While She Naps

night is coming

mixed media collage/ sculpture
(rusted sheet metal, bingo chips, wire, flour sack, wood and paper ephemera on oval canvas)

I found this piece of rusted sheet metal on our street two weeks ago while on a walk with Stella and another neighborhood mom and her littlest son.  Isn't it great!  Like a topographical map or the veil of nighttime descending.  And I found the round piece of rusted metal on a walk, too, about six months ago.  I originally thought it would become the center of a sand dollar, but it seems to work here, too, as a twinkling star.

I am thinking a little bit now about creating other soft sculpture forms to affix to collages.  I'm still not quite sure what they would be, but it might help me move along some to give it a try.

Camp Glassenberg here has been an intense experience.  No nap means no break for me from 6:30 am - 6:30 pm.  I am trying to get used to this new schedule. Roxanne and I have been spending some really nice time baking and working with clay and eating popsicles on the patio during Stella's afternoon nap, but is really exhausting, too.

Fortunately serious cuteness abounds.  Look whose hair is finally long enough for a "fountain" ponytail

I think she's officially a toddler now.

Get Ready. Get Set.

"Get Ready. Get Set."
10" x 8" mixed media sculpture and collage
(wood, ephemera, wire, matchbox, nails, flour sack)

I like this piece. 

The other day I started collaging a rectangular scrap of wood and as it went along it started to look a bit like an urban landscape to me. It wasn't quite big enough on its own so I mounted it on an 8" x 10" canvas and began to play with adding other elements.

I feel like this bird is pausing in thought, ready to take off and fly over the city.   

I had fun pouring all those little nails into the painted matchbox. Having it turned upside down makes me tense, and I think fits the overall feeling here.

Roxanne finished her sixth and final week of summer camp today.  Next week begins the unstructured part of our summer.  I'm thinking plenty of beach days and time spent outside with drippy popsicles.

this made my day

Nest of thread VII is the featured piece on the Three Graces Gallery website announcing the upcoming show, "Things With Wings."  That was exciting to see this morning. 

I will spend the first week of August getting everything ready for the show and then I will be driving to Portsmouth, NH, on Monday, August 6, to deliver at least eight of the nest of thread series, maybe a few more. Once I know for sure which pieces will go, I will put a list and the gallery's contact information here so that all you nice people who have contacted me about buying something from this series can get in touch with the gallery directly.

The opening will be Friday, August 10, from 5 pm - 8 pm and will be part of the Portsmouth Gallery Walk.  Please come by and say hello to me if you can!

hunger 4 you

"hunger 4 you"
mixed media sculpture
(linen, wood, wire, glass bead, paper ephemera)

A few weeks ago I responded to a post on Craigslist - someone in my neighborhood was giving away a bunch of scraps of wood.  I went over there one evening after putting the kids to bed and got a lot of great stuff. 

The idea for this piece began when I painted one of the wood blocks light blue and it just sort of grew from there.  I wanted to do another one with the bird alighting and I love this image of the hungry hungry baby bird looking up blindly for food.  It so reminds me of those early days of nursing a baby when they just close their eyes and cry for you to put the nipple in their mouths. 

We have been going through a bit of an adjustment here because Roxanne has now nearly lost her afternoon nap.  Which means I get to spend lovely one-on-one time with her doing all the things that are so difficult to do when the baby is awake - like playing Go Fish and making things out of modeling clay and baking together.  But it also means that I have lost my naptime crafting time.  Gosh.  This blog is now officially a misnomer. 

She goes to bed earlier, though, so I'm trying my best to be more focused in the evening when the house is quiet.   

ox and cart

I made something new.  And it's not a bird.  This piece started with the head.  I had decided to make a doll and to try a head with little darts all around the face, but once it was stuffed it started looking more and more like a muzzle to me, suggesting a cow.  So I cut some white and red flour sack and made cow's ears and then I thought maybe it should be a bull. Horns and a big nose ring followed.  Okay, now it seemed like an ox. 

The head was pretty heavy so when I made the body I put a small fishing weight in each foot and a big one in the main body cavity.  He has a really nice weight to him now.  Next came a swishing tail. 

And then I thought he should be hauling something.  For a few days I had the idea that he could be pulling a wooden stroller with a little red-faced baby inside (a reflection, perhaps, of how I feel pushing that double stroller up the hill on the way home from our walks through town).   But after a bit of thinking I figured a simple ox-cart would be better. 

Mimi and I met up Monday morning at the Button Box where I picked up some red Kona cotton to make the cart.  I also got some beeswax, by the way, after reading Amy's awesome new book and learning that beeswax can keep the thread from getting into a tangle when hand-sewing.  Works like a charm!

So that's the story of the ox and cart.  This piece will go to Plush You, hopefully with a few other things yet to be made. 

Honestly now, though, I think it might be back to birds.


 

where 2?

where 2?
mixed media shadow box
(fabric, wire, compass, dice and wood)

This piece is appropriately titled.  I really need to move on now to something new.  I guess I'm a bit afraid, strangely feeling out of the swing of making things besides birds.  I did some sketching last night and cleaned up all the little messes in my studio space in our bedroom.  Maybe I need to have no expectation about what exactly I will make and just get started.

We spent the morning at the Needham parade.  Happy 4th of July to you!