Prickly Pear Bloom

The Husband is such a ROCK STAR. He laid 3000 pounds of flagstone for our new backyard patio a little over a week ago, with only a tiny bit of help from me. Well, I helped enough to still be sore 3 days later, but really, he did most of it. AND he built two new raised beds for our garden, finished this weekend. I’m so lucky he married me. They look awesome, they make our backyard feel like OURS, and the space back there is starting to come together and look like a really nice, usable yard. I can’t wait to have a fire in the firebowl and chill out on the patio and gaze at the tomatoes.

I planted under threat of impending rain this weekend, seeds for pumpkin and carrots and green onion and all manner of greens that my father sent me for Christmas from the Pacific Northwest, including broccoli rabe and swiss chard. Woo! Exciting. NOT for bunnies. I’m nervous about that, in this new ‘hood. The carrots are a new venture for me, I’ve never grown them, and the pumpkin is just because I SO loved having the volunteer pumpkin last year. I also put in a roma tomato, and the heirloom tomato seedlings will go in in a couple of weeks. They still need some time to acclimate to the stresses of the outdoors.

The fleeting lilacs are almost done, so here’s a sniff. That’s spring, right there in a purple package.

Week 20 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

First and foremost, thank you all so much for your encouraging words about my wordplay pieces yesterday. If I didn’t get a chance to respond to you directly, please know that I appreciate every single word. I felt sort of bad for putting off working on it for so long, starting it the day before I was planning to share it, but it just goes to show sometimes things just fall into place. And I am so glad that you liked it.

It’s funny to me, I procrastinated like a pro on gossamer, yet with bloom on deck now, and with this urge to paint I’m having, I’ve got ideas swirling and ready to pop out and I think I might work on it this weekend! So hopefully, this time, I will have some peeks to share before Erin and Emily and I reveal our next wordplay interpretations on 6.30.

Also, if you could send me some sewing mojo, I could use it, as I also really need to get crackin’ on a couple of gifts for some sweet little ones. Many thanks!

gos·sa·mer [gos-uh-mer]
–noun
:: a fine, filmy cobweb seen on grass or bushes or floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn.
:: something extremely light, flimsy, or delicate.

I’ll admit it right now. There have been no peeks into my progress on the first round of Wordplay, gossamer, because there had been no progress up until the very. last. minute. Don’t get me wrong, I thought about it and thought about it, everyday, for six weeks. Thought and wrote and thought and sketched and thought some more. I had a vision in my mind, but didn’t know the road to take to get there. It was like the map was all folded up wrong in my head.

I had fully intended, from the moment I opened up Shari’s note and the pink paint chip with the word “gossamer” in typed letters affixed fell out, to make this another gocco project. I wanted to commit myself to a medium, but then the days ticked by, and it just didn’t feel right, somehow. I found myself doodling long, overlapping strands, wispy threads, and thinking about how the light hits the window, and falls through tree branches, and illuminates things from behind. I spent six weeks of spring noticing. And then I started thinking about painting.

Then, a couple of days ago, something happened to me. I found a road to follow. And that road led me to another road. And suddenly I had more than one place I wanted to go with this.

My first piece, the idea that has been in my head since very near the beginning, started with an image I was lucky enough to encounter in my backyard a couple of weeks ago. Late afternoon sun was shining through the new red leaves of this bush, which is unfortunately now gone from my life. I was frantic to capture this fleeting moment, before that waning light disappeared. You know how fickle light can be.

This light whispered “gossamer” in my ear, I imagined strands of gossamer as strands of light, and I wanted to build on this image somehow. I printed it on watercolor paper, which soaked up the ink in a darkish, slightly insane, but totally expected way when you really think about it. That’s what watercolor paper is meant to do, after all. Soak. So anyway, I didn’t want it quite as dark as it was, so I adjusted it in Photoshop to lighten it, and printed it again. Perfect. Light and red and warm and it felt like I could swirl the sunlight around in my mouth like a good wine. Just what I wanted. Then I painted a bunch of gel medium over it, which loosened the ink ever so slightly and made it feel like a hot, blurry autumn afternoon, and lay strands of thread over the image, twisting and overlapping, hanging off the edges, multiple layers, floating above and below, suspended in layers of transparent paint. Over that, I painted thin strokes of oil paint, white, yellow, some brown, freeform and floating. I thought about mounting the print directly on a small square block of wood before applying the layers of paint and thread, sanding down the edges to give it a worn look, but I couldn’t find a piece of wood to my liking. So it is just a wavy paper sculpture at the moment, which lends to the delicate, flimsy definition of the word gossamer anyway. I think it would work mounted slightly raised from a board.

