More Leaf Pounding...Bad News into Next Project

 Continuing on in my leaf pounding project.....I was working them all up for the 30 x 30 project through Blue Line Gallery, but got word yesterday that 50 people applied for 20 spots and I wasn't accepted, so I had to spin on a dime and come up with Plan B....

 And Plan B was to take twelve of the 30 I had worked up and finish them off, stretch them and put them in the gallery mid-November for the holiday rush and hope some sell...they are small, make a nice gift and I'll sell them for about $35...we'll see what happens.

 And the others that are smaller and I have an abundance of, I will hold off to the side for another day and the singles that I've been pounding, I'm making into holiday ornaments.  See below....layering them with batting and backing, sewing with gold through around each leave and in the center of the leaf, adding green twine as holders...sew and trim and I've got an ornament.  Making about two dozen to contribute to the holiday tree at the gallery.  Have to do my part and contribute to the holiday cause.

People ask me how I can get so much done............and I think to myself, I have plenty of time, why not just sew or create.  And I can sew fast and accurate at the same time.  When you've been sewing as long as I have, and let's face it, it's been a long long time, I can get things done. 

Once I get these simple pieces out and off my table and to do list, then I can concentrate on the harder pieces that I have planned to do...time consuming projects, experimenting with new ideas and just having some good old fashioned "fun". 

Primary Colors and turning "70"

"Primary Colors" by Patti Wallace...my purchase from the KVIE Art Auction last weekend...have it hanging just inside my front door...my cell phone didn't take the best picture, but you get the drift....love the colors and abstract feeling....sort of scrambled like I feel some days lately.

Took a walk this morning and collected fresh leaves along the way to pound once I got home...came up with several great poundings to add to my collection...need 30 good pieces to start working on the 30x30 piece I'm hoping to get finished in time for the November show.  Wasn't going to do the 30 x 30 this year, but then I couldn't resist the challenge..submitted my ideas two weeks ago and waiting to hear if I got accepted. 

Moved my working table and accessories back into my studio..out of the house and back into the studio attached to the house...the weather is cooler now and I definitely prefer the light from outside and above out in the studio...and I do like my space out there. Had a little issue moving the table out into the back room myself...I have to put it on it's side and push it across and into the back room...the folding chairs got caught up with the tables legs and then came tumbling down and I was trying to catch them and then my socked feet slipped on the tile flooring and down went the table, the chairs and me....dang that hurt.  And no one here to take pity on my but myself....picked myself up, brushed myself off and started all over again.  I'll be sore tomorrow for sure.  I know I should wait for help, but that could be days or weeks since I don't have many folks stopping by the house...and when I have an idea to do something I don't like to wait, so I just do it. 

I was looking all week at dining tables/chair sets on the internet as I had to idea of putting in a formal like dining area............but dang, the ones I like are expensive and I don't want to just put in anything, I want something unusual and we're talking from $1500 up...every time I think of spending a bunch of money on something, I thing to myself...you shouldn't do that right now, you have to pay Lynn's Board & Care and that has to last for a long long time.....so, the idea is out of my head for now, I put back my Pier One table w/floral tiles top..possibly I'll purchase four new chairs as these old ones are just too wobbly at time...maybe that's the alternative for now.

Thinking about working up a new blog on starting my Seventh Decade...I turn 70 towards the end of this month and turning 70 and facing that number is rather crazy and it does change things....when you say you're 70, they all say, you sure don't look 70 or you don't act 70!!  What does that mean...you can act any old way you want to act at any age.  I know people who are young and they come across as being quite old.  Anyway, thinking about doing that, but it would mean I have to get a following and I'd have to work on that.  Have to research that aspect of this idea.

Later.......................

KVIE and something new to work on

The KVIE art auction GALA night this past Monday was totally a great evening...took my daughter Jennifer and we had a ball....smoozed with all the artists and art collectors all evening long.....and it was great to see my work with a jurors award ribbon in it...and by the end of the evening I had earned a first place in Contemporary Classics, total surprise to me...$100 award check also.
The Art Auction begins tonight and I have my eye on a few items for me to purchase and my piece will sell along with the others in the gallery on Sunday, 3-3:30...can't wait to see what my piece brings into for the KVIE donations.

