Thursday = Library

I usually need to take Kate somewhere for her social group on Thursday. They alternate cooking a dinner together or bowling. If there is a fifth Thursday in the month, no social group! So I went to the county Library. I had a crazy whopping fine of $18. I am terrible about stuff like that. I had to stop renting videos because the late fees were killing me. Then they invented Netflix. I need "Netbooks." I expressed embarrassment at having such a large fine, and the librarian told me that someone was just in that had a $90 fine! I asked if they paid and she said that they decided to go home and look for the books.

Anyway, I needed books about Egyptian art. I recently acquired some Egyptian-style fabric and some funky gold fabric. they seem to want to be together. I just have to watch out that it doesn't end up looking, I don't know, like a school project. I have done very little surface painting, or distressing, and not much embellishing apart from beads. Now might be a good time to experiment.

I also found some books about vintage fabric in the quilting section. I love old fabric. There was one book that was divided into sections, such as pre-1830. I have to scan this picture for you, there was a pattern in one of the fabrics that looked so modern I feel it can not have been from that long ago. I'll scan it when I get home. (Yes, blogging from work again, but it is lunch time.)

Lastly, I found a book about natural dying that I want to check out. It is at a different branch of the library so I might have it in a couple of days. More soon....

Joseph Cornell

"...the collision and recombination of ideas..." I grabbed that snippet of a quote from a website I was just on about Joseph Cornell. He is one of my favorite artists and very influential to me. And a lot of other people, too, apparently. I see some artists on Etsy making Cornell-style boxes and I wonder if they are even aware of the guy who started it all. I've made a couple of boxes myself, I should track those down. Probably in the attic somewhere.

You can google Joseph if you'd like, but I'll give you some basic info. He was born in NYC december 24, 1903. He was a very shy person, and stayed out of the limelight most of his life, even after he gained notariety for his work. He would make his assemblages from fragments he found from scouring bookshops and thrift stores. Back then, you could not buy collage sheets of intersting images, you had to hunt the stuff down. Actually, that's pretty much how it was up until the 1990's. The popularity of scrap booking created an industry for all kinds of mixed media elements.

He lived in the same house most of his life, taking care of his mother and his brother, who had cerebral palsy. You can see fron his work that the guy had a beautiful inner life. I think I love art like his, and also outsider artists, because it is so unique. Not influenced by the pop culture of the time. Joseph Cornell died in 1972.

I'm going to do a series of blogs on artists that have influenced me.

Tuesday Was Better.

I did a little quilting on this experimental piece here. Part of the problem with not working with a pattern and just winging it is that you might fail. It might not come out that good. When I was going to college for art it was called taking a risk. The jury is still out on this one.

This morning it has snowed, and is turning over to that much maligned WINTERY MIX that is so common in New Jersey. That means I take it slow this morning.

Monday Just Flashed By

Yesterday was a typical day in my life. Work til 5:50, then go food shopping. Home at 7 pm. Quick dinner. Dishes. Read the paper for 1 hour. Bed.

So that makes, like, 1 hour that I am not at some task. Tomorrow night should be a little better.

Quilt Mode

I only have one sewing machine, so rather than switching feet all the time, I stay in "quilting mode" for a while. I have a few tops that are ready to be quilted. This one was up next, which I did yesterday. (despite the fact that my left foot was freezing the entire time.) I don't exactly know what this is, a color experiment maybe. I bought a fat Q of that craa-zy base fabric. Stared at it for a while. Then decided that solids or near solids were needed to calm it all down. Anyway, I like it. I 'm going to bind it in red.

I'm Definitely Going to Sew Today

This is me.
I guess I've been kind of busy lately. Work has gotten back to normal, so no time to post there. On Friday night I took Kate shopping. She had a semi- formal dance the very next day and needed shoes. Plus, she goes on a cruise every year with the ARC in February, so, she needed some things for that. I think I have figured out that now is a good time to get a bathing suit. The selection is small, I guess aimed at those who do go on cruises, but they are hardly touched. In June, the whole bathing suit section is trashed and you are lucky to by able to find a top and bottom that go together.

