Springtime in the Rockies

It was 16 degrees when I got up this morning.  It's about 30 degrees right now at 3:30 p.m.  Even for this mile high city, it is a LATE spring.  Thank goodness for friends to go walking with - we save each others sanity by assuring each other that YES - it is okay to be cranky right now.  But not to kill yourself.  I took the photo below just minutes ago at the McCall airport.  Can you even believe it?

I combated winter blues this morning by making a stockpot full of cheery salsa and canning it.  From six quarts of canned tomatoes, some onions, garlic, carrots and cilantro, I got 14 pints of canned salsa and 2 quarts of it in the fridge.  Isn't it pretty?  I so love salsa.  I'll take a jar to my daughter in Boise when I go on Monday as a thank you for staying with her.  Sometimes she shares it with her boyfriend...  and sometimes she doesn't.

Here is a picture to really cheer up a gray day:  "Desert Music" is another commission piece I completed last fall and am very happy with (so is the client, thank goodness).  I use a lot of hand-dyed fabrics from Judy Robertson - they are some of the best hand dyed fabrics I have ever seen.  To see her selections, click on this link and check it out:  www.justimagination.com  Not only is Judy's fabric amazing, she is wonderful to chat with and order from.                              

 

I do not often work in a non-square format so this piece was challenging for me in that way.  In the border, the light gray pieces are accented with a copper washer, a black leather sequin stacked on top, and a turquoise bead on top of that, used to anchor the stack down.  In the picture at right, you can just see this stack in the light gray point.  I am especially happy with the flames and the corn in this piece. 

Looking at the time, I see I just have enough time to go into the studio and work for a bit before husband and dog come home from the work site.  I'm so grateful he still has a work site to go to!

Inaugeral Post!

Several years ago, a client asked me to keep her posted on what I was doing and creating.  It took me a while to cogitate on this and come up with a solution - a BLOG!!  I thoroughly enjoy this format and hope that you will, too.  If you got this, you are a past or present client, art buddy, relative or friend.  That about covers it, doesn't it?  If you would rather not receive my post notices, just drop me an email and I'll remove you from my mailing list.

I am so far behind in letting people know what I'm up to, that I hardly know where to begin.  So in my first post, I think I'll just go back one year to when I started creating a completely different kind of fiber art based on photography.  The following are samples of what I can do now:

This piece, entitled "Fire in the Belly of Winter" (33" x 39"), is created from winter photographs of Valley County that I printed on fabric and collaged.  It is offered for sale through Acorn Gallery in Idyllwild, California www.acorngalleryidyllwild.com

I received three commissions last spring to commemorate the 10th anniversary of The Seven Devil's Playwright's Conference www.idtheater.org; one piece for each of the three directors of the conference.  This is not a great photograph (I was in a hurry - no excuse, I know, but true), but gives an idea of what I can do with many photographs in a collage format. 

Last one!  This client saw "Fire in the Belly" (33" x 39") and wanted a similar piece done featuring her home in McCall and familiar McCall summer scenes.  I took the photographs and printed them on fabric using archival quality inks. 

Printing photographs on fabric takes my art in a new direction and I expect I will be doing much more of this and expanding on the idea by...  printing photos on sheer overlays, scrim, silk, anything I want!

Okay!  Thanks for reading this - as I catch up, my blogs will be shorter (promise).  Off to run town errands and then - my reward - to the studio!  Best of the day to you!