What I did on my summer vacation

Rather than a big lead-up I'll just cut to the chase. On July 27th I had open heart surgery, and the rest is history--in the making. June and July proved to be a whirlwind.

In mid-June it was the cardiac catheterization. It was very manageable and not something to fear if you're ever faced with the prospect, but the recovery took a little longer than I was lead to believe. They gave me all kinds of drugs and I barely remember most of it. Bliss.

In early July it was time for the surgical consultation. Dan and I knew in very short order that we had found the right guy for us. There was virtually no discussion about whether I needed the surgery. We left the office having signed many papers, had a few tests, been scheduled for more, and finally been given a surgery date just a little more than 3 weeks away. The rest of July was spent packing the freezer with food to live on after surgery and trying to get my work affairs in order. There was also a lovely lunch break spent getting a thoracic contrast CT. Very weird. There was no pain, but the tech did connect me to a machine that injected something that looked like a liter of contrast solution during the scan. I'm not kidding. This wasn't a drip it was a push.

So, what did we learn from all of these high-tech and expensive tests?

• Bad: Yes, I did have a bicuspid aortic valve that was very stenotic and severely regurgitating.
• Good: I have lovely clear arteries, so no bypass was necessary.
• Bad: The enlargement of my aorta had reached the point of being considered an aneurysm. (4.8 cm in diameter instead of the normal 2.5 - 3 cm).

That changed the game plan a little. Now I was having valve replacement and aortic resection, which meant a longer procedure, more time on the heart bypass machine, and a bigger incision (i.e., a traditional median sternotomy instead of a "mini").

Again, let's cut to the chase. It all went very well. Dan and I arrived at the INOVA Heart and Vascular Institute at Fairfax Hospital at 530 am on Monday where we were met by my parents. The prep was easy. I was unconscious before they took me to the OR. Surgery started at 7 am and the surgeon was briefing my family by about 1030 am. I woke up in ICU in the late afternoon. I remember parts of the ICU experience that I would prefer not to, but that's life. Bottom line: Dilaudid is a good thing. The next morning I moved to stepdown care and started walking and trying to get the other bodily functions going (easier said than done). I was discharged on Thursday--total stay 3 nights. It was amazing.

Today marks four weeks since my discharge. The first 2 weeks were difficult, but the recovery was fairly linear. Each day I felt a little better than the previous. I must have been running on adrenaline or maybe it was just my body fighting to get over the trauma of the bypass machine and the anesthesia, both of which cause of number of strange side effects. The last 2 weeks have been a cycle of good and bad days. On good days I'm up and around the house doing things and taking my exercise walks. On "bad" days it's all I can do to get off the sofa and I nap almost as much as the cats. Lately I've started to realize that these "bad" days are probably the times when my body is doing the most healing, sending all of the energy into repairing damaged tissue and bone. Now I'm trying to celebrate both the good days and the bad days for what they are.

I'll probably be off work for another 2 weeks. I need to be able to get though an entire day sitting up and not napping before considering a day at the office. Between now and then I need to start driving again, get back to the studio, and still not overdo it. No small task.

Sorry, no pictures of artwork in process for now. But, I can offer this. It's a link to a site showing the artful work of others. Follow this link to read about my fancy new aortic valve, the St. Jude Epic Supra bioprothesis (ESP-100-27-00). Truly miraculous.

Dry spell for the blog

I'm still here, but judging from this blog you'd never know it. It seems that I'm going through another writing dry spell. Work is busy, the studio is busy, and Dan and I are recently returned from a trip to Cape Cod. It was lovely; so very quiet this time of year. I've been back into the studio for about a week getting ready for an open studio today. I should find out this week if my studio residency has been renewed for next year.

I'm still anticipating surgery in August. I say anticipating because I won't know for sure until I meet the surgeon in July. If I'm being honest though, it's far more sure than not. I'm starting to feel as though I'm running up against a deadline; as if there are things that must get done before the end of July, most of which really don't need to done. It'll all be there when I'm back on my feet. