4 march 2010

It seems like it’s taken forEVER, but the Frog Princess Metamorphostitch is finally done:

I was totally thrilled with the under painting… and really dig the face (I think she looks exactly like I’d imagined in the sketches). As I was solving student problems in the 6Stitched She workroom, I knew just how to make the paint ruddy on the fabric — sadly several students had trouble with their paints bleeding past their pattern lines… but we’ve turned the whole set of mishaps into a big stitch-periment and are having a go at abstract she-ing with Pollock-style flair! Isn’t it always in the mis-steps and accidents that a journey becomes the most interesting?

As for the Stitcher’s Garden Book project, I’ve been touching up some of the spot illustrations:

I like stitching on watercolor paper, and how it allows for easier painting…

I think the overall look of the book is quite nice… though still not nearly detailed enough. The red flower at left has about 50 french knots at the center and brazilian cast on, but I’ll be adding a ton more…

stitching… stitching…

26 Feb 2010

Just a little wave in case you haven’t looked over the link list in the right sidebar lately.  Many have asked “Why so many…?”  Well, I AM a teacher and shameless collector of information. So, the easiest way to share info for me is to simply send the curious or seeking to my site & give ‘em a category to peruse. As such, I’ve added some EXTRAORDINARY stitchers to the ranks:

In#1 Putting Needles on the Record: I’ve added artist Peter Hellsing who embroidered details & portraits of displaced peoples around his native Stockholm — very interesting.

In the #3 All Fearless Stitch category: Lisa Connolly and Meghan Canning, both exceptional stitchists who make me want to go right to my needle & thread;

Under the #7 Exhibits & Lookys category, don’t miss Angelo Filimeno and Kent Henrickson — two most excellent man-broiderers

And under Cool and Inspiring I couldn’t resist sharing the work of artist Mike Libby who takes real insects (ordinary and exotic alike) and steampunks them up with cogs and dials… MOST intriguing!  I’m researching steampunk for a collection I’m designing for a class series in wire work and am having the most exciting inspirations in the Victorian Future…

So, if you have a little time to be wowed (or just need a breath of fresh blog), cuddle up with my list and have a looky — you won’t be sorry!

Today, I’m deeeep in my sketchbooks dreaming, creating, restocking the imagination, and harnessing my sense of wonder.  And to those who so graciously answered my ‘what’s it all for’ post (comments or email–Jafabrit,

RocketGirl,  Anne, FiberMama–)

thank you & I love you all!

Be back soon with new work…

I again have my heading, and it’s all good…

25 Feb 2010

It’s funny… as I create the work for the online tutorials, I began to notice how NOT like me the images are. I’m a “6-footer” as one of my bff’s calls me, red-auburn hair, 135lbs… words like “different” or “striking” get used a lot. So as I looked at the latest in the She tutorial series, I began to wonder “Why is my work so light when I feel SO very dark?”

I don’t know that there is an answer, but I feel the question is significant — and may hold a key to why, artistically, I’ve been feeling… rather… constipated.

When you stop making work that “moves” you, what does that mean?  The projects I work on and teach DO challenge me technically… and they certainly push the limits of what I can create for a mixed audience of students (& it’s certainly been an education for ME to figure out how to break things down so they’re duplicatable)… but they don’t speak to the ME of me.  Perhaps it’s just the age old trade-off of your art “day job” being something different from your art “passion”?  Does my passion lie in subject, technique, or the simple utility of teaching?  Maybe it’s just a general dissatisfaction with my material?

I urge my students and my readers to find their fearless… yet I struggle to discover where mine is — or more importantly, where it wants to go.

I bring these questions to you, reader, because as I look around the blogs, I see a general trend toward self examination, dissatisfaction, and a kind of artistic yearning… what are we, as creative beings, looking for? HOW do we express it?  Whether you practice the arts “visual” or written, musical, medical, or are simply an observer, HOW do we satisfy our creative urges in ways that are meaningful?

I will take these wondering/wanderings to my sketchbook today and see what shows up to play…

16 Feb 2010

Just when I thought I was finished applauding and bravo-ing my amazing friends for their activism on behalf of the Haitians who are putting their lives back together, I tripped over David Littler’s report on the Sampler-Culture Clash blog detailing how Ele Carpenter is raising money in San Francisco through her Open Source Embroidery project — *LINK* By auctioning all sorts of objets d’art, including: GRAFFITI’ED CHAIRS!!    If you haven’t already investigated the Sampler project, you’re in for a real treat -  When dj’s meet stitch, it’s a truly special exchange!  Check it out!  *LINK*

