Studio Friday -- fragile

I'm over a week late for this Studio Friday post. I didn't get the idea until I saw someone else's post for March 9. I started making this on Monday, having been paralyzed by (nearly infinite) choice between the 9th and the 12th.....

The topic was -- what is the most fragile thing in your studio, and how do you protect it?

If I'm going to carry my new pencil with me all the time, it needs bit of padding.

It seems to me that people are treating their ipods a bit like we treated our troll dolls, many moons ago. Making them little coats, buying them trinkets, combing their hair.....

I don't have an ipod, but I see more coats in store for my new toy.....

This is the first tangible (inedible) thing I've made in a while!

Studio Friday -- favorite quotes

Studio Friday's topic this week is Favorite Quotes.

My artistic motto is "What I lack in talent, I make up in volume."

I saw that sentence in an ad in a computer magazine, when I was looking for words to put in collages.

It really reverberates for me. I know that if I don't make stuff I can't possibly make any good stuff. The quote is my liberation from obsessing about whether something is "good enough" -- my job is to make stuff, and then make some more stuff. The more stuff I make, the more likely some of it will be good.....

I love digital photography, as it allows me to capture A LOT of images, for essentially no incremental cost. (Also none of the pollution associated with traditional photography!)

I don't know how many pics I took from the plane, going to and coming from North Carolina. Dozens and dozens. Here is one of the few keepers:

















I do have an extensive collection of quotes. I keep them in a computer file. I like the idea of a book, with images to go with the quotes......

Studio Friday -- drawing a blank

Studio Friday's theme is drawing a blank.

"It's one of the most feared events in the life of an artist. Sometimes it can take a long time to overcome this sudden stop of the creative juices. What do you do? How do you act and react? How do you get back to splashing around in all colours? Do you fight it or work with it?"

I read somewhere that when you are feeling blocked, the thing to do is lower your standards. When you fear that you will never make anything good again, the thing to do is to go make SOMETHING. I figure if I don't make anything, I surely won't make anything any good....... Wayne Gretzky is quoted as saying "I always miss 100% of the shots I don't take." Me, too.

When I am feeling uninspired, I go play with my stash.......

Studio Friday -- the perfect art book

Studio Friday's theme this week is The Perfect Art Book.

"As I was talking about books so much lately... if there was the ideal book for you as an artist on studios and life as an artist what would be the absolute most important thing in your eyes for it to have in it? What kinds of topics, elements, images would you love to have in it? A few words from your favourite artist as well? What would inspire you, what would support you, give you courage? Would you like it to be a big book with tons of pages or a small book?"

A few years ago I went with a bunch of friends to the huge Chicago quilt show (offspring of the enormous Houston show). I looked at quilts all day, and all day the next day, and then I just HAD to Make Something! Luckily my friends had planned an outing to Hobby Lobby, and even more luckily, one of them had brought along her entire stable of knitting needles "just in case anyone needed them." I bought some yarn, borrowed some needles, and cast on immediately for a scarf.....

Part of that quilt exhibition was a collection of journal quilts. A very large number of people had been inspired to make an 8.5"x11" quilt each month (or at least from January through September). It started as a one-time thing, but some people enjoyed this so much that they have continued to do it year after year.

Some examples.....

Here and here are some of Lesley Riley's pages....

Scroll down on this page to see Sandy Donabed's pages.

Karen Bettencourt's pages.


My ideal art book would be an enormous set of my favorites from all the journal quilts. Not images, but the actual pages.

My book would be VERY thick. It wouldn't have to be bound, it could just be the individual pages.

I would look through them, savoring the colors, soaking in the details, admiring the ideas, until I just Had to Make Something!

Studio Friday -- Look Who I Found!

Studio Friday's theme this week is to share links to people whose work is inspiring, and to say why, in particular, we are inspired.....

I decided I didn't have to limit myself to only one -- why not share more and more?

So -- in alphabetical order, a few of my favorites:

Nina Bagley who is a poet not only in words and images and feelings, but in sticks and stones and paper and wire. From her, I hope to learn to let my intuitive side have a free rein, at least some of the time. As a sister collector of nature's bits and pieces, I would also like to learn some of her techniques.

