blur

Last week was spent at St. Augustine Beach with my aunts and grandparents. It's the off season which means the beach is nearly deserted and comfortably cool, yet still perfect for swimming. Unfortunately I nursed a cold all week and didn't spend much time drawing as I usually do, but played in the sand with little cocinas and took lots of photos which I'll share more of this week while I figure out my studio life and hopefully a Halloween costume.

Photography is a new medium for me, something I have never studied or pushed until I bought my little point and shoot camera and began blogging. It seems appropriate that most of my images are oriented on tiny details of the world as without contacts, I own nine inches of perfect vision and then a progressively blurrier world. The photos above are another way I see, which could be a frightening way to live but make for beautiful images, yes?

My adult sculpture class at the museum ended Sunday, and I think I left happy students, as a few asked about the next sculpture class with plans to take it. It always makes me so satisfied when I have such an enthusiastic class, so often it is one of the first things they have made in clay since gradeschool, if even then. I inserted a little plaster mold making demo in the last two classes and a few were very excited about the possibilities of handbuilding with plaster which I did with Bone Mother and Daughters. I'd love to offer a course on that, though I don't know if the museum would welcome it as it's so very messy. . . have to mull on it.

Air Force

Taken at 8th Air Force Museum near Shreveport, Louisiana.

look! a tiny pressed mattress.
*edit 11/09*The bomb count so chilling, I still can't get over it a month after taking these photos. Even so I find the repetition of the missiles oddly beautiful the white ones are so similar to Bone Mother's shape it's frightening.

Flight

Though I know it happens thousands of time everyday airplane flight always seems miraculous, and I love nearly everything about it. Going through goofy security procedures, engaging in people watching, language and accent discernment, napping uncomfortably in plane seats, (though admittedly I hate airport food), waiting on the tarmac, all for that moment of lift when a huge can of metal becomes airborne and the world below drops away to toy village, then ant farm, then abstract surface marked with patches of developed land, squiggles of forest and river, and cities shaped like twinkling stars exploding ever outwards. Sometimes all of it disappears beneath a world of clouds, which comes to resemble traveling on another planet of white, grey, blues, tinged with pink. Then as the plane lands, subtle textures of topography become more apparent: the forests separate into areas of closely space green lines of cultivated pines and irregularly colored wild trees, new suburbs with their shiny cookie cutter homes abut old farmland, the bare prints of old farm houses and barns remain and their driveways truncate to nowhere. Old property lines are marked by old growth sometimes cut in two by newer roads. Reading the land this way is seeing the layers upon layers of history, so little is left unmarked by us. Someday I continually promise myself, I will do a series based on the designs found in aerial photography.

The reason for flight? Last week Tommy, my brother-in-law and I flew to Louisiana to visit with their older brother before his deployment to Iraq and then drove to Texas to visit Catlin and Alicia for the first time since his return from Iraq. Both visits were very good and far too short. Much roughhousing and teasing occurred during the week because what else do you do but joke and laugh and play and upon goodbye bid each other to take care?

Pictures to come.

Twenty and Counting (and how to fix a linocut)

I am alive, I promise. What have I been up to you ask? Lino printing for one. In case you aren't familiar with the term, a linocut is a relief print made with a piece of old school linoleum tile that has an image carved into the surface with a linocutter, inked with a roller and then printed on paper. One of the particularly nice things about linoprints besides the fact that they look a bit like woodcuts is that you don't need a press to print it.
My little bird print has been in limbo for sometime now, awaiting it's fate, unfinished and unprinted. Part of the problem was some overenthusiastic carving, and a few areas needed filling in, so after a period of incubation and a bit of experimentation, I discovered a way to repair it with Bondo (a putty filler for car dents).

How to repair a linoblock:
warning: Bondo is nasty toxic so if you try it yourself, please do it outside and upwind of the fumes, then leave the piece outdoors till it sets up.
1. Mix the Bondo according to the directions on the can.
2. Just fill in the holes with the Bondo and leave a little above the surface. Let set for a couple of hours.
3. Once it feels hard, shave the surface with a razor blade, sand it smooth with 600 grit sandpaper.
4. Carve back into areas as you wish. Voila. . . print saved. I haven't tried this over large open areas, but for smaller patches it works just fine.

