Spring Catchup

Hello Friends, 

Spring is here and my studio is blooming with new artwork!
I'm thrilled to announce that I received a 2nd Ohio Arts Council Award for Excellence in Individual Art. This is a highly competitive award and a true honor. And there is a nice monetary award that I'll receive. 
Keeping a list of new studio supplies that I'd like to acquire...

COMMISSIONED WORK

In the meantime, I completed this commission for a client in Columbus, Ohio. 
It is 24" high x 60" long. Watercolor and drawn lines. 

This work is connected to my love for stitching and lines and to my long walks near the shores of Lake Erie here in Cleveland, Ohio. 

SPOTLIGHT ARTIST at HEIGHTS ART IN CLEVELAND

After making the piece above, I decided to continue to paint and make more of this Aquascapes.  These works are now on view   at Heights Arts Gallery in Cleveland Hts, Ohio. On view now through June 18, 2017. 

Here are 4 of the nine plus works as they looked on my leather sofa.

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BIENNALE DU LIN UPDATE

I'm  in the last moments of completing my installation for the Biennale du Lin in the province of Quebec. I fly up there on June 12 and will install the work.

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The opening reception is June 18, 2017. I will learn more about the exact location soon. There are 3 potential installation venues.

Here are a few images as it looked while I worked on the piece.

I hand dyed white linen with indigo. From deep blue to light blue and have layered the work to look like water. 
I will post images of the work once it's installed and looks exactly how I had envisioned it to be seen. This will happen in mid June.

Thrilled to see
my flax flowers blooming

And to realize that they are not all one color of blue just like the indigo-dyed linen I'm using for my installation.

TEACHING ANNOUNCEMENT

I am also preparing to teach a 2 day workshop entitled Spontaneous Hand-Stitching in Perrysburg, Ohio for the Fiber577 event on June 10-11, 2017. I'll give a lecture on Friday night June 9. If you are nearby for the lecture or for my workshop, I'd love to meet you.
There are 2 spots open in my workshop. 

Thank you for stopping by. Leave a note, I'd love to hear from you. C

Christmas Card for my friend and setting a pace for myself in 2017

My bestie who is stellar art consultant asked me to create a small image for her bespoke holiday cards to send out to her clients. This little 4 x 6 inch watercolor with a tessellation drawing is what she selected from my offerings. 
If you knew her, you'd know that not only does she work tirelessly to place regional artwork in private and corporate art collections, she spends the early morning hours or any hours she can steal away, to go out onto Lake Erie with her paddle board and practice Stand Up Paddle board (SUP). 
She's become quite the expert and is training to compete in events that will challenge her body and mind, that is when she's not running 200 mile races. 

Having been inspired by her fortitude I painted a little gray house on a blue lake with a larger 'thought' cloud near the house. The gray house is a direct reference to her company logo. 
I will be painting and drawing more images inspired by where I live and what I can imagine in 2017. 
And I will continue to stitch, make large installations, eco print, and share what I know whenever I'm asked in the form of teaching. 
 

Feeling Blue, Moving Ahead

I am feeling blue. Despite that, I am (trying) to focus on my next installation(s). A woman must work and make things to nourish herself, and I have deadlines. 

After writing, thinking, and discussing for months, I let my brain rest and then the idea arrived: 
 I came to realize that I must make something that I can make with gusto and with assurance that the work will look and feel like mine, but also conveys what I think matters most. 

WATER and how PLASTIC IS A MENACE TO IT

This is a screen-shoot of part of my proposal for the Biennale Internationale Du Lin De Portneuf in 2017  (blogpost) HERE, and have just received the approval to move forward
with my concept. 

INSTALLATION for BIENNALE DU LIN
Provence of Quebec, Due in June, 2017
The perimeters for the Biennale are that I use linen/flax or its evocation since the growing of flax is part of the history of the villages along the St. Lawrence River and is deeply rooted in the community. 
The creators of the Biennale have directed me and a group to use the them, "GONE UNNOTICED'.

