Loose Ends and Continuations

I was talking about the magazines I was looking at on Monday when I was hanging at Borders. There was a a magazine that I could not remember, with the civil war socks... that was Piecework magazine.

I was one of the recipients an e-mail from the recreation director at Hunterdon ARC, saying that the Art Club collages were hung up at the main office. She included a link to the Art Club blog and and mentioned how good the collages were. I e-mailed back and asked her who the other people on the list were, and he said it was the board of directors, who were having a meeting that evening. Yesterday I had an e-mail from one of the board members saying how much she liked the work and that she wanted to hear my thoughts on opening up ART Club to the wider community. She is a big proponant of inclusion. I think this is a great idea. I think almost anyone could benefit from the laid-back atmosphere we had going. People need an outlet to be creative, where there is no judgement, no competition, just the space and materials to be creative. It would be nice to have a supportive community. She showed me a link to an art center in Orange, NJ called Arts Unbound that reminded me of creativity explored. I'm excited that this could be going somewhere, turning into something bigger. If I had time it would be Garden Club by day and ART club by night,

In other news, I have finally gotten approval to take 2 weeks vacation. You would not believe what a big deal that was. You'd think I was asking for next year off. Of course the trouble is that corporations have laid off every possible person, and it is at the point that if someone is out for the day everything collapses. Not my problem, man! So anyway, Joe and I have started to plan our summer motorcycle odyssey. The trip is from NJ to MN and back. We have decided to trailer the bike to Michigan and take off from there.We can go a lot farther in one day in a car than on the bike, so we feel this gives us a good head start.  Joe belongs to a club called the BMW MOA. (BMW Motorcycle Owners of America) They publish a book that lists a network of people who are willing to offer certain levels of assistance to fellow club members. For instance, some members will give you garage space and the use of their tools if you break down, some people will let you camp in their yard or even give you a room for the night. We are just looking for a place to leave the car while we tour around. Joe has picked Coldwater MI as a good place to stop and there are several MOA club members in the area. He has not contacted anyone yet, but he swears it will be fine. Not far from Coldwater is Battle Creek, MI. And what large corporation has its headquarters in Battle Creek??  Kelloggs!  I am determined to eat a bowl of Rice Crispies in Battle Creek. From there we want to go to Sleeping bear dunes, then travel over the upper peninsula and down to Wisconsin. We don't have anything particular planned out past that right now. We travel in a very loose way, back roads and whatever we find along the way. I will do some research to see if there is some kind of roadside attraction or museum or historic site that seems like a must-see. I wish there was a way to easily post from the road. That could be fun. We'll see. Remember, we are traveling by motorcycle, there is very little room in our bags, I could not even dream of taking a laptop. It is my work computer anyway. I might destroy it.

Although I just said we don't plan our trips much, it did occur to us that we would be starting our trip on 4th of July weekend. We figured that the coast of Lake Michigan must be like the Jersey Shore to those that live there, so we might want to make some arrangement for that time. We started looking around on the web and found a number of cute family-owned motels that seemed to have some personality, so yesterday I started making calls. Several of the people I spoke to actually laughed out loud when I asked for a reservation for the 4th and 5th. I started getting scared. Worse case scenario would be to have to stay at the big Best Western outside of town, but we really would rather not. I finally called the Stonewall Inn and they had a cancellation. Oh happy day. It's expensive, but it's a beautiful B&B and the 4th of July is our anniversary so we decided it was worth it.

Collage Friday

Views of Frenchtown

Some mornings, when I feel like it, and it isn't raining, I take a walk. Usually Joe comes along. Today I took my camera. We do a loop around town, which is maybe a mile and a quarter. This is my exercise for the day. I guess it's better than nothing.

We always walk up on the bridge and stop for a few minutes. Soon we will see turtles or big carp in the water. Sometimes we see interesting birds. We see great blue herons a lot. Once we saw a green heron. There a lots of swallows that nest under the bridge, but they come out in the evening. Sometimes we ride our bikes over the bridge to Pennsylvania. We like riding along to towpath there. This morning it was so foggy in Frenchtown we could not see much of anything.

These buildings in the second picture are on Race street. The one house is so crooked. I don't really understand how it could get that way when the buildings around it are straight. Charming though. Too bad we are getting some empty stores around town. The economy is at least partly to blame. I think these gifty-style stores struggle anyway. I know that I rarely buy anything in those stores.

Getting Back to Normal (and magazines)

Back to normal, whatever that is. I think it means that I won't be running around every single night for the next few months. I'm looking forward to that.

Last night Kate went to a Best Buds picnic. After I dropped her off, I went over to Borders book store to hang out. I love grabbing a pile of magazines and finding a comfy chair.

They finally had that Artful Blogging magazine I was wanting to check out. It's OK. I was hoping for more suggestions to help me make this blog better. What I got was a look at other people's blogs, but that's OK, at least I got to see what it was like.

I found a few other magazines that I really liked. Has anyone taken a look at Selvedge? It's from the UK and costs $25 per issue. I could not justify it, but I liked everything about it from the paper it's printed on to the layouts and the photography. It costs a small fortune to subscribe, but they do have an E-subscription for less than a quarter of the price of a hard copy. Far from ideal, but maybe the best compromise.

There was this other magazine, I cannot remember the name, even after an online search, but it seemed to be directed at people who are making historical costumes. Like, for instance, civil war re-enactors. I read article about how women used to knit socks to send to soldiers during the civil war. I can't see myself ever knitting socks, but I loved reading about this. They had actual pictures of old socks, they looked like regular socks! I know that must sound dumb. Some of the socks had American flags knitted in. The article included the notes that would be tucked into the socks for the soldiers to find, wishing them well.

