Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Art and Life: Graduations, Friendships

I recently paid what I later thought was an exorbitant amount ($15.00) for a magazine on blogging. I learned that I am not blogging frequently or regularly enough (knew that) or involving my audience (?) sufficiently. Well, I guess I'll continue in my own particular limbo of Art and Life and trying to figure out how it all fits together (for me) out in public (for us), thinking that some of you out there may be immeshed in similar questions and appreciate another perspective.


Art and Life Adventures: Sue and Art Girl Tracy
made a less than 24-hour visit from Rhode Island. As they said, "We are just Toooo Popular!" Above they rest, exhausted on one of the cushy red sofas at The Buzz in Sequim, after I dragged their East Coast Time Zones through a tour of beaches from Fresh Water Bay (what is that new road through the wilderness all about?) to Port Williams. Sue gamely helped me select rocks for my Rock Relocation program to my magnificent Art Yard (more pictures of that later).






Tracy shot images for her texture collection. You may remember a picture of Arlinka from this same beach last summer, with my later portrait of her in the Strait Art Show this spring. The clouds over the mountains in back of town never lifted during either visit, and I found myself saying yet again, "the backdrop to PA is a range of snow covered mile-high mountains--Really!"

At some point after our NW summer officially
starts, July 5th, I'll go out onto Ediz Hook, another of my favorite beaches, and take a photo of Port Angeles with the white-topped Olympics in the background, so you can see I wasn't fibbing.

What could be better than Good Friends, with whom the conversation and laughter pick up right where they left off six or seven years ago?

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There's also Good Family...one of the many reasons I moved here 5 years ago. By the way, my 5-year anniversary was June 20th, when Sue and Tracy were here, celebrated with Mexican food.


Last Saturday, June 26th, I went to Seattle to help brother, David, close out his studio in the coop building in Ballard, where he's been for
many
years, although not always in the same
room. As an artist, I feel such a tug of pain when any other artist gives up his/her work space, but David's studio will rise again, better than ever attached to his and Brian's new home in Shoreline....I'm SURE of it!





David's studios have been the scene of Lots of Wonderful Art Making, several years of my classes as a guest instructor from the Northeast.
I love his collections, which feature more than several of my art works from over the years. The bright green one above is from my Old Schoolhouse days, and that was a Long time ago! Anyone in Seattle should be Sure to attend his Studio Sale on 7/10/10 for some Great Deals!



I got one from his wrapped rock series, which I've always coveted. The series started from his residency at Fort Wordon, which was featured in a much earlier blog of mine.

A typical Hastings' Experiential Event, celebrated
with food--fried clams from the Lock Spot, within
walking distance of the studio, on a Suddenly Sunny
day in NW June.

The last time I remember eating from the Lock Spot
was with David and Doug, overlooking the Ballard
Locks, on my 58th birthday, a sunny day in March,
2005, when I had almost decided that I needed to
make the 3,000-mile move to the NW. Returning
to Albany to find my car buried in 18" of snow com-
pounded the decision.

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Speaking of Doug, whose painting is in the background of his daughter, Serene, on the left, and her friend, Sarah, who graduated from Roosevelt High School this month.

Serene's graduation reception after our studio work in the am. Looking at all those bright young faces, I wondered and prayed about all their futures...Serene's brother, my nephew, Thayer, is off to South Africa for the summer, exploring ways to be in this challenging world.

Even though this next generation may not enjoy the riches of material goods that we have, I hope that they all find an equal or better joy in creativity, friendship, and service to our planet.






Thursday, June 17, 2010

Follow Up to Tiny Art Quilts Class

It's fun to share the work that gets finished after at class. This is Nature Quilt by Kathie Karst. Here's what she said about it: " Here's my finished quilt. I tweaked it a bit after our class and then was trying to decide how to mount it.

I had a picture frame my dad had made from weathered wood from a sheep shed on his family's old Montana homestead. It wasn't quite the right dimensions, so I decided to trim the quilt down using a decorative blade to be slightly smaller than the frame. I mounted it on top of the glass with about 1/2" around each of the sides. I used copper wire and beads, as well as metallic copper thread to add more interest.

I'm pleased with ow it turned out and feel as if taking this class finally moved me out of "neutral" when it comes to adding found objects to small quilts."

I love to see what you've done with my classes, books, patterns, and I'll post samples here. Watch for more of my classes at Quilted Strait in Port Gambol, WA.

And YES, very Soon, I'll start posting examples of contributions to my HOT FLASH book--It's not too late to participate!

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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Art, Life, and an Interview

My latest portrait, finished this afternoon--a practice for the one I'll give Megan and Mauricio for
a wedding present. The portraits keep taking longer to do...or I keep taking longer to do them. I don't want to lose the spontaneity of the earlier quick ones, when I finished three in a day. Are the more recent ones "better" because they're more carefully done, or is there a magic in moving quickly and not over-working?

Mostly, I'm painting for my own pleasure, so neither really matters...whatever I do, I learn and gain eye-hand/paint-handling skills a bit at a time. Looking at the image online is different from studying it in person, too.

What drives us to make ART? It doesn't fill any of my food/clothing/shelter needs right now...maybe when people have more disposable income...or think they do? Anyway I can't seem to stop making it. Paintings on paper take up the least amount of storage space.




Opportunities present themselves from time to time and it's best to be ready, with a constant stream of new work. I started this 10" x 10" canvas in a life drawing group and finished it today with paint and collage. I like the square format and can fit almost any pose into it.

Sandy Long asked me to bring paintings to her Crawfish Gumbo fund raising party for PAFAC in July, and Friday Christy asked me to hang a show at Karon's Frames later in the summer, so time to start finishing works in progress. How many UFO's do You have?






This painting has been in a corner of the studio waiting for way too long. I was inspired by my brother, David's, use of collage and sewing on Japanese paper. I traced some of the images from life drawing, stitched on them, and used gel medium to attach them to the canvas, adding cut up samples on matte board from Laura DiPirro's Golden class.


I'm working for more texture and complexity, which doesn't seem to be a problem in my fabric works.
I keep discovering avenues that I would certainly like to explore in more depth...I guess that's what retirement will be for...if I can ever make it there and still remember what I've been wanting to do!

Distractions: Now that there are some signs of a sort of a sunny,
sort of spring-like time coming around, the outdoors is a constant pull...Sally and I went to the beach in Port Townsend on Memorial Day weekend with an exceptionally low tide. She...and a lot of other people in spite of the intermittent rain...was looking for beach glass, and I for white rocks.















The west end of my back yard yesterday. There is a yellow sedum propagating all down the hill, and
the Victoria Lilacs I planted three years ago (at the end of the fence) are covered in purple. I'm terracing across the hill with slabs of mica-sparkled stone, and I didn't take a new picture yet, but the spirals are starting to connect and spread into larger and more complex designs. For a low-budget, high-sweat job, it looks rather interesting. I worked the whole yard canvas at once and now the parts are starting to make sense as a whole.

Interview: http://bloginterviewer.com/books/pamelas-journal-pamela-hastings


What a surprise: I got interviewed online last week about my blog, and was trying to fill out the questionnaire after coming home from work over several nights, erasing it by accident two times before I got it....I'm sure my answers changed. Click on the link above to vote for me, and Stay Tuned! I'm working on some cool tiny skeletons for my Angels and Icons class at Art-Is-You in CT in October.

I'm still soliciting interesting contributions for HOT FLASH: A CELEBRATION and posting some samples on my Pamela page on Facebook.

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