Just a reminder that this blog has moved. The current posts are being maintained at

Gone to the Dogs at SeaStrands Studio

I have just posted a review of Gwen Diehn’s excellent book on journal design, construction and use in the afore-mentioned blog. The link to that review is here:

Review: Real Life Journals: Designing & Using Handmade Books, by Gwen Diehn.

Please swing by and have a look. It’s a book worth getting to know.

Also, please update you RSS feeds and links to reflect my new location!!

Gone to the Dogs at Seastrands Studio

New posts will be at this address. Please update your blog readers!

Elizabeth Gilbert approaches the idea of genius from a refreshingly new slant. While I’m not sure that I agree with the idea that Genius is a disembodied gremlin living in my fabric cupboard, I will freely admit that I appreciate the need to release genius from the artist’s self and allow for work without brilliance. My theory is more that the consistent work and striving towards betterment allows for the incredible coincidence of genius to happy. Basically, quantity with deliberate attention allows for quality.

My favourite part is probably right at the very end…… “I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job.”   Brilliant.

The Craft Council of Newfoundland is a wonderful organisation that has enabled me to grow in leaps and bounds as an artist and craftsperson and I feel quite pleased to be able to give something back. Not only are there regular gallery shows (mixed media) that are free for members to enter, but they have high-quality annual craft fairs, a top-notch craft shop and gallery of renown, a wonderful clay studio, exceptional promotional material accentuating crafts and their makers throughout the province, a low-interest loans program, excellent scholarship and grant opportunities and many other benefits all for the low, low price of around $55 per year.

Strange as it may sound, I actually rather enjoy the meetings. It’s a rare chance to get together with other craftspeople and chat. The committee members are excellent and we function through consensus rather than majority, so things are relatively harmonious. As the Awards Committee is basically responsible for acknowledging the hard work and exceptional skill of CCNL members, much of our time is spent shelling out money to deserving projects and deciding on to whom recognition should be awarded. Frankly, it’s probably the most optimistic committee on which to sit. In the depths of winter, a little optimism and camaraderie never go astray!

Equally helpful and perspasive is his writing about the process and business of craft. His work is beautiful, different and intriguing; definitely worth read!

Right now I’m working on several pieces, as is my wont. Typically, I have half a dozen on the go at a time, in various stages. I find it helpful to work this way as I can move from a piece that has stalled for whatever reason to working on a piece that is moving forward. If I worked with only once piece at a time, I’d spend hours sitting and thinking and staring at the wall. Which would occasionally be nice, but doesn’t result in much completed work.

So while I mentally prepare for tomorrow’s workshop (which is all ready to go), I’ve been working on the pieces below.

Typically, I start out with an idea, pick the background or defining fabrics and then work forward. I generally have sketched out my idea, for the most part, in advance, so that when I have the background fabrics picked, I can start pinning up paper versions of points of land, buildings and the like. This is the start of a series. Not all of the skies and oceans will be the same, as I intend to vary the time of year and day of the view. I’m also going to do some serious fooling around with the borders and will post photos as they progress. Right now I’m in the fabric auditioning stage and am getting the rock fabrics and trees figured out. I’m also working on the foreground. More photos to come as I have them!

These two are inspired by the photos in this post (which will open in a new window, so that you can see the photos and this page, too).

And this piece, which is me playing around with the possibilities of shears as a raw-edged material (background fabric hand-dyed by me, fence posts felted with all sorts of bits and pieces in them):

Anyway, must tear myself away from the design wall and focus on the workshop…..

Normally I paint outside, with the mess factor weighing in heavily as  a reason. February in Newfoundland is not exactly….. warm, however, so I set up the studio for some inside work and turned up the heat a wee tad to speed drying.

I painted this lot on corrugated plastic sheets, which are light-weight, resilient, waterproof, flat and easily stored. These are 48″ square, which is a comfortable size for working with indoors in a small studio. When I’m not painting on them, I use them as design walls and pin pieces in progress to them.

As you can see, I had a successful day. This is only some of what was accomplished. I painted about eight metres of fabric, all told.

Night ocean and sky, drying.

Summer sky, drying.

My studio, waiting for the paint to dry!

This flipping back and forth between organising and creating is one that has always been tricky for me. I can do both, with great ease, but I find that organising blocks me from working intuitively. Knowing this about myself, I try to get paperwork, kit-making, planning and the like over with in blocks of time and I segregate creativity from them. I suspect the Clean Studio Syndrome or White Canvas Block are related to this impediment. While studio tidying is a necessity and most canvases start out as white, it is often the juxtaposition of the unusual that results in creative euphoria. I have had more “eureka!” moments from seeing fabrics haphazardly piled on the table in random-but-perfect order than I have from staring at the cleaned-off table and neatly ordered materials.