Unfortunately it has been a very long time since I've made lino prints so I am in the process of relearning all the little printing tricks, my pile of imperfect prints is twenty and growing, though I am getting closer. It feels especially nice to be in the studio working on tying up loose ends, I am ready to move on yet feel the need to address the ghosts of past projects and gather information on possible destinations.

Drawn

Please click on the images for a closer look.

graphite on primed Rives paper
5.5" x 7.5"

These are things found on my porch, drawn there by light and found their death. They are so delicate and small, shells of their former selves. Morbid. I am fascinated by the intricate way the body is put together, such tiny joints, and in drawing them I allow moments of awkwardness to reach in. The moth's small furry leg curls up towards its eye as if it should like to hide from my gaze, while its abdomen and wings disappear into the page. A wasp's identity becomes barely discernible as the lines it is made up of surface and disappear, save its legs which sprawl and clutch. These little drawings are partially in response to seeing my mother’s shell, her life drawn out of her by whomever cleans up after the Fates. Her body present but the picture incomplete.

side note: I determined I would post these two weeks ago, but little did I know they would be so hard to get a digital image of. I spent far too long scanning and tweaking, even built a light box to try photograph them only to find my camera was not up to the task, days passed. . . finally an epiphany and I figured out how to scan it differently. Still not perfect, but so glad I didn't settle.

New Press

Jan of Poppytalk wrote a feature about my work on DIESEL.com. The article shows an installation, my jewelry and a work in progress. See it and read it here. Many thanks Jan!

war touches my family

Chief Micanopy by George Catlin

I debated whether to share this bad news, but in the end decided it fits under musings. I met my best friend in kindergarten, her younger brother is the same age as mine and so I've known Catlin (named after the artist who painted the above picture) since he was barely a toddler. Our mothers were fast friends and I vividly remember many, many weekends spent as children together at the local springs and our houses. He grew up, joined the army, and went to Iraq. I learned yesterday evening that he was seriously injured by an IED. From what we know now: his left arm is shattered, he has a skull fracture, and worst he has lost parts of both his legs, one from the knee down and the other from below the knee, his torso is relatively unhurt and the doctors seem to believe his brain is alright. The other guys he was with were not so fortunate. Three of the guys with him died and the other survivor is not doing as well as he is. Thankfully his best friend was not in the vehicle. Thankfully he is alive. I am so worried for his physical and emotional well-being, and so sad for his army brothers and their families.

When someone you know chooses to be a soldier and is deployed, you are very aware of the possibilities, but you can only wait for him or her to come home. No matter your political beliefs, you can only wait. This evening we spent with his mom, dad, sister, extended family and friends on the back porch and ate Southern comfort food, talked, and waited for more news while anxiety and anticipation hung in the humid air. Soon he will be flown from Germany to Texas and we will wait for him to wake up, to heal his body, to grieve his friends and limbs, to heal his heart and soul, and to live. He has a long road before him, I hope he will know he is not alone.

War just breaks my heart, all the loss the comes from it is far too great a cost.

*I am going to continue to update through the comments for awhile*

She

In which Eliza considers George .

altered book
stamps, mail ephemera, thread, acrylic, graphite, ink
5" x 7 1/2"

Spun Experiments

plaster, thread, graphite powder and sometimes wax on masonite
8" x12"

One of my old jobs required hours of sewing. At the end of the day piles of little threads littered my workspace, linear tangles. At the time I was newly grieving my mother and felt words couldn't express exactly what I was feeling but all the same I repeated the story of loss over and over to anyone who would listen. *edit* I was telling myself the story trying so very hard to untangle it and there on my desk was the perfect expression. The thread tells a story; the story, both important and unimportant, unique and universal, spins and winds tangled.

Seedpod boat

Thought I'd share a little stopmotion this morning. Made with bits of my nature collection: a costa rican seedpod (very vague I know) and milkweed fluff. Very simply done, and makes me happy.