December? What?

Well, here it is coming on Christmas. I have had the feeling I should be knitting to cope with a lot of family stress, but I can't actually get myself to pick up the needles. I don't have a project I'm interested in starting. It's empty-page syndrome, only in knitting terms. At the beginning of November I had the opportunity to talk at a local coffee shop about activist knitting. They put a big article about it in the paper, and the sponsoring shop, Iris, was very good about publicizing. So we went from what was planned as a talk for 20 to a talk for 120. All women, mostly over the age of about 40 or so; not my usual crowd! I don't know if they appreciated the part where I talk about how useful knitted boobs are (TitBits prosthesis for breast cancer survivors, but also there's a group in the UK who knits them to teach breast-feeding to new moms.) Anyway, I think it went okay, but they were a practical bunch, and it was difficult to tell if I was delivering vital and inspiring information, or if they were just happy they got free snacks since my talk was "not their thing." People in Wisconsin are so polite, often to a fault. It's eerie.

Anyway, after the talk you'd think I'd be doing some charity knitting, but I'm not, and I think it's because I've felt (selfishly) that this year I needed some charity myself. Thanksgiving was pretty dreadful... followed by day after day in which we got good news for 2010! And buoying me up as always were my terrific students, and successful alumni. (What would I do without my kids? They actually react when I talk, unlike those audience members from my public talk. I'll take an open and honest scowl over a politely raised eyebrow any day.)

I am vowing then, to start my charity knitting blitz in 2010. If Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan, I'm going to send more stuff there too, through afghans for Afghans.

Now if only the Boy wears the hat I barely managed to knit him for Christmas, I can say 2009 ended on an up-note.

The power of rejection...

It's been a while since I posted. I got a little distracted when school started, as usual. To update, my knitted swimsuits as comment on global warming didn't get into the show in Minneapolis. But I'm okay with it, because I knew even as I was sending it off that I needed to regroup and develop my presentation methods. These are really conceptual works of art, though they use history and craft as the media for the message. Yesterday in critique one of my intro students had a highly conceptual project and we spent a bit of time talking out how her presentation could inform the viewers. Even by the time she put her name on them, she'd begun to develop a label to provide a few clues for the viewer as to context, content, and material relationships. Pretty sophisticated, given that her theme was "Winter."

So, here are some images, and you can tell me what you think you're looking at. I am pretty sure I've missed the mark as far as communicating a darn thing with these, though, my craftsmanship is strong, I did my homework, and with some gentle nudges, I think the meaning will be clear. As I develop the project, hopefully you'll see how this unfolds. John thinks I need to render them as drawings, I'm considering maps, almanac information, and other didactic devices. We'll see. In the meantime, I have to finish that music stand they'll be auctioning off at the Green Bay Civic Symphony performance in November. An artist's work is never done...

A long time ago now, one of my readers said to put more in my blog about Man and I cooking. We've had a great weekend of meals, a good combo of farmer's market, garden, excellent grocery deals (which we both delight in) and the newfound freedom we are experiencing since one of our eaters is now off to college (that would be Boy. We still have dog, but as a kibbleterian, he rarely comes to the table.) One of the reasons I guess I don't write too often about cooking as a use for the sharp and pointed objects is that our knives, while pointed, seem to have become the opposite of sharp.

Last night though, we did use skewers, and they obviously qualify. We made kabobs. This wasn't Man's idea - too much standing at the grill turning for his tastes. And although he says he can't learn to cook without a recipe, he did look at the things I was putting out for marinade and indicate I needed "an acid." I knew this...but the vinegar gets put on high shelves, and I need either chair or Man to help out. Because of Boy's aversion to mustard in all forms, I put in a generous dollop of Grey Poupon, apple cider vinegar, garlic, Worchestershire, fresh oregano and rosemary from the porch, and olive oil. We were marinating beef tenderloin chunks. Stupidly, we'd had a discussion at the grocery about whether or not we should buy a $14.00 piece of beef tenderloin. I was against it, ultimately proving myself pennywise and pound foolish, because later we spent a good deal more for the two "steaks" of same kind of meat in a tiny package, and actually we both agreed we'd be satisfied with about half the beef per kabob - since the things also had small eggplant, small zucchini, oyster mushrooms, red peppers and green peppers (veg just got oil, salt, pepper and garlic to coat). After dinner Man pointed out that we could eat those kabobs a minimum of 5 more times before the end of farmer's market/garden season and consume the whole big tenderloin for very little money per meal. Sharp and pointed, and quite the little home economist is Man.

