Happy New Year!

Party on.

Warm Winter

December in the Studio

This piece is roughly 7 feet in diameter. It's double sided (as are all of the sewn pieces I've been making) but I think this is the "front." It would be great to hang them on a transparent surface but in the mean time I've turned it around for a view of the other side:




This is on the machine with "I tried to stop" and "All that's left of my heart" hanging on the wall in the background.

This is "I tried to stop" almost finished. I sewed an edge at the top but haven't rephotographed it since. Each individual shingle in this piece is a 4" square with text on it.

Reflections

Ha. I couldn't resist that title for this post. I've been having fun with mirrors and other reflective surfaces. This one is from Longwood Gardens.

Maximalist Christmas

Olivia is going through her "anti-minimalist" phase. The cookie cutter that made this bird used to be a reindeer. You probably know the one...it's the cookie cutter with the narrow pieces that ALWAYS break, sometimes before baking, sometimes after baking, and sometimes even after decorating. But even if they don't break off that leg, or antler, is always overdone. So I reshaped it into a bird shape. We've been bird watching all year so it seems appropriate to add a bird to our cutter supply. The narrow santa cutter is on next years hit list.

My favorite part of the holidays is making things. It's probably the reason Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. In fact if I review my life I find a lot of the things I get excited about involve making stuff. The best part of planning for my wedding was making the dresses. This year I actually finished all of my gifts on time, unlike the wedding dress which I was still sewing 10 min before the wedding.

Dream big, work hard and have a Happy Holiday!

Dona Nelson

I've decided to end my artists "advent calendar" with my all time favorite painter, Dona Nelson. She doesn't have a website but it does appear that she has work up at her gallery right now. This is her piece, Walnut Way, taken from jameswagner.com

Hadassah Emmerich - Chitra Ganesh - Dona Nelson - Haeri Yoo

Thomas Erben Gallery
Chelsea

526 West 26th Street, 4th Floor, 212-645-8701
December 16, 2008 - February 1, 2009
Opening: Tuesday, December 16, 6 - 8:30PM

Alyssa Pheobus

Amy Jean Porter

Amy Jean Porter's work from her website All Species, All the Time.

Lauren Kalman

Only 3 more advent calendar days left. That makes choosing an artist site to post more difficult. So many great options. I was introduced to Lauren Kalman's work through an artist in Knoxville. Definitely worth checking out.

Linda Ganjian

Linda Ganjian's sculptures are influenced by Middle Eastern carpet designs and they look like so much fun!

Mireille Vautier

Mireille Vautier's work includes stitching on plastic bags (my personal favorite) among other things.

Mille Guldbeck

Visit Mille Guldbeck's website to see her haunting and beautiful works. If you get a chance to see them in person take it. You're missing a lot of the subtleties of the works online.

Rowena Dring

Rowena Dring's work is stitched fabric.

Tara Donovan

Tara Donovan at Ace Gallery.

Rebecca Saylor Sack

Stephanie Metz

These are from Stephanie Metz's series "Teddy Bear Natural History."

Wil Jansen

I saw one of Wil Jansen's pieces at the recent Material Color show.

Christopher Davison

Christopher Davison's works are intensely animate and wonderfully processed.

Tania Bedrinana

Tania Bedrinana has some fantastic figurative work her site. This is another artist I'd love to see for real.

Val Britton

I've never seen this work in person but it has been inspiring to view it online.

Julia Schwadron

Julia Schwadron has some interesting new works.

Sarah Gamble

Check out Sarah Gamble. I love these paintings!

Arden Bendler Browning

Always a treat. Arden Bendler Browning has some new work on her site.

Adam Parker Smith

Be sure to click on "Previous Works" to see more of what Adam Parker Smith has been up to. Very exciting and lots of fun.

Beth Edwards

Beth Edwards has new work posted on her site.
Well worth a visit, especially if you are not familiar with her work. Her color is always amazing.

George Hughes

The trip to Buffalo gave me a chance to visit with one of my favorite artists, George Hughes. Check out his work at http://www.gohughes.com

SUNY Buffalo

I'm giving an artist lecture at SUNY Buffalo Monday evening at 6:30pm. Feel free to drop in if you are in the vicinity.

A Thanksgiving Story

Thanksgiving was delicious.

It's always fun to hang out.

Now, go away.

The End.

Winter Reprieve

We had a winter reprieve this Sunday. Perfect for two more Delaware Trail Challenge hikes (only two more left!) These photos are from Holts Landing State Park. It was great to be outside. I've been frantically trying to finish my Christmas knitting. I'm also preparing for a lecture at SUNY Buffalo the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Inspiration

Snow...and signs of life

Splurge

Yesterday, partly to bribe myself into taking my latest part time job and partly because I've been wanting to make this drawing for a while, I bought a set of Prismacolor pencils. And because I REALLY don't want this new part time job I bought the biggest set they have. Oh yeah, and the special Prismacolor sharpener. So now I'm financially obligated. Who knows, maybe I'll even like it. The job that is. I already love the pencils. I've been making grid based work for a few years, concurrent to my other work. In a lot of ways it's much more similar to the knitting process than the painting process, methodical and repetitive. Under normal circumstances I'm a generalist. Specific details are easy for me to leave out so the grid process helps me to connect to a very deliberate recognition of detail. In the studio I'm finishing up the graphite fireworks drawing and now...in the works...a drawing made out of my new colored pencils.

Yesterday afternoon I called on my neighbor and sharpened 71 (I missed 1) pencils while we sat and chatted. It took the entire hour and a half. (Just a warning if you find yourself following suit...put down the pencils when talking about upsetting subjects. I sharpened one of my pencils down and entire inch without realizing it!!!)

Contact Sports

Every year around birthday time I get myself in over my head. Cupcakes do it to me every time-way too much work. These, in case you can't tell, are magnifying glasses. It was a murder mystery party. The kit only came with 6 characters so I had to invent 8 more. (Yes we were crazy enough to invite fourteen 12 year old girls to our rather small apartment.) While I was at it (and since I had to retype all of the books anyway) I changed all of the characters to female (except the dead guy) and eliminated as much of the adultery as possible (so as to offend as few parents as possible). That was a lot of work. The perfectionist in me really wanted to make the little books perfect but time ran out. In fact I finished these cup cakes only 5 min before the guests arrived. But every year I learn something new.

Who knew make-up was a contact sport?

A Thousand Words

In the Studio, November