More, More, More

Continued from my other blog: http://www.hotflashwomen.blogspot.com

I made a second many-legged doll in order to prepare the pattern for my pattern book. This one is seated

The original Many Legged Doll can stand

Monday Blogging
Like Saturday washing
Becomes part of the nature of the day

12-inch version

3" version over Golden Products experiment...nicely abstract, which sometimes I have trouble doing

The original life drawing for this week's series of nudes

Another project I've been working on:
The Print-On-Demand version of
Ancestor.Making
Now available on Amazon
in the Kindle version

In my urge to downsize,
I've found examples of
Altered books incorporating
Ancestor Images...very helpful now:

Cover of Ancestor Altered Book, using Xerox copies with colored pencil, Apoxie Sculpt for the the textured face on the spine

Ancestor altered book built on a 1910 book about homesteading, highlighting some of the original images in the book

Altered Ancestor Book with faces and talk balloons added over original illustration of a house, cutouts on the next page, so the faces will show through

See More at: http://www.hotflashwomen.blogspot.com/

Fall is Coming...More Hours for Art Work

Signs of fall approaching: the willow that blocks my view of the Strait is changing color toward yellow

As I think I've said before, the dark days ( 9/21-3/21) give me more time to work in my studios--my whole house is studio space--once I'm not so tempted to just be outside in our gorgeous NW.

I keep adding more projects, and am therefore more scattered in my work habits...

Beaded Ancestor Pin

Raw-edged ancestor pin that I invented last night

I'm working on projects longer, trying to get things right, without being toooo fussy. When I'm lucky, the project will work for more than one purpose, such as pins for my POD Ancestor.Making book which will be available on Amazon, and sales items for the holiday show I'm doing with Katie, in early December...more information as the date draws closer.

See the other things I've been working on at my other blog: http://www.hotflashwomen.blogspot.com/

Start thinking about projects for the dark days. Get a group of friends together for parallel play!

Fall Company...where did the summer go?

Dungeness Spit, 5 miles to the light house, adding 13 feet of spit a year

I am discovering that the amount of daylight here is acceptable to me

from Equinox (March 21) to Equinox (September 21).

I am a creature of light, going out to my yard (small but intense)

when light and temperature are right…whether it’s in the middle of the day or not.

Purple and green, the colors of my home, wildlife refuge on the way to the spit

Time to start preparing for the dark days, the gray skies, the early night.

While at the same time soaking up as much sun as possible.

Hugh and Connie came to visit...

his last free weekend before Thanksgiving (he'll be appearing in Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe at Children's Theater in Seattle through the end of the year, then starting another show)

Colorful canoes in the sun at Lake Crescent

We began enjoying themed Thanksgivings ten years ago, and usually

Brian and David are in charge of the theme.

This year they are in the middle of selling and moving again

Connie came up with, “bring something you remember from holidays

Of your youth.

Brain says, “Good, it can be something in a can.”

Merymer Falls in the Olympic National Park

My famous mac and cheese, salmon, salad, cards, blackberry pie for dessert

Sorry about the lateness of this week's post. Happy that this is the place my family wants to come for some of their time off. Summer doesn't really end until the fall Equinox...EnJoY!

Is it Art if No One Sees It?

Multi-legged doll...more secure standing, but try going anywhere. The image just came to me

Neil Gaiman: “We all — adults and children, writers and readers — have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.”

My two nudes from this week--I feel that I worked the top one too much

It's always tricky knowing when to stop...the only way to tell is to try and fail...or succeed

“The world of play favors exuberance, license, abandon. [In it,] selves can be revised” Diane Ackerman “Most forms of play involve competition, against oneself or others, and test one’s skills, cunning, or courage. One might even argue that all play is a contest of one sort or another. The adversary may be a mountain, a chess-playing computer, or an incarnation of evil. To play is to risk: to risk is to play.”

An Ancestor piece with photo printed on silk, Dad's birthday, probably by a railroad track, when Steve and I were little. The train cake remained a tradition for many years. Yellow cake with nuts. When the family was young and poor, he took us along on his adventures. We settled in Iowa so he could travel in either direction to photo trains...he was a good role model for following my heart.

 With my current freedom that comes with retirement, my competition is to keep finding activities that are important to me and keep pursuing them. I like making art to see what will come out.