Snaily Progress

Snaily progress:

I like this little snail lady.  I added the moons to emphasize ideas about time, motion and stillness, which were all part of the subtext of the commission.  I think I'm on track to finish this piece today.  But you never know.....I'm a kind of snail myself, and I don't want to rush!  And there's still sewing to do, which always takes longer than I anticipate!

Snail, Light, Food

I started working on this commission.  It still needs a lot more work:

I've been getting up earlier than usual.  I love our kitchen in early morning.  Today it's cold and snowy light, but yesterday it was bright and sunny:This looked good, so I made it, but with fettucini:

I've actually had time to cook this week, since my show is up and the opening is past.  

Early morning light on carrot peels is very nice:

Pushing Daisies.....In Memoriam

This was the moment when I knew that I'd found a bit of truly perfect television.  The whole show is similar to what it looks like in my head.  I'll miss it as badly as I miss Firefly.  

My Show and Other Bits

Here's a little virtual tour of my current show at the New Art Center in Newton, MA:

Yay!  They're all sold.  Almost all.  There are still two left.  I think I did a good job pricing them accessibly.  In a side note, I think I need to work on my photo skills when it comes to 3-D objects. 
The opening was a success!  I had a great time with friends and family, met a lot of new people, and even sold quite a few pieces.  Thankfully!

Here are some new eggs.  The one on the left needs a little more work.  I want to make a Huge installation of them next time....a whole wall full.  

I also made this egg last week, a birthday present for Debby:

I made one for my oldest, and very dear friend Mary too, to thank her for the song she sang for us at our wedding.

And here's my finished piece for Body and Soul: a Benefit for Aid for Cancer Research at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston:

What a whirl-wind week...and it's only Wednesday!  I always end up cramming during the lead-up to a show.  Last Thursday I wrote about how I was hoping to accomplish more than what seemed humanly possible.  (For me, since I'm slow.)  But Huzzah!  Sure enough, last Thursday I actually managed to finish everything I was hoping to finish.  And I am therefore not all that delusional.  I made this piece:

I had already stitched the fabric, and thought up the basic concept.  The thinking part is always the thing that seems to take forever.  But nonetheless, finishing this made me feel extraordinarily productive.  Something to show for all that thinking.  

I also made this egg, a tiny commission for a friend:

It's a present for her beloved, and it's part of a pair:She picked out the egg on the right from the ones I'd already made, but we couldn't find one that looked like her.  So I made the one on the left with her in mind.  It was fun to flip through my field guides looking for her alter ego bird-self.  In real life she's always creating things, so I made her bird-self creating a song.  Both of these are up in my show.

And I finished this piece.  It just needed a bit of refining.  

On Friday, I hung the show.  And everything came together even better than I had hoped.  I'll take some pictures at the opening, which is this coming Friday from 6–8pm, at the New Art Center, in Newton MA.  The opening coincides with Opening Lines, in the Main Gallery, which is a big (and impressive!) group show.  

Yesterday I made this egg:

And started this piece for Body and Soul, a Benefit for Aid for Cancer Research at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston.  I'm thinking about the body and the soul in terms of heredity.  What we get from our parents, what we pass to our children, and what we hope for them.  I think this is a legitimate interpretation of the theme....

I've also been dreaming about snails....(wink* wink* to Steph and Richard)....more on that later....ummm....next week at the latest.  ;)

Crazy Busy and Maybe Delusional!

Man, am I busy!  And I can feel a cold coming on, which at least gives me the opportunity to try out my new Neti Pot.  I'm going to finish this piece this morning:

The caption reads, "No one knew quite what to do about Helen."

I always underestimate how long things will take me.  Par exemple, it took a while to drive the little pins into the backs of these eggs.  I have one more waiting for a pin, and I want to make a few more little ones, but really, who am I kidding?  I have a show to hang tomorrow.  I was also under the delusion yesterday that I would be able to finish another little painting/fabric collage today.  Well....we'll see.  Don't count me out yet.  

And check it out!  Here she is again, expression unchanged!

I am in full-out show prep. mode this week.  Not in a stressed out kind of way.  I'm just focused on finishing up the last few details.  Like more eggs:I made this female cardinal before my last show, but she didn't quite fit into my installation at the time.  I made her this "gentleman friend" the other day, and I think she works well as part of a pair.   

Here's a daily photo collection peek.  The dour-looking young woman on the right makes the same face in every picture.  Who IS she?

Happy, Happy New Year!  Today, while all those pesky New Years Resolutioners are clogging up the gym and the yoga studio, I'm taking the opportunity to laze about the house, scarfing down loads of my favorite orange cupcakes.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but man, are they good...

For the sake of catching up I'll just jump right in: Before I left for Montana I was working on some more of these painted eggs:The eggs below are left over from my last show, but I changed their colors for a more subdued palette.  I'm not really sure why, but I think it might be a winter thing.  I always feel more subdued in winter.  I made a few more eggs yesterday, but I forgot to bring my camera to the studio.  

This is a corner of a collage that I've been messing around with for a while.  I like this wily fox.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I collect old photos of strangers.  This album, which I bought 4 years ago off of ebay (of all the romantic places) contains 250 photos.  The only date I can find anywhere inside is on the back of a picture of two young men.  It reads "....Cleo is from Boston.  19 years old.  June 26, 1924."  I think this photo is one of the later ones in the album.  There is one woman who appears over and over again, from the time she is around 5 until she is around 18 or so.  I've decided the photo album must have been hers.  I have a whole complex explanation for why I believe it belonged to her, but I won't bore you with my craziness today.  I flip through this album about once or twice a week, and I'm always finding new images that I've never noticed before.  Like this one:

And this one:I find these pictures achingly beautiful and provocative.  The way I think about them goes hand-in-hand with my experience, this past Christmas, of being with a new family, and away from my old one, for the first time.  I've been thinking about family history and the stories we tell when we're together, and the ways in which those stories create identity. 

I'm also still working on my series of fabric and paper collages.  I'm hoping to finish this bit of sewing today: