New Website

I’m contemplating a completely new website. I’d like it to include a portfolio of the work I’ve done over the years from the different media I’ve worked in. And I think I’ll make some big changes in the way I offer some of the product lines and add in a space to sell my art quilts. Sometimes making a website is challenging because I work in a variety of media and cross the boundaries between them as much as possible. That makes it hard to organize the work into neat categories. I also tend to work in collections so every time I build a new website it usually ends up being pretty fat and complex. And going through programming in all the shopping cart stuff is a real time suck.

The community theater production I’m involved in goes up the 16th and runs through the 19th. We’re in dress rehearsal till then with only one night off between now and the show. My parent’s 50th Anniversary celebration is the 18th and I’m doing a cake like their original one that will serve 150 people. So once I get past the 19th I can possibly take on the website redesign. I don't have time to really give it much thought right now.

My First Book

In the next few weeks I expect to hold a copy of this book in my hands:

It's my first book and it compiles 20 images from my garnished poetry series. They are one to a page so they can be removed and framed if someone would like to. They are prayers, declarations and poems that I've written through the years. Some time ago I went through and combined the poems with some watercolor and mixed media backgrounds. I've sold them individually as prints but thought it would be really cool to offer them together in a book format. This is a collection of the ones that have to do with faith, the flow of creativity, determination and living life full tilt.
This is the one that brought up the title of the book for me. I call it "Draw Me" and the poem is ultra simple: "Draw me, Artist God, Draw we." It felt right for the title of a book of prayers, etc... created by an artist to be called "Draw Me." How can we come to God unless we are drawn?

I'm looking forward to seeing the proof copy I've just ordered so I can decide what changes I'd like. I'll let you know how it goes.

A quilt for today

This little bitty quilt is no more than 7.5 x 7.75 inches. I’ve used one of my old art prints on watercolor paper in there which adds an interesting texture. The rest of the fabric is hand dyed plus a piece of batik. I was pleased by how quickly it came together, that fusible stuff is pretty amazing and works on paper as well as it does on the fabric. This little quilt taught me that sewing through paper will require some adjustments but at this point I don't mind the purple bobbin thread showing. It seems to fit with the other intentional imperfections such as the fraying edge.

I think I’ll call it “Catharsis.” There is a sense in which the beautiful parts, the poetry and vibrancy is in the distance framed by the present reality that requires moving through the current grief and fraying edges. It is fitting for a new round of personal and private grieving that has become an assertive companion of late.

“She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.” ~George Eliot