This inspiration took hold, though, and I began these additional, and unfinished, pieces in what I hope to be a small series. I was so motivated to start working in oil paint again, that I wanted to translate some of the feeling of the paper sculpture into a painting as well. I laid down a color field on small canvas, with just a hint of a figure/ground shape suggested by color and brushstrokes. Pebbles, of course, because I can’t get them off of my mind. I intend to lay threads over this as well, and build up a few layers, and perhaps coat it with wax.

I used to make big oil paintings combined with screenprinting, but It has been AWHILE since I’ve really painted. I just don’t feel that I have the right space to dedicate to large scale oil painting, nor the time that I would love to commit to it. I did a little acrylic painting for an illustration assignment a few weeks ago, but wasn’t pleased with the final result. It fit the bill, but as a personal work, I plan to paint over it in oil, which I just haven’t gotten around to yet. I am not a huge fan of working with acrylic, I much prefer the way oil paint mixes and reflects light and color.

So when I decided that I was going to bring my box of oil paint up from the basement and pour myself a jar of paint thinner, I was excited. And that first dip of the brush into paint, the smell of turpenoid, the feel of the oil on the canvas - oh it made me happy. So happy. I really, REALLY want to start making little oil paintings, to get back in the saddle. And I feel like that’s something that I have the space and the time for. Because they’re just little guys. And now, I have some inspiration, this combination of paint and thread. My head is full of all kinds of directions I feel like I could go with this, and that is exciting.

Gossamer was hard. A challenge, indeed. But it is so great to see what Emily and Erin interpreted in it. The next word arrived in the mail today from an artist for whom I have so much respect: bloom. Awesome.

So, I have a thing about blankets. I have a collection of them. I love them. I love to make them, and I love old vintage ones that someone else’s hands made. I love to cuddle underneath them, and curl up with them, and look at them, and pet them fondly. There’s little that’s better than a nice blanket, in my book.

So when The Husband returned from an excursion to his grandmother’s home to move some things, he walked in holding a vintage blue and white floral quilt and asked if I wanted it. Of course I said yes. I’m so happy to have something beautiful of hers in my home.

I’ve also been a manic garage saler in the last couple of weeks. You know how it is, with all the researching and trying to get there early to find the good stuff that goes into serious garage saling. It’s more work than I usually put in to it. I have come home with a few cool things, including that polaroid spectra, some fabric, a vintage fan to join one that we’ve owned for a few years, and some doilies that I have some ideas for. What I’ve really been looking for, though, is vintage quilts. I took last Friday off, for various reasons, and went out hunting, thinking since it was Friday, I might have better luck finding those things that usually get snatched up immediately. Well, one that I went to started on THURSDAY, and he’d sold the quilt he’d advertised, of course. Man, the working folk don’t get many chances to score the cool early stuff.

I went to visit my mom on mothers day, and she and my grandmother and I took a bit of mamma-daughter time together at a really cool antique store in my hometown. I bet my mom never thought I’d be the one suggesting we go antiquing together. I remember going in there with her when I was little and being so bored. But now? Oh my, I wanted to just sit down, put down roots and live in that place. So many vintage jars and mixing bowls and red wing crocks and glassware. Yum. Have I ever told you I have a soft spot for jars? That’s probably a whole other story though. It drives The Husband insane.

Anyway, a couple of beauties came home with me. My grandmother purchased the lightweight yellow X pattern quilt as a housewarming gift for us. There are a couple of blocks that need small pieces of fabric replaced, and probably a binding to help with a torn edge, which I plan to do by hand as carefully and mindfully as possible with some fabric from my stash that hopefully will blend well with the beautiful vintage fabrics already in the quilt. I’m a little hesitant to add a binding, only because I hate to add something major that the original maker didn’t include, but if I don’t, the edge that is torn will just get worse. How do you all feel about mending/adjusting vintage quilts like that?

