OMG....I have neglected my blog for sooooooooooooooooooooooooo long....can you tell I've been way to busy for chatting on line?    But I'm about to break that spell. 

I have been creating, but doing it silently.  I've worked up four pieces with a fifth under the sewing machine needle as I type and a new surface finished, ready to layer and start sewing next week.  My plan is to do two additional larger scenes and another animal and I should have more than enough for my unveiling in October as featured artist at the gallery in Old Sac.

As I told my Board of Directors last night at our meeting, I know my sales have been slow;  I have been doing something about it by changing what I have on the wall...if this doesn't generate sales over a specified amount of time, I will most likely leave the gallery.  You should have seen their faces....it was worth a picture, but I didn't have my camera/phone handy.   I meant what I said, so sales better start to happen or I'm going to have to pull the plug and move on.

Taking care of hubby has become far more than I even expected....it's been the hardest thing I have even done in my life and what I fear is that it's changing me.  That's why I moved my sewing table into the dining room so I could sew this summer and not have to dodge the heat in my studio.  It has helped a great bit to be able to sew and watch Lynn at the same time...at least I'm getting some new work completed and that's my goal. 

Lynn  and I have to come to a place where we have our new "norm" for us....he is not going to get much better..he is always going to be confined pretty much to the house and I'm going to have to pretty much take care of everything else.  His health is the biggest issue in our life; living it day by day. 

Elephants, Giraffes and Zebra, Oh MY

Elephants, Giraffes and Zebras, OH MY>>>>>>

I attended a gathering last week where I really had a wake up call....stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back to working/creating....and since that gathering, I've put together three new surface designs, all using animal shapes.........ready to put them all under the sewing machine needle.  Now I have to find a "cool" day to get that started....seriously considering pulling my sewing machine back into the air conditioned house to do the sewing portion as I just don't seem to get the right amount of time to sew early in the morning when it's cool out in the studio room.  This is my plight every summer.  I've researched putting in a/c into that room, but the cost is very high for very low results...mainly it's because that specific add on room is on the south side of the house, full sun all day and I've got windows all around, bright light, meaning heat build up all day long.  Fortunately summer it's year around or I'd definitely have to make a permanent change. 

What usually happens has happened again...I start on one idea and all of a sudden I've had a flood of other ideas come at me using many different images and now I have a ton of ideas floating around on paper I can't keep up...this is how I like to work.  In no time I'll have a good series to finish off and hang in October.  I broke through my spell and I'm feeling fairly good about the outcome.

A huge thank you to my friends:  Dee, Marjan, Peig, Debra, Martha, Marjie and Carol...a good kick in the butt seems to work every time!!!!

Spring/Summer Project Finished

My Spring/Summer project has come to a finish...Dan Gannon, designer/landscaper, finished the last of what needed to be done yesterday and the huge pile of old pulled up shrubs were picked up this morning......looking very good.  Mulch and native plants were placed and this wonderful little patio area just outside my front door. 

And from the front sidewalk, this is the view...keep some iris and poppies and sage in their original spots with other plants in and around them.  What he planted three weeks ago have definitely started to grow in a couple of months, most will be filled in over the surface.  Under mulch drip system is working well and we are saving a huge amount on water. 


On the fiber art portion of my life, I have decided to do a small series on endangered animals that will  hang in the gallery for the October featured artist exhibit.....and I'm started a large project for myself, two pieces above my red couch on my gold wall...black w/red and red w/black silhouette images of endangered animals mainly from Asia and Africa.  And then I'm starting up on the three pieces I have on the back burner to use for submission into online art shows, etc.  These pieces will be far too expensive to put into the gallery;  not tourist worthy.

I feel I've made it over the hump of depression and I'm beginning to work more in the studio and I'm enjoying it more....I've realized that I need to ignore what "others" give me as ideas...they are nice to mention the ideas, but unless I come up with them myself I'm not going to produce at all.  Each day as a caregiver takes so much out of me and I have to accept that...do what I can and keep my head up focused toward a goal. 

