Following my own rules

I've been trying to make something every day. It's been nice. While my back is about to explode (because I'm falling apart at the seams), I refused to let it be an excuse and went into the studio. I couldn't figure out what to do with the paper I made in the class I took with Traci Bautista. I'm just not equipped yet to try more of what she taught - I'll be able to try more when her book arrives. I decided to apply it to the sides of the shelf I've had to move in the studio. Since those sides are the first thing someone will see walking into the room, I figured it couldn't hurt. It actually came out OK! I even painted the bottom of the shelf. Maybe everyone else doesn't look, but I do. I also made another ATC. It's hard to stop criticizing myself about the quality of the cards. The advice about just making art and stopping the internal criticizing is hard to keep in the forefront of my brain, but I'm trying.

I've got nothing fabulous or amusing to add. I'm happy with myself for continuing to make a daily effort at producing art and will leave it at that.

Inspiration Overload

Is it possible? The last week has been a whirlwind of varying degrees of inspiration to work, work, work in the studio. Frustrated that my art supplies are either in an old painted lingerie dresser or in a dark closet, my husband insisted we head to Ikea to find storage that would work for me. In less than four minutes, I spotted the perfect tall glass-fronted cabinet. He insisted I buy two. So while it has put a kink in production in the sense that I must completely (ugh!) rearrange the furniture and (double ugh!!) take down everything on the walls, patch and paint those spots, then rearrange furniture more, the end result will be a markedly improved final work room.

On Wednesday, I took my first ever art workshop with Traci Bautista at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach. The class was entitled "Monotypes and Drizzles." I was terrified on arrival, worried that everyone would be better than me, that I'd be lost in terms of following instructions, etc. It was a real challenge for me, and stuff that is well outside the realm of what I do, but it was a great learning experience with a superbly patient and creative instructor. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the Friday class I'd signed up for, but did end up being able to return to see the actual quilt show and visit a few vendors and pick up some amazing fabrics, trims and threads for future projects. I watched people in workshops trying things new to them. We played like we did when we were little kids with artsy muck on our hands, wiping the goo on our shirts without a care in the world, and just had fun making something. For me, the something was painted papers - tissue, paper towels, copy paper. What fun.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I kept reminding myself of artist Lisa Vollrath's advice throughout the weekend. I stopped comparing myself and my art to everyone else and theirs, and really did become wildly inspired. I looked at the details of quilts and got new ideas, really thought about what I liked and what methods were used that were new to me. I found myself plotting projects, eager to try those new techniques. The experience was liberating instead of daunting. That's new for me.

Following the quilt show, my husband and I took his college buddy visiting from Iowa to the Laguna Arts Festival here in So Cal. Instead of focusing on the artists' commercial success and mentally beating myself up for not making enough effort, I really looked at techniques, thought about what attracted me to some pieces vs. others and found even more inspiration for future projects.

Today I am home alone, a rarity in this household. After racing through chores, I'll be finishing assembling the 2nd cabinet for the studio and patch the nail holes as I relocate the displayed art, all the while planning projects and jotting down notes and sketches while I work, enjoying the inspiration that consumed the weekend. There should be more days like this. I will make it happen instead of just waiting for that to happen.

Trying to finish projects

What a frustrating day! I decided that I really should try to finish half-completed (or less) projects before starting a lot more, though I can't really stand the thought of just doing one project at a time. So I'll start one new project (a "strips and curves" quilt) and complete one old project (a long past due unfinished quilt) for now. Of course, I'm still sneaking a little time in the studio to work on the Monday project.

