I recently stayed up late to paint and clothe this Barbie in the dia de los muertos style. As I cut and stitched the little flowers and lace, as I painted the tedious white lines of skeletal patterns on her plastic limbs it was like I was eight again. I have no great love for barbie in my adulthood. I actively redirected my own daughters toward other, less socially loaded playthings. Still, I can’t deny that as I embroidered the little blue nubs on barbie’s top, as I pinned the velvet scarf onto barbie’s hair, I remembered all the odd fitting outfits and weird head pieces I made for barbie when I was a child. I recognize the beginnings of what I do now in all that tiny improvisational stitch work and I must admit, I began with barbie. I owe her a thank you.
By the way, I am looking for an exceptionally tall bottle to fit this beauty in. Look for her on a shelf in Tacovore!
intimate conversation with a dogwood flower
I have been working out new ways to build three dimensional aspects into my work. The center (or in botany speak, the cyme, thank you wikipedia) was created from a shirt hem threaded through with wool yarns and then cut into short sections. While sewing the sections in place I kept wanting to pop one in my mouth. They brought to mind candies or odd little sushi roles.
long absence
The summer, that inevitably calls and compels me to be out of doors, is nearly finished. I canned the last two days. My fellow tight packer, Sarah and I put in two long but satisfying days all, boiling pots, scrubbing vegetables, and cramming food into glass jars. Before the canning binge I spent a solid week renovating my studio (check out the photo). I tore out some super stinky heinous carpeting (if you want a sample use my contact form, provide me with your home address, and I’ll mail you a bit of the raunchy thing!) and painted walls and floors. I am so thrilled and eager to put in some real hours in this fresh new space. My summer of teaching, performing, fraternizing, traveling, and doing home reparation is behind me. I look forward to being alone with my orange floor and my sewing machine.
2 bee in love
The feelings they had for one another were strictly forbidden by order of the queen, and frankly previously unimaginable within the context of their bee hive hierarchy, but the two worker bees loved one another. They met secretly each day in the blueberry bush, 53 lengths southwest of their hive.
drawing
This is how my dog looks with her hair brushed and a little make up on.
rabbit again
Rabbit was grinding her coffee and muttering some grumpy morning litany to the squirrel digging in her lettuce patch just outside her window, when she noticed one of the eggs was missing. She found it cracked open in a splash of sunlight on her kitchen floor. The floor cried out for a vigorous sweeping, but that could wait. Inside the pale brown egg was an odd little acorn like seed, with a slender oaken body and a fancy scaled cap. Rabbit took the seed out to her garden and placed it in one of the holes squirrel had just dug in her lettuce patch. “Hmmm...” thought Rabbit, “I wonder what will grow there?”
a compulsion
I cannot help myself, after finishing the Anemone piece (with it’s countless grey nubs), I am making nubs in other colors. I am sewing and stuffing, turning and pinching, little pale pink, off white, velvety brown, and rusty red nubs. It is ridiculously satisfying, as a typically 2 dimensional artist, to move into the third dimension. Each time I attach a brave little nub to my flat quilted surfaces I laugh manically. I revel in the ecstasy of generating depth and deep texture. I am sewing them to landscapes, tree branches, and curved surfaces. In my sleep I even sew them to my face and the edges of my cupboard doors. I am nub obsessed!