I was SO proud to learn that my dear debate comrade Michelle from high school (& former college room mate) was donating her orthopedic surgery skills through Doctors Without Borders to help out injured Haitian survivors, and  then to hear of the work that my former zine event co-conspirators (Rita & Jeremy) were doing to raise money and gather supplies by multiple art auctions, and THEN to have MY kids on board the “Hornets Helping Haiti” campaign at their elementary school to gather packs of toiletries & basic necessities for survivors … my heart was full to bursting! And now, with David Littler and Ele Carpenter teaming up to use their needles for the best of the good… it only reconfirms what I’ve been saying: when we put our needles ON the record, the BEST things come of it!  Incidentally the auction is as follows:

The Auction takes place on Sunday 21 February
Silent Auction 12-4.30pm / Live Auction 5pm
Tiburon Town Hall, 1505 Tiburon Blvd, USA.

Show your support if you’re in the area!

If you aren’t yet familiar with the Stitchbomb Chronicles, check out what some of our stitchy comrades are up to… *link to Chronicles*

I’ll continue building the Putting Needles on the Record project and stitching up the place… Be Fearless!

14 Feb 2010

And from out of the studio…  the Metallics & Wire Work for Embroidery is coming to life. I’ve found as i work with various gauges of wire that it’s quite like working with thread. Once you get used to the different tension, the “strands” can be manipulated just like floss- and the effects are really cool! I spent yesterday at my local JoAnn store test marketing the workshop for these little designs and found a lot of curious crafters who want to know more about combining embroidery with stitch so it looks like I’m in business. They’ve asked me to develop some other wire projects so I’ll run some workshops & post sample work in the next month.

Meanwhile – all this activity has generated a lot of material for the Hand Embroidery Network tutorial I’m writing about Metallics & Wire Work. I should have it delivered & available for sign ups in April. I’m doing some cool dragonflies and bugs to go with it for spring…

So where does all this get us? In keeping with the inspiration theme, I am continually amazed at the people who are interested in all sorts of handwork. Big guys with tattoos and piercings alongside little old ladies in sweaters and spectacles – all threading needles, manipulating fabric, wielding wire cutters… it’s really amazing. And it certainly reinforces my belief that this “art thing” that we do, what ever medium you prefer, is a rich source of community, and knowledge, and sharing. Tradition and innovation are exchanged as currency, and conversation and laughter ring out among a most unlikely group — but isn’t THAT the point of art, and craft?  I am so lucky to bring people together… build relationships… and to walk away richer and fortified, with skill, and knowledge, and connection.

Think about YOUR art. Do you share it, or create solitary? Do you have a group, or a community of craft? Be Fearless, Find a way to plant a seed… share a skill, participate in a group — Whatever your experience, you may find the most unexpected things growing…

xoxo–many thanks to the Editrix for the edit ;0}

5 Feb 2010

We can best help you prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods

- Virginia Woolf

Back in the day when I was performing spoken word events and teaching writers how to prepare their poetry for public performance, I found myself rushing toward activism pretty much from the beginning — as a poet, the rights of free speech were dear to me, and having cut my teeth on such controversies as the National Endowment for the Arts defunding material they found “inappropriate”, it was a short trip from there. My regular readers may remember from October 2009 when I told the story of Anne Winter & how she, via the Free Speech Coalition, gave me both the tools and the platform to build a helluva machine to fight zine censorship and promote performance poetry, hip hop spoken word, graffiti artist’s rights, and such causes as Rock the Nation (which we ROCKED at the Locus Solis gallery — and which I will never forget became known as the event where an audience full of punk rock activists and zine publishers grilled a panel of then-prospective Kansas City mayoral candidates on how their platform might benefit young people in our city… BOOYA!! It was a beautiful thing…)

So, after 2 kids, 4 dogs, 3 cities, and heaping loads of laundry and dishes, I’ve landed smack in the middle of stitch-land. And I find, no matter what my circumstance, or where I hang my hat (so to speak) I can’t help but get antsy… and active.

I began wrangling the book proposal for my (hopefully) shiny new book deal, and as I researched and dug out the material… I found, periodically, my heart would beat a little faster at discovering a tidbit… here… and there… sprinkled throughout stitch history… there are messages and useful information from our stitchin sistas that can not be ignored…

The Subversive Stitch  (link to review) chronicles some of these — such as embedding medicinal, nourishing, and deadly botanicals information in tapestries passed from mothers to daughters in medieval times. BRILLIANT!

