month ends

I'm not sure what the art or text means on the entry for the 31st.But it is one of very few times that I just did not like the art work and re-did it another day.

I must have been just doodling with markers and being free with my work the way I observe my young students working. I can work without a plan, but find the work is more effective if I have some notion of what I want it to be. My notes I kept in a planner mention snowshoeing with a friend that day and having coffee at a funky coffee shop.

Anyway, yesterday I worked on assembling the pages into a more user friendly book; I need to 1) make covers and seasonal dividers and 2)lace the holes in the sleeves with cording to make it tighter. The January cover is almost finished. I'll post it tomorrow.

cold days, new art, home cleansing

The month ended in a mix of activities this year and last. On Thursday, I went to Hanover NH to the Dartmouth art gallery, the HOOD, for a teacher workshop. I spent the day in the museum's current exhibition of Modern A Contemporary Art. The director, Brian Kennedy is a fabulously informed, energetic speaker.
Last year, I visited the Lamont Gallery on the Phillips Exeter campus for an exhibit called "Fittings". I used parts of their postcard to make the January 29, 2009 entry.

The text lists items from the exhibit:

links, chains, encaustics,
layerings, thirty-two discs,
constructed boxes

If I were to do a 2010 entry, it would have portions of the exhibit at Dartmouth, perhaps the El Anatsui construction. "Hovor" with a piece of the Mark Rothko, "Lilac and Orange over Ivory." The text most likely would be about the long, but scenic, drive through NH from the seacoast to the western border.


The January 27, 2009 entry represents my favorite teal afghan. Hand knit by a friend many years ago, it's what I needed most for a little warmth and rest.
(We added a quilt to the blankets last night to ward off the below zero temperatures.)
The art work has a favored device - paper weaving- and image - spirals.I wove using an old postcard of my own work with the spirals, colored with a little teal stamp and wrote the text twice.


On January 28,2009, we had a snow day. I sorted through a vast collection of papers - most of which went to the woodstove. I felt somewhat melancholy that what was part of my past lifetime and important enough to hold onto, now could be of so little use.
But, I loved using more old text papers from a book altering project I started last summer.
Papers are precious
for a few of life's moments.
Later, but fire's fuel.

Today,1/30/10, is bright with a blue sky. I'm catching a little of the sun as I work.

My work today, after sweeping immense piles of cat and dog hair, is to figure out how to construct the covers and the seasonal markers for the Daily Haiku book.I have book board for the covers and mat board for the dividers. I plan on covering them with both fabrics and papers. My friend, and colleague, Dawn suggested marking the solstice and equinox dates rather that the artificial monthly four seasons.
So I'm celebrating winter,spring,summer and fall today with some artmaking....

learn new skills

January 26, 2010
Last year I was taking a Chinese Brush Painting class with Bruce Iverson. So the entry for today had some characters I invented and one from paper that wrapped the rice paper we used in class. I used a calligraphy pen for the characters and a gel pen for the writing. The quote in Haiku form is from Visual Chronicles by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino.

...never limit your-
self with old descriptions of
your abilities... p. 67
The sun has broken through the clouds, but after a day of rain, the backyard looks like it does in March and is rather tough walking. I'm off to school shortly.

The soft white layer
of winter snow washed away.
It seems like springtime.
1/26/10

companionship

January 25, 2010
It's a mild rainy day. I did get in one trip through the woods this morning since the snow is perfect for snowshoeing. My Daily Haiku for 1/25/09 addresses the awful loneliness I was feeling after loosing my wonderful Great Dane, Monty. He'd been my companion for walks for his short life. He loved the woods and the snow. The walks were painful to do without him.
The meandering,jagged lines with irregular shapes represent the paths I'd followed with Monty and my broken heart. The number 1 is interpersed with the "paths" and the words "one" and "oneness" are used for a border and for some texture. I used a calligraphy pen for all the work on this entry.

This is one time the text is the central image and not subtle in any way.

I should wait, but we did get another puppy in March of last year. Of course my episodes with him become very important in my art work. But, I'll put his picture as a nearly 1 year old here. He went out with me this morning before the rain ruined the snow. In this photo he's holding a basketball in his mouth. He's about 37" at the hip and over 150 lbs. He's a love. He's what is known as a blue merle.
I added my beach photo of him since it shows his personality and lovely, floppy ears.

birds, tree trunks

One of my recurring themes is birds. In addition to the daily appearance of the song birds during the winter, I wait for the cedar waxwings, orioles and others to reappear in the spring. When I worked at the New England Quilt Museum, my commute on Route 495 through Massachusetts guaranteed sighting hawks nearly every day.