I’m usually not partial to loud quilts, and this one is a little busy, but oh my, the vintage fabrics in it are just delicious. I wish I could show you all of the lovely bits, but that would end up being a ridiculous wall of pictures. This lovely thing totally reminded me of Erin when I picked it up, who happens to be making this pattern right now, and I kind of feel even more connected to her now that I have a vintage version of this quilt. Hey, girl, how’s that X quilt going, anyhow?

The graphic red and white quilt is just. so. cool. A bit smaller, lightweight, and in such great condition, I think it’s going to be an addition to our growing collection of cuddle-on-the-couch blankets. In fact, I hung out with it on the porch last night. Perfect for spring snuggling. It’s all hand stitched and hand quilted, and I can just feel the creativity and love in every one of those minute stitches. The pattern of it is so contemporary, it reminds me of watermelon seeds, or Memorial Union terrace chairs. It just makes sense in our home, in every way.

So, now I think my search for vintage quilts is at an end, for now, at least.

Hot on the heels of the arrival of my very first polaroid, I hit up a garage sale this weekend and found a polaroid spectra for $1, with 3 pictures still left in it! So, even though I don’t much need a second polaroid, much less one that will probably be harder to find film for, it was only a dollar, so I took it home to keep the 600 One Step that I got a week ago company. Now I almost have a polaroid collection.

I can’t even imagine how long the film has been sitting in it, I just know that it MUST be expired. This picture developed so strangely, and it’s super muddy. But I’m totally fine with that. Love it, in fact. And it could be because I opened the film door, too. We’ll see how the next one turns out.

Mmmmm paper. And pebble shapes.

Only a week - or so - after saying that I was going to do this, I actually did it. That’s got to be a new record for me. I’m sure it has to do with the fact that this was the last day that I have access to the big momma scanner at school, and if I didn’t get a few of these finished to scan them I would probably lose all of my inspiration to do them completely. So I sat on the floor of my office for about 45 minutes last night letting my brain take a nap while cutting paper into pebble shapes and gluing them to big 13″x19″ sheets of heavy white paper. And it was oh so soothing, scissors in hand, cutting paper. I felt like a little kid for awhile, cutting and gluing. It was nice.

And, let me tell you, it’s really easy to end up with ALOT of big sheets of paper with pebble shapes arranged in various ways when you do this, just so you’re aware. I made 5. And I still have a pile of paper pebbles. And I see more in my future.

All of this is paper from my stash - yes, I have a stash of paper like many of you have a stash of fabric, although I have both, and I couldn’t tell you which is larger at the moment - brown and dark blue and shimmery light blue that you totally can’t tell is shimmery from these images, which is really too bad. And oh, hm, the scanner must have been dirty or the shimmer threw off its mojo because they look a little grimy, I had to clean that up just a little tiny bit in Photoshop just now. But they aren’t, grimy, in real life. I also threw some ink and paint on some paper for those streaky painty pebbles. I love the contrast of those with the flat, unpainted ones.

And oh, hey! Today was the last day of class for me for the semester. It’s summer! Sort of. At least, in terms of school, it’s out for summer. Hooray!

Oh, I have so much to tell you about this weekend. So much, that I’m just going to have to break it into chapters, I think. Later.

Week 19 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

And ohmygod, have you seen these statistic tshirts? Totally freakin cool design, typography and innovative information design AND trying to help create solutions to some of the world’s problems. 20% of the sales of these shirts will go towards building an orphanage in Mozambique.

Two design related posts in a row! Wow!

So this is where I talk about the catalog project that rendered my weekend clinically dead, but after which I felt such a sense of relief, it was audible, and I thought I might blow people over with my dramatic exhales.

This was a group project. Blink. Blink. Up until now, almost every thing I have worked on, except for the calendar on which I asked my friend to collaborate with me, has been on my own. Solo. Me. I have developed a style and workflow, I’ve learned to tread within my own timeline and I’ve learned rules and then thrown those rules out the window. This was a complete departure from how I’ve been comfortably living my life for the past few years. In the last three weeks, my life has been a little bit turned on its head. But it’s been good.

