Tree Woman Emerges...

This is the weekend of the Broad Ripple Art Fair in Indianapolis. My booth is waiting for us, packed with the new pieces of the season. Set-up was a little different this year—my photographer, frame-maker and friend Tom Berolaccini rode shotgun in the van and helped me set up. Friday was a beautiful day to set up, warm and dry with little spurts of sun through overcast skies and good company along the way. Tom’s son Mark is visiting from Louisville, and Mark helped Tom make the stretcher frame for the ‘Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean’ piece I’ve been describing over the past few weeks. That piece is nearing completion—I had my last session with the kids this week. They glued more gold scales on the fish, and now I’m ready to assemble the whole thing by attaching the fish to the blue background at different angles and gluing the shell-encrusted outer frame to the stretcher frame. It has been a fun project with the Creek-Love classroom and my younger son Cubbie.

I also made a lot of progress on the ‘Tree Woman’ piece I sketched in the April 25th posting. The pictures show the finished background, which has a gradient of blues to create the sky. I used a sumac weave to create the green grass, then used a dimensional crocheting technique to build it up even further. I need this to establish the roots of the tree trunk and body form. I’ve included a scan of the body, which came out a little flattened because my two-dimensional scanner isn’t so good at capturing my three-dimensional pieces. It’s kind of like looking up at someone lying naked in the bottom of a glass-bottomed boat. I still need to finish the head and arms that reach up, and I need to detail the feet a little more. But I really like how she’s coming, and I’m especially fond of her belly button.

The week wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. About three weeks ago I found a pill bug in my basement art studio. They’re the cute little bugs with a lot of legs and a grey shell that curl up into a ball when your kids try to pick them up. I opened the only window in my studio to let him out, but the window didn’t seal shut when I closed it. When the torrential rains came Wednesday, you guessed it; a lot of water came straight into my workspace. I was out at a Fourth Street meeting, the HoA (husband of artist) was off a Tae Kwon Do class, and the boys were playing with a friend as water coursed through my window and onto the carpeted floor. If there was a bright side, I’ve been through this before and knew what to do. It was a long, frustrating evening, but my little piece of the world is drying out. Someday, someday I need a ground-level art studio! I suppose then I’ll have to worry about falling tree branches and tornadoes.

I hope to see you at Broad Ripple, in the field (shocking pink signs), booth 69!


Until next week…