My January 17 entry was about a less spectacular, but a constant bird in NH - the nuthatch. They travel up and down tree trunks looking for food and they have interesting songs. I found a bird stamp - it looks nothing like a nuthatch - but I like its quirky attitude.
I glued strips of white on white printed parchment onto the card and stamped it with a walnut Distress Ink stain. The border is a rough impression of the bird's footprint drawn with a LePlume marker. I wrote the verse on white paper, cut it into strips and glued it on over the birds.

This entry works with its repetition, variation, and the art complements the text.

January 24th documents another ubiquitous, less cute, bird - the beautiful black crow. I used a Flair felt tip marker to draw the trees, wrote the verse on a scrap of black using a silver marker and also cut it into strips. The crow looks like a child's drawing of it in the sky. The frames emphasize the sense of vertical created by the hundreds of trees in the same forest I've written about before.

1/17 The lone nuthatch calls
over the blanket of white;
trunks divide the space.


1/24 A crow calls and soars.
Hundreds of tree trunks stand strong.
Morning's soft breeze blows.



I remember working with the syllables in "Morning's soft breeze blows."
I started with "breezes blow". Making it singular makes the count correct and it changes the sensation slightly.

art teacher and creativity

I work as the art teacher at a small elementary school in NH. Over the year, the challenges, satisfactions and learnings as a teacher became part of my Daily Haiku.

January 14th and 21st represent the visiting eco-artist at school, Tim Gaudreau. We created mosaics from photos of the "trash" kids brought into school. On the 21st, I was part of the process with the first graders. Watching them enjoy the work without hangups about what it looked like was a challenge for me and their teacher !

For my work,I created abstract chips of color from a Hancock's of Paducah fabric catalogue.

The 16th has a geometric, comfortable "quilt" look and a philosophical question about how one teaches art.

The 20th refers to my presenting the artist Joseph Cornell to my students. I created a small box with some trinkets in it.My simple black and white drawing represents the box. Some of them created "boxes" by gluing an assortment of things into various sized boxes. They totally enjoyed it.A couple fifth graders constructed a box of a piece of cardboard.

I'm presenting Joseph Cornell again this year to the third graders. In fact we're starting it today. I'll add some photos of their work over the next few posts.

the old pine and snow

This is the image for January 19 of today's earlier post. I haven't cropped this or the one for the 18th, so the background I use is visible. Tomorrow I'll get the next few cropped. Tonight we're headed to the Stone Church for dinner and to hear my nephew Tristan perform.


I like the freestyle collage for January 15. The text is from Life Is A Verb by Patti Digh. I wrote it as a Haiku. I love the "see delightedly" and it has just the right number of syllables.
Haiku is a poetic form with a total of 17 syllables in three lines = 5 in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. I tried to maintain this all year, but occasionally missed (or added) the beat. There are people who are writing thoughtful, provoking Haiku. Mine primarily are a record of something and I tried to NOT spend time editing them. So, they are rough.

absence... technical difficulties

I haven't been able to post any work for over a week. We had no internet access. But thanks to a great IT guy, we're back on line. I'll condense the past posts.

We had a fabulous NE snow storm today. Deezel and I walked through the woods behind our house. These woods have inspired much art work. Here's a photo for those of you without the loveliness of snow to inspire you.
January 13, 18 and 19 are all about this peaceful area. The 13th and 18th were done with pencil, black and silver markers and the 18th has a piece of parchment over the scene. The 19th is done with torn brown paper, Color Box pigment and whiteout. Each of them have the text incorporated a little differently either written on paper then attached, or written with a silver marker to be part of the background.

Countless feet and paws
meander along trails packed
throughout the forest. 1/13

Already muted
colors pale as the densely
falling snow collects. 1/18

I pass by the old
bull pine to measure the depth
of the building snow. 1/19

Excerpt I: The Performance

With a new book about lutrador, 2 new stamps and some beautiful hand dyed textiles from my longtime friend, Dianne, I am surrounded by inspiration to do some fabric,paper work for January. Now, that I have more time for myself, I think in larger pieces of time. It's not necessary to do everything within the next few hours or try to find ways to stretch time.

When I started my 365 Daily Haiku 2009, I took each spare moment to do some work. The work might be notes for the image, making a list of words that could work for the "poetry", or it might be revising either to be "finished". I made very good use of time.

January 11, 2009: Again with snow and trees, but how can an artist resist such a sight? I like how this image looks and it's not unlike how Jan 11, 2010 looks. This tree is a maple outside my studio window. That tree inspires me and challenges me. I've used the view before in a small fabric art piece and the covers of a small journal.
The third photo is the larger piece (14" X 14")included on it are photos on silk of the journal covers - second photo. The former is embellished with beads, stones and text printed on chiffon over the white and gold fabric.
Each journal cover measures 3" x 5" and served as examples when I worked as an artist in residence in schools. The kids would make their own journal covers of fabric, glue them to folded paper and add their own writing. They learned about sewing basics and integrating imagery and text.

