Archive for March, 2010
Mystery of the Sacred Feminine
The Goddess Revealed
Bodhisattva Guanyin Among the Many Names
Kuan-Yin or Kannon in Japan
Listen to the words of the Great Mother, who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names; Bodhisattva Guanyin, Kannon, Venus of Willendorf, Kuan-yin.
I who am the beauty of the green earth, and the white moon among the stars, and the mysteries of the waters.
I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.
Let my worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.
Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and your yearning will avail you not unless you know the Mystery, for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
Personally: I learned about another little piece about myself in relationship with “All of It.” And I notice I am getting more comfortable with expressing myself in a public forum i.e. the Round Robin and here on this blog.
Technically: I learned how to make mirror image text so that I could have my ‘veil of mystery’ as well as make it so the text is protected. I learned a new use of sheer heaven vellum and a new use of my luscious tape!
I notice I am very attached to this piece and it would be very hard to part with except that I know that it is going to live with someone that will honor it. Thanks Janet.
I just returned from my March Adventure – in case you are new here – I have a New Year’s Resolution to have an adventure every month! Hard life, but y’know. The only part of the adventure that happens at this blog, is the art and art journaling I get done on the adventure. The adventure this month involved a 6 – 8 hour drive (one way) so during the drive I worked on the quilt I am refurbishing. It was my grandmother’s quilt and as near as we can figure, it was originally made in 1903. I am doing the stitching up the sides, the vines and flowers on this panel.
Panel #4
Here is the original quilt before the refurb began. I separated the quilt into 5 panels and used the fifth panel to replace deteriorated silk patches in the other four panels.
Made in 1903 the silk patches did not survive storage
Okay – now I’m going to let you in on a secret. My test journal. I keep a separate journal that in my mind I call, “the worst art journaling in America.” I purposely keep this book to test out new materials and techniques. I also use it to use up excess paint that I have mixed. I clean my brushes of paint here too. I attempt to allow myself to randomly lay leftover paint down to see what happens. I am one of those folk that think too much and so a lot of my pages have a certain sameness to them. With this book, by testing different stamps, tapes and other materials on top of randomly selected colors I sometimes, inadvertently, come up with a new ‘style’ or method.
This weekend I was testing out my new set of stencils, purchased at MizzFrizz
A Stencil and Punch-Out Test
Pastel Crayon with Stencil and Tape Punch-out
The stencil sets allow you to use more that one stencil, repeating a design – one inside the other or a small one beside a larger one – and that makes a great effect on the page. The real kicker is that they are way cheaper than they should be! So of course I had to have them
Also showing in these pictures are my attempts to punch out tape designs. The tape experiment was a failure as I left the tape to be punched on the wax paper for several weeks while I got around to it. It wasn’t a complete failure as I just cut around the designs and then glued them down. But I think it would have been more cool if I had been able to peel the tape off the wax paper and stick it down, like I thought I would. Next time I’ll just do it all the same day so the tape doesn’t meld with the wax paper.
A Bird Told
Culture Old and new
I will have figure out a clever way to add text here as it seems it will just add to the busy-ness. Maybe a plain sticker label with just a little writing will work, might even be what is needed to tame it down. I am wide open for suggestions and input. So fire away!
My studio reflects my philosophy of money. Spend the big money on paper, paints and classes, use anything left over for keeping your expensive supplies visible, available and usable. I also have a strong recycle and reuse habit. Here are a few more low-cost, fit almost anywhere organizing tools and ideas.
Nothing hidden behind
I bought this shelf new 15 or more, years ago. It cost about $30 (which was a lot of money at the time) and it held ALL of my art supplies. It is only about 10 inches deep and is ideal for keeping my items always in the front. I have found that if something is stored behind something else, I have a hard time finding it or if I find it, can I get to it with sticky hands? On the second shelf you can see my recycled salad greens cartons. I buy salad greens in bulk all winter and these clear boxes with lids allow me to keep projects I’m working on clean, visible and handy. The red bins were originally used in the children’s rooms and are now handy for catching coffee cup holders and other interesting textured papers I find on my way through life. My favorite magazines and my watercolor instruction books also live here.
Over the door towel bars for hanging paper
To the right is a picture of a hanging towel bar, originally designed to hand over a door, this is just right hanging over my giant white board. The white board is mostly for shopping notes and ideas and to separate my studio from the stairway. The towel bar cost about $10 – 12 and keeps my light weight tissue paper from being crumpled wads in the bottom of a drawer. I can also use it for painted papers that I will eventually use for journal pages. This particular hanging rack has 2 clothes hooks on the bottom and I secured an old broom handle to the hooks making a longer bar for more paper. I am thinking about putting ribbon rolls on the other end.
In this same vein I put an over the door hanger with a double row of clothes hooks on my laundry room door. This is where I hang aprons and shopping bags that somehow accumulate all over the house.
Over the door hanger for aprons, bags and exercise bands
The last thing I will show you today is a spice rack now holding my favorite rubber stamps. This was made by my husband years and years ago. These 2-4 inch wide shelves are quite sturdy, but if you find one at a thrift store that seems a bit wobbly hanging it on a wall or even nailing it to another backing can help. I found a similar narrow shelf that will hang on the wall or stand on the counter at my local thrift store. It is still waiting to be washed and maybe painted, but these small racks are perfect for keeping your most-used stamps where you can find them.
