TAST and my first non-CYBER FYBER ATC trades!

(Click on image to enlarge.)
Serendipity plays a large and wonderful part of my life....even since going through Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way about four summers ago. I guess it was always there, but I didn't seem to notice, let it in, and celebrate how "one thing just leads to another" in some sort of miracle fashion.

Well, I got a CYBER FYBER request from a trader for her young granddaughter. I had to turn it down because I really don't want to get involved with securing private mailing addresses from under aged participants...even when I know it's "okay". To illustrate the decision, I mentioned that I didn't trade with my Doreen's granddaughter Ebony who has traded with dozens of stitchers. I suggested a non-CYBER FYBER trade but never heard back. Yet, this got me thinking about Ebony and we decided to trade. This is my first, official NON-CYBER FYBER trade. Doreen asked if we could trade too. Their wonderful cards arrived in today's mail. I'm not telling which one created which piece because they are both BEAUTIFUL and very sophisticated! Thank you both so much!

I scanned these trades with this week's TAST stitch....the Cretan Stitch, which I've seen at the Textile Museum in a show about historical Greek and Aegean embroidery...but have never done. It was fun! Although I started TAST just a few short weeks ago, I can say that "serendipity" must have been involved because I'm starting a new project that will involve crazy quilting. Yes, I know I have my "Decision Series" underway and am working on a commission...but I'm also going to England and need something for the trip! "One thing just leads to another!"

Husband: Decision Portrait Series

(Click on image to enlarge. Husband. Words: I Loved Her for 45 Years...the Last 15 with MS. Xylene transfer on tea-stained muslin. Hand stitched. 24" x 18".)

The wonderful man in this image is my former insurance agent. He's recently retired but has seen my family through our business needs, personal needs, and a catastrophic house fire. His wife died about two years ago. The stitched background reads: In Sickness and In Health 'Til Death Do Us Part. Lots of people make these vows; lots of people keep them; but it is an important decision...especially under trying circumstances.

In order to explain this new series to potential participants, I've created a blog for it...a one-stop place with a conceptual statement, images, and a WISH LIST. (Title and/or words are flexible!) The wish list is below for anyone who might consider being pictured:

Title: Blood Donor. Stitched words: Saving lives one pint at a time. (Long time donor, please!)

Title: Overcoming Domestic Abuse. Stitched words: I pressed charges.

Title: Somebody Else's Miracle. Stitched words: I gave up a child for adoption.

Title: Graffiti Artist/Vandal. Stitched words: (symbol of the "tag")

Title: DUI. Stitched words: I made a mistake.

Title: Pro Choice. Stitched words: I wasn't ready for a baby

Title: Teenage Mother. Stitched words: I kept my baby

Title: Gang Member. Stitched words: I wear my colors

Title: Neo-Nazi. Stitched words: Master Race

Title: Living with AIDS. Stitched words: Didn't use a condom

Title: Public Servant. Stitched words: I ran for office (Must be a non-career politican! I have a lead on this one)

Title: College___(Freshman/sophomore/etc.) Stitched words: Never too late to learn (Must be someone over 70 or so who has returned to school)

Title: Dealing with Alzheimer's. Stitched words: I put my Mom/Dad in a home

Title: Homeless. Stitched words: No Fixed Address (This can't be someone with a mental disease but someone who choses to live this way!)

Title: Happy Family. Stitched words.....This one would include a same sex couple and their child with Mommy____(first name); Mommy____(first name); and name of child or Daddy____(first name); Daddy____(first name); and name of child

Title: Kidney Donor. Stitched words: I had two...but to share.

Title: Organic Farmer. Stitched words: No chemicals

Title: Rabbi. Stitched words: Waiting for the Messiah. (This one is "pending".)

Title: Patriot. Stiched words: ____(Rank); ____-____(Birth year to death year)...(I need a young man/woman unfortunately killed in the current war.)

Title: Tattoo Artist. Stitched words: Marked for life.

Title: Illegal Immigrant. Stitched words: I want the American Dream

Title: New Voters. Stitched words in front of three people: Republican, Democrat, Independent

Title: Runaway. Stitched words: I left home. (My son Alex...who's been gone since February doesn't qualify...believe it or not, a seventeen year old in South Carolina is allowed to leave...and there's nothing his/her parents can really do about it!)

Title: Athetist. Stitched words: There is no God.

Title: Death Wish. Stitched words: I attempted suicide.

Title: Shoplifter. Stitched words: It wasn't mine.

Title: Nun. Stitched words: Married to Christ.

Title: Monk. Stitched words: A Vow of Silence. (Or other wording depending on vows.)

Title: Prostitute. Stitched words: By the hour.

Title: 911 Operator. Stitched words: 24/7.

Title: Buddhist. Stitched words: Seeking enlightenment. (Prefer someone past the first vows of Refuge.)

(I'd like a Hindi and a Muslim...because I don't even know how to phrase these!)

Another Review from Pickens!

Another upstate news publication had this to say about the exhibitions in Pickens!

Blues Chapel gets reviewed!

