Steadily making new work for my June exhibition....

June feels so far away, yet it is not.  I am working on these paper forms in my studio while the weather is still wintery, but hoping to get outside in another week or two to start cutting the styrofoam bases for these shapes.  We are supposed to get another snow this weekend and I am hoping it is the last!  I do enjoy being indoors and stitching on these, and just got caught up on Season 5 of The Americans while doing that, and I bought my pass for Season 6!  It is three episodes in and I am so nervous for what is going to happen to the Jennings family.  I am also very nervous for how all these parts are going to come together into a piece and once the sun starts shining regularly, I should know more.  

I so love the texture of the eyelets layered on one another.  I have backed off to a single stitch to attach them to save time, so they're a little loose.  I kind of like that movement they can make.  

Artist Angela Dieffenbach makes such cool objects.....

So in my weekly image google search of contemporary (fill in the blank); which has been embroidery, sculpture, fiber arts, etc.  But today was mixed media, I discovered the ceramicist Angela Dieffenbach, an artist in Chicago.  I love this work and you can see it here!  It is weirdly about the body, animal bodies, bodily functions and science.  

Parasitic Cure: origins of an Icon

Detail

Hirudo medicinalis; Redon

Donor body miracle mike

Post Natural Vascular

More and more I am thinking I need to takes some ceramics classes.  It is speaking more to me as a medium the older I get.  

Look at this work by German Artist Annegret Soltau....

How have I not seen her work before?  It is unbelievable!  Visit her website!  I could have posted a pic from every single body of work on her website; there are many...she is my mothers age.  Beautiful, violent, dangerous, fleshy and so much more.  I'll be spending a day combing through her site.  

Selbst #19

Chirurgische Operationen 23

Nase

Vulva

SOHN doppelt - mit Tochter 58

I am speechless. 

Featured on Moorewomenartists.com....

So excited that artist/author Elaine Luther reached out to me after seeing my work at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.  She has written a lovely piece about my work right here.  And the website has lots of fabulous resources for all artists at all stages of their careers!

I've been teaching middle school art club recently...

And one of the projects we have been doing was suggested by one of the best art teachers I know, a dear friend from my time in New Mexico.  She said to let them take a bunch of stuffed animals apart and then put them back together as a new species.  It has been brilliant!  Everyone has had so much fun.  And you just can't mess them up because there is no right or wrong way to make one.  I call them "Frankenstuffies" and it turns out they are my new favorite thing to make.  I have made one with every class and then made several on my own as gifts.  My son thinks they are super creepy.  I fall in love with every new one!

I've got one half finished in my studio and two bags of stuffed animal parts in the basement.  It can be a little brutal.  

New work for a group exhibit at Rochester Community and Technical College...

I've had this idea for a large installation piece for quite some time now using the sewing pattern paper and hooks and eyes.  I've even got some grant money for it.  So I have been working on the paper forms.  I just got a couple of pics to use for a proposal and had a chance to problem solve with some artist friends about how to get it on the wall the way I want....but they had better ideas.  I wanted this cyst/breast like shapes to extend from the wall and be surrounded by a curtain of thick hook and eyes.  I was struggling with a way to have the hook and eyes on the wall without glueing them individually to the surface.  So an artist friend suggested I mount the paper shape to multiple, different irregularly shaped lightweight boards, that I could then slather with joint compound and embed the hooks and eyes in.  And then I could bevel the edge of the board and extend the joint compound and sewing hardware to the wall so it appears as if it is erupting out of the surface of the wall "LIKE A WART!"  That is so good.  I am thinking I will try using styrofoam sheets, but I am waiting until the weather gets warmer and I can work outside.  And I need to get some tools.  I did think it might be a piece that could be expanded for a recent exhibition proposal and played with a drawing to illustrate that.  

For my proposal, I wondered about changing the shape of the room, so it was rounder and more womb-like when you were in it and surrounded by these bulbous shapes.  So much to think about. 

New proposals and new materials.....

So I spent some time last week working on a proposal for an exhibition I have applied to four other times.  But each proposal keeps getting better and applying to things is what I do.  The institution only take one proposal out of seventy with every round, so I will just keep at it.  I did play with a new material though that really influenced the focus of the proposal and has me super excited about new work: industrial felt.  I've got two different kinds...a really pristine cream color felt in 1/8 and 1/4 inch thickness, that comes in 15 inch width, and this sort of freckled light brown/gray, again in 1/8 and 1/4 inch thickness that comes in 60 inch width bolts!  It is so furry and weird and wonderful.  I just started cutting it up and piecing it together into this sort of organ like shape, and have you ever had that feeling where you know you are onto something?  I had that feeling, HARD.  And then I haven't had any time to get back to it, but I am so ready to.  I want to make life sized figures with it and I can't wait to start.  

I can draw on it with graphite and I am going to be exploring powdered pigments for color too.  

I have been thinking about the same doll shape clearly, but I would like a whole room of them.  And my hope is that they can stand but the back will be open, so you see all the knotty mess of stitching, boning and structure that holds them together.  So much to do! 

so much to share...how can it be March?

I don't know where the time goes.  Seriously.  I was asking everyone I knew to vote for my work everyday at the Bombay Artisan Series for six weeks this fall, and now it is March!  Many fabulous professional things have happened in that time as well as some not so fun family health issues we had to work through.  But everyone is healthy, my son has a paper route and I am in five exhibitions currently!

I am actually headed off to New Orleans to see my work in the group exhibition Between Stitches at NOCCA tomorrow.  I have never been to NOLA, and am so excited to meet a friend there from San Francisco for a girls trip.  She knows New Orleans, so all I have to do is follow her around and enjoy.  

I am super excited to have brand new work at Nahcotta Gallery's Enormous Tiny Art Exhibition #23 in Portsmouth, Maine with some of my favorite contemporary artists.  I have been joking that Nahcotta is where all my favorite online cool kid artists show work, and now I am among them!  I even had a piece sell before the opening reception.  I just popped online to look at my page and saw a sold button.  It was a thrill.  

I also have work at Woman Made Gallery in their Woman Made Juried Regional Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois.  And then two weeks ago, last minute, I got an email from a gallery owner in Dallas who was interested in working with me.  Turns out she had an exhibition going up in the next week featuring the women artists of her gallery and asked me to participate.  So another big box went to Fedex.  I am so happy to be included in Women of RO2. at RO2 Art in Dallas, Texas.  

Finally, I have work back in Miami with Casa Mondo Gallery, after having met the owner at Superfine! during Miami Art Week two years ago.  It is absolutely crazy.  Working your ass off works!  Now I just have to get more organized.  Turns out I should have a spreadsheet inventory of all my work and where it is.  And then I need to start my 2018 tax expenses spreadsheet.  And then I desperately need to make some new work.  I have a group exhibition with my favorite local art besties in June, and some things coming up in the fall.  So I am shutting this down and pulling out my thread.  I will be back soon though.  Hope you all are well!