Most of my socks are those ubiquitous made-in-China socks. They have endlessly interesting designs, don't they? Too bad about that elastic that puts a huge dent in your leg after wearing them all day. Too bad that after a few months they get this weird, almost crispy feeling to them, that rub the bottom of your feet and make you want to cry. I had to chuck a pair that wasn't worn out at all, just really crispy. They had monkeys eating bananas on them.

I also found another issue of Surface Design Magazine, which I bought. That one is a mere $10. I think I will subscribe to that.

Macro Setting Discovered!

To Buy or Not to Buy

I was weeding the back garden on Saturday and my fat ass knocked into the birdbath and broke it. My birdbath is in two parts, the base, which I have had since 2002, and the top saucer, which balances on top of the base, which I have broken at least 3, maybe 4 times. I have lost track. I can always get a new saucer, but they are expensive, like $30. So the question I ask myself is this: How many times am I going to buy a new saucer before I realize this just isn't working out? To add more pain to this situation, I also dumped the little statue that I usually put into the bath, and part of her broke off. I bought her at Marshall's for $12, and it said on the tag that she was molded from ash from Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines when that volcano erupted. You know I'll never find anything like that again. But back to the birdbath, I decided that I would buy one of those one-piece cement ones that cost kind of a lot but might be cheaper than continuing to buy new saucers every couple of years.

Meanwhile, I cobbled together a makeshift birdbath from some free things I had found on the road side. I decided that this was a pretty good solution, and that maybe I didn't really need to buy a new birdbath at all.

The problem is, while the birds most likely won't care, the cobbled birdbath just isn't as pretty as the old one. So there is my dillema. To buy or not to buy.

Meanwhile, a cement leaf now sits on top of the old birdbath base.

Mixed Media Textile Surfaces

My 3-day class at Peter's Valley is just 15 days away and I have received the materials list. It is extensive. I think I will just pack up everything I own and be done with it! The teacher, Barbara Schulman, is asking for a lot of things you would expect, like sewing needles, floss, pins, embroidery hoop, a sewing machine, "if it is a basic tool for you."  But she is also asking for black and white laser copies and gel medium. Apparently we will be transferring images! Also, every imaginable type of fabric, including industrial fabrics, like nylon window screen, which I did not think of that way. She is also asking for "found textiles" and I sure do have that in spades. It may be a chance to use all the things I have been collecting.

I'm pretty excited. I need a vacation from my life, which has been off the charts busy for a couple of months now.  This morning I went out to the front yard in my pajamas and did some weeding for a half hour before I went to work. The garden was so pretty, but it has rained for a whole week and now it is a weed-choked mess! I'll wrangle it back into shape soon.

Tuesday was the final class of Art Club. That went really well. I had the collages at work today so I could make little title cards, and also to wrap them up to give them to Patti, the recreation director. She wants to hang them at the main office. Anyway, all of my graphic artist colleagues really enjoyed seeing the art.

Tomorrow We have to be up bright and early to go to the Princeton Museum with the ARC. More soon...

Pulp Function

That is the name of my favorite exhibit currently at the Michener Museum. It's a great place to go on a rainy day, which yesterday was. Here is a description of the show: "For decades, innovative artists manipulated paper products as a means of creative expression. This process is rooted in older traditions that are often culturally unique such as origami in Japan or Scherenschnitte in Germany. Contemporary artists, especially since the 1970s, have pushed the possibilities of this malleable material even further. Pulp Function surveys a wide variety of artistic expressions using handmade paper pulp, recycled paper, paper cuts, cardboard, papier-mâché, and folded paper. Tactile and familiar paper innovatively used include industrial strapping, paperback books, egg crates, trading cards, US dollar bills, diapers, NYC transit maps, photographs, Tyvek—and much more! The 3-D objects in this exhibition range from jewelry and clothing, furniture and lighting, to vessels and purely whimsical sculptural pieces and everything imaginable in between! Organized by the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, and curated by Lloyd Herman, founding director of the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery, this exhibit includes more than 70 works and is accompanied by a full color publication. "

Unfortunately, the "publication" did not have a picture of my favorite piece, so I had to take a picture of it myself. Genius that I am, I neglected to write down the title and the artist's name. So here it is, untitled and annonymous... You can see that it is made from a cardboard dressform, with a paper dress pattern draped over it. The paper is impregnated with bees wax. I love bees wax, I love how it smells. Please notice how this form is pierced with pin holes and also studded with the heads of pins. You can see the pins in this side view. Isn't that CRAZY? I love that kind of obsessive work. There were a lot of different things in this exibit, but some you can't photograph because they are behind glass. Here are some more dresses that were part of the show.

Strings: Continued

I've finished phase 1 of the string experiment. I have now basted all of the strings to the base fabric. I worked on this for hours Saturday. I sat on the couch in front of the TV and watched/listened to an art documentary called Art City. I watched part one of this documentary months ago, and I have this weird feeling of deja vu, because this weekend, just like the last time I watched Art City, I went to the Michener Museum. I'll post about that soon.

So anyway, I love working in front of a documentary. Hearing the artists speak of their work sort of soothes me, and urges me on. Part of it is  because it is interesting to hear what they have to say, but part of it is because half the time they are so full of shit it is funny. 
My thought is, if these people are legitimate artists, then I certainly am. It's 

liberating for me to think that at this point in my life, there is little or no chance to make it as an artist in a commercially successful sense, so I can and should do what ever I want.

Back to the experiment, I have started securing the edges of all the strings with different stitches on my sewing machine. It's kind of a cheesy crazy-quilt-style thing. Every now and then I change the spool of thread and get a different color, keeping to the red-pink scheme. I really enjoy working in such a way that I need to "problem solve" as I go along. I place colors and shapes randomly, and the I need to figure out how to fill the remaining spaces. I think that's fun.

Collage Friday