Back to ART!

After the fun at Con-cept, the sci fi convention,  I dove into lots of manual labour to prepare the house and garden for winter.  The garden is now free of weeds and other growing things.

Weed be gone

The shed has been emptied, we and the neighbours ended up having “free Cycle” day.  I put everything out in the alley with a big sigh that it was free.  All days things went and new things showed up.  It was quite amazing.  Lots of kids toys and clothes changed hands.  One lady especially took my heart.  She took home lots of toys and baby things with tears in her eyes saying “This is hundred of dollars of things!!!  My kids will be so happy!”

After that I plastered and painted the stairwell which got so badly battered in the moves.  I re-arranged the living room so we could have the heat on and re-organized the kitchen so the new freezer would fit.  I had hoped to paint the studio but I just ran out of warm weather and energy.  Oh and all the windows got washed and prepped for winter too.  I am so done with this “simple back to the earth ” life!  Every part of my body hurt and my hands hardly worked at all.  But it is done until the snow flies and has to be shovelled.

But I am back to art.  I am making small stuff for Christmas craft fairs at the moment.  Doll pins, tea cozies, dancing fairies and other things like that. A bit boring but fun to play with fabric again.  It gives my hands a bit of time to recover before I try anything more complicated.  Besides just working with fabric usually triggers all sorts of design ideas.

I will be at the Old Skool Crafts on December 10 – 11  Foires Artisanales Des Fêtes – L’Église St.Michel, 105 St.Viateur O.

 

At Con-Cept this Weekend!

I will be at the Sci Fi convention Con-Cept in Montreal this weekend.  I will have the small oil pastels, the Mermaid, the Sacred Twins and the Dieing Troll at the art show as well as some small pin dolls.

A new oil pastel is Medusa.  I got new oil pastels while in Edmonton and this was the piece where I experimented with Ink and oil pastels:

Commissions

Last month I had a commission for one of my tea cosy dolls.  They wanted one based on SCTV’s Edith Prickey.  This was a bit different then my standard “Granny” tea cosies and I had a fun time watching videos of Edith.  I even rediscovered an old one I saw hundreds of times when my youngest was a toddler  “Put Down the Ducky”!   Eventually this is what I came up with:

Edith Prickley Tea Cosy

 

Interestingly on the art forum that I frequent there were some long discussions on doing commissions.  Many people felt that doing them was a form of “selling out” , that some how ones art was corrupted by it being requested and paid for.  For me I have always felt it was a compliment, someone saw my art and wanted something special just for them.  That they trusted my artistic vision and hoped I would be inspired by their requests.  I have always seen it as a way to look beyond my own little box, to get inspired by something I hadn’t thought about.  I have rejected commissions in the past though, ones that wanted me to do exact duplicates of things, and no, I will not make a caricature of your boss.  But as long as I have the artistic control, it is a fun thing to do.  Yes I can get inspired by that shade of blue you love, or that picture of your grandmother, that scrap of fabric, or that memory of your heritage.

 

Playing with Pastels

After my breakthrough in July of conquering the blank page, it took me weeks to dare to face the blank page again.  Not only a blank page but A Good Quality Paper Blank Page! Ack no I will waste it! It won’t be Museum Quality!  Shut up voices, I journaled about you enough times that I am Sick Of YOU! Shut Up!

Show Girl

The first thing I tried was chalk pastel and a photo of my youngest daughter putting on make up for a vintage fashion show. I did this outside on my upper deck because it was such nice weather.

Next I tried a self portrait.  This was more challenging.  The model kept moving, taking and putting on her glasses.  Very annoying, don’t think I will hire her again LOL.  All the pieces are there, they just don’t seem to be assembled in the same way as on the model. They are 12 X 16.

It was fun but as I was finishing this piece I noticed I had been coughing and my asthma was acting up.  I suddenly clued in to the amount of dust generated by the chalk pastels.  It hadn’t been a problem before as I had been working outside.  This was very saddening, another technique I was going to have to give up for my health.  Resentfully I put the pastels away.

But in the drawer I also had some oil pastels, ones my granddaughter had left behind, the only problem was that half of them were missing -  especially all the “flesh” tones and intermediate shades.  So I picked up a box of very cheap ones and fuelled by my anger of giving up the lovely expensive chalk pastels I ripped through a series of, never again to see the light of day, sketches to learn how to handle these F-ing things.

Witch

The cheap ones were really a pain so I put them aside and started really focusing on what the good ones could do.  The first is again based on a photo of my daughter at a scifi convention in a fairy/elf costume.  The next one is based on a photo an forum friend posted. They are 9 X 12.

Come hither to the ferns

One of the reasons I wanted to play with this is that I am going back to Edmonton next week.  I don’t want to drag a suitcase with body parts and yarn and beads with me again. Plus when I get back I am going to the local sci fi convention Con*Cept  So I am hoping to have some things for the art show since I won’t have time for making costumes.

Titania's Shower

Trolls

I know – it has been a while but the kitchen needed painting, anyway I am back on track.

Two of the forums I belong to have recently had troll infestations.  This was painful because both deal with art issues, one is about journaling to find your creativity and the other is about sharing ones art and getting positive feedback.  The trolls kept the emotional content very high, emotional vampires is probably the best description of these kinds of posters.  Anyway on the art sharing forum we also have something we call the MM (Monthly Motive) where we each interpret and post our idea of the chosen subjects.  This month we did “Trolls”.