Anyway, since most of my adult life I've been a financial vegetarian, I'm biding my time before I spring the Bathing Rama on him. I think once he finds out how cheap tofu is, and how you don't even need a very sharp knife to cut it, he might quit this nonsense about huge chunks of beef. I mean, given where we live, those are our neighbors he's talking about.

pointing a camera

So, I've spent the last few weeks knitting some pieces I hope to enter in a show at the Textile Center of Minnesota.  Returning to an old tendency of mine, they are objects based on clothing. Funny how there are these recurring themes over the course of a career - but often I find conceptual art ideas are best presented with reference to the commonplace.  I'll post some pictures presently...but first I have to make the images.  And to do that, I have to consider a few things, like, do I buy a mannequin form and present them on false human form or do I find models? The drawback to models is, I didn't regard any sizing when creating my "garments" - I'm not sure they'll fit a real human, or if I'd need a set of real humans of different sizes, or given that they are really made to be less than comfortable looking, if I'd lose the friends I could recruit for the project!  Also, time is a factor - in all things art, the deadline is king. 

My plan is to attempt to first photograph them flat, or, search my vast hanger collection for a simple, elegant hanging solution for a 2 piece swimsuit prone to stretching, and also check out how they might work on my existing display form (which is tiny and only goes to the hip, with a bar to contend with below.) The next cheapest option is an inflatable display mannequin I can get (with cloth cover) for $20.00 plus shipping. These are sort of nifty inventions, for people who do trade shows and the like. The drawback to the inflatable is that I could see the shiny plastic through the cloth in the sales photo, so, I know I'm going to have to make an adjustment to the form so that the work will

look decent, and the form won't distract from the art.  I also wonder how to secure it so it won't tip when the art is on it - I need to be hands-free.  The last option is to invest about $60.00 in a fiberglas female torso form, which is more of a long-term option, but I feel confident that the fiberglas option is also more likely to be used again in the future (loaned out) and also is a sure re-sale item if I choose to get rid of it.  It's a bit shiny, as well, so it'll need a coat of matte spray paint as well. 

This is where the grant cycles fail me.  I can't wait until school is in session to ask for money to buy these necessities for photographing my work, even though my institution supports purchase of materials related to scholarship (they bought me the camera, for instance) and the cost of the form is well within even shrinking state budgets.  

Smashing, isn't it?

So here're some images from my dining room table, illustrating the wrong way to treat a work of art.  I was all excited to get into Fiber Directions, finally, because throughout my career it's been a show that really seemed to be a benchmark for the serious fiber professional.  This year's award winner, in fact, is someone who's work I show to my students, knitting Adrian Sloane.  (This work also shows up in any of my knitting activism talks.  So kudos to A. Sloane!)

The piece I had in the show (basket called Elk Cove) apparently made it there okay, and shows up in one installation shot on the Wichita Center for Art website.  It doesn't look like the piece suffered any hardships in getting to Wichita.  That show closed on the 16th of May, and all work was to be mailed back by the 29th. I got the box containing Elk Cove back on June 6.  For two weeks I'd been saying to Man, "Hey, I wonder where my work is. That show in Wichita closed on the 16th." Then one day Man came in from the outdoors and said, "Weren't you waiting for a package? There's a really smashed box on the porch addressed to you."  I, of course, thought that he was joking - this is the kind of joke he pulls on me frequently. But, he didn't have that weird little look on his face that tips me off to his deceptions...and there was, in fact, a totally smashed box on the porch with my name on it.  It contained totally smashed artwork, underneath a wrinkled copy of the catalogue, with my packing materials ON TOP of the basket, not around the piece as they'd been when it was sent. Clearly, they have monkeys working in the back room in Wichita.  And they assume no liability, naturally.

Let us contrast then, the work that was returned to me from the Luke and Eloy Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.  The director, Brigitte Martin, contacted me to confirm the address, and noted that it would be sent with signature confirmation, due to arrive on a specific date.  The package arrived a couple days early, and in perfect condition.  And she invited me to post work on their website.  Pittsburgh: the city that gave me two of my favorite professors from Art school, also gives me my new favorite place to show. 

Derailed by life!

I've only been working two sharp and pointed objects lately, a pair of #8 Silvalume knitting needles.  I'm incubating art ideas and coping with the fact I'm dreading studio clean up in the basement by knitting a baby blanket for my nephew and his fiance, who are expecting a baby in January.  It's a bit weird to become someone's great aunt when I've never been a mom, but since it's worked out fairly well to be just a regular aunt-aunt, I am not very nervous about the impending "great." (It's very fun to see my mother freaked out about becoming a great grandmother. Deja vu from when she freaked out about becoming a grandmother!) 