Finding my Way Again

As most know, I have been really struggling to find a new niche for my art work...I've been toying with the idea of creating a series of work using flowers and I even created a few pieces, BUT I hate working with flowers....anyone could do this in their sleep.  I'm struggling because I need to come up with a new crop of work for the gallery by the month of October (featured artist) and on the other hand I want to encounter and create more creative larger work that wouldn't go in the gallery because of their size and retail pricing.  AND FINALLY I HAD A BREAKTHROUGH......

Laying in bed thinking I was going to go asleep, I thought of an idea to create to very large pieces to go above my red couch in the living room...it's a large high ceiling wall so I have space to go BIG...which I really like to do.  Big but within the confines of using my sewing machine on it....so I decided to create two pieces 84"long x 26"high, one black base, the other red base and each of them place silhouette images of Endangered Animals across the length with text behind on the background.
Black background with red images and gold text; red background with black images and gold text..hanging one over the other above the red couch on a gold wall.    That took care of the BIG idea....so I thought, why not carry this to the gallery, by creating a series 14" x 16" with endangered animals of north america...same idea w/text and image of the animals on background...keeping it simple so I can keep the pricing to a minimum.....so that's what I'm starting to put together...going to work  up a small one first to work out the kinks...already purchased the fabric for the larger pieces...just worked up the lettering for the text, ready to start cutting and fusing the text once I get the images set in place.....then the background stitching for shading and texture....I'm all of a sudden interested in working this idea to see where it takes me.     I've been doing research on the internet about the different animals and locations...there are actually thousands of different types of endangered something..animals, plants, insects, birds, etc etc....possibly this could work into something more for me. 

I feel relieved that I can not concentrate on the subject at hand and do some honest work instead of jumping from one idea to another...I hate that feeling as my work has to have a purpose of some kind.

The other work I want to produce is much more complex and time consuming..once I get enough smaller pieces for the Oct exhibit in place, then I can wander into the other ideas that I have in sketch and draft pieces around the gallery.....and this week, the weather turned HOT HOT HOT...which means I can only work in the morning out in the studio as it's just to hot once it hits noon.  That dang summer think has popped it's head up which means if it continues, I'll have to move my machine into the house to sew to get these pieces finished. 

Journal Search

I've been combing through all my journals and drawing books searching for my next endeavor, my next challenge, my next series.   I'm been encouraged by others to do a series based on florals and it just doesn't seem exciting or stimulating to me...I tried to work up a few designs, nothing happened.  And then I tripped over this image of a sunflower.  What a happy face this flower has and it made me feel so at ease, which I need right now.  I had already pulled some images from my journals, ideas that I'd jotted down or drawn and some included the floral idea...and bingo......I had my next series idea....based on the sunflower.  A simple image of a simple flower sewing and embellished with seed beads and glitter in the middle...12x12 wrapped around stretcher bars...simple, clean and colorful.  So I instantly started on my first piece...the sunflower itself; it's  under the sewing machine needle right now, soon to be ready to be stretched......and I'll do a couple of others using the sunflower...and then I plan to move on to another flower everyone loves, the rose and more and more until I have about six in total to hang....KISS......Keep it simple, stupid!!!!!     From there I can move on to the other ideas of combining some abstract work with simple design and work toward some memorable work.  Suddenly I do see the light at the end of the tunnel I've been in and I'm feeling better about doing some fiber work.

While I was rummaging through my journal I ran across some "lists" I had made...and yes, I'm a list maker from way back...but these lists were interesting to me, especially with all the stress I'm going through as a caregiver to my husband.

