More Skin

We are now ready to get back to the business of printmaking - almost.  My last contribution to the skin show is a handmade paper piece.  The skins, aka peelings, from onions, carrots and broccoli have been boiled beyond recognition with a little caustic agent and at the end of the process, a buffering agent to make it Ph neutral. Only a few sheets were made and one was carefully draped over my hand to form somewhat of a casting - albeit a speed record in the casting process.  The color was not anticipated, but is very pleasant and works well with the title: Skin.

Skin

Life just keeps interjecting and taking more time than I am willing to devote.  The latest development is bursitis in the left hip.  This is probably because I've been walking, sitting, and moving in unnatural ways because my blooming knee hurts like hell.  So, that is my excuse for not doing much art work.  And then, the deadline for the Skin show at North Bank Gallery decided to be closer than I could imagine and I got to work on a couple of quirky ideas.  I figured others would do the tatoos, body painting, hanging by hooks in the back from the gallery ceiling, etc.  So, I would do something from the opposite direction.  The closest I could come to the opposite direction was nursery rhymes/lullabyes, hence Bye Baby Bunting - Daddy's gone a-hunting, he will bring a rabbit skin to wrap a baby bunting in.  And, New Summer Colors - thinking if we could just get babies to come in all colors, not just the traditional ones, maybe we could get over racial prejudices.  Probably not.  Someone would think up a reason for hating my lime green babies.  Or, Heaven Forbid!  The mauve ones, now that sounds dangerous.  One more piece is in the works, but it is still drying.

detail of the babies                                                                              Bye Baby

                                                    New Summer Colors

Back at it: making art

It has been ages since I've communicated via blog.  Mainly, because I was laid low the months of Oct., Nov., Dec., and January with emergency surgery & all that goes with that.  In January I was back in the hospital again because I had done everything wrong - ate all the wrong things and was, in general, a very bad girl.  In my defense, the hospital sent me home with no direction.  When they said I could eat Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast, I ate what was in the house: brown rice & whole grain toast. No! It was supposed to be white everything.  Basically, I could eat anything over-refined and with absolutely no nutritional value.  It is hard to generate any energy on such a diet. 
Due to this turn of events I missed my Christmas visit to Granddaughterland, aka North Dakota, and by March I was getting desperate for a Granddaughter fix.  I've just returned from glorious Grand Forks and Camille and I managed to get in a printmaking session.  I helped Grace with a couple of paintings

for a school project, and Camille and I did various craft and art related projects.  After a rousing game of Fancy Nancy we drew bedrooms and Nancy.  But the printmaking was the most fun.  Here is a shot of Camille burnishing her foam plate.  I'm not sure she ever really got the concept as the plates seemed to be much more important to her than the prints.  I think Grace will be ready to do some actual carving next winter, so maybe I can get her to do a little linoleum print - or we might find time for that this summer, though their time here seems to pass much too quickly to do much of anything that requires staying in one spot.
Next on the agenda is some studio clean up and then Grandma had better get back to work or she won't have much for a July show. Yikes!

New Work

A lot has happened around here in the last couple of months and sandwiched between the earth shaking events of daily life I've managed to find a little studio time to produce some new work. Because I've been having so much trouble with my hands (ugly old arthritis) I've temporarily given up on woodblocks and been indulging in solarplate™ intaglio. With this medium all you need to do is get the desired image onto a transparent format and you're good to go. I like to draw directly onto aquaeous media acetate. It allows you to remove and add to your heart's content, take as long as needed, and then just expose it onto the plate using UV light, develop the plate in tap water, harden with a little more UV and print. In this case I've printed many layers of colors and textures and stenciled some blocks of color onto both sides of a very thin, transparent mulberry paper, then printed some small plates on the paper's right side. Meanwhile, I've printed the drawings/images onto another piece of fairly transparent (but not as much as the original paper) and very carefully torn around the image while the paper is damp. Mulberry paper is very tough and almost impossible to tear when it is dry. When dry the images are dampened again, sprinkled with adhesive and placed on the background sheet on a plate and run through the press. Then I may print a bit of color over the top of the two sheets which have now become one. When the image is completely resolved it is trimmed and chine collé to a Western printmaking paper - I like Somerset Satin. It is versatile and has a nice hand and is a soft white. The image above is named Persephone after the ancient myth of Demeter's daughter having eaten a seed of the pomegranate while in the underworld (she was forbidden to eat anything if she wanted to come back up topside) and thereafter having to spend 3 months down under (winter) and the other 9 with us (spring, winter and fall). Her mother brokered that deal. So, she is here with her scythe, watering can, rake, and a few samples of what she's grown so far. Since we have gone from "yard" (rather shabby & kind of unkempt) to "garden" (a place to be kept free of weeds, moles, voles, slugs and looking decent) I see that three of my new images deal with gardening and critters. As you can see there is no mercy in my heart for voles. I don't understand why they were invented in the first place and am certain that the world would be a better place if they were not here. The varmints live on the roots of your most expensive plants. They will gladly pass weeds by giving them nary a thought. They can completely wipe out a yard in a heartbeat. One day your plant is looking robust and healthy and the next day it falls over dead & has no roots. My plan is to lead a hunt and not look back until they are all gone. However, my feeling is that one pregnant vole will always be missed and before you know it you will be infested again. They were probably here with the dinosaurs and will still be here with the cockroaches long after we are gone and forgotten. But, while I'm here I will be doing my best to win the fight.

