Back to Work...Finally!

Divergence 1
8x10"
watercolor, charcoal, ink and stitching on paper

Wow!  This is the longest break I have taken from my blog since I started it  a little over a year ago.
I hope you are still out there!
The holidays were busy and a trip to New York City intervened making time to photograph art and get it to my blog a little challenging.  But I think I am back into a working routine.  At least I hope so.

Susan McClelland and I are showing our "Divergence" collaboration again in February at Lorain County Community College and we wanted to add to the installation by creating some drawings related to the three dimensional pieces that we will be showing. So the next few blogs will be the drawings for the show.

The exhibit entitled "Divergence: Points of Departure" is scheduled for February 24-March 23, 2016 at Stocker Gallery on the campus of Lorain County Community College.  I will include some pictures of the installation as it looked at Kent State Stark Campus in August 2015 in my next post and more details about the upcoming show and reception.
Thanks as always for your interest in my work and my blog.

Layered Ambiguity

"Forgotten"
11x14" mixed media on board

Impressionistic, Attic-y feel with a subtle use of mostly black and white.
Lots of history or soul to this piece in the many layers.
Materials include acrylic paint, found images, Japanese papers, parts of an old painting, fabric and plaster.
Can't get much more mixed media than that.
But maybe I will try!

Sewing Paper

"When Night Comes Before Day"
11x14"  mixed media collage

I have a love for sewing.
I have sewn most of my life, moving from making my own clothes to making quilts to sewing anything that  I can stick a threaded needle into.
Sewing a collaged surface takes more time, but it is time that I truly enjoy.
It brings a certain intimacy to the work that isn't there for me with other materials.
When I am working with hard surfaces like wood, I find that I incorporate sewing-like line quality.
And at times I have drilled holes into the wood so I could actually stitch the surface.
As with any artwork, the use of materials or techniques needs to "match the meaning" or intent of the work.
The black lace, although plastic, and the white lace, although covered with plaster, definitely called out for stitching.
The laces had been previously used for printing their designs onto other artwork, so they are the unconventional materials here while the stitching is the traditional process used to tie everything together.

For the Love of Fonts

"For the Love of Fonts"
5x7" mixed media on board

Who doesn't like fonts?  I can spend hours looking at them when I am doing an artwork that requires a font.
I have downloaded some special ones that I like onto my computer.
This piece started with a piece of black discharged (bleached) fabric and a purchased art paper with some writing on it.
The large letters came from a plastic bag;
the smaller fonts from a transparency I made a long time ago with a variety of wording in a variety of fonts.
The color is from some transfers to the plastic which were only moderately successful as the transfer did not want to stick to the plastic...not porous enough, I guess.  Live and learn.
But I do think the hint of transparent color was needed.

Using Stitch as a Drawing Line

Variations on a Theme no. 6
8x10"

So...after a week of teaching and working in the yard, I am back to making art.
Once spring arrives (and it is finally here!) there is so much to do.  It will be interesting to see how I balance art making with all of the yard work and gardening that I normally do.
This piece is number 6 in a series of light / white works.  I feel like I was able to get back to the really light palette that I was trying to achieve.  There are a few more pieces coming in this series.  I am enjoying this but getting eager to use more color. I think the "cleansing" of my palette worked.  I hope I can start reusing color with a new eye.
I really do love stitching on paper and fabric, and this is one of the things I was able to accomplish in this series of light works.  I like to think of stitching as a drawing line, a way to add linear elements but with thread and stitch as opposed to pen and ink.  That is part of what I did in this series.
I am finding that each piece brings a new set of challenges...
how to use mostly white materials,
how to use stitch in a way that references drawing,
how to manipulate materials, both fabric and paper,
how to be abstract and yet appeal to a broad audience of art lovers.

For sale in my Etsy shop for $110 with free shipping to the US.

Creating Tension

Variations on a Theme no. 4
8x10"

Strong contrasts in white and black emphasize the contrasts in imagery and materials.  The drawing of the spine and suture-like stitches seem to create a sense of tension or disconnect with the flowery embroidery.  So the variation in this piece lies in both the use of limited color and suggestions from the imagery and stitching.

Dark and Light, Front and Back

I thought I could share the small pieces of the painting I cut up to use in my Upcycle series.
I don't have a picture of the original painting but as you can see it was dark.  Or perhaps I was dark!

These pieces are about 4 x 7 ".  I don't know why I chose that size.  It probably made sense at the time.  Then I added some collage elements, stitched on them both with the machine and by hand.  On some I added oil crayon markings and shapes.

The bottom photo is the back side of the pieces with more collage, drawing and coloring.

So, why do I continuously work on both sides of the page?  (See my Farmscapes which are also two-sided.)

I think it has something to do with the stitching which makes a mark on the backside as well as the front.  I find those marks intriguing on the blank side of the paper/canvas.  It offers me a whole other surface to respond to.

When I was in graduate school, several people commented on the backside of my fabric pieces, finding them interesting on their own.  Actually, I think some of the people, professors especially, liked the back of the work better than the front!

So I have made an effort to think about this side/surface, although I have never been able to leave it alone....meaning just go with the stitching without adding anything else.  Perhaps that would be a good challenge for a series of small pieces.  And I think you can look forward to some of the pieces in the Upcycle series being light ones, using the backside of the work instead of the darker original painting side.

Upcycling my Old Art!

Ladder

Definition of upcycle:
-to reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.

I have been making art for over 30 years and therefore have a lot of art...some of it good, some of it, not so much.  I have these acrylic paintings that I did in college which were okay, not great, but have some interesting areas.  About a year ago I decided to cut one of them up and stitch on the pieces, add some collage elements and some drawing.  I tried to find a way to display them as a group but the pieces no longer worked together.

While looking for something else in my studio, I came upon them and decided that I might be able to do something with them in this 6x6" format, so I cut the pieces down some more!  This one, titled "Ladder", incorporates the acrylic painting on canvas with collage elements, machine and hand stitching, plaster, shellac and encaustic paint.  "Ladder" seems to me to fit the definition of upcycle, reusing something discarded in order to elevate it to a better standing than the original.
At least I find it to be upcycled for the better.
Not sure what my art professor's opinion would be!

This piece is 6x6" and priced at $75 including shipping.  To purchase please email me.