Musing

I'm considering taking Pamela Allen's class at this retreat in Michigan. I'd get to take three days off work and ride the car-ferry. I could bring Bryan for an extra $225, and he could fish when I'm in class. Plus, that's the bye week, so I wouldn't miss any football. :) I'm going to think about it for a week; I have a lot of other travel I want to do and finite money.

But I think it would be good for me. I like her work, but mostly I like her thinking.

I completed another sequined flag, a little bit smaller than the last. Also...very boring. About halfway through, I realized it would be right at home in the "decorative accessories" department of Hobby Lobby, except those are lovingly hand-stitched in a sweatshop in China instead of a recliner in Milwaukee (and minus the 1% genuine FUZZ fuzz that characterizes all my work). So I didn't photograph it before I sent it as a gift to one of those people who like everything I make because I made it--I love them but I think I'd benefit from a critical eye every now and then.

I also found my serious-scholarship book on Vodou flags--history, ceremonial use, popular symbolism employed, major lwa, important artists of the 1990s. I have some ideas for better construction and better presentation of my own symbolism (radishes, black cats--why not?).

Still struggling with the making stuff vs. social life vs. spending time in nature vs. housekeeping vs. getting sufficient sleep, and still struggling with Good Ideas for Stuff to Make. I've been journaling and doodling and Good Ideas remain elusive. The boring sequined flag was useful in that it gave me something to do without obsessing over design, but nothing bubbled up during the respite.

In high school, I used to have all my good ideas while mowing the lawn.

Hexagonamania explained?

Maybe I'm just homesick...Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn

Still trying to generate some new ideas. I think I'm working on old, boring, labor intensive projects to avoid the possibility of a new project being bad/ugly/dumb/etc, but that's a little too much introspection for happy hour.

Radish Voodoo Flag

Did an archaeological excavation of the spare room last month and found this amongst the unfinished objects. Radish made of sequins...I believe I started it in 2003 after seeing an exhibit of voodoo flags and other Haitian beaded and sequined objects at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. (It was a blind date. Going to the art center was a good call. Unfortunately, the only other interesting thing the guy brought to the date was that he played high school football with Dallas Clark's older brother, and I was too old to be impressed by high school football.... I digress. I liked the sequins...)

Took a month to finish it. I think if I make another voodoo flag, I'll leave the binding un-sequined. I'd probably use uniformly-sized sequins, too. I do like the subtle effect of the yellow print showing through the irridescent sequins...it's a little hard to see on this picture but it's obvious in person.

I should probably start making stuff that isn't cartoony radishes. Grow a little bit...

Hexagonamania update

I did a count last night, and I've completed 81 of 138 "flowers", or approximately 58%. 46 of them have been joined together, or approximately 32%. Percentages do not include whatever I'm going to do with the border (haven't decided yet).

I'm not sure if this means I'm watching too much TV or not enough TV (I'm definitely not spending enough time in airports, which is the other time I work on this one). But it might only take five or six years to finish, instead of the rest of my life.

Block print experiments

Starting to make some art again.

For Yule, my best friend Chele gave me a wooden block used to print resist for South Carolina indigo dyeing. I suddenly felt like doing a little block printing. The arrival of the latest Quilting Arts in the mail with an article on block printing was serendipitous or synchronous or something...

I designed a block based on printed circuit boards, because I am a geek. Spent Saturday carving and only cut myself three times.

I think maybe this would have been a better design for screen printing; it's too detailed.

First try was with a metallic paint; it didn't transfer very well. The best print was on a scrap of cheap muslin that I'd been using to wipe paint off of brushes. D'oh! I'll have to use a transparent wash to cover some of that up.

Tonight I made a few prints with a normal pink paint, and they look a little better. Here they are drying on my studio wall.

That's my main man Marvin on that bulletin board. We're going to the Super Bowl. :) I expect to be making some art about that, especially after we win.

Gee's Bend Quilts

I went to see the Gee's Bend quilts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Dec 30 with my boyfriend Bryan.

With a very few exceptions, I found the vintage fabrics more interesting than the finished quilts, and the very early quilts more interesting than the contemporary (2000 and later; after the quilters were "discovered"). You could tell when they realized that people were comparing their quilts to "modern art" and "African heritage" and they decided to start making their quilts look like modern art and kente cloth.

At the risk of being decried as a racist or a "wingnut," I'm pretty sure the only reason these quilts are getting the attention they've been getting for the past five years is because the quilters are the descendants of former slaves. I say this because most of what I saw hanging on the walls at the museum I've seen in dozens of antique malls and garage sales around the rural Midwest--recycled materials, big sloppy stitches, utility over design--and no one will ever claim that in 1940, Loretta Whitebread from central Illinois was working toward any sort of aesthetic transcending her subsistence existence. No one will ever hang Loretta Whitebread's rectangles of polyester double-knit on the wall and talk about their cultural significance with a straight face. It seems like the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to consider such lowly quilts high art because the makers are black when you wouldn't look at them twice if the makers were white; are the perceived benefits of "inclusiveness" enough to justify throwing out the standards? And if so, can my crappy quilts be high art?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

One difference I did notice is that Loretta Whitebread tends to break up large fields of intense colors into little bits surrounded by white, and the Gee's Bend ladies weren't afraid to put the scarlet next to the evergreen. From a material history viewpoint, you can study the quilts to determine some differences between Gee's Bend society and rural Illinois society. But I still don't buy that either of them are art.

No news

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Perhaps because I never update it, because there's nothing to update. Still hand-sewing hexagons, which doesn't move fast enough to justify photographing more than once every six months, but mostly still drinking beer and exploring Wisconsin.

Radish the Slacker

I haven't been doing anything but working, cleaning my apartment for people who never show up, and waving the water bottle threateningly at the cat.

So much for my exciting new life outside of Iowa.

Cats.

Can't live with 'em. Can't eat 'em. Can't sell 'em for parts.