Shirts R Us

The visit to North Dakota involved fish prints on shirts and tie dye shirts, among other things. I didn't get any photos of the fish printing taking place, but I did manage to get this one of the girls in their fish shirts. Camille was having a little problem with her shorts falling off, so Grace has a belt in her hand, ready to help her little sister out. Camille seldom wears anything that is not a dress, and I think I know why. One look at that body in a leotard and look! No hips. It is very hard to keep pants up when there are no hips (or butt) to hold them up. It is awfully cute in its leotard, though, and a budding gymnast. The girls friend, Spencer, came over to fish print and tie dye. Spencer is 1 yr. older than Grace and I had to ask him to squat down so I could get them both in the photo. They are a true Mutt and Jeff, have been friends since birth, and truly enjoy one another's company. They all did some pretty cool tie dye shirts. Many art projects were undertaken - some printmaking, some painting and drawing, all a lot of fun for Grandma and the girls.

Painting Grace's Room

Last week, while in Grand Forks visiting the GrandGirls, Grace and I painted her room. She had chosen the paint and her "decor" a year ago, or more, and had the paint all ready to go. Grace is now 11 years old and 61 lbs. of pure tiger. It took us three days, but her room is now very "Grace". She donned her painting suit and booties and we were ready to launch into some very sophisticated painting. As you can see Grace is all business and a mighty force behind the roller. She also did all the brush work around the baseboards and up as far as she could reach in other spots. While we painted we listened to a Lemony Snicket book on tape -- my introduction to these works and I have to say, I think I will read more Lemony Snicket as soon as I finish all the Harry Potter's Grace sent home with me. And, speaking of spots we managed to get quite an array of them around the room. We could not find a ready made stencil for the large ones, so we made our own from poster board and the pizza pan. There were still shelves to be put back up and furniture to be placed when I had to leave, but basically the painting was done for the moment. We even managed to stencil her name on two pillow cases on the bottom bunk. I think she is very pleased with her room. The fleece blanket on the end of her bunk was another project we accomplished in our busy week. In this photo she is also wearing a fish print shirt - yet another project from our busy, busy week. When someone asked her why she wanted the green cirles she replied, " They fit my decor." My Granddaughter, the interior designer. But, she says she wants to be an archeologist.

She's Gone to The Birds

Well, it has finally happened - I have completely (almost) gone to the birds. These are two little bits of whimsy for the garden. A friend was kind enough to donate a carload of doves and crows (decoys) to the studio about a year ago and I have finally made time to get them painted and out to their new roosts. These fellows are not gender specific, however, one did have to sacrifice its tail in order to sit where I wanted it. So, now I suppose it is really having gender issues. The doves are perched on a piece of aluminum "sculpture" that I found at Tuesday Morning, a discount, jobber kind of store where they buy up the stuff that didn't sell at a place gone bankrupt, or damaged freight - that kind of thing. I turned it upside down, sprayed it copper, and perched some black doves on it and looking through it. The crows are healthy, large crows and have copper tubing crests and tails. They are mounted on a snag that stands directly behind the fire pit. Flickers and woodpeckers have been doing a job on this snag for 20 years that I know of, and the snag will not be standing too much longer, but it will probably last as long as the crows do. The wonderful part of our Heckle and Jeckle is that they are very, very quiet. Especially early in the morning - which is more than I can say for Woody Woodpecker and friends.