My life in the art studio has been dedicated to
commissions. I’m excited to have
so many requested pieces, but now I have to bear down and create the art. At the top of my queue is my “Summer
Salad” revisitation. Because the
composition features a compilation of many small needle felted vegetables, it’s
the perfect piece to take along as I patiently wait for the boys at their
various activities. Right now,
that means Taekwondo, hip-hop dancing, and voice lessons. Happily, I now have the full complement
of cherry tomatoes, olives, mushrooms and all of the radishes (except for their little
white tails).
I’ll be finishing
those soon when I can wet felt again.
My finger just needs to heal a little more from the cut.
Hmmm. You might
not have heard about my exciting trip to the emergency room at the Bloomington
hospital last week. I was working
on part of the set for the “Phantom” performance and I severely cut my left
index finger with an Exacto knife.
It took several hours of waiting, but they finally declared me to be
functional and glued the wound back together. They gave me a tetanus shot, patted my bottom and told me to
be more careful as they discharged me four hours later at 12:30 a.m. I’ll be back at full strength shortly.
Injuries give you a moment to stop and take stock of your
life. As I looked around me, I
decided that the color of my current season is orange. It just feels like there is a wonderful
orange glow around the neighborhood right now. At the farmer’s market I saw lots of orange pumpkins (one of
which came home with us), and the orange helped inspire me to work on the
orange carrots for the “Summer Salad” piece. We have had some beautiful sunny weather and the changing
leaves are striking—just more orange in my world. The orange motif was reiterated as I drove to Indianapolis
last week on a mission to look for a new camera. I got to see lots of trees changing color along highway
37. One of the best parts of that
adventure was a long overdue visit to the Indy Upcycle store on Guilford Avenue
in Indianapolis.
It’s a recycled
craft supply store, which is the kind of place where I find all sorts of
treasures for my work. I
systematically went through every bin that the proprietor had and found silver
cord and thread, green felt and yarns, wire scraps and tiny little objects that
will work beautifully in my underground scenes. I found the cutest little pair of scissors and some scrabble
tiles, which seems especially relevant since I spend a fair bit of time playing
Scrabble with friends online and Tommie at home. Yesterday morning developed slowly after a late night due to
the cast party for the “Phantom” performance Saturday. We sat, talked and played scrabble in
front of a fire while Jim baked a cranberry/apple pie in the kitchen. Yum! Anyway, I had a delightful time in the store and enjoyed
interacting with the proprietor. I
was delighted when, on Saturday morning, I received a package in the mail from
Indy Upcycle containing two tufts of green feathers! It was one of the things we searched for, and the person
there mailed me some feathers she discovered after I left! I would say she should move to
Bloomington, but I’m glad she’s there when I visit.
On the drive home from Indy I got into some crazy traffic on
37, which prompted the thought that I should take old 37. I got into more beautiful oranges on
the old highway, and I was able to stop in at Musgrave Orchard. I reconnected with the orange-haired
(!) Hamiltons, whom I haven’t seen in a very long time. I was amazed at how big the children
there had grown while I wasn’t watching!
I picked up four big jugs of apple cider, one of which didn’t survive
the day when my boys came home from school. I also brought home a nice selection of apples and squash
for my family. The whole trip left
me feeling very happy.
My family life has been extraordinarily busy, as usual. I’ll summarize a bit to say that the
Sounds of South performance of “Phantom of the Opera” held their penultimate
performance last Saturday night.
Tommie did a stellar job in the chorus and handling the props and
stage. He just handles everything
on stage with a quiet professionalism.
I had to smile when Tommie, during the auction scene, bid on the monkey
I created using an auction paddle that I also made for the show. He didn’t get the monkey, but he
started the group bidding on the piece—way to support your Mom’s work! Jacob ran the lighting, as he has for
the whole show, and threw in a few of his own creative touches to make the
performance richer. I served as an
usher while Jim stayed home and rested after hours of wood cutting and
splitting followed by Taekwondo and sparring. It was great to usher and meet people from all over the
community coming together to support the SOS group. Everyone went away impressed with the extraordinarily high
quality of the performance.
I will be out and about in the community with my art a few
times over the next few weeks.
First, I’ll be at Spring Hill Suites on College Avenue on Wednesday the
29th from 5-7:30 p.m. for ArtNight, a one evening exhibition of my weavings,
along with two other artists.
You can see my latest tomato piece with the myriad tomatoes I needle
felted over the summer on my travels.
Spring Hill Suites has started carrying my notecards and Sweater Petals
as well. Next, I’ll be
present for a reception for the new bigheaded ant exhibit at Wonderlab on November
7th from 5:00 to 8:30 p.m.
My final show of the calendar year will be at the combined Artisans Guilds show at
the Convention Center on November 14th and 15th. My ‘Looking at Water’ exhibit will
still be there in the Rogers room, so stop in to see my new Re-Shirts at the
show and my weavings nearby!
It’s been a long blog, but I can’t get by without mentioning
the delightful Mutsu apple and cranberry pie that Jim made yesterday
morning. The next time he makes
it, which better be soon so we can still find more Mutsu apples, he needs to
know that the filling needs more cranberries! I’ll have to do the experiment and see how I like this one a
few more times, with espresso, to be sure!
Until next week,
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