Traditionally trolls are really nasty critters but the first hint of dawn kills them and turns them to stone (rather like vampires that don’t sparkle)

So here is my troll  “Dawn light on the Troll” tea cosy  AKA Dying Troll

Dying Troll

It is made with free form machine embroidery on cotton.  There is on over lay of golden yellow net with sparkles on one side to simulate the dawn light.

Close up of eye

Breaking a Barrier

A few posts earlier I complained about my hangup with regard to a “blank Page”.  I tried to draw some prissy little flowers when I was in Edmonton but basically was beaten up by the blankness.   This changed today.

I have been having some problems with the provincial bureaucracy.  They have screwed up my file three times in 4 months.  The in the latest idiocy they decided I had left the province, even though they knew, acknowledged that I had only gone to look after my mother for 6 weeks.  In late June I reported that i was back – By actually going into the office and handing them a letter which included a copy of the letter as to why I was going, handed it to them physically, was identified as who I was, showed them that my body was in the province and in their office.  Then I waited, no cheque, I called “10 business days”,  called again “But you didn’t give them the plane tickets like they requested, oh they didn’t contact you?”, no they didn’t nor did anyone tell me I needed to present those too, after all my body was there in the office, how did they think it got there?

So I felt totally fried and frantic this morning and sat there in journaled and got more and more angry.  I needed to express myself and fabric would take too long.  So I dug out some pastels I had bought a few years ago, some charcoal, and dug out my easel and paper.  I had a photo of a male from an add that I used as a start and just ripped into it.  I don’t think I have ever used pastels quite like this.

Ode to a government worker

I feel much better now.  Most of my anxiety is gone.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the thing.

 

 

Back Home Again – 2

I am back from Toronto. When did I stop doing impromptu trips like that? Yes it was stressful (the universe offered me an opportunity to showcase my art and promptly took away all financing) Not much went according to plan but I had FUN!!!
The bus trip went of with an exciting bang, first I missed the Berri-QUAM stop, rush to get to the right station, and then when everyone was on board this street guy climbed

on the bus and refused to get off, a great show was made by security and he eventually left the bus quietly. So the whole adventure started late…. The bus was comfortable and had WiFi but my stomach doesn’t do WiFi on a bus so I had 6 hours of staring at scenery.

View from inside gallery

Once in TO I headed for the gallery to assemble and set up the dolls and find they had under estimated the time it took to move the gallery and they weren’t ready for me so I had to stay at least until the next day, no sneaking back to Montreal.

I had a lovely stay with my cousin and her family. It was a great opportunity to talk with someone who had gone through similar family health issues. Besides that they have a

Gallery window

lovely home and fed me very well for which I am very grateful. I decided to stay for the reception after all which made them happy because it gave Helen and Isaac an excuse not to go away for the weekend.
On Saturday Helen went with me to the reception at the art gallery. I bless her for that as I am not at my best with groups of people unless I am officially in charge like being a teacher or speaker. It was hot but I game fully chatted with people about my work, my inspiration, and the techniques. When it was over I was ready to faint from the heat and stress but Helen dragged me to a little AIR CONDITIONED bistro and we had cold drinks and lovely little cakes until I was coherent again.

So I am back in Montreal and recovered. I am still trying to straighten out the financial mess but my website is back up again. That was a real pain – a show and no website! I have added a page for the mermaid and one for the Wild, Sacred Twins.
Now to get back into the swing of creating. I moved things around in the studio again. Yes Again. I am making space to move around, creating little dedicated areas. My computer work space is now isolated in the corner and not invading my artist space which I found very irritating. Organization and cleaning means I have more open space which makes it easier for me to focus and create. It also means the cat won’t try to take over the work space, scattering beads everywhere.

When I was in Whitehorse I picked up some fabric for skin at Bear Paw quilts - funny that I went so far from Montreal to find quilt fabric but though this city has great fabric stores they don’t have anything quite like Bear Paw Quilts.  The fabric is delightful and a little different from my usual colour scheme, I can almost but not quite see the doll it wants to be.

Mermaid: Breaking Free

I managed to finish (or tell myself it was Finished!) the mermaid in time for the Ben Navaee gallery show.  There are always a thousand other things I can think of doing to a piece when I have to tear myself away from it.

This piece was about letting go of the past and the things that have been holding me back.  She is a result of the Morning Pages of “The Artist Way”, writing about the things that were making me feel trapped.

mermaid- breaking free

 

And some close ups:

mermaid back

 

front closeup

Gallery show in Toronto

My dolls will be part of a show at a gallery in Toronto.  They will be at Ben Navaee gallery  in the “Women’s Art Exhibition”  From july 7th to the  22nd.

I have been working hard to get the mermaid: Breaking Free   finished for it.  She is looking really good.  I only have to finish the net for her to Break Free!!!!

 

Back home

I am finally back home in Montreal.  I have spent some time excavating my studio and cleaning.  It is amazing how dusty and dirty unused rooms get.  You would think the cat and dog would be bald from the amount off hair  and dust bunnies I swept up!

I have been re-acquainting myself with my fabrics and yarns, re-arranging the studio now that I see it with fresh eyes.  However there is only so much space so it is a challenge still.  Luckily my youngest didn’t fill up the hallway with her boxes so I still have some space to maneuver, to put away things I don’t use daily.  Also with the nicer weather the balcony becomes usable space – but only in the mornings when it is cool.

When I got home I was also trapped into some computer support for a website.  That site is changing servers (and more)so I will lose my webhosting for a while until I find a new host.  The positive side is that I will no longer have to support this site and rewrite its software to handle Firefox 4 & 5.