Today's mission was to select a new focus fabric for the new quilt I'm starting. The one I had chosen before just wouldn't work. I drove forever to what USED to be a fantastic shop loaded with a zillion fabric choices. I was stunned to walk in and find row after row of scrapbooking materials, but a gigantic empty wall where the fabric used to be! I stopped in my tracks and asked what happened. They looked at me like I was from Mars and asked what I meant. It's a little hard to miss an entire wall of empty cubbies that used to hold fabric, so I pointed it out to the goobers. They said that because of the economy, they were cutting back on inventory. I pointed out that there was a total of a mile of aisle of scrapbooking stuff, but not many people can make much with fat quarters of fabric (just about all they had). I tried really hard to find something, anything, I could use, but left with my lower lip extended a little. I ended up at (choke, gag) Jo-Ann Fabrics. Yuck. Their inventory consists of the same fabric (and I swear even the same bolts) they had last year and the year before. After 3.5 hours out and about, I came home with a measly three bits of fabric and a pinch of thread. Ugh.

On a positive note, I'll be at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach next week and know I'll be able to buy fabric. Even though it can be a little crampbed and disoragnized, it's so much fun to be surrounded with thousands of people that enjoy creating as much as I do. Woohoo! I can't wait.

My first challenge

Today I received my first "Make It Mondays" challenge via Facebook. Lisa Vollrath has so much good common sense advice about creating art and I'm trying like mad to take it all to heart as I start. Creating work without self criticism is tough! Today I read Lisa's comments about art not being a competitive sport, noting that we should be inspired by the work of other artists, not wasting time or energy criticizing their work or our own. Motivated by the challenge for this week of creating something with paper scraps, I marched into the studio to get started. It took a while. I don't have a lot of paper bits. Pulling out the few pieces I had (and used previously on my business cards), I started looking at paper not designed for art. I pulled out magazine clippings, an old Pottery Barn catalog and some children's books for inspiration. The modge podge came out, along with the scissors and an xacto knife. I haven't used that one in a while! For an hour I puttered with clipping, folding, tearing and gluing bits. I'm not quite finished with the project, but took the time to stop and look at what I'd accomplished. It's good for a chuckle, if nothing else. I'm just not at the point where I don't criticize myself, but the critic isn't so brutal today. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I had fun making the mess. I am reminded, once again, that this is the entire point. Today was fun and, for once, I feel like a LOT of the pressure is off to create a masterpiece.

Tomorrow, I'll spend more time on the Frankenstein in my studio. It's a mish-mash of stuff, but it's a good mess.

I swore I'd never write about my cats...

Today I'm making a single exception. What the heck kind of cat eats avocados? My son asked why there was an avacado in the dining room, to which I had no logical response. I thought about it for a second, then asked if it had chomp marks on it. It did. That scrawny beast took it from the kitchen and ran with it. Those suckers are expensive, and the brat didn't even eat it. He just made it inedible for us human folk. I can only assume that the reason his scrawny behind has been sitting by the kitty toys all afternoon is because he's nursing a sprained neck from carrying the big load. Serves him right. I guess Albert the Racoon is going to have himself quite the lovely snack tonight to go with his kitty food.

Dumb cat.

Boston Comments (Get it? :-)

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post my comments about Boston while they are still fresh in my mind and I've had two hot cups of coffee (and one sip of cold. Ugh. I'd rather eat cat food.)

We took two tours via a bus equipped with one seriously noxious potty - one to Plymouth (which they spell "Plimith" everywhere but on one government building as far as I could tell) and one to Salem. There were two common factors with these tours. Both drivers were named Bob, pronounced "Bwaahb" if you are a native. They both had a penchant for sharing macabre bits of info unrelated to the tour. After the 2nd tour, Bwaahb #2 was delivering tourists to their respective hotels, pointing out such attractions as a former prison where they were known to put quite a few people to death, or noting that the raggedy faux flowers near a train track were in honor of the young lady that watched carefully as a train passed before crossing the tracks, but sadly failed to look the other direction to see THAT train coming, at which point she was sqwooshed. I believe I am quoting Bob accurately here.

Another observation about Boston is that those little illuminated "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs at lighted intersections just don't have the same meaning for those folks as it does here in California. I do believe that with their particular form of dyslexia, what they see is "Step into traffic whilst you give the stink eye to the guy with the right of way that could sqwoosh you too!" We were freaks, pressing the little button and waiting forever for the illuminated permission to step in front of the worst drivers in the contiguous 48 states.

