is why you should blog. Someone, who cares enough, if you are very very fortunate, might offer a comment that can make a difference in your life.

Mt. Fuji Ballet

This is a larger look at Mt Fuji Ballet Box
 I have been working to finish details on everything I am working on.
Below is a photographic frenzy.
 If you click on the images they will be enlarged.
This was taken this morning in my studio.

Patterns

Momentarily, I felt the quaking. It was as if the essence of the earth merged
with me; we were one. I saw growth patterns, macro patterns,
 surface patterns, mineral patterns,
a virtual floating library of pattern was
swirling before  my eyes, this vortex, sucked my spirit into itself.
So, I photographed it all.

The Chanteuse Tells Me Stories

Each night, for a year, I listened.
The Chanteuse told me stories
of how it was before, before the
time of now, before I measured
life by how many books I could read.
She told me allegories of swans,
of ants, of bees. She told me of
the string that connects the top
of my head to the heavens.
She told me of trap doors and
apertures in the luminous body
where one could see the sanctity
o f  t h e  u n i v e r s e . . .