real progress, no photos

Three of us showed up to paint the walls at Lowell Fiber Studio today. Like any painting job, the work required more preparation than expected, but we got it done in under three hours. Follow up and finish up on Monday.

Came home through end-of-the-world rain to my home studio, where I emailed my long list of questions about taxes to the accountant, and then dug a path into my home studio to finish work for the photo shoot tomorrow. Small piece is finished, larger piece stitched but not backed.

Waited an hour in my car for my girl. She is part of a one-act competition this weekend. They loaded the truck in the dark and the deluge. That's a sure way to make memories. Two glasses of wine means maybe I shouldn't edge that last piece tonight. O well!

tangled up

Tangled Alphabets: León Ferrari and Mira Schendel, at MoMA through June 15, includes the above example of what Ms. Schendel called Graphic Objects. (Museum of Modern Art

After repeated efforts at procrastination, I have finally begun my mother's taxes. Not that they are complicated, just that I don't have a clue what I'm doing, and I hate that feeling. I would rather scrub the bathtub than face an Unknown for which I am responsible. So I've been surfing the net a lot, and cleaning the bathtub really well .

I've been thinking about the use of text in my own work, how it might expand and modulate. One procrastination was to play with text shapes in Photoshop, but I need to get back to printing to push the idea. The screen is nothing without the ink, the layers. My most recent printing efforts have been dull beyond belief. Too much heart and brain power going into daily life.

I am wondering about how to push the gelatin plate printing. Linda Germain's work has made me wonder how to make the medium work harder. My first attempts last week were clumsy, of course. I hope to work with her at a class this spring.
I've also been daydreaming about courses - Jane Dunnewold at ProChem, and a delicious offering at Haystack, Making Prints Without A Press, and Laura Cater-Woods' classes, particularly the one about turning fabric into books.

Time to make dinner.

There and Back Again

I've been on the road. Took my daughter and her best friend to Vassar, where my sister, a professor in English Literature, took us around. A delight for me was to see my work in her office. What a difference context makes. Works that seemed small in the industrial space of Western Avenue Studios looks beautiful in a personal setting:
My favorite place was the theater. Because I'm an Old Lady, I could just walk in and ask to look. Here's the wall of supplies in the costume room. Why didn't I know this could be a career?
Across the hall was the scene shop, with the wolf from Into the Woods watching over all:
Midweek I spent a day with a friend who'd come to town for medical appointments. We walked the city, and talked all day. Here is a view from where we had coffee. Looks like Paris to me.

Finally I spent time with Ami Simms. She's the remarkable woman behind the the Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative, an exhibit which has been seen by over 200,000 people and raised over $350,000 for Alzheimer's research. I took her to the Arsenal Center for the Arts early Saturday. We got to study this view across the street - I like the horizontals and verticals - while we waited to be let in.

I watched her teach, and we had lunch together. Wonderful and thought-provoking. She is a generous, wise soul. I look forward to her lectures tonight.