Living the Slow life in North Carolina
I made this small book this week with the techniques that I’ve learned from artists LK Ludwig and Albie Smith. It is filled with my handmade iris and abaca paper, which I made with the assistance and mentoring of artist Susanne Martin.
If the weather does not turn to thunderstorms, I will be at the First Friday Indie Market in downtown Greensboro today from 4 – 9 p.m., on the corner of South Elm and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Hope to see you there – First Fridays downtown are a lot of fun!
These will be for sale at the First Friday Indie Market this Friday evening, June 4, from 4-9 p.m. on the corner of South Elm and MLK Drive, downtown Greensboro, NC. They will be listed on Etsy soon after if they are not adopted then by my sweet, gentle, highly intelligent and impeccably selective readers. They are small and they don’t eat much, but they might shed a little.
These mica-covered book are pretty tough to photograph. I’ll have more book photographs tomorrow, hopefully.
When I left Melanie Testa’s class Soy Wax Batik on Monday, the last day of Art and Soul, I felt like I had made a friend. This class was so much fun and stress-free. I rolled my pieces of wet painted fabric in a roll of freezer paper and brought them home to finish off. But, honestly, if I had not HAD to leave, I could have gone on doing this for hours more.
And I will, because I bought soy wax, a fry-daddy to melt the wax in, and I’ve already trotted out my potato mashers and have been seriously trolling eBay for rosette irons. Anything that you can dip in hot wax is game for this activity. Pieces of foam, wire, cookie cutters…one of the class’s favorite tools was a ravioli cutter.
Unfortunately, once I got home and ironed the wax out and washed my pieces, the colors were not nearly as vibrant. I am still happy with them, but I understand Melanie’s complaint about not being satisfied with her results with acrylic paint now. I threw out my Procion dyes a few years ago in some kind of insane fit – don’t ask why, I was in a very bad place – so now I need to reorder some to use for batik. I used to dye ikat for weaving and I’m kind of looking forward to having purple hands again. I found a very inexpensive web site for Dye-na-flow and Procion dyes at TN Art Supply so I think that I’ll use them.
I just love Melanie’s blog, Every Single Day, and her book “Inspired to Quilt” will inspire you to quilt! I just need to make friends with my sewing machine again and get over this tendinitis. Until then, I can batik and dye fabric though. Wheeeeeee!
Here are some of my samples. Each of the first three pairs have a before and after photo. The last two are just the finished products. I learned a lot from this class, even though I have worked with batik before. It was a long time ago and it turns out that I needed the refresher.
Saturday night was vendor’s night at Art and Soul. I don’t handle a crowd well, so I got in and out of there pretty quickly. Dan Essig was vending (not teaching) and he said that the company near Asheville where he bought his mica had gone out of business. I bought some very translucent sheets from him, and I hope that he bought enough from that company to sell mica sheets for a long time! I just started using my hoard of mica to make books for sale.
I also bought some colorful yarns spun from recycled saris and banana fiber. Don’t know what I’ll do with them but I’m tired of resisting the urge to own them. If I just hold them in my hands it will be worth it.
And I bought a small book made by Albie Smith, whose class I would take on Sunday. I spent an hour and a half cutting bookboard and tearing Stonehenge paper in preparation for the class that night, since I waited until the very last minute and almost forgot about it altogether!
Albie is a bookbinding instructor who is much in demand, as I found to my dismay when all her classes were filled early. I had heard so many people rave about her that I was thrilled when she opened up more seats in her classes, and I managed to nab one in her Episodic Journal class. Her use of fearless rich color is breathtaking.
Again, I spent the morning painting paste papers, but with the different tools and items available to us my results were quite varied from Diana’s class. Albie and Christine, her daughter, circled the classroom and offered advice and help when needed. We designed papers for the covers, inside and out, and four signature covers to go inside the text block. The text papers were painted with a quick acrylic wash. I swear that the papers I spent the least time and effort on were the most beautiful! I guess that there might be a lesson in that, but maybe it was just luck.
We made spine covers with bookcloth, which I had not done before, and it made me very enthusiastic to make my own bookcloth when I got home. Doing so at home this past weekend, I recalled a very important lesson. Be very careful to keep the glue off your hands and your work surface so that you don’t get spots on the bookcloth. It is much easier said than done. In the class, Albie called this mistake “a collage opportunity.” I spent Sunday trying to salvage what I screwed up on Saturday. Next time I will have a cleaner workspace and be more mindful of my process when I do this.
Anyhow, here are photos from the class. Albie is an awesome teacher and I will try to get into other classes of hers one day! Her blog is Adventures in Albie Land.
A classmate binds her book.
The books above: all from the class!
The book above was Terri’s first book. Ever. I loved her patterns and textures.
Another beautiful creation from a classmate.
I think the book above was my absolute favorite of all my classmates’ work, although I was blown away by nearly everything done in this class.
This classmate’s binding is still in progress, but aren’t the covers gorgeous!
MY book from the outside above, and from the inside below.
Albie and me!