The blanket I'm knitting is something I'm just making up.  It's all yarn from another sort of started but not completed project - last summer a woman from the Cancer Center in Green Bay contacted me about knitting artisan chemo caps to commemorate their opening.  I ordered up some yarn, started making caps (finished a couple I modified from this pattern on knitty.com) and never heard from her again...so I have the two caps and they sit on a shelf in my laundry room closet awaiting the opportunity to be sent off to someone in chemotherapy - I don't know if I'd call them "artisan."  And the leftover yarn is going into a baby blanket.  I don't know about the karma of it all - but I do know I really wanted to talk about design for the hats, wanting to make the best chemo caps ever, and this seemed to be beyond the volunteer coordinator's ability - I think she just wanted them to be funky, I wanted them to be attractive but well designed and above all, functional.  (I'm guessing they found a different source for the caps, since as I said she never contacted me, and I hope it was a group somehow connected with Green Bay's best yarn shop, Monterey Yarns.) Ideally, I would have liked to design the caps, dye the yarn, knit the caps and really do it right start to finish - but that seems like a really nice full-time job.

The problem with being an academic is that many things go unattended to summer-to-summer. It's like I'm always being confronted with what I didn't do the last summer.  Summer is basically one long to-do list of things to make and fix and arrange and record, so that during the school year, I something to report on to show I'm worth paying (besides that teaching thing.) Already this year I'm going to probably miss a deadline for a book I feel I should be in, but I'm having issues with the weather making the house too dark to shoot an image of a particular wearable, which I have to be wearing in order for it to make sense, and Man runs out of patience for these projects.  I don't know why he doesn't have hours to follow me around our house with my camera, looking for neutral walls with adequate light!  I guess it would help if we didn't have art on all our walls. I'm so totally blowing this deadline. Sigh.  I guess I should learn how to use the timer on my camera, and do the self-portrait thing all the photo kids are doing these days. 

Pittsburgh show

Review on blog from Pittsburgh show at Luke and Eloy.  Also, goodish pictures of some of the other work, showing (I think) that I'm in very good company.  

Lazy pays off

Today I was surprised to hear from the head of the National Basketry Organization.  Apparently, a woman who runs a gallery in Portland OR saw the images of the Web and Flow show in Minneapolis, and selected 15 baskets to put in her gallery for the duration of the National Basketry Organization annual conference this summer.  My basket, Lazy Amphora, was one of those chosen!  (For those keeping track: 300 entered Web and Flow, 80 got in. Of those 80, 15 were chosen for the Portland show.) Web and Flow received mixed reviews, with one reviewer saying it was the basketry show of the year, another claiming that "too much art" was a bad thing in baskets. For once, I was happy not to be mentioned in the press. 

This basket thing...I guess I should keep going.  I was unsure, since the last batch I sent off to be juried were not accepted (though, the one non-basket piece was, and is, going to be in a show called Fibers Expanded opening next week at the Luke and Eloy Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.)  Very flattering to be selected!  I only wish I could go to Portland for the conference and secure the title of a bona fide basket case.  

Other baskets: "Elk Cove" continues to show at National Fiber Directions, in Wichita. These shows are not reviewed any more, apparently we've been showing the nation's direction in fibers for too many years?  Anyway, other baskets: Cream Puff, which Husband says resembles Davy Damkoehler, and Carp, a new "sister basket" to Elk Cove, now appearing in my dining room, where the work for the Luke and Eloy show normally resides.

After the Flood

Well, those of you who actually know me, and have spent time in my home, office, or studio, know that I live in a state of what appears to be chaos, but which is actually a fairly functional illusion of complete disarray.  I know where my stuff is, but you won't.  It works well for me, until unexpected things happen. Like when the dog bed overflows the washer and floods the basement. And the water pours down on artwork packed in cardboard boxes, and old suitcases, and packages of taped together bubble wrap.  

Fortunately all the unused yarn and fabric are stored in mismatched jumbo plastic bins. And the family photos left on the table since Christmas? Spared the drips from the ceiling by an untidy - but fortuitously located - pile of mat-board, which created sort of a paper-pulp levee for me. 

A "true confessions" moment: when work comes back from an exhibition, I rarely open it up to see if it's okay. This is probably a bad practice, since I can't collect any insurance on damages, but since most of my work is made of cloth, and therefore pretty much unbreakable, I prefer to leave it neatly packed and labeled from the gallery or exhibit space. So, who knows if any of the stuff that got soaked in the flood was in good condition? Some of it was almost 10 years old. The crushing blow was that it made me realize how much unsold work I have stored down under the laundry room.  It seemed like a lot. Most of it was only partly ruined, meaning, if I wanted to show it again I'd have to build some replacement parts. But I don't know if any of it would be something I'd want to show anymore. So my big question is, what to do with unsold work?  If you've done me a favor lately, you might find a package on your doorstep...

