Dear Friends,

I am still walking in the mornings and this week it really payed off.   I live a  few blocks from an undeveloped portion of the Syracuse University campus and on Tuesday I decided to walk through that part of my world as I wanted to see if  there were any wild flowers blooming.  I spotted this young deer instead.  It looked me over very carefully and then turned his white tale toward me a bounded away.      It was a great experience.

This week has been a full one as they all seem to be at this time of year.  I went to a Fiber Show Opening at the Schweinfurth on Sat evening.  My friend Angela had a whole little gallery fullof her work as a suplementry part of this great show.   I am so proud of her and all her wonderful felted Hawaiian Petroglyphs.   She told me that by the end of the evening she had been asked to be a part of an upcoming article in “Fibers Today”.     I am so happy for her and look forward to seeing her in print.   A second pal had participated in some wild knitting for this show too.  Barbara did a cover for the sign in front of the Art Center and she posed for me  in front of her work.   She told me she had to draw each letter out life sized and then work each row to match the pattern to make it work.   Trees and sign posts were also covered with colorful yarn additions.  What a fun challenge.  There were lots of folks at the opening that I knew and it was good to see all of them as well.   The Art Center is a fine source of creative inspiration and I am always glad when ever I go through it’s doors.

Progress Report: Mummy Cave Ruins    I really had a good time working on this quilt.  The memories of the trip to Canyon de Chelly are very vivid and every time I create a project related to that experience I feel wonderful.  I did add the silk paper I had created with Ethel on Wed last week.  It is the reflective stuff  on the left hand side.  I added the painted inner facing on the top of the canyon section too.   I liked doing all the free motion drawing around the figures and creating the texture in the rock faces as well.         I used water solvable crayons and colored pencils on this work too.   All the work on this piece pushed me to work on the second canyon piece I had started.

Canyon Stains
   I have only just stared building more color on the top of the painted image here, but again I am enjoying the process.    I am off to visit the west again next week and I know the landscape will capture me again- but southern Idaho is quite different then the canyon lands of Arizona and New Mexico so I want the images of that experience far enough along before I go.  I am sure the experience will create new images for new directions.

Red Nebula   I continue to add beads and hand stitching to the surface of this work.   I think it needs a bit more dark fiber felted into the composition to make it flow a bit more.   The beading also needs more intensity in the “center” of the nebula to feel completed to me.  Taking pictures and looking at the images on a smaller scale really does help one see the design problems that get lost in life sized work.  At least that is true for me.

Fossil Bed   I mentioned before that I am off to Idaho and a part of that will be a geology lecture.  So I have fossils and land formations on my mind.  This piece is a result of that mind set I think.   I am still struggling with the light/medium/dark thing and this top is a part of that.  I now feel the medium colored fabric  is too light and gets lost, but it may still work as a back drop for the fossil stencils I want to add on top.   I  have three more stamps and stencils to use on this top.  I plan to make them in various tone and shades of the brown and golds.   The vision is not real clear at this point.

Struts and Gurders
This top is also a part of my efforts to control/plan consciously the lay out of light/medium/dark.   I am so filled with self doubt that I do not know how I feel or were I am going with this piece.  When I looked at it this morning I felt I had tried to do make it all too busy and that the orientation was wrong.  I designed it in a vertical format so if you want an idea of that turn your head to the right shoulder and look at the work.     I do not know what or were to go with this piece- so I will  keep it folded up and take it to the QuEG’s and Diva meetings next week and get some feed from some other artists.   Growth in a new style/direction is difficult!

   New work:    Block Varieations
I had started this last week and the old photo form last week  shows the work with the parts pinned up but unassembled.  Now each block is put together and that makes them easy to move about.  This was the start of the light/medium/dark work and it is not very far along from before.  I have really only changed the orientation of this work and decided it needs  four more small blocks so I can play with a different placements of  the light/medium/ dark parts in those new blocks. I can say that  I was so frustrated that I buried it  under white paper for the week and only pulled it out today.  I did my typical thing  when I am frustrated and started new stuff.   I see now all I have  really done is  compound the problem  buy creating three light/medium/dark challenges to deal with now instead of one…..   I guess we all play games with ourselves.

Keep Creating

Carol

PS.   Please remember that I will be leaving on June 5 and be  away until June 16.  So there will be three week with out a  post.