I STILL wonder about the people across the street. Do you?

Do you still carry with you – as in your pocket - images from childhood?

Thinking  about one of my earliest art quilts, “Wondering About the People Across the Street,” I discovered this wonderful quotation from Robert Penn Warren about the strength of childhood memories:

“When you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands big and full and fills up Time.”

I can still remember houses on the street where I lived. I remember walking past them in the evening and looking in the windows. I believe it was part of the process of sorting out my place in the world.

Was my family the same as other families?
What would it be like living in somebody else’s house?
How did I feel about my own home and my place in it?

I created “Wondering about the People Across the Street” in 2014.  I had not begun the current series about home, but certainly the memory of childhood was in my mind and urging me to create something. I was drawn to bold coloring book colors to emphasize the childlike quality of the memory. And I wanted the figure on the porch to be a simple silhouette. She is both my childhood self and every other child.

Today, I am still interested in what’s behind windows and inside homes. As Robert Penn Warren wrote, “What you remember seems forever.”
 

Here’s a detail of a work in progress in my studio now that reveals my ongoing wondering  about life beyond the windows.

Here’s the completed work form 2014, "Wondering about the People Across the Street.” It’s in the journeys and stories gallery of my website, HERE

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Striking’ while the sun is hot… the unexpected… and some closeups

When the rain finally broke earlier this week, I knew it was time to spring into action. I had lots of yardage that needed painting, and we’d had nothing but rain.

I set up a 6-foot door on sawhorses right outside my studio door on a concrete area which I gave up trying to keep clean a long time ago. I can drip without fear here, and a nearby fence section provides a place for drying.

I generally start with plain unbleached muslin for my quilt backs and then create painted patterns compatible with the quilt’s front. I like to work wet and fast. First I used the garden hose in a fine spray to get my yardage pretty well damp. With a wet natural sponge and acrylic paints, I got down the background color, a deep violet blue.

I hung it on the fence to dry.

That ‘s when the first unexpected surprise occurred. As I lifted the muslin off my table, the vinyl cover over the surface had pools of water and paint in beautiful patterns. It was a now-or-never opportunity. I quickly went inside and grabbed a few yards of sheer polyester, brought it out and gently laid it down in those irregular pools. What a beautiful surface design I’d captured!

Next I needed some teal fabric, so I mixed the color and sponge painted about three yards of that, wet into wet. Again, when I lifted it up off the table, beautiful irregular pools were there. I picked up the sheer that had violet blue on it already, and pressed it into the table surface again. Aaaah!

After all this dried (in a wonderfully short time, thanks to the Florida sun) I painted abstract tree forms, again using the wet natural sponge, but this time with stencils, both the muslin and the sheer.

Result: I have some muslin for quilt backing plus some watercolor-like sheer polyester to incorporate into a quilt front. And a little more spatter and drip on the concrete.

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What happens if I actually read -- and follow -- my own “Notes to Self?”

I started this week with a note-to-self about content.

Working in the studio, it is easy to get involved in process and technique. That’s the day-to-day work of artmaking. But, I felt the need this week to remind myself, to remember, that it’s the thought and memories that are the whole reason for artmaking.

I have a number of works-in-progress right now, all dealing with the concept of home. Home is what you remember. Because this is such a personal subject matter, a number of times I have been absolutely stopped short by an image.

When I was creating the art quilt of row houses, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia. I grew up in that neighborhood. I have walked a sidewalk in front of those homes and looked in the windows. I rode my bike in the alley behind the houses. To see those images come to life on my worktable was an act of remembering.

When I created the art quilt based on photos of an abandoned house n South Carolina, I remembered standing there by the side of the road. I remember now the smell of pine and the sound of the pine needles beneath my feet. It was an off-the-beaten path road with little traffic. The house was overgrown with vines; the roof was gone. A fire, probably. I found it hauntingly beautiful, rich with somebody else’s life and memories.

This week, I’ve tried to give myself time to have some of those stop-dead-in-my-tracks moments on purpose. The shapes of houses. A small child drawing. A distant house through the trees. A large detailed bird nest. All are filled with meaning. I don’t want to get too busy to see and remember.

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A fleeting gift of sunlight...

Earlier this week, in the evening when the sun is slanted and seems to be infused in gold, I was in my studio sewing and looked across to my worktable and supply shelf.

It was perfect.

A perfect infusion of light and warmth into the place I create, the place where I feel most at home. The evening light cast shadows and created highlights. And my studio was filled with a color I could never recreate. So simple. Such a simple, beautiful, peaceful moment in a day in which I had changed gears many times. It was a gift.

Sunlight through a window is a favorite subject matter of artists for easy-to-understand reasons. The light transforms everyday objects. And it connotes warmth and healing. And artists, whose nature is to see things other people do not easily see, and to show those things through the creation of work, are given a gift of subject matter. In the comic strip, the baby name Trixie makes friends with her sunbeam, and greets it with “Hello, sunbeam.” Visual artists from the Renaissance to Edward Hopper have been attracted to simple objects that have been transformed by light through a window.

The quality of light – the warmth-color in the air itself, is a memory trigger. Looking at the sunlight across my worktable I remembered the feel of sun on my arms or neck, how it penetrates the skin with a tangible sense of well-being. Even now, long after I have given up my teenaged sunbathing habits with the common sense of adulthood, I love the feel of sun on my skin.

And it did not last. Even from the time I first looked up from my sewing to the time I went to retrieve my camera- the light had changed. That, I think, is part of the appeal. Sunlight through a window is beautiful, and temporary. We have to pause to see it and feel it or it will be gone.

And so it was time to resume the work of sewing. Gifted and warmed.

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Thinking about nest-building

Recently I watched a video of a bird weaving a nest. I was mesmerized. The process is one for which I truly do not have adequate words. Wondrous. Intricate. Detailed. Elaborate. Complex.

On my worktable today I have been looking at the image of a bird nest that I am working into an art quilt – not yet  named – but part of the series “Home is what you remember.” I found a beautiful nest several years ago and photographed it. I have transferred the photo onto fabric and I am allowing the delicate woven patterns to take center stage in this composition.

It is the perfect visual metaphor for home. In my own life journey, “home” and all its meanings are as complex as the intertwined twigs in this image. I believe most people’s feelings about home are very complex. Most of us have some fondness for a home – maybe our original home, maybe one we chose later in life. Those feelings are sometimes mixed with intense longing. Or, the memories may be confusing. Or difficult. Or hurtful.

I have worked with a photographic image of a nest in several previous pieces, using detailed stitching to define the twig shapes. I discovered two things.

First, awe. Tracing the patterns of this object created by a bird is inspiring. As I follow the line of a twig, then start and stop at points of intersection, I am experiencing the deep complexity of the construction.

Second, the sweep of memory. Immersing myself in the sound of the sewing machine chug-chugging, tracing the lines comprising the nest, feeling the rhythm of the image; these actions create an almost trance-like absorption in the process. It allows me to travel to memories and dreams of home and all that it means to me.

This series about home is tapping into some of the deepest parts of my own life experience. I hope that the details and patterns will speak deeply to those who look at the art as well.

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A chicken or the egg kind of question… and does it make a difference?

If the order of making gets changed around… does it make a difference?

As an experiment in artmaking with textiles, I recently tried reversing the order of the whole process. It's been  revealing and interesting

My textile works have some of the characteristics of a painting and some of the characteristics of an art quilt.  I always start with blank fabric, creating my own fabrics with acrylic paints. I monotyope print, stencil, stamp, use relief printing and paint directly. But, generally, I am making batches of fabric, then cutting them up and incorporating them into a collaged and stitched composition.

There’s a lot I like about this way of creating. But sometimes, by starting with individual pieces, I feel like I lose sight of the overall composition, especially big shapes and values. If there are things I need to correct, I don’t always see it till I’m pretty far along.

So, with a piece that’s still a work in progress, I started with the big picture first. I cut a large piece of muslin a little bigger than the finished size, (about 36"H x 48"W) then ripped it into five random sections. I taped them back together (on the back) so that I again had one large piece. I gessoed the fabric to stiffen it up then treated it like a painting canvas. Using hand-cut stencils in the shape of houses, I painted with a roller to get the overall composition roughed in.  It felt quite different – working more like a painter and less like a quilter. At this point, I could see the finished composition. I knew what was successful ad what was not right from the beginning.

THEN I untaped the sections and worked on them individually. I added some texture with paint, collaged in some new fabrics, and added stitching for texture over the whole piece.

THEN I sewed the sections back together again to recreate the whole. Now, I felt more like a quilter.

For me, this has been like adding a new language to my studio vocabulary. I will continue to work in the reverse order on some pieces, and sometimes combine the two procedures.

