Sally sells sea shells...

This week I was thinking about the beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My family and I spent a week on the beach in Corolla last summer. Of course that means that we spent a lot of time walking the sands and looking for treasures. Jim and I strolled along the beach on the packed wet sand while the boys acted more like the ‘runny birds’ that cruise in and out with the surf. They both make the best advantage of short legs and abundant energy. A few essential seashells, sand dollars, or manta ray egg casings just had to come back to the house on each trip. Of course a little sand comes back with them too. I’m guessing they must send bad vacuum cleaners to beach houses for punishment.

So of course you know where this is headed—I need to make an art piece! I’m not sure people know how much my art really reflects my life. I poured out all the jars, bags and boxes of shells and beach things I’ve collected. The inventory also includes lots of beach materials that friends have given me through the years. I tried a few layouts to see what I liked, but ultimately I realized I liked them best just mixed together in a big bowl! I finished a custom frame built for me locally by Tom Bertolacini by creating a sandy beach finish of layered glue and sand. I reinforced the landscape frame with steel strips I found for 75 cents at the Re-Store. This is another great Bloomington resource, located in the old Honda emporium on 11th Street, which sells surplus building supplies and uses it’s profits to fund Habitat for Humanity projects. It’s how I imagine Menards would be if Jimmy Carter ran it. I also picked up a cool low wooden stool with a fabric seat that’s perfect for elevating me a bit while I’m weaving.
This week I was also volunteering at Roger’s school in the Creek-Love classroom. We created a weaving of an ocean out of blue “yarns”, most of which comprises old blue neckties from Opportunity House. I guess all those Father’s day presents finally paid off! The kids and I had a great time weaving. Next trip I’ll bring in a frame and we’ll decorate it with glue and seashells from the collection. It was one of those weeks that it was great to be alive, with warm spring weather and the first white snowdrops and yellow eranthus blooming. There’s even a little patch of purple crocuses coming up through dried oak leaves near the house. It’s just the beginning of Spring, and I can’t wait!

Until next week…

Sangria!

It’s amazing where art can take you. I was creating an orange slice for my ‘Fruit Salad’ piece (see the 1/31/09 entry) when I was transported 11 years or so back in time to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was sitting on the rooftop of the Palio restaurant on South Main, near the Real Seafood Company, being wooed by my (now) husband. I kinda miss being wooed. Anyway, it was late afternoon on a hot summer day and we were sharing a pitcher of sangria on the roof looking over the city. I remember the sweating pitcher with the floating ice cubes and slices of fresh oranges—mmmmm! [Note to self—we have to go back there!]. I started singing the reggae song ‘Red, Red Wine’, off in my own little world. That’s when I decided I needed to make ‘Sangria’.

One of the good things about Bloomington is that I can find anything I need. I started off at Bloomingfoods to get a lemon and a lime to slice for artistic accuracy (I never got my license). I slipped the lemon zest into a green bean dish that I make with peanuts that’s really tasty. In fact, it’s the only way I can get my bean-hating husband to eat them. That’s important because Amy and Andy Hamilton at the CSA slip us tons of green beans every summer and I have to do something with them. Sorry, back to finding stuff. Even with the fruit I still needed ice cubes for the piece. I asked my friend and fellow artist Cappi Phillips if she could help, and she was able to pull several varieties out of her artistic freezer! Cappi is a local mosaic artist (moesache.blogspot.com) who is a professional packrat by necessity (something near and dear to my heart). She made the colorful shutters on the front of our house if you’re ever driving down Ruby Lane in Bloomington. Spring is a good time if you like flowers.



So anyway, this week I was in my art studio sorting through my red yarns and humming ‘Red, Red Wine’. I had my ice cubes and I made my fruit slices, and my pitcher of Sangria re-appeared! If art isn’t magic it’s the next closest thing.


Until next week…

Cold Coffee made from Brown Crayons

Happy Valentine’s Day! Over the past week I’ve been dreaming less of chocolate hearts and more about the weather, so let’s start there. My art studio sits in the basement of the house, and the heavy Hoosier rains of spring and fall are always a worrisome time. If the power goes out or the sump pumps fail it takes a week to take up the carpets and dry everything out. Something valuable always seems to soak up some water when the water flows. Last week my loving husband installed a battery back-up sump pump that was a gift from Grampa, so even with the heavy rains I was ready for anything! On a brighter note, between the rains there were sunny, warm afternoons, perfect for biking to school. My hand-me-down bike has a big comfy seat and the traditional storage basket in front filled with the boy’s scooters and helmets instead of a small barking dog. We had nice rides home from Rogers and Binford through the puddles.

The water theme also seeped into my art last week. Over the past two years I’ve gotten into the world of Christmas ornaments, although a lot of people buy them just as all-year decorations. I set a goal of 100 last year, which I reached by making ten each month with a couple of vacation months built in. This year I’m back at it, and from the picture you can see that I’ve had water on my mind! The lighter blue was created from seven packages of Blue Lemonade mixed with ½ of package of Lime Kool-aid. When the fleece came out of the dye pot I just loved the color (and my heron friend thought it was deceptively water-like). The white fleece is Merino that I bought recently at Sheep Street in Morgantown (always worth the drive to see Nancy and Pat). Maybe after I stop worrying about rising waters I’ll get back to more traditional themes.