Spicy Stamp Rack
All of us have expanding art lives as well as supplies and as we grow so does our need to keep order. This studio space and these various racks and hangers did not happen over night, not even once a month. Generally I have to be pulling my hair out with frustration before I will get serious enough to find a solution for an unreachable stamp or a disappeared apron. My point - don’t think this will all be done in a weekend or even in a year. As you need something you will start looking for the perfect solution – and as you find the different bins and racks, I hope you will share them with me.
As some of you have realized I am having a love affair with PanPastels. I love the medium, the rich, creamy colors snag me whenever I see them. I have no experience with using them though so I set out to find some classes. I found one online. It had it’s points but was very, very basic and left me without much hope. So I decided to try to learn on my own using You Tube. About two pages of posts back I posted a you tube video of a woman painting a stormy landscape with PanPastels – see I don’t even know the correct terminology. You can see the video here.
Here is my first cut at the landscape from copying the video:
First session with the PanPastels and video
I was lacking some colors and could not get it to look stormy and blustery so put it aside until I could get a decent black – duh one might expect to need black.
Much more dramatic with black and magenta added. A little heavy-handed though I think.
A second session went well although having a screen as a teacher is a little daunting. It isn’t easy hitting the pause and the back up with messy fingers either. What I can see from my two sessions is that I will need to do at least 2 sessions a week for the foreseeable future if I wish to gain any kind of ease with these dear pans. Practice makes perfect, right? I need to come up with some sort of incentive to keep me at it on a regular basis. My plan for now will be to work through all the You Tube videos I can find – I have several already on this blog. I think 2 sessions per video minimum and that should keep me going for at least 6 weeks and maybe I’ll locate some more resources over that time. Let me know if you have any ideas.
My mechanical teacher to the right, she's very patient, with pauses and backing up galore.
My beauties
Traditional Garb
These new pages are a combination of collage on painted and stamped pages with decorative tape and some stickers. My journaling i.e. writing, has dried up the last couple of days. Maybe because I have been blogging and writing the newsletter my writing needs have been met this week. In the meantime I will keep creating pages.
Whether she is celebrating her coming of age or her wedding - she is dressed to the nines!
Another country's interpretation, I understand that even the way the folds hang means something regarding status.
And as we move out of the death grip of winter into the slightly loosened grasp of spring I can completely relate to the expression on this bear's face. Another combination of painted and collaged pages with the addition of tape and stickers - make for delicious texture.
The journaling reads: I am feeling vulnerable and exposed. I feel cynical and jaded in the face of the professions of undying love. Left : Strangely though when all has been laid bare when the lies have nothing to hide behind. When the foolish facade is breached; my power in all of it's nakedness surges like a bolt of lightning and I speak my truth. Without judgment or shame. Besides, if you got it - flaunt it.
While I was expanding and organizing the art studio last week I realized that many of the things I was incorporating would work in any space. Whether your studio subs as the dining room table or your walk-in closet, many of these items would work for your space too.
Crock and Basket - for all types of paper rolls, material bolts, long tools and rulers. I got the crock at an auction years ago and have the heavy container on a plant stand with wheels. The heaviness makes it good for my bigger rolls of paper i.e. newsprint ends. The orange wastebasket was a thrift store find. You can use any trash can or rubbermaid barrel you can find - straight sided makes it the most efficient.
Flexible bag holder - another rubbermaid oldie, often found in thrift stores. This can hang on your wall or on the inside of a door or cupboard door. As a mixed media artist I save interesting bags, foreign newsprint and plain brown packing paper for use in my hand made journals. This is the most compact and efficient method I've found so far. I don't know if the company still carries them, but I keep an eye out for the unassuming beige piece of plastic at garage sales and thrift stores.
Collage file & Flat drawers help contain my collage images. You may think this is over the top, but I reduced 5 large boxes of primo images and word images to the small file bin on casters that happily wheels under another cabinet. The long flat black drawers in the background are holding some favorite magazines i.e. National Geographics and some books of photos. Flat drawers in buffets or hutches are great for flat paper holders too.
A Clothesline with wooden clothespins is a great way to store or display large hand painted papers. I also use this one to hang large flat papers that I don't want wrinkled. Hanging the papers helps keep them dust free too. With care this could also be used to dry large pieces.
I was thinking of putting a link to rubbermaid.com but after looking at prices thought better of it – check your garage sales and thrift stores and keep something out of the landfill – it will save all of us money in the long run.
Sometimes I get to having so much fun with blogging I forget to post my art! I am having a lot of fun with my journaling these days. I’ve been working in what I call my VSB – Very Small Book. I made the book in my Kelly Kilmer workshop in Arizona and while making it I stamped many of the pages so now I am having to work my collaging and journaling around the stamps. Of course I could just collage right over, but that wouldn’t be any fun. Any way here are some pages from the VSB.
Welcome to My Very Small Book
Who I am
Spring and Fall
Quiet