But the workshop prep will not take long and the sample to be done requires more perfunctory necessity than creative genius. Off I go….

After a show and a massive amount of work in 2006, I was beyond burnt out, creatively, mentally and financially. I decided to take a year off and not sew, not draw, not create. I took a job where someone else signed the pay cheque and rejoiced in stability for a time. It was no small measure of how exhausted I was that this felt right and did me a world of good. The bank account stopped gasping, I stopped worrying, my husband stopped stressing and I stopped trying to squeeze creative juice out of a chunk of granite. There was relief all round.

This past spring, I taught a workshop at Quilt Canada about landscape quilting, creating textile and elements of landscape design and it was fabulous. For the first time in a year, I felt like I was ready to get back at it.

So here I am, back again, armed with a new sense of perspective and some fresh creative ideas. My daughter is in school now, so that pressure is somewhat relieved as well.

It’s good to be back!

These are among the batch that is foiled and ready to go off to shops (on consignment). They also come in golden, wintry light blue and autumnal russet backgrounds. If you are interested in one of the above, or any other colour variation, please fill out the contact form below (careful not to confuse it with the comment form!).

5.5″ x 9″
Hand-dyed cotton background with commercial fabric for the trees.
Details are hand-inked and the leaves are gold, silver and copper foils.
Price: $38 CDN

a quickr pickr post

All of the stock is of good quality. There is nothing wrong with it other than I simply need the space (both physical and creative) more than the stock at present.

One of the views that always strikes me as particularly dramatic is that of Whaleback Rock here in Torbay. I walk over the crest of the hill on our street and the ocean is before me. Another five minutes by foot and I am engulfed in the visually stunning combination of blue ocean, craggy cliffs and sweeping hillsides.

The photos don’t really do it justice, of course, which is one of the reasons I’m translating my visual chronology into art pieces. Still working on layouts, but the series is in progress.

The hardest part of this process is deciding whether to simply do a four-season series, whether to vary the structure and composition of the pieces from each other or whether to simply use this vista as a jumping point and do spontaneously whatever comes to mind.

The artist in me says, “be free! create!”. The businessperson in me is tempering that with, “yes, but make a saleable series and for heavens’ sake stretch it out a good bit and make some money.” I have decided that will listen to both. The first thing that came to mind was the four seasons aspect, so I’ll start with that. Complete the seasons and work in a smaller, less expensive series that mirrors the larger gallery pieces. The next step would be to play with the structure and composition, trying different media (i.e. watercolour or pen and ink drawings), perhaps working the horizontal view into four vertical tiles hung side-by-side…. You get the picture.

Here are a select few of the many photos that I’ve taken from roughly this same point of view, to give you an idea of the landscape of my world and the focus of this series :
April 26, 2006

Feb 12, 2006

Oct 21, 2005

Oct 21, 2005

Oct 21,2005

And for a bit of a twist:

Oct 3, 2005 (taken from the other side of the bight)

Starting the Gallows Cove portion of the East Coast Trail.

a quickr pickr post

I have recently been doing a great deal of soul searching and thinking, as well as picking myself up and dusting off my bruised ego and flabby creativity.  For those who find themselves either simply falling out of doing the work they have committed themselves to, I provide the following links from Christine Kane’s wonderful blog (which has helped me no-end):

Sabotage and Persistence

How to Get Anything Done

So I am now working again, this time at reasonable hours. I am renewing my commitment, ignoring self-doubt and following through. I have been going through my studio and sorting out projects, finishing off orders for shops for the summer, finishing off workshop plans, writing up stuff that needs writing and doing inventory. One step at a time and off we go…

If you are still out there, whoever you are, and still need that information, please drop me a line. I’ve been searching through all my messages, junk folders and weird squirrelly places on my hardrives and can’t seem to find your email.

Apologies.

There’s about one hundred pounds of this stuff, dyed in marvellous colours. I’ve had to sit firmly on my hands all evening.

There’s about fifty pounds of this stuff, dyed in marvellous colours.

Lots of tapestry wool, needlepoint frames and kits of all sorts.

Plenty of pottery, some reproductions of historic pieces!

An old sewing machine, in very nice condition….

And all sorts of other neat items:

All fabric is $1/m and yarns are $1/skein. Pottery is variable, but still very cheap. Books are $1 each. Magazines are $0.25

There was a lot of everything. The Sale starts at 9am tomorrow morning and runs until noon. Admission is free. We take debit/Visa/MC. Everything must go!

a quickr pickr post