On a sadder note, even as the sump pump situation came under control my ancient espresso maker gave a last shudder and dumped out a cup of cold, weak … well, something. I was reminded of when Linus makes hot chocolate out of brown crayons for Lucy. This is a serious problem because my loving spouse makes me a cup of espresso every morning, usually with something tasty to eat. I quickly raced out to support the downtown economy and got a new one, and I can report that it works very nicely. Later that day my trust Kitchen-aid stand mixer decided it didn’t like heavy breads and started to whine. This isn’t good because my kids live on homemade bread (I don’t tell them what I slip in to make it healthy). My trusty neighbor Emily Leite came through with her mixer to finish the job and the bread came out just fine. Heaven forfend that I should have to knead it with my delicate, needle felting hands! Luckily it’s a major holiday, and I’m hoping against hope that loving family will think of a red mixer with lots of power as a Valentine’s Day present! Did I say RED dear?

Until next week…

Dyeing to be Blue

This week my Great Blue Heron raised his elegant head for a few appearances. I had constructed the body a few weeks back (see the January 24th post) and it was time to start fleshing him out. Well, feathering him out, I suppose. I started off by dyeing a range of blues and grays for the feathers. With little pots of blue water on the stove, my heron had to peek in to see if there were any little fish for lunch. He stared for quite a while before giving it up to chase dust bunnies in the jungle room. As for the dyes, I often use natural materials or Kool-aid for subtle colors. This time I needed more robust RIT dyes, which are relatively non-toxic and the company is located in Indiana (hooray!). The colors weren't exactly right to suit my heron, but I assured him that I could card colors together and make them just so. With a little smoothing, physical and emotional, he was ready for his first public
appearance: an in-progress avian sculpture for Wonderlab's "Science of Sculpture" program.


On Friday evening I carded wool and poked my heron along the path to biological accuracy with a few dozen new friends. I talked to a lot of adults and children about how the barbed needle I used to felt wool combines the fibers into the shapes I want. I also showed how the carders can be used to combine the raw dyed wool into organized fiber bundles of the colors I need. It's hard work but it's fun to try. To get the heron colors right I checked out books from the Children's section of the Monroe County Public Library. They have books with better pictures than can be found the adult section, and they don't charge late fees when I forget that a book is due. More kids need to check out those books, I decided, since many thought my heron was a stork or an ostrich. Knowing the sensitive nature of my long-legged friend I quickly dissuaded them of that notion. Besides, the stork won't be visiting our house any more. My two boys spent the evening climbing, inventing and eating with friends, while the HoA (husband of artist) patrolled the grounds to keep an eye on things. It was nice to have the family together as I worked.
I should also mention the other projects that were ongoing as I poked and chatted. The terrific Wonderlab group ran a wet felting workshop using wool they dyed with Kool-aid. Kids and adults used soapy water and a lot of hand rolling action to make colorful balls that they carried off in little paper towel coverlets for drying. I saw some beautiful color combinations, and I sensed that a lot of people had fun in what was truly a hands-on learning project. I felt right at home with all the fiber work going on. The "Science of Sculpture" exhibit will go on for a few more weeks with projects such as glass blowing and stone carving on display. If you look carefully you can see one of my fish sculptures hanging from the ceiling, and you can also see my "Shh… the trees are sleeping" show on the wall as you go up the stairs. Stop in if you can! And thanks to everyone who participated and made it a fun event for me.



Until next week…

Fresh Fruit

January 31, 2009

Twelve years is a long time. That’s both how long I’ve been in Bloomington and how long it’s been since we had a snowfall this large. I remember my first winter in town, a fresh face from Canada. I felt right at home helping people free their cars from the snow as I walked in to work. This week we had two big snowfalls that closed the school for three and a third days (a two hour delay for Friday). That meant I had some boisterous company as I worked all week, so not much weaving in the art studio was done. Between hearing about Pokemon character evolutions I did get to bring my felted fruit to colorful fruition (see the January 10th post for the 1950s black and white version). I was really pleased with how the watermelons, oranges, grapes and cherries turned out! Some of my boys play pals were pretending to eat them, but I knew my son wasn’t fooled, even as he chomped—he’d never eat a watermelon with seeds in it. The other exciting thing was that the oranges gave me a great idea for another weaving. I’m envisioning a piece called ‘Sangria’, a pitcher of cold fruit in wine for a hot summer afternoon. The color for the oranges I made was a blend of five wools to get the flesh right, and I used big organic navel oranges from Bloomingfoods as a model. And then I ate them! The watermelon rind is made of wool from New Zealand that a friend brought back for me, and the light green that fades into the rind was a special find. It comes from a dyeing project this summer when I was making verdant greens and I had a tiny bit of a pale green solution left. I dyed and saved the fleece, but I wondered what I would ever use that fleece for. When I needed a perfect light green this week I had it!
This morning I’m packing up my latest projects to show at a felting workshop today. It’s for the AEIA (Art Educators of Indiana Association), organized by Gladys Newsom, and we’re going to make felted hearts. Valentine’s day is coming, and that means love and wool is in the air. For me, anyway—for my husband it’s love and chocolate, and chocolate for the rest of the year.