We have  decided that Valentine's day would be a good excuse to have a party this year.  I've started making little hearts from glittery red felt and hanging them from the ceiling. I added a few beads to the bottom of each one to add some weight. Our dining room doesn't actually have a ceiling right now. When we moved in there was a drop ceiling, you know, like in an office. It was dreadful. One day, Joe and I drank a lot of wine and decided to start ripping it all down. There was half the original plaster ceiling left up there, with the other half taken down to make room for pipes that were installed when the bathroom was renovated at some point. We eventually took down the rest of the plaster ceiling (What a disgusting job that was, ancient mouse nest falling on our heads!) so now we just have beams. I don't consider it permanent, but I can tolerate it this way more than that drop ceiling. Someday we will put up a tin ceiling, but Joe wants to wait until he renovates the bathroom. He is going to redo the pipes so that they don't hang under the ceiling joists anymore. The question of course is, when will all this take place. Answer: Not last year. Not this year, either. So, I have done a number of things to jazz up the ceiling, namely string white Christmas lights up there, hang glittery stars, and now glittery hearts. It's supposed to dazzle you to distraction.

But, I'm definitely going to sew today. I don't think I picked up a needle once this week. Here I go. As soon as I do some wash. And the dishes. 

A New Project

Here is a thing I am starting to mess around with. I have hand-stitched some of the componants together. The shells you see are not sewn on yet. I'm just trying to figure out how I want to arrange them. I also need to do whatever quilting I'm going to do before I sew on any embellishments. I have 3 things ready to quilt, but I can't seem to get myself down the basement. It really is a crummy space. Most people would not put up with it.

I was thinking of buying one of those sheds, that they can plop right down in your yard. I saw one,I think it was 10'x16', with big windows and french doors for $3000.00. My first thought was, well, forget that, but, I did spend $1200 just on my sewing machine. I could save for it! It would take up a fair amount of yard, and then it would have to be heated. Joe could do it, he said so. (He's a plumber) Then I started thinking maybe it would be better to finish half of the attic. We would have to sheet rock and insulate it. I can't imagine being up there in the summer without air conditioning. (We don't AC our house at all in the summer) Then, of course, it is that attic shape, with the pitched roof as the walls. I don't know. There just doesn't seem to be any great solution. I'm pretty sure my bonus is going to be crap this year, so I can't rely on that. I will keep thinking about it.

In other news I had another sale on Etsy. I made a wall hanging out of an old flour sack from the Beacon Milling Company. (Egg Mash) I liked how it came out, but then everyone that I showed it to remarked on the stains. They are pretty bad, but it never occurred to me that it would be a problem. I mean, the thing has probably been in a barn since 1948! I put a close up picture of the stain in the listing, and made note of it in the description. I figured it would never sell. I even lowered the price. Well, surprize! The woman who purchased it is from Beacon, NY. You never know!

Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Ass on the Way Out

Resident Gnome

Looking At Art

Yesterday I could not take being stuck inside anymore, so Joe and I went to the Michener Museum.  It is in Doylestown, PA, which is a reasonable distance and has some great work in it. We especially enjoyed seeing paintings by Paul Matthews. He lives in Lambertville, NJ, in a big victorian house. Joe used to live in an apartment in that house. Joe was admiring one of Paul's paintings and Paul gave him a print of that painting. It's in our living room. None of the paintings here are that one. I am disappointed at the images I am able to find on the web. Paul's best paintings are his portraits, and my favorite one is of two people looking at something in the landscape. You can't see what it is that they are looking at, but clearly the people are devastated. The pain they are feeling is almost alarming. The painting is riveting. I was told it was Paul and his wife looking at their son's grave. I can't find anything about it so I can only show you a different portrait. I'm being driven insane because blogger won't upload the image I really want to show.

I also saw a documentary over the weekend called Art City. It was kind of a loosely put together group of interviews with contemporary artists. One of the most intriguing artists was Richard Tuttle. The first image of his art I am showing you is of a wire strung around a few nails in the wall of a gallery. The next one is a peice of rope nailed to the wall. I'm not going to get into a big thing about what is and isn't art, but when I see this kind of thing I feel as if I can do anything I want!