And then I got sucked into a discussion thread over at the hand embroidery network community on ning (link) titled: spouse doesn’t like my needlework.  Now, I ask you, activist reader, how do I IGNORE such a tag line? In the wake of the previous “Your art sucks…” post, I was practically homicidal when I read the discussion thread.    You KNOW I can’t just let it go… so I spent 3 or 4 hours re-evaluating my materials and wrote a 2 page response to the querant highlighting some of my favorite incidences of women using their needlework in significant socio-political ways, in ways that made blatant cultural comments, that revolutionized formerly oppressive traditions, and that accomplished economic emancipation, financial empowerment, and significant societal consciousness.  As I counselled the querant: when confronted with such accusations as “wasting time with women’s work”, you must speak with authority, clarity, and certainty about the significant and revolutionary aspects of stitch through the ages.  Or, you’ve got to put some BALLS on your needle!! heh heh…

And, once again, my activist raised her sword and we set off…  I laugh that just today by complete accident, I found my college debate coach. She is one of those strong women who make you stand a little straighter because, in her presence, you want to be your best self, you know?

So as I considered this post, I thought how appropriate that as I began putting the “argument” together, I heard her coaching voice asking (as she always did) “what do you need to convey… how do you set it up…”  Gold, those questions.

So — where does this lead us? First, you should take note of the new links in the right side bar. I’ve added “All Needle on the Record” which is now an on-going list of those people and groups who have “put a needle on the record” in order to be heard, seen, or documented for their cause. I don’t discriminate — whether it’s one woman protesting the way her shitty husband treats her, or a whole association built to economically empower disenfranchised citizens… they get equal real estate on the list.

Second, I’ve started writing the proposal for a grant which would allow me to conduct a project in the tradition of Liz Kueneke (she’s in the links).  She engages a community in marking, with stitches, their places of residence, work, etc., on an embroidered map. Having a stellar Social Scientist husband, I am hatching a plan to create a mixed media embroidered map of the Greater Kansas City area which would serve to document not only the displaced/disenfranchised citizens, but the artists who have tagged public areas, (like my fearless daughter pictured here…)

the muralists & their work, etc. In the same way that I built an otherwise ignored body of documentary literature from the hundreds of zines I collected out of the Free Speech Coalition events,

I intend to build a visual record of those in our city who, without some simple stitches, may pass through our streets completely unaccounted for or “off the record”. That, to me, is unacceptable.  Luckily, I have some advantages of being able to make a video documentary of the entire process, and being able to write up the whole thing, so, in the words of pirates and rabble rousers of all ages: we have our heading!!

Tonight, I’ll be working on the grant proposal… stitching with wire and metal… and searching for more revolutionary sisters (& brothers) to invite on board…

and you? In the opening I quoted:

We can best help you prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods – Virginia Woolf

How?

It’s time to put our needles on the record.

Be fearless!  (I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Natl Embroidery Month!)

1 Feb 2010

And to give this occasion an air of dignity… a Stitch(ed) poem!

Whether weaving web

or thread

or strand,

True stitching manifests

heart

through hand.

-victoria

Now be inspired and get yourself some stitchy!

25 January 2010

How many times does the perverse little bugger in your head tell you that? Or do you have some wretched person in your life telling you something like, “well, THAT’S not art”… or “why do you waste your time with that?”.  This post is about THOSE voices in our heads, and our lives, who speak the lie, “Art doesn’t matter”.

For far too many years I had THAT voice, and what’s worse, it lived inside me. It told me I had to do something… important.  Something… professional.  Something… profitable.  And I did. I clamped my artistic inclinations shut. But I secretly doodled these:

And I was struck by how expressive such simple lines could be…

I began to think that maybe the ART was not in what Others saw, but in what I saw.

POW.

If YOU haven’t yet had that realization, you need to sit in your quiet place, and take that thought IN.

ART is NOT in what others see, or what they say, or what they decide is art.

ART is conceived, incubated, fed, and grown IN WHAT YOU SEE.

If you’ve allowed yourself to be seduced by the little imp of the negative, I’m giving you the antidote, right here, right now.

Whether you practice music, visual art, performance art, or the professional arts of medicine or science…

WHAT you see, HOW you process it, and WHAT you make of it — THATs art. And what’s more, it has priceless value,  because YOU are the only single solitary ONE who can see, digest, and MANIFEST your impression.

In my own case, having migrated into the world of fashion for a number of years, I doodled…

But those little inklings and tingles…

man,

they simmer, like a pot of sweet potatoes with fresh green beans and baby carrots and corn right off the cob, all sauteed in thick curry powder with shredded ginger, and slowly stirred into a slowly steaming onion and vegetable broth… can you smell that?  awwww, that’s the smell of possibility…

And suddenly, there is a voice… a point of VIEW ( a point of YOU, or ME) who wants to SAY something,

with color, and texture, and out LOUD:

And a little doodle becomes a big statement…

And a little doodle becomes a REASON to get up in the morning…

And a reason to stay up late…

And gradually, I SEE a way to inspire, and to tell MY story to help YOU find the threads to yours…

And I recognize that if I can pull back the curtain, and show you MY rigging, maybe I can help you grab on to yours,  and finally begin to manifest what is simmering inside YOUR creative pot.