A little yarn, a little dye.

So today I ordered some new supplies for the classroom from my old friends at Dharma. Dharma Trading Company has been my supplier of all things dye related since I started out as an undergraduate and had to order my first "blanks."  It's a hippy outfit in California, and they claim very clean monkeys will be packing my order when I get my confirmation emails.  When I ask for extra catalogues for the students, I always get a nice note from a real person, telling me whether or not they can send them, or with a due date on when the new catalogue is coming out (March, 2009, BTW.) Over the years they have grown and diversified and are now probably one of two places most professional-type textiles people go for dye (the other being ProChem in MA) but they're my main source for dyeable fabrics and such, because their inventory is really gigantic at this point.  

Today I thought to check out their dye ready yarns. This was a very small selection last time I looked, and since KnitPicks has unbeatable pricing on their "Bare" line, I'd not thought to look further until today. Well, I was amazed. They've got not only wool and cotton but a bunch of clever blends and intriguing options. They also have undyed Brown Sheep Lambs Pride, which is the number one favorite yarn for the felting crowd. It's not super economical, but with the options, I might have to break down and try out some "Licorice Twist" which claims to be all wool, but with one strand that will take the dye differently than the others.  I'm all about the two effects in one step process.  I'll be sure to post my results so you can see what comes of it. 

In other news... two of the three baskets from "Three Baskets I made in Fall 2008" are on the road. Lazy Amphora is off to Minneapolis for the Web and Flow show, and then Elk Cove is going to Wichita for National Fiber Directions.  Both shows put my work in good company and I feel pretty lucky right now!  My mom pointed out I didn't say how big they were. The answer is, they're small.  Lazy Amphora is about 6 inches tall. Elk Cove is about 8 inches tall and a foot wide at its largest spread. (So much for putting all my eggs in either of them.  Guess I'll have to make some more!)  Thank you to the kind facebook friends who commented so positively on the three I've shown you so far. Let's all hope the next bunch is as good, or dare I hope, even better.

Stitch Gallery

This week the Art program decided to surplus some lockers, including the one that was the original home of the Stitch Gallery, Locker 527.  So with help from artist/woodshop technician Mark Sauter, the Stitch was demo'd and will relocate sometime in the next couple of weeks. I thought I'd show some images of the old Stitch so you can compare to what the new one looks like once it's up and running. This picture is of the Puff Paint Challenge. Oh, and the winner of the November 2008 Stitch Challenge (I "heart" Good Will) is Rachel Keeper. I'll post an image of her winning receipt-and-stitching broach soon.

Making while waiting.

Our cars are not running well. It's nearly impossible to live without transportation, and we live in a place where that transportation pretty much has to be a car.  We have no bus line nearby, nor train, no trolley or golf cart.  In summer, we do have some access to Boy's moped, but in winter, it's one of two very impractical cars.  Man and I both bought our cars when we were single and had the money (or credit) and freedom to purchase something that appealed to our senses, rather than our sense of duty.  Just about a month ago, I found out that my car was designed using something I think is called human recognition marketing.  Basically, it was designed so people would have the same brain-wave reaction upon seeing it as we do when we look at babies. Apparently, I was so out of touch with my biological clock I bought a car instead of starting a baby project.  (Well, now the car is causing about as much trouble as a wayward teen.) And as for Man's car?  Do not expect that luxury prices will buy reliability in frigid climates.  

And all of that is my way of saying, I'm missing knitting group today, and I'm not happy about it.  The weather and the transportation issues are killing my social life and that, according to Good Housekeeping Magazine, may shorten my life!  Ah well, someone will get a lot of good yarn and fabric when I do go. 

Three baskets I made in Fall, 2008

A long time ago, Michael Cepress and I went to visit Kay Flick (see my first post) and she sold us a big box of vintage hat trims she'd gotten on ebay thinking they were "antique" instead of "vintage."  We divided the goods up, and since it was all pretty light weight as art supplies go, they've made it through 3 moves with me.  I finally began to work with the stuff, which is mostly 50's and 60's millinery horsehair braiding, and came up with these 3 small baskets.  The bottom one, called "Lazy Amphora" has been accepted into "Web and Flow, Contemporary Baskets" show coming up at the Textile Center, in Minneapolis.  The others are called "Elk Cove" (top) and "Dark Pull" (bottom.)  

The top photo was taken with my new camera, compliments of a Grant in Aid of Research from the university. Thanks, University!