Category: Art

I’m spending the morning taking a class with Alabama Chanin. Y’all have probably heard about project Alabama, but I had not until my friend Charlotte told me we were taking the class

Five minutes into it, I’m overwhelmed by the intricacy and beauty of her hand appliqued and beaded clothing, which is upcycled old tee shirt fabric.

So far, it’s amazing. I’m on my phone so I can’t link you, but go google it!

More photos and a link later in the day. I’m going to work on a fabric cover for my journal.

Apparently, I'm already a failure at studio clean up.  But, I prefer to just think of it as delayed.

I've spent my free time the last few days working in Kara's Art Journal, instead of cleaning up.

Two pages in her incredibly beautiful house-shaped book.  Everyone else's work is clean and crisp, but for some reason, I retreated into my grunge comfort zone.  The pages, although facing each other and unified by a similar background palette are otherwise unrelated.

That's how big my studio is.  13.5 x 21.5 square feet.  There is also a 5×6' walk in closet with shelving and a small corner of the laundry just beyond the studio that is where I mix and store my dyes.

It seemed big when I first built it out in our basement — big and bright due to the Ott lights recessed into the ceiling and the one large window on the exposed side of the basement.  I'm pretty sure I lived in smaller sublets during my college years, but, over time my studio seems precariously prone to clutter.  My last major clean up was in October of 2008 — the horror still lingers.

Since then, my studio has recluttered itself as I work.

The problem is more one of having too much stuff than of being messy.  And, since I'm starting to bubble over into the rest of the house, ("I'll just use this drawer in the linen cabinet for my Golden's Mediums.  We'll never miss the space.") I'm going to try and spend several hours a week decluttering.  To keep myself on track (and to offer y'all some goodies from time to time), I'm going to document the process here.

(An early priority: redoing the floor in my flood damaged walk in closet — the loose tiles drive me insane and I've already broken a few)

I knew it was time to move from thinking to doing when I received an email from Ali DeCamillis this week.  Ali is the art therapist at an amazing program in Birmingham called Art Partners, which provides art outreach and therapy to sick and disabled people in our community.  Ali was in search of books for an art respite she wanted to create in a hospital setting.  SInce books always tend to take over my house and I love collecting art books, it seemed very doable to find a number I could cull out and set aside for Ali.  The prospect got me motivated to start decluttering.

Then, I found some time to read Cloth, Paper, Scissors new "Studios" magazine — something I had picked up some time ago but not had a chance to look at.  The Spring/Summer issue is all about decluttering and includes some fun little pep-talks by artists like Leslie Riley, who I really admire.

The magazine includes some great tips like using Hugo's Amazing Tape (I ordered it in transaprent blue) to organize fabric and other items.  Tracie Lyn Huskamp suggested "letting go" and the wisdom of selling or passing on items you hadn't used in over a year, so they could be put to good use by someone else.  Kelly Rae Roberts's sunny little studio had IKEA wire zip line around the top of her room, for hanging up inspirational items.  I loved that idea.

So I'm going to try to clean and declutter (that means that if you scrapbook, work with polymer clay, or like fabric, you probably want to keep checking in for the next few months as I pack stuff up and post it here) and organize my space to bring back the big, light feel that I miss.

Among my problem issues:

(1) Ugly but very functional plastic storage units (you can also see them near my big work table and under my counters).

(2) My big electric yarn winders, which are fabulous, but take up the top of my desk — space I long to reclaim.

(3) Fabric, found everywhere.  And I do mean everywhere.  It's tucked in baskets all over the studio and I want to pare it down so it takes up just a few cubbies in the closet, where it is meant to be.

(4) Rubber Stamps — I love them.  I use them on paper, on fabric, for kids' school projects, for the house.  I couldn't live without them.  I found this beautiful storage chest (yes, that's my kiln on top, I know, I know), and it's great except that I can't see them.  I'm not sure how to resolve that problem.  And storing unmounted stamps has always been an awful issue, I wish I could just find someone to mount them all for me!

I'm looking forward to tackling the studio, a bit at a time.  In keeping with the recent post-consumerism fervor in my house, I'm going to clean up, cut back, and create more space and time for art in my life.  I'd love to hear comments or thoughts from anyone else who is going through this and has ideas or advice!  Since I doubt the nice women at Cloth, Paper, Scissors are going to want to adopt me and my messy studio after looking at all the beautiful studio space in their magazine, I think I had better plan on tackling this one on my own!

I finished working on Susie La Fond's In the Studio Book tonight, in time to mail it, barely on time, tomorrow.  Susie is one of my favorite artists — I really enjoy her work and this book is no exception, particularly with the wonderful addition of art by Belinda, Terrie, and Lori.  It's very hard to let it go, it has a lot of rich detail in it.  I decided to carry out a little bit of Belinda's bubble motif and was very inspired by Terrie's spring flowers, so I carried their themes over a little bit into my piece.

I wanted to show them side to side, even thought they are small, because I like how they work together.

Here they are, larger.

and

The girl is one of my favorite black and white images.  I blew her up so that she was sort of smudgy and pixelated, and then used watercolor pencils to give her some accents, and a brush to paint them in.  The circles are crushed glass adhered with a water based glue.  The little fairy girl above the word love is one of my favorite collages I've done.  I've copied it and embellished in by hand, then enclosed it as a soldered charm and attached it to the page.

Belinda's book in the In The Studio round robin is very, very cool.  She has this amazing style that is uniquely her own and has done wonderful things with color and lettering.  It has a Project Runway theme — I've never seen the show but have heard people talking about it.  I decided to play along.  I wish I had had time to catch an episode or two, but I'll have to put that on my list of shows to watch this year.

I was drooling over some Kate Spade purses on online, and my theme for this book came from that pursuit.

Contrary to rumor, I do actually make it into the studio these days for a little bit of light work.  I've also been trying to make many of our presents this year, which has been a lot of fun.

Here's a little random round up of what is going on in the studio right now.  I walked around and snapped pictures of all the works in progress.

I've dyed some roving for friends who spin.  It looks so pretty all wrapped up into balls!  Hmmm…..have you seen the big yarn ball ornaments at Starbucks?  This picture makes me think I should decorate with big red and green balls of roving.

I'm almost all done with soldered charms/ornaments that I started out doing as teacher gifts and liked so much I decided to do them for some of my friends, as well.  I spent a lot of time at ballet rehearsals putting together mini-collages, and really liked the results.

I've also tried some experimental soldering, including this not finished bottle, which will be aged with a patina after I finish the decorative soldering.

I've made the little fairy charm to solder onto the front of the bottle.  This picture also shows a couple more of the Christmas charms

Finally, I've been working on a few scarves.  My favorites are the crushed velvets, which I crackle dyed and then embossed.  It has been a while since I did embossed velvet, and it never fails to amaze me.  The scarves didn't photograph well, but you get the general idea here.

It's about time for me to move onto the wrapping/packaging/mailing stage.  I have no idea where December has gone!