"What gives me pleasure"
     *  Being lovey/dovey with Lynn
     *  hot tub soak (I miss our hot tub as I do love a good hot soak in water).
     *  grandchildren & my adult children
     *  shopping at a fabric store
     *  shopping in an art store...those are really the only two types of shopping I like to do.
     *  having my hair/scalp scrubbed at a salon..someone other than myself.
     *  stress-less days - stillness
     *  a good book
     *  bowling a good strong game
     *  rocky road ice cream
     *  popcorn and a good movie
     *  creating new work in my art studio

"Things that I regret"
     *  Never having an official wedding party - I eloped both times.
     *  That I couldn't convince my son to get a college education
     *  Not following through on my dream to own my own art gallery
     *  That Lynn & I don't have the ability to travel due to his health reasons
     *  that I allowed my Dad to control whether I went to college or not.  He didn't allow me to prove
         myself to myself...I had make my success the hard way...school of hard knocks.
     *  that I took my first husband back into my life after he decided to leave..I did it for my
         kids so they would have both of us in their lives............................and he hurt me deeply.

I'm sure there are more, but that is what was on my list.  Each of us have regrets of one kind or another..nothing can be done about them now..just know what they are and move on.

"I want to shine as the brightest light possible.  I may be 68, but I feel as if my "true" life is in the here and now.  My true self, the real me.  I realize my time is limited, so don't procrastinate."  LS

Need to find my MOJO again.

I've been working on some new ideas for future series...and I worked on a few floral pieces and it certainly didn't spark my interest...This piece is just the collage right now, needs to have the surface sewing and background movement...maybe I'll start working on that portion to see if it makes me more interested in creating more floral pieces.  It seems to be that it's been done before...but then it hasn't been done by me before and maybe with a little twist or change, I can personalize it a bit and not have the pieces be just flowers...maybe they can be flowers with a little pizazz...why can't leaves me pink or red or purple, why do they always need to be green.

I've also started some new surface designs using animal silouettes and thinking of creating more pieces like my gekcos.....I still love this p ieces of work.

I love the way it moves around the surface....maybe smaller versions of this piece as well as other types of animals forms....I'm mainly thinking about work that I can put in the gallery and sell at a lower reasonable price....

I hate that as an artist I am thinking about the costs of a piece of work before I even create it...I should be just creating and if I decide to put it in the gallery, then and only then is when I should be thinking about the price...at least that's the way I used to do things and I felt better about it then, rather than now.

I'm struggling to get my groove back....need something to kick me in the gut and get me excited again about doing my work.  I believe that all my other responsibilities right now have pushed my creative side out a bit and I need to get that back.  I guess I'm going to have to make some mistakes along the path to finding myself and my creative side again.  Thank goodness I have a healthy inventory of work to fall back on while I take this time to rethink my goals.    

Fabric Ferns

I had a plan that didn't work....but I'm left with these three fern pieces....which I like, but they are small....they were going to be adhered to another piece, but they sure didn't look good, so I scrapped that idea altogether...sometimes I do make some big mistakes and this was one of them.  I'm starting to feel like I'm getting my mojo back...doing these three simple pieces kind of kicked started me and I'm now working on a larger floral piece..currently cutting out all the parts and pieces to fuse together before I sew and finish off....actually my first in my floral series that I intend to place in the gallery at the end of summer.  My sales have been in such a slump that I need new ideas on the wall for sure. 
Customers will make great comments on my work, take my card and brochure; but no much in sales.  Good thing I don't rely on sales to live on...I would have stopped a long time ago.

Part of my own slump is what I'm going through taking care of hubby....it's a lot of work and it's constant, or at least it seems constant.  There are times when he's napping during the day that I can take advantage of that down time and get in some studio time of my own.  And I'm considering dropping one of my bowling days to accommodate for myself...it's hard to do because another bowler needs me to take her bowling because she doesn't drive/partially blind.  And she says she doesn't have another way to get to bowling except from me.  I don't want to disappoint, but I may have to do so.
And the others I bowl with rely on my also...I'm the money collector, score keeper, computer changer when it scores wrong and moral support..we have a good time, but it is time consuming and it's not league play because 9-tap is not a league game.  Nothing counts, it's  mainly practice. 

Must end for now...off to Costco to pick up supplies..can't be gone long as I'm leaving hubby to fend for himself.