I have always loved things in a circle and seems to drift towards this shape in a lot of things I do...I saw a Craft in America series this past Saturday where they talked about Circles of Healing and that struck a cord for me as I feel I'm in a healing stage over my estrangement with my husband since this summer.  So I pulled out all my reference books on shapes and ideas and came up with working up three different circle designs. 

 The first step was creating the design in 1/8 of the circle, then creating a mirror image or 1/4.
Then I went to my trusty scanner and PC..increased the scanned size to fit 11x17 paper, printed four of each section. 

 Taped the sections into halves and then  into whole circles, cutting them all out and taping them
all together.

The end results was three wonderful 32" circles with the total design over the entire piece so I could see what it would look like once pieced together.  Now that I see the total design, I'm probably going to NOT make each 1/8 section and piece it together as I don't like the look of the seam work.  So I'm going to cut the total circle as one piece and then cut the images and shapes as whole as possible and fuse them onto the circle, stitch, then surface design stitch the completed circle.  Along the way I have to figure out how to display the round finished piece, but that will happen along the way.  I can always create a hard surface circle shape and fit it into the back of the piece or half of the shape or something....my head will figure that part out as I work on creating the full circle. 

A new idea, new challenge along with all the other ideas floating around in my head. 
I'm still weaving every day on my new loom and really enjoying it...once warped the weaving goes fast and the play with the yarns is wonderful.
I'm also experimenting with using gourds as a base along with fiber...friend Cindy Lee gave me about five gourds, I'm going to cut them in half and work with the base to see what happens. 

And this morning, I got notice that one of my newest pieces, Walking for Water was accepted into the Art League of Lincoln's exhibit happening in October....fantastic news. 

New Exhibit, New Ideas

 "Map It Out" at Blue Line Gallery....the art is up on the walls and the reception is coming  up this next Saturday, Sept 17....hope folks can come and enjoy.


And I'm working on new ideas for an upcoming exhibit at Blue Line...30x30...thirty pieces of new work 6" c 6" in 30 days....it's a huge challenge, but I do love a good challenge.  Last year I produced thirty pieces in less that thirty days while sewing my daughters wedding dress, a bridesmaid dress and flower girl dress...so I think I can handle it again this year without those extra distractions.

Leaf Pounding....I've worked with this many many years ago, but through about how beautiful it can be when done in a "simple" way....KISS....keep it simple, stupid...I mean, sweetie.  I don't like the word stupid. 

Anyway, this morning I did some practice pounding..leaves onto silk noil....they are now drying and then I"ll enhance them a bit and possible put my sewing machine to work a bit..then I'm going to stretch them onto a solid piece of canvas board to see how they come out and if OK..then I'll submit them as my idea for the upcoming 30x30...You aren't automatically accepted..they do jury your ideas.
Here's some photos I took while doing this exercise:

Leaf pounding goes back a ways in history...American Indians used this technique..of course they didn't have hammers or silk noil, but they did pound leaves for design.

 Peeling the top cotton pieces away from the bottom with the sandwiched pounded leaf in between..you have to flake off the leaf residue, let it dry, iron it and then I'm going to outline it a bit to give it a life.  I might even sew around them or inside..I will wait and see what happens.

I like they way these gave off a different color.

With fall starting to happen, I need to find leaves that cast off different shades of

green, red, gold...perfect time of the year to work on this project.

Marni & Jason

Our gallery put on a social evening for all the members along with celebrating the upcoming marriage of one of our hardest working officers, Jason Branz....we celebrated by having an "Artful Wedding Shower" showering them with hand made/art related gifts for their new home.  The piece above is what I created using one of Jason's favorite images of the two of them...Helps that Jason is a photographer, but it also helped that there were two great people.  I printed this image off onto cotton fabric in black/white and then I colorized the image using colored pencils....Marni's hair was the most fun, even more fun when I started sewing all those curls.  It's all about the sun glasses and the hair in my opinion.  They loved the piece and they are back home working out all the wedding plans for their ceremony that happens the end of this month.  Congratulations to Marni and Jason...