My studio “note-to-self” this week says “Creativity demands experimentation.” Yes.

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Abandoned… Rediscovered… Remembered…

Discovering this abandoned house in South Carolina was an art inspiration. I blogged about in January, writing that the experience of finding this spot was a gift discovered by taking the long way, the off-the-highway path driving home to Florida.

Since then the house stayed on my mind. A work-in-progress in the studio now is beginning to take the images and create a new reality. (Video below in this blog post.)

What was so compelling, standing there by the house, was looking through the door and the broken windows and seeing trees and vines growing up inside the house, filling it. In a strange way, although the growth filled the space, it emphasized the emptiness. Homes are expected to hold people and life, not overgrown vines.

What interested me was this feeling of unreality. Instead of depicting the house realistically as we discovered it, I wanted to translate it into a dream-like memory.

Photos of the paint-peeled door and the overgrown windows have been transferred onto muslin. (I use a gel medium transfer from a laser color printout, pieced together to fill the size I need. These are tedious, but I like the final effect.)

The photographic images are being placed in a childlike, two-dimensional house shape, along with other fabrics, colors and textures. I will be adding tree forms behind to recreate the sense of loneliness the place held for me.

As I work on all the pieces in my “Home is what you Remember” series, I am trying to listen. To the images. To the memories. To what they stir inside me.

                  What happens when the people leave the house?
                  Something else will grow there.

You can watch the process unfold in this video.

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Gotta Keep Creative… Here’s What I’m Trying

Welcome to Wonderful Wednesdays!

It seems strange to confess to a need to keep creative. Creating is what I do all day! I’m a disciplined studio worker. I pour my morning coffee, walk ten steps, and there I am in the studio – at work!

(Hmmm. That first sentence may have revealed a lot. Work. Not. Play.)

Mostly, I am creating larger works, art quilts. I enjoy the challenge of working in a range of 36”H to about 48”W. I feel at home in that scale. Right now, I have six different pieces in progress in the studio.

BUT... larger works take longer. I enjoy the process. But sometimes it’s like a cross country trek – step after step to be completed. Parts of the process are a bit of a slog.

Recently I pulled out some rice paper pieces I had printed a while ago, found some watercolor paper, and built a few collages. It felt wonderful!  Not TOO small; miniatures just don’t seem to speak to me. These will fit a 16 x 20 frame. But the smaller scale is manageable to keep fresh through the whole process.

Also new for me is that these are abstract compositions. Recently, I’ve been creating representational larger works. The abstracts allow a laying down of items intuitively, turning them upside down to find an intriguing angle and discovering the composition as I go.

I’ve created a few already and I like what I’m discovering.

I’ve experimented with some palettes that are not-my-normal choices

I’ve added some layers of overprinting I did not expect.

I look forward to finishing a new one once a week and introducing it on my web site as Wonderful Wednesday Collage.  The first one will be posted tomorrow morning.

I hope you’ll take a look and enjoy the journey with me.

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Half awake… and what was revealed.

Half awake, half asleep, I was thinking of tangled tree limbs seen through broken windows. I knew they were waiting to be revealed.

And so in this morning’s quiet I began the process of removing and revealing. There are gentle sounds associated with this studio work. The spray of water from the hose onto outside concrete wetting the paper. A gentle breaking of the surface of the vinegar- soap solution with the dipping of my cloth. And the rhythmic rubbing. Rubbing. Peeling away the paper to reveal the image on the muslin below.

Discovering the images as they emerge is itself a new way of seeing. Before I transferred, the paper copy was a mirror image of what will finally be revealed. Rubbing away the paper film is a discovering of the shapes that interested me from the onset, but now reversed, patterned in a new way.

As I rubbed, discovered, revealed I remembered the experience of shooting the photographs. We were in rural South Carolina, and an abandoned, roofless, vine-filled house was waiting for me. The walk to the house was through a thick bed of pine needles. Wind whispered in the pine trees. The photos I recorded capture that feeling of stillness and loss.

Who lived there? How did the house become abandoned? How long has it been decomposing? Does anyone visit this place? What memories might it hold?

Once the images are assembled as part of a large quilted work, I want the composition to invite the viewer in by conjuring up questions. The questions will become another layer. Memory layer. Captured photo layer. Composed layer. Fabric layer. Dream layer. All held within the tangled tree limbs and broken windows.

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... but then I was wrong!

You have a great idea for your next artwork. Now what?

