Sleep is the eager cloth onto which I stitch unformed, unrealized ideas. Sleep is the cool lump of clay that forms and reforms in the hands of my mind, until I wake into a new day with bright fresh notions (some admittedly better than others) of what I plan to tackle. Without sleep I am all disconnected stitches and hardened bits of mud. Last night I didn’t sleep.
Fantasy B
In my massive and well lit studio I have an area completely dedicated to costuming. Aside from using the space to construct a series of elaborate and bizarre costumes meant for a show of some sort, I love having people swing in with their various costuming ideas and challenges. For a reasonable fee, I manifest their wildest costume fantasies.
In the real world, halloween always brings a few friends knocking at my door in search of minor costume augmentation. I love doing it, and I often daydream about taking it more seriously.
this one’s for salt
I spent much of today hand forming these little dishes, dreaming up new sensual food comments that I can stamp into the rims. I am somehow endlessly amused by these double entendres. Spoon me, squeeze me (for lemons), lick me, devour me, I’m a hotty (for salsa),... Got any good ones?
schizocarp!
This tiny seed pod, actually roughly rice grain sized, is called a schizocarp. Great word, which conjures all kinds of strong imagery for me, none involving tiny seeds. I looked it up in the dictionary: a dry seed that splits at maturity into two or more closed carpels. I challenge you to slip the word schizocarp into a regular conversation this week.
don’t eat them
I think these rows of clay beads look like little french confections from a black and white world. I am gearing up for the ArtChics Sale, November 2-3. I tend to make an array of small gift items for this sale, which gives me a chance to experiment with various techniques and ideas, then maybe later apply them to larger work.
learning the language
Honestly, I don’t speak fluent cucumber. I can tell by the many yellow ends and odd twists in my harvested cucs. If I spent as much time watering, weeding, and generally listening to my garden as I do drawing and stitching it I’d have a veritable veggie jungle.
found heart
I saw this freshly cut branch on a walk in Yachats Oregon. After spending this weekend with a tribe of vivacious, incredible women and then spending today alone in my studio with only the rain in my gutters to talk with, I feel somewhat like this exposed heart. We humans are meant to sit in circles, laugh together, eat together, link arms and walk together. What I do in my studio, I do alone. BUT, I have this potential to create things that will possibly touch or inspire another person in some future moment. Art can be communication across time and space.