What to do today.

It's a gray, cold (for Florida) morning and I'm looking at the stuff on and around the work table in my studio. I'm not sure what I want to do today; not feeling ambitious.

There are some bits and pieces that were unearthed during the studio overhaul that could turn into something interesting, perhaps today is the day to start looking at them. Or it could be the day to read a good book.......

The Littles

Here, at long last, are the little pieces that rose from the ashes (dust?) of the studio cleaning:

The dish and spoon stayed pretty simple: they're running away on a background drawn with watercolor pencils. Their line from the nursery rhyme, torn from a tattered story book, has been added to the canvas.

The little flower fellow is a bit more complicated: He got a silver crescent moon and a brass #2. I also decided to put a small keyhole on his canvas and I wanted some to be peering through the keyhole. I chose a photo of a very dear friend who has taught me much about the flora and fauna of Florida. I just happened to have a great picture of her taken when she was a child. It seemed appropriate to use Clauda's picture on this piece and when I reduced her to an extremely small size she fit perfectly inside the keyhole! I attached a vintage key to the copper wire on the flower.

I finished both pieces with simple wooden frames, a great technique from Claudine Hellmuth's book, "Collage Discovery Workshop" that I use a lot.

What do you think?

Winter Cleaning

I know, we're supposed to do spring cleaning, not winter cleaning. But since moving to Florida eight years ago winter seems to be a better time to do deep cleaning. It's when the weather's mild - usually - and the windows can be open. It just feels like the right time down here.

I've been doing a bit of winter cleaning in the studio, sorting through shelves and storage bins, weeding out things I can give way or list for sale on etsy.

One happy result of deep cleaning in the studio is rediscovering pieces in various stages of completion that for one reason or another got set aside. Some will pique my interest again and I set them out on my work table. When this happens I rarely finish the piece as I had originally intended; there's a new vision now.

Recently I came across this tiny plate and spoon, along with their equally tiny arms and legs. Originally I had planned on doing a piece depicting the entire "Hey Diddle Diddle" gang, but lately I have been enamoured with small works, so now the dish is going to run away with the spoon alone. I painted the faces and put stripes on the wee arms and legs. Then I wired the extremities to the bodies to give them motion. They'll go on a 3X3" canvas, something else will go on the canvas with them, not sure what yet. I'll have to let you know.

I also ran across this little baby in a hollyhock. He was already painted. In fact the hollyhock was glued to a pinback. Apparently at some point I went though a very strange pin-phase that I'm now blocking...... Anyway, the hollyhock fellow has now been coated with beeswax and attached to a beeswax coated 2.5X3.5" canvas, then wrapped with copper wire. Not sure what else will go on his canvas either, but I'll put both finished pieces in a future post.

In the meantime I'm looking forward to seeing what else I might find in the boxes and bins and what ideas these finds might spark.......

The book completed!

With silhouettes cut from all of the pages it was time to make the book stand.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge. I had drilled dowels into the base thinking I could simply attach chipboard to the dowels and glue the spine of the book to the chipboard. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I applied the glue and held the book in place........and I held the book in place........and I held the book in place........well anyway, I held it a long time, but it didn't matter, the book had gotten too fragile and the spine was disintegrating. The glue held it to the chipboard at the bottom, but not at the top, so the book slumped.

Yikes! The figure couldn't sit on the book if it was slumping. Heck, the silhouettes couldn't even fan out! Time was running out, I needed to get the piece finished in time for the show and I couldn't sculpt the figure until I had the book standing so I could see how its legs would sit on the book. After a few minutes of panicking I decided I might be able to drill a couple of holes through the book, then wire it to the dowels. If you are ever going to drill through a book I recommend doing it while the book is laying down, it will be much easier I'm sure. It wasn't easy, but it worked!!

I had the head and torso and hands of the figure sculpted, now I was able to sculpt the legs and arms in the position I had in mind.

The piece made it to Still Life in G Gallery in the Village of the Arts in Bradenton, Florida in time for the show. I wasn't completely happy with it when I finished, but I ran out of time and I had to stop working on it. It's the base I'm not happy with. I asked people to give me the names of characters they remember from books they've read and I wrote the names, along with the quote on the base, but it's all too pale I think. There's no contrast. Deb McKeever, the owner of the gallery is going to invite visitors to the show to add names to the base. If I'm still unhappy with it when it comes home I can always work on it some more!

Cutting, Cutting, Cutting (the book continues)

I looked for faces with interesting profiles everywhere. Cutting the silhouettes took three weeks. I went through almost 100 #11 x-acto knife blades. The pages that were cut away left wonderful negative spaces giving me a great collection of reverse silhouettes (a future project?).

No matter how often I changed the blade I ended up with some fuzzy edges. I realized that it didn't matter because while we do remember the people from the books we read when we are young, the memories fade and the edges become fuzzy. So the piece will read: The people in the books we read, especially when we are young, become a part of us. The memories may fade and the edges become soft, but they are with us forever.

The book will stand

I've been playing with the book, it seems to want to stand. It's a bit fragile, so it's going to need some support and a base. So far I'm seeing more of what's going on around the book than what's going on in it.

more work in progress

This morning I opened the drawer of the flat file to hunt for photos and ephemera to add to the assemblages and the drawer exploded. It was bond to happen sooner or later; it was overstuffed with, well, stuff. I long to be organized, I work to get everything in order, fully intending to keep it that way (I actually believe that I will), but of course it never lasts. In a hurry looking for something I'll riffle through, or coming home from a successful hunt I'll toss new finds in; whatever the cause chaos inevitably returns. Today is the day to reclaim the drawer. I'll let you know what treasures I rediscover.