France Belleville who does astonishingly wonderful drawings, and who does them everywhere -- on a bus, in a class, at home..... From her, I hope to learn to work. Where I am, with the materials I have at hand. Work. No excuses. Just work.

Melody Johnson, whose use of color and value is second to none. From her, I hope to learn how to judiciously use another layer (her stitching) to enhance my work.

Minneapolis Daily Photo ("Chris and Deb"). The photos here, like this one, very often have a point-of-view that is what is the most remarkable thing about the image. This would be a nice pic without the leaning tree, but with it, and the point of view chosen.... Wow. I hope to learn to look. To keep my eyes open for everything I can see, and to pay attention to where I am when I look.

Elizabeth Zimmerman, knitter extraordinaire, who taught me to understand how knitting works, and to use that knowledge to fearlessly make the things found in my imagination. From her I learned that once you understand the mechanics of something, you really own it, with a freedom that you will never have if you only follow someone else's path. Experienced knitters all know EZ, and if you are only thinking you might like to learn, you can't do better than her Knitting Without Tears.


I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's finds!

Studio Friday -- travels

Studio Friday's theme this week is "travels, and their influence on your creative work."

I enjoy travel. I like to see new places, and to visit familiar old ones.

Most of what I've been doing creatively is taking pics and then messing with them after the fact. Travel offers all sorts of opportunities for collecting interesting images....

We went to Chicago in July. There is photogenic architecture.

















There are public gardens.






















There are museums with wonderful objects.























We also took much smaller trips -- an hour's drive to the state fair....


















An hour in a different direction to the Toledo Zoo.....




















I also love the sort of travel where you go to the beach, and just stay put. I feel more centered at the beach than anywhere else. I love just wandering up and down, barefooted, puttering, collecting bits and pieces, listening to the waves......


















I love being at home. When I'm thinking of a trip, it always seems like so much trouble. But I'm nearly always glad I went.......... Just for the experience of being ... wherever, and seeing everything there is to see. And the collected images are an excellent bonus.

Studio Friday -- choosing a name

Studio Friday's challenge this week is Choosing your Mature Artist Name.

Susan suggested this theme:

This week's subject seems appropriate for the New Year. In fact that is what I was thinking when I suggested it! Here's what I wrote - "I've been reading Twyla Thorpe's book The Creative Habit and here's an idea from her book - "the ancient masters of Japanese art were allowed to change their names once in their lifetime. They had to be very selective about the moment in their career when they did so. They would stick with their given name until they felt they had become the artist they aspired to; at that point they were allowed to change their name. For the rest of their life, they would work under that name at the height of their powers." So let's presume we are at the height of our careers - what name would you choose and why?"

I, too, have been reading the very same book. (I recommend it!)

So let's see. What name would I choose?

I am not crazy about being a 50-something adult person with a cute diminutive nickname.

Victoria is a nice solid name, and the success part of the meaning is just fine. I'd rather it wasn't a feminine version of a male name...............

I guess I'd go with Victoria (and do, generally, when I'm introducing myself in new situations).

As for last name...................

For a long time, I have thought that it would be very cool if we all hyphenated our names. Babies would take the "father-line" name from their dad's name, and the "mother-line" name from their mom's name. That way we would all have a strand of our mother's heritage in our names, as well as having our father's.

As an example, Ann Sallysdaughter-Thomsdaughter and Mark Bettyson-Richardson's new daughter would be Madison Sallysdaughter-Richardsdaughter. Not that the names would all end in -daughter or -son (though a lot of names people use now do take just that form), but just to show the pattern......

Getting from here to there is not really do-able, unless we just start somewhere and pretend that the father-line name our mothers or grandmothers had was our mother-line, or if we were to make something up for our mother-line name.....

I think it would be so cool if we had both names -- imagine looking back at your family tree -- there would be twice as much name-heritage-information........

Studio Friday -- something I'm proud of

Studio Friday's topic this week is "Something I'm proud of that I have not yet shown."