I was preparing a workshop for Arts Etc., the surface Design group in which I’m a member. It was my turn to teach this past month and this was to be my lesson.

And I felt good about my plans. I spend a lot of time on developing concepts for my work. I sketch. I try them out in Photoshop. I enlarge manually to be sure the vision works at full size. I’m competent at the math of proportions so I get the image to fit right. And I’ve developed a few personal tricks to help me “see” the concept as a composition and to make good cropping decisions.  All good.

Feeling well prepared to teach the lesson, I had – for a little while – gotten into the happy thought that I had pretty much conquered this topic, and that what I was going to teach was THE composing method textile artmakers would need most.

Then, the night before the workshop, I visited a thought-provoking exhibit of work by textile artist Lauren Austin, exhibiting at the Yvonne Scarlett Golden Center in Daytona Beach. What a wonderful body of work. The mages are still inside my head. Her works are lyrical, and spiritual, with a meaningful array of images that repeat throughout the body of work. And, it was obvious from absorbing these works how intuitive she is in her making. The compositions are strong and interesting. They seem to come from the images, not to dictate them.

Shaken to think in a new way (one of the great things that can happen when interacting with another artist’s work) I realized – of course – that there are different ways to get your idea down on the fabric. There are as many ways to handle the nuts and bolts of artmaking as there are artists and art ideas.

I did teach the next day. I do believe it was a good working class and offered some helpful ideas. But I shared with the group that my guideposts to traveling from idea to artwork are just my way. But not the only way.

And my way, I hope, will also grow and change.

More about Lauren Austin….. https://thatblackgirlart.com/

The artwork shown above is “Becoming One With the Night”
In the Journeys and Stories Gallery HERE

The need to "Un-Hermit"

How tempting it is. I long for days when I can just bury myself in my studio. I love being surrounded by my artmaking things, going back through my sketchbook, sitting and just looking at works in progress to envision what’s next. Solitary work is pleasing.

But, wonderful things happen when I leave the studio and become involved in the community. Wonderful for me. And, I have to believe, important, in the way that all the simple, huimble contributions of community members add up to shaping the character of the world.

This week, after a coffee meeting in downtown DeLand, I shot this picture of an electric box covered with a digital image of my artwork. The sun was lighting up the box nicely – as if it were posing for me. It was a simple and good affirmation of the value of public art in our community. My work is only on this  box because I responded to a call-for-artists. And that only took place because some volunteers had vision for this project and did all of the legwork needed to make it happen. Now, people I talk to in town, even if they don’t know I have anything to do with this project, say, “Wow. Have you seen those cool boxes around town with art on them?” Simple, small additions to the fabric of life.

The coffee meeting I attended will create a project less visible. My Rotary club is working with the other two Rotary clubs in DeLand, along with the Early Learning Coalition, to fund a program that sends books every month to preschool children in our community. When it’s up and running, there will not be visible things on street corners. But the lives of these children will be better. And it will only happen because groups of people cared enough to attend early morning meetings, write grants, talk on the phone and e-mail other people to ask for help, and do the legwork to make it happen.

Solitary artmaking is pleasing. Living my whole life alone and un-connected would not be pleasing.

Talk it through… “Someone who has found a process”

I like to talk. Generally, I do not find it scary. But this weekend on DeLand’ Studio Art Tour, I re-discovered some wonderful things that happen when talking specifically about my own artmaking.

Clarification. Refining. Deepening.

In addition to friendly chats and welcomes to my studio, I had the chance to engage in some great conversations about the series I am beginning now: the meanings of home, as represented by shapes of houses. I have done a lot of thinking abut this already, as part of my own personal journey. But, as I answered questions and described the processes (both the technical how-to processes and the sketch-to-art thinking process,)  I was able to enrich my own thoughts. The very experience of the talking deepened and improved my own understanding.

Poet William Stafford describes poetry in a similar way, and I love this:

'A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.'"

Things I would not have thought of till I started to make art about them.

The creative process is an experience with many levels. One of the great realizations about this discovery is that we don’t have to have everything all figured out before beginning. We can begin. We can listen to the work. We can talk about the work. And all of that becomes part of our own understanding.

Work-in-Progress… Row House Neighborhood

I grew up in Baltimore. When I was born my family lived in a row house. Our car was parked on the street out front. In the back, little identical yards opened onto an alley, the place for riding bikes and playing catch.