"Of all the actions done by humans, history holds only a tiny part. Memory is a selective process...a tremendous part of human beings actions goes completely unnoticed.
 If, as wrote it French poet René Char, « L’essentiel est sans cesse menacé par l’insignifiant », : «The essence of life is ceaselessly threathened by the insignificant», 

As you might imagine, I contemplated this task from April until October. Some of my thoughts...

The use of plastic by humans and its devastating consequences to the health or our water is the concept I have selected to use for theme, Gone Unnoticed.

We use plastic as a convenience for packaging thousands of items to make our lives easier and discard it often without an afterthought to where it will end up. We do not consider the real damage it has on the environment and goes unnoticed by many people.

When plastic reaches our waters, it becomes a great danger to marine life and to us.

Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently litter the ocean. Trash accumulates in ocean
garbage patches, the largest one is between Hawaii and California is called “The Great Pacific  Garbage Patch”. The plastic debris is sized 0.5 m/1.5’ and up.

Most of this trash cannot be seen because it is so tiny that it is invisible to the human eye but is oating just beneath the water’s surface. Marine wildlife ingests these plastics and its effects are long lasting and deadly. For example, Much of the toxin-containing plastic pieces are also eaten by jellysh, which are then eaten by larger fish. Many of these fish are then consumed by humans, resulting in our ingestion of toxic chemicals.

Undeniablly, all marine life is at risk of the dangers of plastic waste.
NOW
I must execute this work. Stay tuned. I'll be dyeing linen, sewing, etc...

THE NEXT INSTALLATION: timeline Spring?

I MIGHT be able to create an installation/wall covering for 2 waiting rooms in an emergency room in a local hospital. 
They asked for calming imagery using light and color. 
These are 2 rooms where people receive very difficult news. 

I'm SLOWLY thinking about using tessellations. Like these drawings I've done  And adding beautiful colors to the background. 
If you can imagine, these are some ideas that might become combined and turn into a new work.
If all goes well, I'll be making wallpaper to wrap 3 walls with this type of imagery. 
 

There are a few more projects looming, and then a SOLO show in Spring for Kent State University.

And what are you up to?

Fall Teaching

I taught 2 workshops at Maiwa on Granville Island, Vancouver, BC in September. 

To say it was a  zen-like experience all around sounds cliche, but it was for me. Meaning that we had a sense of being in flow and having a sense of oneness among one another. The staff and all the participants are/were life-affirming. Smiles all around and many hugs. 

Owner, Charllotte Kwon, her husband Tim, and the entire staff together are a dream-team of like-minded people. I've never seen or experienced this kind of love and generosity among people who work together. The couple who billeted me could not have been better. Bonnie Adie and her husband worked together to welcome me into their home and provide everything I needed including delivering me to the the workshop each day. Bonne was also my expert studio assistant.

 Workshop one was a 3-day class entitled,  The Intuitive Stitch and then I taught a 2-day session called Spontaneous Hand Stitching.
Without telling you my exact methods and what and why these stitches were made by the class participants I'm sharing a few images with you. Enjoy! I hope you get to visit Maiwa one day. It's a real treat.

I had the honor to deliver a lecture to a sold-out crowd of 140 people before I had to pack my bags to return to Cleveland. 

Here's a link to the blog post Maiwa wrote about that evening and a brilliantly written and heart-felt introduction by the soulful Shiela Wex. 

Next, I taught 2 eco print for scarves classes. Both were one-day sessions at The Holden Arboretum in Kirkland, Ohio.
We collected leaves from the ground within the 3600 acre park. The Holden Arboretum is an outdoor living museum on 3,600 acres that promotes the beauty and importance of trees and other woody plants. The grounds feature over 20 miles of trails that lead you through cultivated gardens and native forests. 
Here are a few images from the October 1, 2016 workshop: 

And a few from October 22, 2016 workshop.