I'm glad to see this topic again. It seems that lots of us have difficulty showcasing our strengths, and I am glad we're getting some practice!

I like this better than anything else I've done in the last several weeks.

I didn't see that those two bracts were touching, until I saw the image on "the big screen"....

I cleaned up the background (well, removed it!), cropped, poster-edged.....

Studio Friday -- Ritual and Wish

Studio Friday's theme this week is Ritual and Wishes. My wish is that I seriously (SERIOUSLY) purge my "studio," so it can be useful as work space rather than just storage. That was too depressing to photograph.

Before I offer you my most frequently observed ritual, I wish each of you the kind of holiday you hope for.


I always have tea in the morning. This is my favorite kind.





















I measure carefully (not!).

















These curled up little balls

















unfurl

















into these. They're not kidding when they say "whole leaf".....

I love this tea. I'm sure that imagining it strengthening my spirit helps it do so.

Studio Friday -- white on white

Studio Friday's theme this week is Purely White.

Wool felt, satin ribbon, novelty yarn, shell buttons.

Studio Friday -- favorite colors

Studio Friday's theme this week is favorite colors to work with.

Of course I love orange. I love pretty much any bright saturated color. I love putting the colors together.

What I love best of all is contrast. Color contrast. Value contrast.

Here's the peak of Michigan fall color, with the saturation seriously oomphed.

Studio Friday -- comfort

Studio Friday's theme this week is Comfort.

There's a couch in the study, and on the couch.....

A place to stretch out and read, with a warm fuzzy companion -- that's my idea of comfort.

Studio Friday -- my working environment

I interpreted this week's Studio Friday theme to be -- "Let's see your working environment."

Since essentially all of my recent work has been digital, it's a little hard showing my actual working environment (I blogged the camera last summer, with a picture of it here).

The pc with Photoshop Elements is not photogenic..........

Here is my obligatory tea. Note tasteful and attractive coaster underneath..... Note also that it was photographed on the floor, rather than on the desk, and draw conclusions about the, um, extremely messy surface of the desk....



















Here is my faithful companion, dreaming that we will go do something useful, like have a rousing session of fetch, or take a W A L K.....




















The critical part of my working environment is virtual, so I'll show you what I do with those tools.....

Here is an original.

















Flip, and crop.





















Use "levels" to increase the darkness of the dark bits. I'm finding this works much better than increasing the contrast, as it leaves the lights alone. It seems that a lot of my pics are light enough, in their light places, but sort of blah in the dark places. "Levels" lets me adjust this.

Much better, don't you think?





















Now, let's increase the saturation. Not a radical difference, but I think you can see that the greens and yellows are more intense.

I could make a case that the pic above is finished, but if I'm going to apply a filter, I like to zip the colors up a bit first, as the filters tend to darken things down.





















Here it is with the "watercolor" filter.





















And with the "poster edges" filter.

I like "poster edges" *a lot*, but for wet stuff, I generally like "watercolor" better.

Now is where some more hard-to-photograph tools come into use -- my eyes and my brain.... Which image do I like best?

Which image do you like best?

I took this shot out my study window yesterday morning. I'm very happy with the capture of the ripples-from-drips in the puddle. (I put the camera on "manual focus" as I am far less confused by rain than it is.)

Studio Friday -- indulgence

Studio Friday's theme this week is Studio Indulgence.

Hmmm. What do I have that I don't *really* need, but which helps me do what I do?

I know, I know!






















One of the many things I LOVE about digital photography is that I can take dozens and hundreds of pictures, with essentially no incremental cost. (Thinking about film; 36 images for $18........)

I make good use of this ability, and often take more than 300 pictures in one day, when I am on vacation.

This fall I watched the sales carefully, and indulged myself with this huge memory chip for my camera. It is the size of a postage stamp (a bit thicker), and it holds over 1200 pictures!

Do I *need* it? Nope. Do I *love* it? You bet.

Of course it isn't all that interesting to look at, but it currently holds allllllll my beach pictures from two weeks ago, so if you look at the beach I've been blogging, you'll see what I've done with my chip.