What’s even cooler, is that along the road of this journey, we’ve learned together that your art, in fact, does NOT suck. That YOU, being brave enough to put it on a page somewhere (even in a private doodle), YOU are kind of a rock star for giving your idea a little expression…

And if you can just be curious, and give yourself some time… and a little space to play:

And some tools that REALLY turn you on:

don’t you just want to LOOK inside…

…don’t you just want to rub around in the paints…

or poke a bit with a needle…

get a book… simple or textured…

and just start sketchin around…  let your point of view out to play.

And see who shows up to party…

When I finally let my sketches out to play…

the watercolors came in sepia and brown…

and the threads came all bold and black…

and I finally got to meet some of the figures who’d been hiding inside my head space for so many years…

And as I began to REALLY stretch my creative muscle, and to let my imagination take hold and go its’ own way…

my vision manifested new characters in the story (which if you follow me, you should know this fine fellow by now:

the Mandrake.

Who is as we speak getting the beginnings of a companion…

and though HE is about 12 inches long, SHE (not to be outdone) is going to be about four FEET tall — all decked out in fruits & flowers…

So what have we learned from this journey?

Simple.  Your perspective, your view, the unique way YOU see the world is an invaluable contribution to your sanity, and to your art.  Invite your muse to party.  Let her spice and sweeten and simmer your art-pot as much as she wants to — and don’t listen to anyone outside OR inside your head who wants to send her away.

YOU know, without question, soup is life.     Art is life.  MAKE something…  I dare you.

And that’s all we need, no?

Be inspired.  Be fearless.  I’ll be right here… doing the same.

And for the quiet observers, for those who creep around, just watching… CAN I GET A HELL YES!??  If this post made your heart beat a little faster, or made a little smiley feeling in your arty place… leave me a comment… one anonymous word :  “yes”.

Think of it as a dash of salt, or sweet, in my pot ;0}

Copy the code…

Share the love…

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9 January 2010

ok ok, I can’t resist answering the applause with an encore…

so here it is:

for a return engagement (20 February thru 1 May 2010), registration opens Monday 11 January 2010 & I’ll post the link as soon as the promotional page goes live (so if you’re looking for something unique to give as a Valentine’s gift — consider giving the artist in your life a DOUBLE helping of fun: a tutorial that yields a great keepsake treasure AND a whopping set of fancy new skills including mixed media painting & stamping, repurposing materials, embellishment with found objects, tea dying & alternative papers, book altering (insertions & cutouts), original stitch techniques like Thread Salad, and even a taste of Metallics & Wire Work!  AND… each session comes with a set of patterns and prompts that can last for a lifetime of creative scrap/sketchbooking.  WHEW!! Now THAT’s value ;0}

To learn more: visit the Link to Schoolhouse

And speaking of  original techniques… both tutorials:

Thread Salad: Impressionistic Image Making, and

Metallics & Wire Work in Hand Embroidery will be available in February as single lessons.

Also… I can’t let the cat TOO far outta the bag yet, but I am about to put out a call for contributors to a mixed media stitch book project.  The Fearless Stitcher’s Street Guide to Mixed Media Embroidery is a project I’ve been developing for a couple of years now, and I’m ready to assemble the photos… but I need to build a gallery to accompany the text — especially for the mixed media things I don’t do like heat treatments to textiles, batik or soy wax as a ground for stitching, or extensive beading with stitch.  As I write through specific needs, I’ll post them.   I’ll be asking for each submission to be a jpeg image (one full pic, one close up), up to 3 pieces per artist.  All rights will remain with the artist and artists will be credited with name & website. For those of you working in this area, think about it…

If you haven’t visited my Mixed Media Embroidery Gallery on Flickr **LINK** GO check it out –we’re over 200 members strong and have upwards of 1600 photos in the pool.   I’ll be putting out the call there as well, so you can get an idea of the kind of work you’ll be in with.   Also, some of the projects I use in my tutorials (like Stitcher’s Garden book and Metamorphositich) will be included… so if you’re interested in exploring those things anyway… TAKE THE CLASS and then you can assemble your submission as we go along — handy AND efficient! (must be my Virgo ways showing *wink*)