Our trip to Salem was amusing. When I was a kid, I remember my older sister Lisa being somewhat over-the-top in her interest in witchcraft. I felt like I needed to sleep with one eye open for a couple of years. The spell book under her bed made me the most nevervous. That, and the fact that I had humiliated her by collecting my younger sister and best friend and sporting Lisa's half slip-with-legs on our heads while conducting a horrible little dance down the stairs in front of her boyfriend Chuck. Of course, we were sure to inform Chuckiepooh that these lovely crowns were, in fact, Lisa's undergarments. We would never wear such silly things but as a crown. This only inspired her to read her spell book with greater passion. Her interest waned eventually, and I never actually saw any eye of newt or frog parts in the house. In Salem, we visited the scene of the witch trials in 1692, the burial ground of the accusers, and saw the area where the accused were hanged (and one poor soul killed by "pressing" with a pile of rocks). We expected serious, macabre tales and visions of ghastly reenactment of the trials. While the museum promised a "dramatic history lesson using stage sets with life-size figures, lighting and a narration," we got a pretty darned silly show of illuminated giant creepy looking statues (I think they were paper mache over balloons) reminiscent of a giant dioarama. The second room was filled with little posters and blurbs about witch hunts around the world. As soon as I saw Dorothy and Glenda the Good Witch on the wall (seriously), we left. It was good for a chuckle, and "Bwaahb" enchanted us with amusing tales from his youth, as well as stops that weren't on the tour.

I was grateful that it rained lightly for all of ten minutes during a period of time where we'd been promised daily thunder showers. The only drawback to New England is the humidity. For someone with curly hair who is trying to get through the growing-out-short-hair stage, this was a challenging week. I looked like a dandelion. There was no amount of hair product meant to make curls look fabulous that was worth its weight in advertising. It was futile, frustrating and downright fluffy. I was the official "Glamour Don't" girl of MA for a week. Worse, my husband can NOT seem to get control of the camera and discover the "slim" feature. Add the poof on the top of my head, and it was a week of photography nightmares for moi. I'm going to be investing some serious time with Photoshop this week. I'm also not going back to Boston until I have either very long hair, or very short hair. I don't look good as a dandelion.

Inspiration by Surprise

I got a phone call last week from a dear friend (and amazing artist) that I hadn't seen or talked with in a long while was visiting from out of town with her sister and was invited to get together. We were getting ready to head out on vacation, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to reconnect, as I feel we've really drifted with the miles between us. I had a wonderful day filled with loads of laughter, very little talk of kids, husbands and jobs (great girl stuff!) and lots of discussion about creativity of all sorts. I was revved up to get back to work, stop being such a baby and to stop feeling like I have to make excuses for my inadequacies as an artist. We fit into such different categories. I've known my friend Susie since I was a teenager. I remember seeing her "homework" in art school and being blown away at her creativity and skill. Our foyer is home to one of her magnificent watercolours. Her sister Amy is fabulous - full of amazing energy, funny, skilled in so many areas. The best part was that both of them were so positive and encouraging with me, and I appreciate it more than they could know.

As odd as it may sound, I was also significantly inspired by the headstones in the many burial grounds (they don't call them cemeteries) in Boston this past week. The artwork on the tombstones and markers was incredible. There was one in particular that moved me, that of a young woman with a message carved on the stone that spoke to the person reading it and noted that at one time, she too had stood there looking down at graves before death claimed her to join them. It was much more poetic than that, but I'm exhausted and sleep deprived and must review my photos after coffee. Having seen so many graves of so many young people, combined with the remarkable number of celebrity deaths this week of folks my age (Michael Jackson, Billy Mays...), I am reminded that life is short. Time to make art! After grocery shopping, picking up the pile of vacation mail, etc. of course. Ugh, the real world beckons.