First, everyone decided on a company, concepted a catalog, and created a rough comp by hand to present, laying out where type would go, what images would go where, and the basic design style of the piece. We were then assigned to various teams, and within those teams, we presented our roughs and then had to decide whose to continue with. The person whose catalog was decided on would act as the art director of the team. Of course, everyone wanted to be the art director, so it wasn’t much of an easy decision, but finally, we decided to go ahead with mine. I will say that my rough was the tightest of my team, so I was hoping it would be easy to work from. After that, we decided who of the other two people in my group would act as the graphic designer and the production artist. And then we got to work.

I concepted the logo, which went through a couple of different phases before it landed here. I originally wanted to use a hand altered version of Aristocrat, which was the original inspiration for using that font within the catalog, but it just wasn’t working. I was using solid letters combined with open letters that were losing readability at small sizes, and I had used some flouncy ribbon devices that were starting to make it look like the Coca Cola lettering. So finally, I ditched it and replaced the typography with the blocky sans serif here.

There was a teensy bit of a communication issue within my team at the beginning of this process, which made things a bit harder. I left work early one day to meet with the graphic designer to take a look at his progress, but he didn’t show. Which made me a little angry. And then for a couple of days I wasn’t sure if he was going to have anything done, or if he was alive, or what. He finally emailed me, and when we all got together in class things were on a reasonable track, and pretty much stayed there. For the most part, we all worked pretty well together.

It was definitely a little hard for me to let go of some of the control that I am used to having over every little piece of a project, and let someone else do a bunch of the work. He did alot of the design work, based on my original rough comp, and he came up with some graphic solutions that I probably would not have pursued on my own, which is pretty cool. I worked out the main header typography, the order form, and I put finishing touches on the whole piece with a few color choices and graphic shapes as well. In the future, I will probably adjust a few things, to make it work a little better, but overall, I think it’s a really good piece, and I’m proud of my team for all of the work they put in on it.

The final project for one of my classes was to concept and create a hang tag for Express jeans from a creative brief given to us today, and have it finished in two hours. It is meant to be fun, energetic, and hip, and also include a diecut, 2 colors, and at least one image that my instructor supplied. This is for men’s jeans, attached to the back pocket, with a half circle diecut in the middle that flips up when it is folded over, and shows the light green on the back of the tag. I mocked it up here on a “pocket” to show you how it would be used.

The purpose of this exercise was to give us some practice for when employers ask for projects with super tight deadlines, or for situations where a potential employer might test on a project within a very short timeframe. It was stressful, as not only did we need to concept and build this in a couple of hours, but we also had to print separations and hand in writeups for print production, and of course practically the whole group was having MAJOR issues with the printer. But, such is life.

And now, off to bed.

My polaroid arrived yesterday, exclamation point! And film came today, and of course I promptly went outside and made sure it worked. It does. And it has a “macro” setting, which is hilarious. I can’t wait to see how that works.

The Husband was “apprehensive” when I told him I was thinking of purchasing this clunky piece of plastic old school camera. And when I say “apprehensive” I mean he thought I was totally insane. But as we stood in the backyard and watched the image develop, he admitted that the pola is kinda cool, and he gave me an assignment to take the same frames with the digital camera as I take with the polaroid and see if I can process them to look as close to the original polaroid as possible. A good idea. I like it. I’ve not done it yet with this one though. Apparently he already has a second assignment for me. Ooh, the mystery.

I’m a little nervous about taking polaroids, I didn’t spend much on the camera, but the film’s expensive and I feel like I need somehow to make them count. I don’t have the safety net of digital to fall back on, where I can delete anything that doesn’t work out, and just snapsnapsnap as many as I want to in hopes that one is good. But on the other hand, that part excites me too. That sense of adventure, of unknowing, of discovering, and learning. You never know what you’re gonna get. That’s cool.

So I hope to spread the polaroid love around for awhile. For a long while.

Yesterday the landscapers we hired came and leveled half of our yard, and moved that shed from the middle of the yard to its current, more logical resting place in the corner. Where it used to stand, we’ll put in a couple of raised bed vegetable gardens, hooray!, and we’ve got 3000 pounds (!) of flagstone on the way for a patio. The wild tangle of weeds and things that was our backyard is now a clean slate for us to paint on. Unfortunately, a crabapple tree and this red bush had to leave us. But I couldn’t give up the lilac, which is also in the middle of the yard. I love lilacs. I can’t wait for those blooms to burst. Soon, I think.