Also finished my first long piece of weaving last night...it's drying out in the back studio where it's warmest.  I also acquired a new loom this past week...my friend Cindy Lee from the gallery offered me one of her older looms,  a 20" rigid heddle floor loom and I took her up on it immediately....this loom rolls the woven piece in front as you weave, where the smaller loom that I start with does not...the older loom weft gets pulled when inside the area where it's kept taunt and I didn't like the look when competed.  Waiting for the warping pegs I ordered (they act as a third hand helper) before I warp the new loom.  Excited as I can move the loom into the living room and I can weave and watch/hear the TV to help pass the time while I weave.  The weaving process is very relaxing..you develop a rhythm and the color designs just knock my socks off.  Really enjoying the learning experience.  I think this is one of those processes where you are always learning.

An Artful Wedding Shower

Our gallery, Artists'  Collaborative Gallery in Old Sac, has an annual member get together and it's happening this coming Thursday, Sept 1 and along with the gathering, we're giving our long time member, Jason Branz and his bride to be, Marni Singer, an "Artful Wedding Shower".   Those who want to participate can create art as their gift to Marni and Jason for their new home that they have just purchased and will start living together in as husband/wife.     Knowing the Jason is all about photography, I asked him to give me his favorite photo of the two of them, but not to ask what I was going to do with it...as if he didn't know.  Anyway, it's all about Marni's hair and the fact that they were on the beach (sunglasses)....and that's what they got.  Great fun putting it together and it turned out great...nice a soft color. 

My newest adventure is learning to weaving.  Purchased three small rigid heddle looms for myself, my daughter and her step daughter, Frankie who is 8...and this is what we have been doing this summer...learning to weave.  And we've learned a lot with all of our mistakes and screw up, but we're still all still working on something.  The Beka loom we got is your basic loom and the most difficult part for me has been the problem of keeping the warp tight...there is no roller at the front of the loom, just a tight bar and it just doesn't give the tightness needed when wefting the thread/yarn from right to left without some trouble.  Above is my current sample...warped in two colors and I'm wefting with red chanelle and two gold threads every so often and it's interested the design that is forming.  That's what is so much fun about weaving....you actually think it's going to turn out one way, but it ends up completely different that you planned...I'm sure over time I will be more able to determine the outcome, but I somewhat like not really knowing as I like the element of surprise.
I had a gallery friend mention she had a rigid heddle 20" loom on a floor stand that she will sell me and I'm definitely taking her up on that offer....it's the perfect size and it has the roller in the front and the back for a more secure warp and that was the one thing I wanted to accomplish with my next loom purchase.  Good things happen when you just wait.

Personal Life:  Coming along fairly well with living alone again.  Of course there are those times when I experience loneliness,  but I work through it and it's going fairly well.  Two of my sisters in law stayed with me four about three weeks while one was having chemo treatment and that was like one long slumber party, but they have left for home in Oregon and now I am on my own.  I've had my kitchen flooring changed, having a chair recovered as it was falling apart, had a security system installed,.....taking care of all those things around the house that need to be accomplished to settle in for a long winter season...as if it's hard or anything..rain, but definitely no snow in our area.  Anyway, I'm keeping busy with my art work (have four projects working on my table), learning to weave, managing the art gallery (actually worked the customer desk last week), reading, cleaning the house once in a while, working in the garden, bowling with my friends and much more....keeping my chin up and making my way in this crazy mixed up world.  The way I look at myself at this point in my life...I don't have a terminal disease, I am healthy at 69 years of age, I have a nice home with a good roof over my head, I can afford to live a nice life, I can financially care for my estranged husband in another facility with no contact and I don't feel one bit of guilt or sorry for myself in any way....life does go on day by day and I intend to live each day to it's fullest. 

What I've been doing recently.....