Now…if you follow me, you probably already know about the Hand Embroidery Network — but just in case you don’t, you must check it out!! Andrew & Sarah have built an amazing network to serve our community of stitch (and all in the last year!!!!) and 2010 promises to be even BETTER! In addition to extensive instructional resources, they offer a community on ning.com, an online magazine -Needle – and really exceptional online galleries/exhibits (which is the prompt for this post): there is currently a call for submissions for artists and writers (HEY my Art Institute students–this means YOU) for the next issue of Needle, as well as need for bloggers, exhibitors for the galleries, contributors to the directory, and MORE!!!  Check it out and lend a hand if you find a fit — we’re growing something very special and it takes a globe full of diversity to make it happen!  **LINK**

Now… between writing to you all here, working on the tutorials texts, writing the book proposal… and keeping up with student emails, I actually caught myself typing in my SLEEP last night! yipes… better unplug & stitch something fast!  Be Fearless;0}

SO… Away we go!!

8 January 2010

Creating the online tutorials has been quite an adventure… not the least of which has been creating new patterns and technical applications for mixed media and stitch. I’ve been teaching in person for such a long time that I didn’t know how the written text would sound… but it turns out that it’s been very good fortune to be working on the Fearless Stitcher’s Street Guide (book) at the same time as writing for online because all the writing just flows into, across, and through the projects. It creates a kind of synergy which keeps the whole process rolling along — and if I get stuck in one place, I just redirect the writing to somewhere else.

For those of you who are waiting for something MORE before you start the thing you want to work on (MORE research, MORE preparation, MORE thinking or reading about it…) just. get. started.

I can’t stress enough that TIME is of the essence. The time to begin is now. You can’t do the work if you don’t have SOMEthing to work ON — that means marks on the page, strokes on the canvas, words on the page, SOMEthing to edit and revise. One of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, once wrote a great essay about how, as a writer, all of his IDEAS for writing were these perfect pink smiling Gerber babies in his head. He could think about a piece of writing and it was ideal, shining, perfect in its abstraction… but when he wrote it down, yikes! It globbed out onto the page like roadkill, all disjointed and mangled, never eloquent or well stated. And then, his written monstrosity would haunt him, not at all the Gerber baby of an idea, but manifested as a horribly deformed creature who dribbles and leers from the shadows…

I adored that description the moment I read it! It summarized EVERYthing I always felt about my writing… but also held a valuable truth: you can’t do the WORK of something, until you have something tangible to work ON.

Write it down, sketch it out, get started… and then let the work begin!

I always tell my students at the Art Institute that even when you are doodling, or just making random notes in your journals, THOSE scribblings are creating a body of work… and the ONLY requirement for taking the title of artist (or poet) is that you honor your creativity enough to regularly attend to your muse, to record your inspirations, and to spawn a body of work.   Some of them see that right away and commit to DOing something every day, but others miss it… they are still, perpetually, WAITing.  Waiting for the right words, the right studio, the right supplies, the right opportunity… but never making the work.  Over the last few years I’ve been so unbelievably fortunate to have had the opportunity to not have to work outside the home (Husband is a Professor & has given me the Ultimate gift of a studio & time to develop MY body of work…).  I am grateful every day that I’ve had such good fortune, and the support of those who deeply believe in my vision (sometimes even more than I do!).  And even MORE profound is that I actually SAW the value of the days I felt inspired, or curious, or creative… and no matter HOW strong the impulse to think-wait-prepare was, I DID the work. I showed up at the desk & got something down on paper (or fabric, as it were).

If the tv is on, I have something to stitch in my lap.  If I have a block of quiet, I let the dishes sit, leave the carpets dusty, allow myself to say “We’re having pizza tonight… no grousing!” And I get to the studio and MAKE something happen. Even if it’s just doodling…

and lo and behold…  out of that very process evolved Metamorphostitch!  And out of allowing myself to ask “what if”, I have a whole stitch book full of She’s, and a ton of treatments yet to be explored. And I’ve got such great tools to share, like Thread Salad, and how to use Wire work and Metallics to enliven a composition…

And all because I didn’t just THINK about the work, I captured it.

Now what are YOU waiting for? The time is now… Be inspired. Be fearless.

If you are so inclined, I’ve added a STITCH badge in the right sidebar that can be posted wherever you need a little fearlessness! Just copy & paste the code — and we’ll all be fearless together!!

Additionally, I’ve got the Stitch Bomb Kit in the stew pot (everything YOU need to deploy public embroidery), the Thread Salad Buffet tutorial (an impressionist tool for visualizing stitch OR a means to realizing a dimensional composition)… and the Metallics & Wire Work Tutorial — all about stitching with and on metal.

So much fun we’re going to have this year! Be inspired… Be fearless!