Ewww – 90% humidity this morning. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Fortunately I will ensconced (my new favorite word) in the studio with the little window AC unit. We try to wait as long as possible to turn on the central AC in the house, partially for sustainable living reasons, partially because we can’t get into the #$^^&*@ basement to change the filter.
The Back Forty looks lush after the rains, finally. I tossed out a French pumpkin that I bought last FALL and never ate it because it was so pretty I couldn’t bear to cut it. I had a couple of old pots that I didn’t dump the soil out of from last year, and since I doubt that I’ll be able to do all the gardening I wanted to this year, I threw some of the seeds in those pots and left the rest for the squirrels and rabbits to eat.
Our lettuce garden is beautiful, and I’ve eaten the few peas that managed to produce in the dry hot spring. The Nanking cherry bushes are bursting with fruit that I just now noticed – I doubt that I’ll do much with them so if anyone wants them, come on over. They are small and delicious, but have pits that have to be dealt with. I usually just snack on them and spit the pit out. The tomatoes are growing like crazy, the okra germinated under plastic juice bottle covers, the Genovese basil germinated but I don’t see the other varieties, the Dixie Lee field peas are coming up under wire protection. LOTS of little figs and blueberries. Beets, as usual, have given me the finger. Why, I ask. Why, when I love you so?
My attention is now turned to making books for the First Friday Indie Market. I’ll have a table on the corner of South Elm and MLK Drive with other artists on Friday, June 4, from 4-9, weather permitting. This weekend I’ll be tearing, cutting, and folding papers, sorting through my leftover paste papers from Diana’s class, painting more papers, printing with the rollers from Traci’s class, making book cloth with the batiks from Melanie’s class, and using the instructions for Albie Smith’s class in my bookmaking this weekend. I haven’t forgotten the metal book covers from Leighanna’s class, but I’ll save that for later when I get the Crop-a-dile that I ordered. I’d say that Art and Soul was money well spent. Life is good.
Our trip to Colorado is coming up fast, and it looks like one of our days will be spent rafting in Idaho Springs with my cousin and her husband. I’m getting very excited about this trip, since these are fun relatives we’ll be visiting and I’ve never been to this part of the country.
Okay, gotta go to the farmers’ market and get out to the studio. Next, I’ll be blogging Albie Smith’s, Melanie Testa’s, and Traci Bunkers’ classes at Art and Soul.
Traci Bunkers’ class was Friday night after the flag book class. I was pretty sick on Friday, and although I thoroughly enjoyed the class, it took all my stamina to get there and make the printing rollers. I didn’t take photos, but I will when I start playing with the groovy printing tools I made and I’ll blog it then. That night I seriously doubted that I would be able to do the Saturday class, “Vintage Metal Deck,” and my suspicion seemed to be confirmed when I awoke at 5 a.m. with a migraine.
At 8:30 a.m., I dragged my ass out of bed, swallowed a bunch of pills, slogged my way to the coffee, then stopped in Leighanna’s class to tell her that I wanted to get any materials and handouts, and I’d try to stay a little while and watch, but I highly doubted that I’d be able to stick around.
Then I saw her samples for the class.
“Let me go upstairs and get my supplies,” I said.
My headache dissipated after a couple of hours, and it was totally worth sticking it out. At the end of the day, I was feeling great and had more energy than I have had in weeks. To think that I almost skipped this class. Wow. I can hardly wait for a chance to take another class with Leighanna Light, Thingmaker.
The best thing that I learned from this class was that working with metal is not hard and I wouldn’t need to buy a lot of extra stuff for it. Although I did order a Crop-a-dile when I got home. That thing is da bomb. I lurved it and I can’t wait for it to get here. I will be making some very cool little metal-covered books with the inspiration that I got from this class.
Leighanna’s demo
Above: One of Leighanna’s sample decks. Next two photos, my classmates’ workstations.
Below: My work area. Another reason I am thrilled about this class – suddenly I feel comfortable with working with found objects in this manner. I haven’t felt that way, except in Dan Essig’s classes, and it is definitely a direction that I’ve been wanting to take for some time.
The bottom photo is of some of my cards. I have to tell you about the one on the right. I have been haunted by the children in Lewis Hines’ photographs of child textile mill laborers from the early 20th century. I felt good about this little girl because I removed her from her spinning machine, gave her a teddy bear (albeit a crude clay one hanging in a wire hoop) and on the back, a cute boyfriend.
Later I’ll make an effort to photograph these cards front and back and post them again. There are a lot more photos of my classmates’ work at my Flickr site.
Oh, how I love this lady with the wry wit and down-to-earth vibe and cozy friendly demeanor. Every person I meet who has met Diana Trout raves about her. I feel so fortunate to have taken her class and had drinks and dinner with her and Melanie Testa. Oh, it was not a surprise – I have her book Journal Spilling and I listened to a podcast interview that she did with Ricë at the Voodoo Cafe.
On Friday, I took her Flag Book class. We spent the morning painting and stamping and scraping and stenciling paste papers for the book, and then the afternoon was spent making the covers and spine and attaching our pages. The book is not only a feast of color but makes a satisfying fluttery noise as it expands to its full glory. I will definitely be using this structure to make some photo albums.