 Recently finished commission piece...Carl and Reggie.....celebrating their first wedding anniversary in October so Reggie had me work up this piece for them...turned out great.....and he loves it.

 "Destination Rosville" was accepted into the Map It Out exhibit coming up at the Blue Line Arts Gallery....so happy this made it in and I'm hoping for a quick sale.

 "Yosemite Valley Floor"...was accepted into the 2016 KVIE Art Auction and I just found out I received a "jurors award" and it will be featured at the upcoming Gala Party in Sept and featured on TV as an award winner...who would have thought.

And this is a pieces I just finished...."Morning Walk for Water"  20"h x 30"....colorized the background fabric with oil pastels, colorized the women and gourds using colored pencils, fused to background and then I stitched each image and gourds and then shadow stitched the complete background....loads of thread on this one for sure.

I've got a long list to create on my "to do list" but wanted to complete the one above for myself before I started in on production pieces for other venues.

And while I'm doing all of this, I'm teaching myself how to weave, which I'm finding to be quite fun....starting with a small lap loom and hope to graduate up to a larger one every so often until I'm working the large floor looms my sister is working on....my daughter Jennifer and her step-daughter Frankie also have looms and we gather once a week and work together on our projects.

My sister in law Ilene is staying with me this week while she takes chemo treatment for her cancer.  I'm more than happy to help her out even thought I'm no longer with her brother...we can still be friends no matter what happens.  Feeling more rested and seem to be getting back to being just "me" and not someones care giver.

Time does heal!!!!

Carl & Reggie

Just finished this commission piece for these two newlyweds...married 2015 October and Reggie commissioned this for Carl for an anniversary gift...I finished early...I hate to be late on anything.

Now that this is finished, I can now concentrate on some newer ideas and get out of my "make things for gallery rut"....definitely want to work up some new work for some upcoming exhibits here in Sacramento.

My personal life has turned upside down again...husband is now living in Board & Care and I am a single lady again.  Living alone is different, but peaceful and I don't have to wait on someone 24/7.  Working at changing my life to being my life again instead of care giving full time.  Huge change and it's going to take a while for me to adjust.  At least I have a very full and active life.  Slowing down would mean this ageing thing is catching up to me and I refuse to allow that to happen.

Taking Photos

 Because this is hanging on my wall behind my sewing table, I tend to overlook it...strange since it's so large...it's actually 42 x 42 with 30 6X6 pieces attached to a back board...this was my 30 x 30 exhibit pieces from late 2015/early 2016 at Blue Line Arts Gallery.  I'm just now getting around to photographing the piece as a whole and each of the individual pieces.  I submitted it to Cloth/Paper/Scissors along with two other pieces for consideration in their current competition.  Hoping to get one at least accepted.  It's worth the risk and money to put myself out there from time to time.

 This is a pic of my sister Robin and I (pink) with our two neighbors from across the street on Garden Street in Redding, California, where we grew up.  We had a great childhood..did all sorts of things, camped every summer, girl scouts....had a great bunch of friends and we rode bikes, skates all over the place without a fear in the world.  No TV, no cell phones....just  played outdoors all day long during the summer .. coming home for lunch and dinner.  Every day after lunch we'd go to the "plunge" which was a community pool and played for hours in the water...Redding is very hot during the summer months...I have seen it 110 in the shade at Shasta Lake.

This is p ic of my Dad and Mom...dressed up for a Halloween party they attended..not much to do in Redding, but they were members of a "Our Nite Out" club that met every months for dinner, drinks and dancing and they had a great time. 

If nothing else came from working up this piece, I realized quickly that all the situations and things we were exposed to during our childhood were good and wholesome and good natured...we were not influenced by religion or any other type of outside influence, just good judgement and guidance from our parents.

Latest Work - Getting Serious

 6/20/16.....My latest piece of work....."Mask Series: Haitian Masqueraders"  20"h x 32"w

Haitian boys become Pa Wowo-painted, coconut-leaf skirted peasants who personify poverty during Spring Carnival.  Graffiti on the walls:  Tout moun se moun=everyone matters & Del dan pa di zanni = Not all smile are friendly.