I firmly and entirely believe that the more pictures I take, the more *good* pictures I will take. Being able to take EVERY shot I think of (multiple times so I get a nice sharp one) makes a huge difference to being able to get interesting images to look at, to manipulate, to share. I took a lot of satisfying pictures on film, over the years, and some that were even pretty good. But I was always inhibited by the cost. Now I am free to take as many pics as I want, and I *love* it. I was very slow to adopt digital, and now I wouldn't go back for anything!

Studio Friday -- Connected

Studio Friday's theme this week is I AM (INTER-) CONNECTED!

As one of the 'net/web's dinosaurs, I've been communicating with people online since the '70s. I certainly feel thoroughly electronically connected to distant friends, family, and people whose interests I share but have never met. I am on the board of CorgiAid, a charity that supports rescue of Corgi dogs. CorgiAid is a corporation that couldn't exist without the 'net/web -- it was organized, incorporated, and has always been run online; most of the board members and other staff have never met in person.....

For the "studio" portion of this discourse, I have been talking with people online about art and craft for years and years (I learned A LOT about how to write in the course of arguing online about What is Art?).

The thing that's new to me is being able to put up images of my work so easily, and having other people able to see what I'm doing, and to comment. This is a huge extension of the art-work talking I've done for so many years.

I started thinking about what that looks like, and didn't have any ideas until I was looking at my blog hits.

What clearer way to show one side of my interconnectedness than to show the way the hits on my blog go up when I post to Studio Friday?










I don't have an image that shows the blogs I read, but I have found dozens of blogs with interesting content that inform, intrigue, and inspire my days, and extend my work in new directions. Thank you, Studio Friday, for being such a positive part of all this!

Studio Friday -- collections

I am very slow responding to this Studio Friday theme. I have the excuse of being out of town from Thursday to Monday night.....

I have a lot of collections. None of them are valuable objects, but they appeal to me.

Fisher Price people

lots of little dolls

plastic zoo animals

part of my vast and varied collection of stegosauruses














My very favorite collection at the moment is my digital photographs. Among the many things I love about them is that they take up essentially no space...... And they don't get dusty, either. Well, not literally, at least.....

autumn inspiration -- Studio Friday

I love fall. Here's what I see out my study window. What's not to love about that golden light?

















I love all the amazing colors. I love that they fill the sky and carpet the ground under my feet. I *love* that I'm allowed to pick them up! I can't just pick people's flowers when I admire them, but I am allowed to pick up as many leaves as I want, to preserve as bits and pixels.























Fall is about enjoying the beautiful days (as we know their numbers are limited!) and about hunkering down for the cold weather to come. Fall is about enjoying soup, and chili, and making bread (because it's not an awful thought to run the oven for an hour).

A week ago I drove out in the country to find some dirt roads with slow traffic, so I could park and take pictures of fields (full of food toward the coming winter) and beautiful trees. This field is full of soybeans.........

















Here's another pic from that sunny Monday afternoon. At this time of year I always feel that I must consciously soak up all the color, against the coming of the monotone.....

tooting my own horn

Studio Friday's challenge this week is to show off one's favorite work. This is my first Studio Friday post.

My work tends to be very spare. I can appreciate more complicated layered work, but I can't seem to *do* it.

Here is a fused-fabric ATC. I love this tiny form. Not only can I complete lots of finished work in a small period of time, but I can cut a 2.5"x3.5" piece out of almost any cloth or paper -- some things are "precious" and hard to use, but on these small pieces......

I made a whole bunch of ATCs last weekend. This is my favorite. I had been thinking of doing this sort of leaf shape for a while, and this is the one that is what I wanted to make.






















What I've been doing mostly, for the last several months, is photography. I've been taking hundreds of pics (love digital!!!), and then have been playing with them in Photoshop Elements. I love that my image is not finished when I click the shutter.

I like being able to boost the contrast and saturation, and I love the "poster edges" filter.....

This flower (don't know what kind of flower!) is basically unmolested. I cropped it, and removed a leaf that I thought was distracting, and that's it. No extra saturation; no filters....

I love the curve of the stem.....