Remembering

We have returned from a needed get-away. Two nights away with no phone calls! Yeah! We traveled east to dry land and filled our eyes with the openness hoping it would offset our feelings of being overrun by vegetation.  We appreciated the rolling land with the crisp well-maintained farms where you can see the edges of  "everything."

Before we left town I turned in my donation for Marie Watt's Blanket project: http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/Page.aspx?cid=9539

My blanket (quilt top) donation came via the Goodwill. I had stopped by the Goodwill (by the pound) this past week for potential art materials. It is unlike any other thrift store. I am not sure why I find the place so jarring. As I watch others paw through the mountains of "stuff"  I go into research mode. I have so many questions, it is like a social experiment in progress. I want to write a book complete with photographs about this unique environment but typically I forget because of the stuff I find. This week I found an antique quilt top thrown into the fray. I snatched it up as you would a child running into traffic. I was surprised by my reaction. It was so immediate and  strong. The quilt top shouldn't have been there! It was out of context. The stars had been lovingly stitched from fabrics worn thin by their previous life. The quilt was soft and muted; so unlike the quilts of today made from new cloth. I looked through the bin for more clues. Often when a person's life is up-ended into the bin the pieces fall there together. Yet there were no more clues. I had no personal need for this quilt top, but I just couldn't let it lay there to be thrown from one bin to another with disregard or worse yet to be bailed up and shipped off to some unknown destination. Surely being bronzed would be a better fate? I am not sure if it will meet with the artist intention or not but on this Memorial Weekend I pay homage to this unknown woman who stitched by hand these pieces worn thin by life. I pay homage too to the women before me who worked so hard to fashion a life out of what they were given. There on the hills of their little communities we found evidence of their lives, buried there with their tiny children. I prefer this to remembering all the wars.

Genesee Valley Lutheran Church and Cemetery

 

 

 

 Saint John's Lutheran Cemetery and Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery

 

The signs say a lot, don't they?

The view was grand and the wind constant.

And the best part -

  we weren't caught in any traffic -

well, until we got closer to home.

But after consuming a 44 oz nobody better get between me and the barn door.

Side tracked on 6 acres

No art this past week. The sun came out and I hurt from stem to stern. I've been reminded every May is this way. Scratched, bruised, sun burned and sore. Keeping up with Mother Nature in May is a difficult task. For weeks and weeks it has rained down on us - in great big buckets. It was upsetting because you could hear the grass growing the whole time. So when suddenly it was nice out - holy cow! Get out the machete! My whole life changed - big swaths of time were dedicated to one purpose. To restore order and a path to the house!  One day was spent mowing hill and dale, the next it was  trimming trees (which was suppose to be weed whacking but the shade was preferable - since my skin hadn't seen sunlight in months). I mean, the sun was soooo bright and hot! For two days I picked up limbs and trimmings which I constructed into this lovely above my head brush pile berm on the edge of the pond very artfully arranged I thought. I hope the winter rains will reduce it down eventually turning it into soil (in my lifetime?)  As I dragged the last load to the pile this 'voice' welled up inside me and said "that is enough of that! It is time to play!"

OMG! I play as hard as I work, but this morning when I had my first cup of tea out there - it was pretty wonderful. With my imagination on fire I studied the situation from the inside. I brought with me a cut up milk jug. Thinking it might make a nice outer covering. It would let in the light yet be strong. I do think the covering for my little land bound crannog should be from some sort of recycled product. Although if I don't get to weed whacking soon I could cover it with shocks of grass. But, oh my... it is so lovely to look out in all directions. If only I could have it be transparent. Any ideas out there?

So, that's my story and I am sticking to it!

Under the shade of the old plum orchard...with clippers, long loppers, short loppers, chain saw and weed whacker.

After:
I know it is hard to imagine you can make a pile 15 feet long, 5 feet high from this little spot, but you can.

 

You have seen those etchings of old women hauling sticks on their back, right?

See me dragging sticks up the hill to my little crannog.

My little crannog is a 'land' crannog surrounded by a wall, rocks dug out of the pasture by hand, thank you very much. I got tired of chipping them down with the mower. Did I mention I needed a new mower? Yeah, that part hurt too. I know the Scottish built their crannogs over water, but if you use your imagination you will see the green as a pond filled with beaver dams in the distance (actually they are more brush piles). There's at least 5 brush piles that are 4 - 8 feet high. The blackberries are trying my spirit and my skin, and trying to take over the pasture as are the nettles, thistles, and thorny prune plums. I ask does everything have to have a thorny needle? No, there's ivy and privet and apparently grass made in hell. Just ask my 7th weed whacker.

But really, when you sit there in the little crannog, tea cup in hand, ignoring the jets flying over and Gorge the goose who apparently has assigned himself the job of waking the neighborhood, it is pretty darn nice. They say it will rain today. Maybe grass would make a nice covering?

