RISDCraft Artist feature....

So happy to be a RISDCraft artist again this year! Artist Profiles are being published on the website on an ongoing basis…check mine out: Nicole Havekost.

New little superhero animals...

I have been wanting to make some little animals that aren’t as time consuming or as fussy as my animal dolls. And I have RISDCraft coming up, so I finally decided to make a little time this last week! Here are three new characters: Super Mouse, Super Cat, Super Bird. They were fun as hell to make. I used the same materials as my other dolls: air dry clay, sewing pattern paper, cotton thread, acrylic paint. I would like to bust out 3 more before the show in October…hopefully I can pull it off! After that, these will go in my online marketplace, soon to go live!

Each is about four inches tall and stands up. The mask can be on or off. And yes, the cat’s mask has cat whiskers!

Create! Magazine, Issue 15

So excited to be included in Create! Magazine, Issue 15, juried by Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia. Such wonderful artists to share a space with!

Lisa Congdon, cover art

I discovered Beth Beverly, a taxidermy artist in the issue! Please visit her interview here, to learn more about her process.

Beth Beverly

Artist Fabian Matz...

Is my new artist crush. I discovered his work on Instagram and for the first time ever, fell in love with panty hose. He makes them do all sorts of wonderful things.

Exhaled, polymid tights and resin

Exhale, detail

Asynchrone symmetrie im umfang von XS bis XXL

Asynchrome Symmetrie Im Umfang Von XS - XXL, Detail

Jesus was’t wearing tights

Jesus wasn’t wearing tights

He inflates tights with balloons and sand, contorts them into evocative shapes and plays with the notion of tights as a gendered material. Have a look at his website, his curiosity about this material is amazing.

Just finished a new mixed media artwork...

That I am so excited about! I can already see making a dozen at least. This started out as a square, about 12x12 inches. It was going to be flat to the wall, but the square was just wrong as well as the 2-dimensionality of the felt with the little polyp like things coming off. So I cut a chunk out of the felt as a dart, sewed the seam together and had a bit of a curve. And then I did it some more. And then I cut the corners off. It hit an ugly duckling stage where I was sure I had overworked it, so I just let it hang out on the wall. I then decided to add more felt and really push the depth more. It is about 15x20 inches and maybe 6 inches deep. I’m still not sure if it is a wall ore pedestal piece, but it doesn’t have to go anywhere yet, and I can see what it does with the new ones I will make. It hits the creepy cool mark that I love so much.

The hooks are almost like marching ants. I enjoyed watching the Amazon series Hanna while I stitched. I think I will start Killing Eve Season 1 with my next piece.

Unbelievable Fiber Masks...

One my my favorite instagram discoveries is the Irish artist Threadstories. She crochets these balaclavas and then adorns them, such that they become personalities. Sometimes the gesture changes, sometimes the mask has movement, sometimes nearly the entire model is obscured. She doesn’t have a website that I can find, but you can read more about her work on Hi Fructose or Thisiscolossal.com.

I hope you will follow her. You won’t be disappointed.

New to listen to: Artist Mother Podcast!

I just discovered this fabulous podcast through instagram actually. I am not sure how it popped up on my feed…if it found me or I found it, but I have listened to a couple of interviews and it is wonderful! It is the work of artist/mother Kaylan Butetyn. This is one of the paintings I love on her website:

Big Momma #2

“You can make critical art and be a mother at the same time.”

It is true. It is damn hard some days, but you can do it. It is so great to hear stories of all sorts of mom artists making their way. My son is 12, with wispy hairs above his lip and more smarts than I know what to do with and we are at this great place where he encourages me. He sees the value of the weird things I make. And that makes it possible. My kid loves me because I am his mom…but he also loves this weird practice that makes me bring home strange dolls from estate sales and make things that look like pubic hairs. It is everything. Hope you have a chance to check her podcast out!

New studio and new work in progress....

I haven’t actually had a chance to work in my new studio, but I did drop some things off. I am really excited about it, especially going into spring with the possibility of having the garage door open and enjoying the lovely weather.

I think Sofia will mostly be using the garage door side this summer so she can take advantage of the light in her photographs. I will mostly be on the side with the hard wood floor, and then when it gets colder, we will both shift to that space to take advance of the furnace. Former studio renter and good friend MB left us each a bucket that says “Lets do this” that we can now use as our personal potties.

And I am super excited about this new work in progress. I am thinking of it more as a sketch…practice for more to come. Doesn’t it straddle that line between repulsion and beauty?

here is the back…

The little pustules are latex finger tips stuffed with fiber fill and dry paint pigment. I had thought it would be a flat piece of felt with these things coming off of it on the wall, but now I think the felt actually needs to be a three-dimensional shape coming off the wall itself. The outside edge of the felt is just too flat. More to come!