Two New Cards – One with Variations

SoulCollage collage – not yet a card.  For that, a Staples run is necessary, and then some cutting and gluing.  But this one popped out of the pile today.  Watched the TV show “Grimm” last night, and figured this one could be called, “Grim Fairy Tale”.  This is, in part, my response to flipping through a couple of Vogue magazines (thank you unusable miles that translate into free magazines!), including the one that featured Kate Moss’s wedding.  The message seems to be that happiness is a question of purchasing and looking good in the right outfit.  The next one was worked in a series.

I have made many cards that refer to the creative process.  This is another and I call it simply, ‘The Maker’.  I shot twenty or so with various pieces moved around.  I thought about making a slide show, but ultimately, the static quality of the red dancer defeated the point.  But here are a couple of variations, the second being digitally altered.

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time plus little acts equal

“time plus little acts of love = a Good Life”

Made this Valentine this morning, with red silk, a sheer grey/black poly, and a handmade pink paper with sparkle-inclusions.

The paper must date back to pre-school volunteering – the glitter is a dead give away.

Ever since Jude posted something about the possibility of ‘sympathetic evolution’ – possibly by pairing old and recent work, I have been wondering what this might look like with my bag of tricks. A few weeks ago, I clicked some shots from an illustrated book of poems that I created in college – so we are talking mid-70′s.  The one below inspired today’s card:

This is a collage using a dark-room created floral image.

A couple of weeks later, a chip of red fabric happened to find its way underneath that grey/black polyester that I am currently so in love with, and the resonance spoke for itself.

Today’s card is a reminder of the power of deadlines, the utility of saving a piece of paper for 14 years, and the value of re-visiting our earlier work.

While this little heart-felt card merely hints at what a more robust ‘sympathetic evolution’ might look like, it is a tasty hint, and I’ll take it as a signpost!

               Practice note:  it helped, some, to add black shadows to the white-stitched letters with a pigma pen.

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Jackets, Blankets, and Sheets

The Greek word moira (μοῖρα) literally means a part or portion, and by extension one’s portion in life or destiny. They [The Fates] controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from birth to death.  [Wikipedia]

With two weeks to go for The Sketchbook Project, the foot of snowfall over the weekend was a boon — I got to spend almost all of Monday down in the cellar.  I was having so much fun, it didn’t matter how cold my studio was!

Below are some images of sheets that I collected over the fall.  One of D. sleeping. Another of our laundry closet, photoshopped.

My chosen theme — JACKETS, BLANKETS AND SHEETS – also got a boost from the snow.  Blankets of snow covered the Northeast on Sunday, and so pictures of snow, Christmas napkins of snow, and Vintage Christmas cards with blankets of snow, all made their way into the book.  More of that tomorrow.

Jack has nearly disappeared while walking on the newly-cleared sidewalk!

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Cultivating Curiosity

Curiosity
14th century 1 : desire to know: a : inquisitive interest in others’ concerns b : interest leading to inquiry <intellectual curiosity

After the post about feeling like a jerk for being unorganized, I have decided to offer myself at least as much “inquisitive interest” in how I perform day-to-day as I would offer a work-in-progress.

In quilting, I really have learned to look at pieces with a certain amount of curiosity and detachment, because I understand that my subjective stance, at any given moment, might undergo radical revision as I move along.  Further, I recognize that detached curiosity can be key to discovering HOW to move forward — in quilting.

And, more along these lines, why is it that I can offer another blogger (with children, lamenting the interruptions), the sage advice that ‘interruptions add up to a life’, while feeling desperate in my neck of the woods, as my time gets meted out in one caretaking task after another?!

Carolyn Myss says ‘there are no unimportant jobs’.  If, for even a fraction of a day, I can act as if there are no unimportant jobs, will I feel more freedom?  You can sense what my answer would be here …

A Sufi I had the privilege of spending a summer with at a camp north of here, put it this way (we were cleaning the camp’s bathrooms at the time):  “You can find God cleaning the toilets.”  I don’t think I understood this at 17.  Or, even, why one might want to believe it.

So, forget my little post about being a jerk.  Doing the best I can here.  Might even learn to trust some of my hesitations.  Readers’ comments about the two-sided nature of selling through stores helped pop this into focus for me — thank you all.

I kept seeing the ecru silk in the little abstract (former angel) quilt as a snowy hillside.  It wasn’t long before the upright rectangle in the foreground was begging for a roof.  The moon uses a piece of organza on which I had printed a picture of the World Trade Towers  — a photo snapped in the brief expanse of time between impact and falling.  Smoke was pouring out of the upper stories, as we all remember.   As surely, none of us can forget.

Although this detail is nothing a viewer would be able to know without my telling them, I am telling YOU, dear reader, and so now I can further suggest, that this piece assumes its humble and obscure place in a chain of works about memory.  The little house here is tippy, but secure.  It will hold.  It has survived the winter.  The shadow of events from 9/11/2001, are THERE, but barely recognizable — a mere cast of grey on the edge of the moon.  We get through.

And, boy oh boy, is spring around the corner.  Perhaps that is all I needed to write this morning!

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Daffodils for a grey day

This is how it looked here yesterday.  Many branches down this morning on account of the wind.

Ken wishes it was snow, but I don’t.  I could actually smell the earth yesterday, and after months of cold, what could be better?

These daffodils made their way to my sister’s bedside yesterday, but I (and Ms. Goosey-Goose) got to enjoy them first.

Cleaning up more than anything else around here, which means little sewing.  But one space I cleared now is full of collage activity.  Here is a photoshopped collage of one of the collages.

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