My parents longed to move across the main road to the neighborhood of individual, non-attached houses. Each would have a driveway. Each would have its own backyard. There was a neighborhood school. The houses were mixed styles: brick, stone, clapboard, almost all two story, facing streets lined with maple trees.

This was the post-war dream, and they believed in it completely. A family started in a row house. Then they moved to the better neighborhood.

When I discovered a photo of a row house neighborhood, I was filled with affection for the families living in them. I wanted to create a warm vibrant depiction of the neighborhood. In my completed work, the people will not be visible. But they will fill the scene. The houses are alive with pattern and energy just as the actual houses were alive with the real aspirations and dreams of their inhabitants.

Creating image of homes – homes that evoke memories, and homes that allow us to peek inside the windows to imagine the lives within, are continually fascinating to me.

Once She Could… take a look and let the poem tell the story

This  textile collage was juried in and will be headed to Woodstock, Illinois to be part of the 31st Annual Women’s Works exhibition at Old Courthouse Center.  It’s a fine art exhibition of work in all mediums.

As I packed up the piece in its shipping box today, I spent some time looking at it more closely. There’s a lot going on in it, and I remembered both the memories and meanings I put into it and the technical process of making it.

I have created several works featuring a young girl depicted as a black silhouette. It evokes memories of a paper doll and, without specific features, has universal appeal. Here she’s writing at the blackboard. Writing, drawing… what? I feel her reaching on tiptoes to complete the image. (Having always been among the shortest in class, I relate to this.) Rather than place her in a physical, recognizable schoolroom I have suggested a blackboard, and created an otherwise dream-filled environment. There is soothing water with tree reflections. There are tangled roots. There are blossoms on branches, loosely connected to what she is drawing on the blackboard. There are blocks of non-representational color and texture. Whatever this environment is, it is complex. I want to draw the viewer in to taste some of the forces and feelings that are part of her world.

As I created the piece, words for a poem were in my mind. I did not write the whole poem till after the work was complete. I was an elementary aged student in years when girls were not taught or encouraged to think about their potential or their possibilities. This sense of entrapment is part of what I was feeling as I created her environment.

The collaged layers make this work almost rigid, although it is fabric bound and backed as an art quilt. I used gel medium photo transfers of original photos onto muslin for the water, the roots and parts of the branches with blossoms. Other areas use monotype printed textures, stencils, direct painting, and varied patterns of machine stitching. The backing is hand painted muslin in colors to match the work.

I love this little girl. I fin myself thinking about her and all she might be. Girls should not feel trapped, and – like imagined characters they draw – they should soar!

One thing leads to another...

A bee becomes a bird becomes a fish…

The work of MC Escher always provokes amazement and wonder. How did he do that? How did he accomplish his transformations with such incredible detail? What cerebral mix of mathematical and artistic interest works out over and over the intricacies of perception, perspective and transformation?

DeLand’s Museum of Art is currently hosting a wonderful collection of Escher’s prints. Some are lithographs. Most are woodcuts. All are exquisitely detailed and planned. After leaving the exhibition, I called the images to mind, remembering the patterns and images that most stuck with me.

His use of color is especially intriguing. Many of the works are black and white. And many appear to be black and white but actually have a very subtle hint of color imprinted from a second block or a second press hit. Such beautiful greys! I found myself in my studio looking at my color wheel, finding the greys and thinking about how enriching they are.

And the simple idea of transformation. There is nothing simple about the execution – they are breathtaking in their detail. But the concept is simple and compelling. One thing becomes another. Then it may change back into what it was. Or it may become a new thing.

 To artmakers, this is a studio reality. One process leads to another, which may open up a new door, or may lead on a path back to the original way of working. Things change. Ways of working change. How interesting, how interwoven it is.

The magic that occurs during a studio visit

I’ve just been working on some promotions for the upcoming Studio Arts Tour in DeLand. It’s caused me to remember some of the visitors I had last year, and why it is so important to me to show people what I make and how I make it.

I remember several times last year when I had as many as fifteen people at a time in my tiny studio. (I’ve moved since then, and there’s more room.) The visitors had such great questions! I was working on a large fabric-pieced quilt the weekend of the show. Since it was in 6” squares, it was easy to keep busy in between visitors. When guests arrived, I was either collaging pieces on the small squares, or moving the squares around my worktable to develop the composition of the piece. Things that I take for granted are really interesting to studio guests. What kind of glue do I use? What kind of paint? Why do I choose certain colors? Where do I get my ideas? Every question caused me to think through my process so that I could supply a meaningful answer. It became a process of clarifying my own work. I was so grateful for the attentiveness and interest of those who visited.