Until next week…

Great Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

This week things warmed up all around. After frozen pipes and a few days of huddling inside as the furnace struggled to keep us above sixty, I finally got out and about this week to work on my Great Blue Heron project.

This story dates back to last winter, when Aerin Sentgeorge asked me to participate in Wonderlab’s “Science of Art” program. I did a weaving project with green yarns of all descriptions, and I let the kids feel the textures and incorporate the yarn into a shared project. This year is “The Science of Sculpture”, and I decided it was time to try making a Great Blue Heron. We see these magnificent birds when we go to Lake Monroe on collecting or fishing trips. When I sit fishing with my family at the shore, sometimes I feel like a Great Blue Heron, watching the bobbers for bites, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting fish for dinner.

So where does one start to make a free standing, slightly larger-than-life Great Blue Heron? Where every great project starts—the recycle center, Kleindorfer’s Hardware and Grandma and Grandpa’s back yard in Michigan. I started with a hunk of a Michigan willow tree that has been curing in the basement for two years. Things dry out pretty well there if you keep them above flood level when the power to the sump pump fails. I picked up an iron rod (and a bolt cutter!—I love tools!) from Kleindorfer’s for the support leg. I enhanced the thickness of the rod with lanyards I found in a bag at the recycle center, then wrapped the whole thing with yarn. The other leg, neck claws and the beak are supported with baling wire that I also found at the recycle center. Birds can’t have too much metal if they want to fly, so I say: “more fiber, less metal!” The body, which looks like a very sad frozen turkey right now, is built from wet felted balls of wool that are needle felted together. I’m planning to create the wing and tail feathers using a wet felting technique I recently learned at a workshop at Pam Kinneman’s Wee Sheep Farms studio. That was a terrific opportunity to learn a new technique, and I made a scarf I’m proud of that I’ll talk about on another cold weekend.

So then it’s just a matter of putting it all together! Maybe you can picture me sitting outside on the very warm day from last week, picking the bark off the willow base to look for worm trails on the surface of the wood. I was bonding with the woodpecker I heard looking for lunch on a nearby tree. My lunch wasn’t so fresh, but at least it was warm. I also had to laugh at myself as I needle felted (repeated poked with a needle) the crotch of the poor heron while both heron legs were flopped over my shoulders. That’s a visual image you can keep if things get hectic for you this week!

Until next week…

Fruit Salad

Fruit Salad

The end of the past week was cold in Bloomington Indiana. Chuck Lofton said that it was the coldest day in five years, and the temperatures dropped to the wrong side of -10F. Even for a Canadian that’s cold. Our old house took notice, though. An inaccessible pipe to the upstairs froze Thursday night, cutting off the shower and flooding us with worries of broken pipes. Fortunately, I have a very large hammer and no fear of drywall! A few swift whacks and I found the offending pipe and had my trusty hairdryer on the job, full heat. My male relatives discouraged my use of a blowtorch and soldering iron, which really slowed me down. (Don’t worry; I don’t even have a blowtorch).

That leads me into the activity that you’ll find me doing most of my free time—needle felting. I do it at meetings, while my loving spouse drives the family around town, and while the boys do their Tae Kwon Do at the Monroe County Martial Arts center with Mr. or Mrs. Scott. With time on my hands and the hair dryer in place I was working on this weeks weaving project, a piece called ‘Fruit Salad’. How can you not dream of summer when it’s 14 below zero and your pipes are frozen? So I was making slices of fruit for the piece, which you can see in an unfinished form in the image I included. You’ll see unfinished apples, cherries, watermelon, strawberries and orange slices.

The inspiration for the piece really came last summer when I was dyeing wool using Kool Aid with my kids. I remember pulling fleece out of the dye pot and thinking that the color looked just like watermelon. Then the ‘I love a challenge’ part of me kicked in and I started imagining which fruits I would needle felt, and what the composition might be for a weaving. I decided to make a piece along the lines of ‘Homegrown Tomatoes’ or ‘Some Like it Hot’, my pieces based on tomatoes and peppers. But now I was thinking about picking blueberries at Brays (by the Crane Naval Station), eating apples from Musgrave Orchard that come over several weeks in the Core Farms CSA baskets, and improving the cherry harvest at Grandpa’s house by removing the ones that come ripe a little too soon.

So off I went! I have home-dyed wool from Sheep Street and the Farmer’s Market and a season full of memories of fresh fruits. I have a mental image of the chef (Auguste Gusteau) and the rat (Remy) in the movie ‘Ratatouille’ who liked to blend flavors into new taste experiences. Of course the challenge is to transform a mouthful of wool into a mouthwatering slice of summer. It’s also an attempt to blend the flavors of the fruit and the harvesting seasons across summer and fall into one piece.

Until next week…