I've had these images for a long time...copyright free images taken by Phyllis Galembo for a book titled "Maske"..giving the photographer full credit although copyright free..... printed the images off onto cotton fabric and fused them to the background fabric.  Used yellow pastel to shade in the background fabric and stitched over the entire background and images accenting the red color on the images.  Hard to see the stitching in this photo...have to work on my photography a bit.

I intend to submit this to the upcoming Crocker Kinsley competition juried in later this year for an early 2017 exhibit at Blue Line Arts Gallery in Roseville.  I'm planning on creating and submitting two others, so once I have the backing on this piece and it's wired to hang, I'm diving into something new, unique and different for me.

More Exhibits to add to the Resume

I was notified that I have been selected to show work in two new exhibits coming up this Summer 2016.

Focus on Fiber, National Juried Fiber Arts Show, June 28-July 16 at Sacramento Fine Arts Center.  Accepted into this fiber only exhibit are:  Standing Guard, Old Faithful and Loop t'Loop.  All three that I submitted were accepted.  Juried by Ana Lisa Hedstrom.

Blue Line Arts has another exhibit I submitted to and was accepted:  "Membership Medley" begins 7/11 ending 8/22..."Giraffe in a Blue Box" will be on display. 


2016 has been a great year for me exhibit wise and I couldn't be more pleased with the reception I'm getting with my work.  It has given me the confidence to consider entering the upcoming call for artist for the Crocker-Kingsley Art Competition through Blue Line Arts which exhibits early 2017.  I'm working on my piece to submit and possible a second if I can get myself through this first one.  Very different for me, using pastels on fabric along with collage and loads of shadow stitching on the surface design. 

The Heat Made Me Do IT

This week has been unexpectedly very HOT HOT HOT....up into the 100's and it's not cooling off much in the evenings...which makes it a very short window of opportunity for me to do any work out in my "add on to the back of my house studio".   So, yesterday, I put on my muscles and moved my large red sewing table into my dining room area and I've set myself up for about four/five months of hot weather and getting some work done despite the HOT weather.  I can still use the studio for early morning up to about 11am to cut/fuse and plan, but any serious sewing has to be under cool conditions and indoors is the place to be.  That table is getting heavier and heavier each time I more it...my contractor made me a table to last that is for sure. 

And after taking a short month long ceramics class where we played with building with coils, I really got jazzed again about created sewn vessels...samples of a few I built a while ago..these are fabric...I painted them and embellished them with tissue paper and then decoupaged the outsides so they are hard.  I got some great ideas using the clay coils on some ideas I can do with fabric...so I pulled out my supply of different sized cording and plan to work up a piece to enter into the "Maps" exhibit at Blue Line that I already have submitted to with my "Destination Roseville" (see previous blog). 

I'm really enjoying just doing work that I WANT TO DO and not what I think I have to do to keep my walls up to date at the gallery...because I have such a good inventory I can slack off a bit and do the fun work I've been wanting to do for quite some time.

Plan on changing my wall display at the gallery either tomorrow or next Wednesday...it takes time and I really really really don't like climbing up on the ladder past a certain height, but I'm going to have to do that to make the changes.  I'm dragging my feet, but really need to get in there and do it as I need some off the walls for other exhibits.  Have to make the changes before 11am or after 6pm so that kind of dictates when I can do things...I'm going to put up a retrospective of work that I have created for the gallery over the last four/five years...really mix it up so I'll have about five different types of fiber techniques mixed throughout the wall display...sure hope I sell as my sales this year will definitely dictate whether I continue on in 2017 at this location. 

Catching Up

I had the sinking feeling that I hadn't been doing something and then realized I hadn't posted to my blog in ages.............life seems to be so full of issues and crazy that this is the last thing I get to do while I think it's one of the most important. 