I had some great experiences like that during outdoor Festivals last fall. I especially enjoyed several visiting groups of students. What great questioners they were! They went straight for content. They wanted to know about meaning, and the symbols I use, and whether I draw on stories or mythology. A few had been in art class enough to know terms like value, balance and contrast, and we had good discussions about those elements in my work.

So… I’m getting ready! I always enjoy showing art, and I really enjoy selling art! But even more, the tour will be an opportunity for me to think about my own artmaking. I can’t know in advance what thoughts I’ll have. But my visitors will guide me!

Life Lesson: Artists know there’s more to work than what you learn in school

My undergraduate art degree simply did not include power tools 101. But an artists-as-entrepreneur learns what every other kind of entrepreneur learns. Sometimes you’ve just got to do what needs to be done. Today, it’s sanding and painting frames. Not creative. But part of the process. And, as a change from my usual artmaking routine, a very pleasing task.

If you ever review a resume and see “independent studio artist” as part of the work experience, this should go in the “plus” column. Studio artists need to be problem-solvers. We need to be self-motivated and self-directed. We need to work under deadlines. We need to balance long-term projects with immediate concerns. We take pride in our work. We have, almost always, experienced failure, and learned from it.  We need to understand budgets and product pricing. We need to be good researchers, studying art history, contemporary trends, materials, our competitors, gallery opportunities and sometimes even glue adhesion properties. Many student artists are both right-brainers and left-brainers: envisioning and creating the product, and then doing the marketing, bookkeeping and inventory associated with it.

Like most stereotypes, “artist-as-flighty-snowflake” is a myth. We work hard at what we do.

And, of course, sometimes we get to play with power tools!

BOREDOM? REALLY? YOU GOTTA-BE-KIDDING-ME

Recently I heard a radio story about experiments in boredom. The premise was astounding to me. Two reporters were to begin the bold experiment (could such a thing be possible?) of turning off the cell phone and stowing it away for twenty minutes at a time. To experience boredom. Because not being on the phone is equated with being bored.

Really? Is this real? The word one should use to describe not being plugged in to continuous texting-gaming-digital-socializing is “boredom?”

Whatever hours I find to be unplugged and quiet are cherished. It’s when I am most creative and productive. Working in quiet allows rhythms and patterns to merge in my thoughts and in my artmaking. In the same way that brain-while-sleeping is creating and rearranging through dreams and memory storage, it feels like my brain-while-awake-but-quiet operates on a different level than when I am plugged in and distracted.

To me, it’s absolutely essential. And I believe this may be one of the great offerings artists can give to the rest of the world. I know that all artists don’t go about their creative work in the same way. But all of us incorporate some conscious time of creating and dreaming as a stage of our work. It’s not useless unfilled time. It’s at the core of the work.

I was not surprised that the radio reporters found that they liked their “boredom.” One rode the subway, observing and wondering about at the people around her. One unplugged while walking several blocks to an appointment and experienced the sounds and sensations of his own body in motion.

It sounds to me like the beginning of creativity, the genesis of art.

What’s the same… What’s Changing? Seeing Ideas Evolve

I spent some time today looking through collected images of my own work. It’s a good exercise – much like looking back through my sketchbook at ideas I had cooking for awhile. But, when I review completed work, I begin to see patterns.

First of all – just to get past this – it’s very humbling. There are a fair amount of things I just don’t like anymore, about which I wonder, “What was I thinking?” OK. The only way never to fail is never to make anything. So I try to accept the ones that don’t much please me.

But “What was I thinking?” may be the exact right question. What impulses have I seen re-emerging throughout my artmaking? I have been working consistently In textiles since about 2010, experimenting with printing and construction techniques and subject matter. With so much variety, is there some common element?

I think so. And it helps to find it. In some way, an interest in surface vs inner has been what interests me. Sometimes, it’s taken the form of landscape explorations, where I’ve tried to see above ground and below ground at one time. Sometimes it’s been in the form of memory pieces, where I have scratched the surface of my own life, digging into issues of outer appearances compared to inner realities.

For 2018, I am focusing on a body of work developing images of little houses. I will fill them with patterns and windows into the inner life, with the shape of the house indicating what’s seen from the outside. I am very excited as I look at the new sketches and mockups, and interested to see how this all evolves.