Matt Wake, a writer for Upstate Today, a news publication serving the Clemson/Greenville area of the northern South Carolina, wrote a review called "Triple Feature" that includes positive feedback on "Blues Chapel"! I'm not going to post the entire thing here because I just put it on the blog for Gallery 80808....but I'm thrilled!

Buffon, Picasso, and Me plus Detached Buttonhole

Yesterday was a wonderful day despite the fact that I turned 49! I'm claiming 50 though....taking a year to get use to the new decade! I also finished, photographed, and created a video of my newest artist book. It was started months ago...the result of an inspiration brought on by my cyber friend Doreen's once piece of lost fabric. It inspired a book cover. At first I created all these wonderful pages for the new cover. Then, I hated the pages with the cover and set them aside. I created my Mask Book for the cover. It's been in a juried show and won an award...but I still had the pages. They were created out of very special paper, the printed pages of a 1959 French publication with Picasso illustrations and sketches...all for a modern edition of the mid-18th c. naturalist, Georges Buffon's Histoire Naturelle. A framing client/book dealer had me dismantle the volume and mat and shrink wrap the images for resale. He said I could keep the rest...the few pages of text...enlarged reproductions of Picasso's handwriting with a few drawings.

I finally decided how to use these pages and created Buffon, Picasso, and Me. All the engravings come from various volumes of Buffon's editions printed in 1819 and 1827. We deal in antique prints afterall! All the pages are made from the 1959 text. I added transferred images of our pets and my own family memories. I created a set on Flickr! where all the words are legible...even as a slideshow. It can also be viewed on "My Video" blog....complete with Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animal excerpts as background music. I'm trying to really document this little book because I've got a potential client....the CYBER FYBER caterer....a possible trade: part of the reception for the artist book!



I also finished my TAST detached chain stitch.

I had an early afternoon meeting at the South Carolina Arts Commission too....pitching CYBER FYBER. I've already blogged about this wonderful experience on the CYBER FYBER journal.

Blues Chapel in Pickens

Last night was the opening of Blues Chapel at the Pickens County Museum of Art and History. It was wonderful. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Ellen Kochansky even came. I'd never met this incredible fiber artist....but I sure knew her name! She liked my installation too. I'm totally honored.

Standing Up for Peace

(Click on image to enlarge. 24" x 33" unframed. Xylene transfer on tea-stained muslin.)
Yesterday I finished Standing Up for Peace, the newest piece in my "Decision Portraits" series. I intended to embroider the words "Standing in Silence" and call it Women in Black; but, their sign was perfect. I didn't intend to use buttons and thought the work was done several days ago; but, I accidentally dribbled fuchsia ink on it. Discharge paste almost "fixed" it. The buttons worked and I like it even better. I even used my TAST stitch, the buttonhole around the aluminum washers! TAST is already making me think about how I use "stitch"...opening my eyes to new possibilities!

Invitation to Pickens Exhibitions!

(Click on images to enlarge!)

TAST...Week Two...Buttonhole Stitch

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Here's my buttonhole stitch. As I've admitted before, I usually use the same six stitches for everything. Buttonhole isn't one of them...but it is on the list of stitches I know and sometimes use. (Short list of about 20!) Generally, I do a buttonhole stitch around a bunch of threads that I've coiled around an object. To the best of my knowledge, this is called the Hedebo stitch...but it's really just a buttonhole stitch. I've created my Geode series using this stitch. Below is a detail on Geode II. I have yarn coiled around every paint container, can, jar, and any other round object in my studio when I work on one of these Geodes...and button hole all day long!

Friday the 13th...a GREAT Day!

Steve and I picked up the cute little rental truck on Thursday. It really is "little" when compared to the twenty-six footers and the tandem axle tractor trailers that were also on the lot. We drove to Edgefield and attended the very, very nice closing reception for "Blues Chapel". It was the first time I was ever interviewed by a newspaper reporter...and it happened TWICE...two different publications in the area!

Early the next morning we dismantled "Blues Chapel". Our rental truck looked like the photo below. We drove to Pickens.

Rarely have I been treated as wonderfully. The entire staff helped unload....from Allen Coleman (directly below), the executive director to every other available staff person!



Steve and I excepted to unload, move into the room, and install everything ourselves. It would have taken hours of back breaking work. We were ready....but...what happened was quite different. The bulk of the unloading and moving was a group effort. Dan (pictured below) made everything so much easier...especially since he's actually going to be the one hanging everything! All I had to do was lean things against the walls on which I wanted them...talk about how I wanted it to look...not even worry about the signs or tags or lighting. The church pew wouldn't fit into the elevator or easily get up the narrow staircase....so Dan unscrewed it...we carried it...and Dan assembled it again. He's a real gem...and amazingly he's from Ohio (just like me) and graduated from Slippery Rock University (the college where my Dad taught until retirement...in the town in which my parents and two of my sisters now live...and my mother had been its mayor when Dad was in school there!) It is a small world.



Steve and I left the Sealevel Gallery looking like these photos. We had time for a relaxed, late lunch before our drive back to Columbia. I can't wait to return for the opening next Saturday night...it will be an "unveiling" even for me!