"Rainbow Ram" (above)...a quick decision to work this piece up turned out to be a good decision...very pleased with this finished piece and I changed my process a bit, which became challenging but also rewarding in the end.  I treated the beige portion like reverse applique, cutting out sections and backing it with black before fusing it down to the blue background.  The blacking lines you see all over the surface are black stitched lines and in person, they are far more prominent than in this photo.  The horn area is where I spent a load of time to achieve the curved effect and placement of the colors..............I actually created this piece as a black/white drawing and colored it in before cutting the fabric...I don't usually do that, but the horn area needed it because of the curve effect.  Instead of stitching the beige black lines through the beige and blue, I stitched the beige separately and then fused the result to the blue background and then stitched additionally.  It gave me the freedom to manipulate the smaller beige pieces so I could get all those lines just perfect.  But it did cause problems, easily solved when I started stitching the entire surface design as a whole.

This is the piece I finished over the weekend.  Destination Roseville.....Blue Line Gallery is putting on a juried exhibit later this summer, "Map It Up" with the requirement that a map be used somewhere in the piece you create.  I scanned a map into my PC and printed it off into four large section only 100% cotton...pieced the map together.  Then I printed off the people images black/white, colorized then with colored pencils, fused them to the background map, stitched each of the images and then randomly stitched all over the surface design to flatted and give some texture to the overall piece...stretched to stretcher bars 26"w x 16"h and it's complete....The feet of the center woman/green dress are just above the maps indication for Roseville..where Blue Line Gallery lives and where the railroad was and is a big part of this community. 

In the past I have been pressed to create new work for the gallery I'm housed in, but I have changed my attitude about that issue (I don't like that pressure) and because I have such a huge inventory of work...I'm now creating and working on work that I want to create..work for myself, work for exhibits, work that I just have to create no matter what...and if they don't sell, they don't sell..eventually they will find a home.

BIG NEWS:  My pieces, Yosemite, Valley Floor was accepted into the KVIE Art Auction as a donation to help raise funds for our public tv station....besides being a big deal for me, it's a big deal for fiber artists, because fiber has not been a medium they have welcomed in the past.  Knowing that I selected a specific piece of work that I felt represented fine art and fiber art combined and my selection proved to be right on target.  I hope now that this piece will bring some good funding for KVIE in the future. 

On to the next piece.................................L

It's Been Far to Long.........

 It's been far too long that I haven't posted to my blog....this is not good and I'm going to have to much much better in the future.  A lot of stuff has happened since my last post, but most of it is far to personal and not much in the way of being fiber related and that's what my posts are supposed to be about.  The piece above, and yes, it's got glare on it, a new picture will have to happen.  I purchased this frame and liked the size..11 x 42...took what was in the frame out and created this piece using different types of mask ideas....backed on the red/white stripe.  Each mask is my adaptation of a group of masks I found on the internet that where originally made out of clay, painted, sculpted, etc.

Of course once I get them all finished and placed in the mat and then the frame, I found marks on the frame that would prevent me from using that frame for sales purposes, so now I have to either paint over the color on the frame of change frames completely.  Haven't decided which way to go at this point. 

My intent is to do something different and change my focus...getting away from the cute and creating collages with more substance or send a message.  Still have a way to go.

Right this very minute I have a piece of work at the Blue Line Arts Gallery again...this is the third exhibit this year that I've juried into and it's only March.  "Yosemite: Valley Floor" was entered into a photography exhibit titled "West Coast, Best Coast" and I entered it as a stitched photograph with cotton/organza and it was selected. 

And a gallery in Colusa, Ca., has twenty of my pieces of work using photographic images for the months of March and April...a small community, but again it's exposure.

And here is a piece I created for Rio City Cafe exhibit through the Artists' Collaborative Gallery but after a month it was removed because the complained that the customers didn't like eating with an animal watching them....poor excuse, but now I'm entering it into an exhibit in Rancho Cordova in April.  Just need to get my work out out out and hope for some sales sales sales.

"Giraffe in a Blue Box"  by Louise Schiele  2016.

I keep creating new work in hopes that someday my sales will become higher, the demand greater.  Some days I just can't get myself out into the studio, but I must or else shut it down.