Still air, grey blue sky,
snow nestles at the branches,
each tree trimmed with white.

birthday...

Last year on Jan.10, my family came for a get together to mark the birthday. This year the same ritual is actually on my birthday, today. So I'm posting the 9th and the 10th today.

On the 9th 2009, I went out to dinner for lobster with my husband, Roger, and my very good friend, Ila. The art work is the meager attempt to capture the lovely full moon rising over the ocean at Wallis Sands. I kept it simple; colored pencil sky, and ocean with a white stencilled moon and reflection. The silver stars are punched out of some paper that is brown on one side and silver on the other. A few detail lines are made with gel pens.

The moon stencil was the first of many special stencils/stamps that I made for this work.

art quilt about snow

stark black winter trees
brown grasses show through the snow
sky glows apricot

The Daily Haiku #5 speaks for itself. I used the Cat's Eyes again for the background, felt tip markers for the trees. I wrote the text on a piece of parchment with a Sharpie pen. The first line is a challenge to read.



My work on the post Monday reminded me of a quilt I made about the snow. It's one of those elements of nature that constantly inspires me. This has giant snowflakes appliqued of the background material.

Seeing a sturdy bird's nest on a branch over the road during a blustery early spring snow storm was the inspiration for "Winter Vignette". I've never been happy with the nest. But,the background evergreens(appliqued) and the maple (also appliqued) were successful. I used the construction in another quilt, which I'll post later.


Although I am missing the daily Haiku, today's would look much like this entry.

January 4, 2010

Today is fairly mild and partly sunny. My snowshoe trip with the dog, Deezel, and cat, Buck Wheat, was refreshing. I checked out some tracks criscrossing the field. They may be fox tracks.

My Daily Haiku for January 4th 2009 is okay.
I'm grouping three days about snow; Jan 4th, 7th and 8th.
The 4th is the least successful, although I like the torn paper and the Haiku works -it's the border again, or lack of one. I'm tempted to "improve " it now.

powdery snow drifts
muted from brilliant white
forming sculpted waves

The 7th has tissue paper, silver and white marker. The verse has to do with looking into semi-retirement.

The landscape of the 8th must have been inspired by the view at school. The sky and snowy earth were dabbed with "Cat's Eye" Brush pads. There is a suggested border from a section of the stamp pad - mask out the portions to not stamp. I used a marker and pen for the trees.
A snowflake cut from tracing paper covers part of the writing.
Speaking of the writing, I've never been able to print or write consistently on art work. A secondary goal of this project was to develop that talent.

Giant, fluffy flakes
drift slowly over faded snow,
now brilliantly white.

As it happened, the writing became a different part of the art work and it wasn't important that it was on a slant or uneven.
The January 7th page has the text written around the edges in pen and again with white marker.
'til tomorrow...

reclaiming pieces of the day

January 3, 2010
The storm has essentially stopped. I snowshoed through the woods with the dog, Deezel The evening's winds had covered my tracks from yesterday. The snow is deep enough to reshape the familiar objects. The stonewall looks totally different.


On January 3,2009
I met a friend for breakfast, had my hair done, and went to my brother, Steve's house to mark Christmas. Adam had come home.
My entry for today falls under both requirements that it didn't need to be either great art or poetry, but a record. I used the appointment card from the hairdresser and listed the day's events with a calligraphy pen. This was the beginning of looking first at the day's ephemera to include in the collage. After the year of collaging, I have quite the stash of envelope linings, and even barcode patterns...

What is appealing about this project for its size and medium is that everyday events can be captured. As an art quilter, I didn't record a hair appointment in fabric.

the power to persevere

It's snowing and has been since yesterday. It allows some quiet time to work in the studio before I snow shoe out through the woods. I'll check on the old pine that's there. This bull pine stands on the side of a small hill. It has half a trunk for about 7' from the ground, yet it still has needles at the top and pileated woodpecker holes about 15' from the ground. It's rich brown inner trunk is scattered around the base. It has inspired visual fabric art and poetry.

January 2,2009
This looks a little too simple now. It needs a suggestion of a border. One of my favorite treatments I used over the year is a soft pencil line. My favored pencil is a 1.3 lead. It's a mechanical pencil that I got at the school's store.

The geometric design is an abstraction of the geometry of the inside of the decaying pine. I covered some of it with a parchment paper. I wrote the text over a soft impression of a snowflake stamp. I used a silver pen for the word winter and some additional lines.

Interesting - snow and snowshoeing on January 2,2009 and again on January 2,2010.


Quiet alone time,
favorite music plays.
The pine stands still.