Sketchbook Project: The Launch

Launches this weekend!

After months of preparation, coping with far more respondents than expected, the Sketchbook Project is off and running.  The tour begins with an Opening Reception at the Brooklyn Library, Brooklyn, NY, on Saturday, February 19th, and is up there through February 27th.  From there, it moves around the USA beginning in Texas at the Austin Museum of Art (March 12) and coming as close to me as Seattle, WA  June 10 -12)...but I doubt I'll be able to get there to see it.

If you aren't going to be close to any of the venues when the Project is in town, don't despair.  You can still have a look at my portfolio here, and then cruise the site to see what other artists have posted.  Enjoy!

It's in the Mail...

Firefly Poem

My Sketchbook for The Project, that is.  I got the word about an extended deadline after I'd packed mine up, cover letter and all, so I mailed it today anyway.  There's nothing I would have had time to add -- I'd run out of steam.  Didn't finish the book, but I liked the pages I did, and I think they got stronger as I drew closer to the end of the Project.

   

Bird in a Gilded Cage - closed

Bird in a Gilded Cage - open

 Which came first...?














The layering came from my work in my City and Guilds Module 2.

I confess that what got me through the project was poetry -- mine and that of several others.   Being a fabric person, I found this all-paper-almost-all the time stuff really challenging.

That said, my second-last set of pages included a) fabric; and b) a quilting pattern -- Flying Geese, a classic.  :-)

Snow Days...


have been quite productive.  I've been working on my City & Guilds Module 2, and finished up the last two activities (see "Polishing the Process" for details/photos), and managed to make a couple more pages in my book for The Sketchbook Project -- using some of what I've been learning under Linda's tutelage.  In the page to the left, I used rubbing and cut-back techniques to make the birds on the right-hand side.  The ones on the left were echoes showing through from the preveious page. 

A bit of Walt Whitman...

Butterfly Book

In the second photo ("Butterfly Book") I used the wings of a butterfly to create a mini book-within-a-book.  (The colours of the butterfly are purely imaginary, by the way.)

This afternoon I've been knitting away, Diesel on my lap, coffee at my elbow, and "The Tale of Hilltop Farm", an audio-book by Susan Wittig Albert, playing away on the computer via iTunes and my local library's e-book service.  'Round about us the wind howled and the snow fell and drifted...but we are safe, warm and entirely happy.

What I've been up to

I've been enjoying my outdoor 'studio' so much of late, that it's been tough to sit here and post! However, I have been busy, and have posted some new photos to prove it!

First, because what I do out there has to be handwork, I took up a black and white piece that I began when I was the 'gofer' for Pamela Allen in her design/composition class at Quilt Canada in May. I call it "My Back Yard", and like it so much that I'm going to add it to the collection in my "Nature" series, even if the style is quite different.

Second, I've come up with an idea for the SAQA Exhibit, "Beyond Comfort" , wherein I'll be using recycled materials that I have on hand, but haven't really used -- except in classes about the subject. Yesterday, with rain threatening in the afternoon (it arrived early evening, actually), I got busy with some sun printing, using guidelines from 3 Creative Studios TOM (Technique of the Month) for July. I created 2 good pieces (and 2 disasters, ,which I'll recycle!), one of which I think I'm going to use for "Circle Play". If in the end it's not accepted in the show, I've decided to submit it to "This is a Quilt", SAQA's 2011-20121 Travelling Trunk Show.

What else has happened?

Well...in mid-September our province celebrates the arts with Alberta Arts Days. The village of Alix, which is about 10 minutes from here by car, is joining in by holding 3 art demos at their public library -- and Beth, the librarian there, asked me on Tuesday if I would be one of the artists this year! She was looking for something "different" (they've had several painters in the past) and realized that I would fill the bill, because textiles is an unfamiliar art medium to many folks. I get an hour to play -- and now have to decide what to do! It's not a 'make and take', just a demo, but I want to spark interest and not get too complicated at the same time...

And... I've begun my participation in The Sketchbook Project 2011. My sketchbook arrived on Monday, and I have managed to create the intro page and to paint 2 other pages in prep for my next entry. I decided to allow them to select my journal's theme;

they gave me "In Flight" -- ! Thus...I am contemplating birds, bees, butterflies...

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