Diana’s blog is Hub Bub. Here are some photos from the class.
Oh yeah, I like that book verra much indeed.
Hmmm, how do I blog this art retreat? Because I can’t find words to fit the experience. It was a particularly successful and inspirational trip for me. All of my classes were amazing and I would take classes again from any of these teachers in a heartbeat! One day at a time, I suppose.
Thursday, my first class, “Junk Mail Artist’s Book,” was with Carla Sonheim. The concept was simple – take pieces of junk mail, roll them with thick gesso, paint a watercolor wash over the gesso, make pages of irregular sizes, and bind them. Then doodle over them in “Exquisite Corpse” style. In the Dada game “Exquisite Corpse,” one person would start a sentence, the next would add a word or phrase building on it, repeating until you have a complete, nonsensical sentence. When playing with drawing, the drawing would cross two or more pages, and then the page with the partial drawing would be completed. Oh well, it is simpler done than said. We did drawing exercises to loosen up our whimsy and our penstrokes.
This was some serious, inner child channeling fun. Here are some photos from the class. I didn’t finish mine, so most of the artwork here is by my fabulous classmates. But I have almost finished mine, I promise!
Check out Carla Sonheim’s blog. What a lovely woman.
Update: here is my book, perhaps infinitely in progress. It is just too much fun to play with abandon in this book.
I’m here in Hampton, Virginia, getting ready to go to my first class at Art & Soul. This year the theme is Alice in Wonderland.
Roomie Stephanie got in late last night, and our suite is filled with art supplies. I gave up trying to carefully organize and pack and chose to throw most of my studio in my car. So I spent a couple of hours last night sorting through and getting my supplies ready for class today.
Finally got to meet Ricë and the EGE of Notes from the Voodoo Cafe fame. The first thing she commented on was my Southern accent. And she’s from TEXAS! Then Stephanie commented on not being used to hearing it. It’s weird because I spent a long time obsessing over my accent, and then, thankfully, embraced it. I don’t really notice other regional accents – I guess because of almost fifty years of watching TV and working at a university that enrolls a lot of out-of-state students. Apparently mine stands out, and I’m going to take that as a compliment.
Today’s class will be with Carla Sonheim, making “Junk Mail Artist Books.” Doesn’t she look like fun? Hopefully I will have good photos and will blog it later.
Every day is shedding season when you have four indoor cats in a small house, but right now it is almost intolerable. I swear, Theo has lost half his weight in fur. We will definitely have to make a dent in it this weekend.
My trip to Art & Soul in Hampton, Virginia is almost here! I’ll leave on Wednesday, and Sandy will be stuck with the Tercel, ha ha. So I have to spend a lot of time this weekend getting my supplies packed. I have six classes, five day classes and one evening class! Whew! What was I thinking? I’m going to be completely exhausted, but I hope that it will be happy exhaustion. I am considering taking the laptop and blogging it, since my roommate paid for Internet connection last year we can split it this year.
I have been trying to save my hands for this trip. My physical therapist yesterday told me that I would need to choose my battles, find other ways of creativity when one way hurts too much, and stop doing what I’m doing for a while when it begins to hurt. Basically, what I didn’t want to hear. I started naming a few of the things that I don’t do anymore that I miss: pottery, crochet, tennis, paddling, bowling. Am I going to add gardening, cooking, stitching, tapestry, bookbinding and weaving to that list? Jeez. I guess that I’ll try to add whining to it, but this has been a major kink in my life journey. I’ll see the doctor again on Tuesday. My hands ARE better, but I haven’t put them to a real test.
I bought our plane tickets and reserved a car rental for our trip to Denver in June. My original plan was to go to Prince Edward Island for a papermakers’ gathering and spend several more days exploring the area from a beach house rental that was quite inexpensive. However, Sandy was not interested in going at all and I had promised him that he could pick the next vacation. Denver was mutually agreeable to both of us because my lovely Aunt DeLaine and first cousin Cherie live outside of Denver, and Sandy’s first cousin Donna lives there. Neither of us have been there before, and we have wanted to go for a long time. We’ll go to see Kenny Perkins, Cherie’s blues musician husband, play the first night we’re there. Cherie did his website, and the animation is so cool that you really should take a look. Then we’ll explore the Denver area, have dinner with our families. Other than that, I think that we’ll drive south to see some Anasazi ruins, maybe raft if I can find a trip where I won’t have to paddle, maybe ride a train…suggestions are welcome!
My experience at the Shindig on the Square was so positive that I signed up for a table at the next First Friday Indie Market on June 4. The one on the corner of MLK and South Elm – I wasn’t aware of the second one in Center City Park. But I love that area – it is my kind of city place. We’ve spent a few evenings at Vintage 301 on MLK at Southside now and I’m very fond of it. They buy from local farmers and the chef is inventive and talented.
The semester is over. I am joyful that the summer season has begun for me. Here’s hoping for some rain between now and Wednesday, when I hope that it will conveniently stop.
slowly she turned 