 

Snippets in dry point

In mid April I took a needed break from course work on my linoleum reduction printing. I was getting frustrated.  So, I redirected my studio time to dry point printing. This time I set myself a goal... to make a book with several images. It always starts off so innocently, doesn't it? I limited myself to 1" x 3" disposable scientific slides and one color - Charbonnel Prussian blue (I love that color!)  I stayed with a vertical format for the final project even though I tried doing a couple horizontal designs. Here's what I came up with - 30 prints later. (Some obviously didn't make the cut.) I call the book Snippets.

 

 

 

 

 

They are soft and tender looking. I printed the images on Kozo paper, mounted them on Copper Plate (the accordion book part), and the folder is Cason 120lb watercolor paper. It was a nice diversion from the lino love - hate thing.

All calmed down I thought I would attempt the reduction printing again. But it happened again. I just don't know what's going on, but about the 4th color... my mind turns to mush. Is this the positive or the negative? Do I cut this or keep this? I feel lucky to get anything in the end of what is usually a two all day effort. I call it Verite Tea Cup. Verite is a lovely 38 foot Admiral's Gig.

 

But the good news is my little nest is feathered with prints and paper,

 presses and ink... and I am out there most every day.

 

See the lovely sheer apron I found at the Goodwill (the store I go to sells stuff by the lb.)

Oh, if only this wispy white cloth could tell me where it has been.

 

 

 

Post linoleum study

It has been an exciting art making month. I took a book making class with Mitzi Lindgren, one of our local Puget Sound Book artist; a carving linoleum class with Chandler O'Leary, Tacoma, WA illustrator and printer, and attended a Play Day with Puget Sound Book Arts on Simple Sew Structures.

I also completed Crow, Rock and Kelp, and Barnacle Rock linoleum blocks. This past week I finished the block which is my tribute to William Evans of Eaton. The image is from his painting of Spanish Arch, Galway Ireland 1838. I wanted it to be my final project in my self directed coursework for linoleum printing. While I didn't expect to master the skill of linoleum printing with this limited number of designs, I was hoping I would feel more comfortable with the process. The more blocks I worked the more variables popped up. I've started a list of variables I have stumbled through that I should consider BEFORE I start cutting, but the shear number of them is mind numbing. It has been very easy to become discouraged. Since I am not only the student but also the course instructor, I almost lost myself to discouragement. What we needed was an in house student motivator! So, talking head #3 suggested - it is probably time to take a deep breath, work in the garden or go in a new direction of learning.  I (me- the student) chose the later. "She", my instructor suggested I researched collagraphy on-line which I (me- the student did). My matt board collagraph is drying as she (is that me, she, myself or I?  I don't know, I am getting confused!) writes this. What ever! Here's my tower of Babel where confusion reigns, variables multiply and success is elusive.

 

 2 different types of paper - sob...yes, paper is one of the variables!

 

 

I am off to see what I can do with this collagraph. Cross your fingers.

 

Doing the Time

For the last week or so I have been do'in the time. The goal was to make multiple colored reduction prints.  Thank goodness for the many wonderful artists on-line who share their process, struggles and methods. A special thanks and shout out go out to:
Laura Boswell (http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk) ,
Sherrie York (http://brushandbaren.blogspot.com/)
and Lynette Weir (http://soulsongarttutorials.com/).
All three share their printing knowledge so willingly.
Reading their blogs reminded me that if I want to improve my prints I have to do the "time".

Here's me "doin' the time." With each new block, a new set of struggles developed. These are not intended to be anything other than school work.

March 25: so many variables, so little understanding

March 27 - learned about stencils, built a registration jig and learned that less is more

 

April 1 -  Be open to changes, tried adding another variable with different papers, built a drying rack.

 

April 4 - Total immersion really helps, 25 prints - 6 colors later:

Photoshop images, tracing paper, sumi inked print.

 

Of course, I already can see what went wrong.

I just hope I can keep going. There's so much more to learn.

 



Time Share

Now that I am retired most folks would think a post about Time Share might be something about traveling to an exotic place. Nope... it is just me - splitting my time between caregiving, checking on little seeds of hope and PRINTING! I know there are plenty of other things I should be doing like weeding, mowing, laundry, spring cleaning and on and on but instead I carved out some time this past week for the sole (soul qualifies too) purpose of studying multiple color, reduction linoleum/speedy cut printing. OMG! Who knew it took so much thinking! No wonder they call it suicide printing!! There are sooooo many variables. It has taken 3 blocks, but I now feel slightly confident about registration. I built myself a jig and it works well for small prints. I possibly may, finally, understand the reverse image thing if I stick to color coded tracing paper, but the rest - I don't think it will come until I have in the TIME. How many blocks will that be? 5? 10, maybe even 20? Or horrors, do you have to have a gene for thinking in reverse backwards order?

lettuce be thankful 

 Scottish Coastline 

Learned about using transparency sheets to protect the non-printed parts of the block.

The nest is just not that thrilling I am sorry to say.

Maybe I should have taken it farther - and made the border blue?

The crow print below is much better so far.  

 

But there is something about the prints hanging in the window that just give me a thrill.

 I tried a different kind of paper in addition to the kozo paper.

That was interesting and made for totally different results.

 

Then there's the end of the day. All that ink on the plate. Time for mono-print play!

Hopefully tomorrow I will be back at it cutting and printing the next color.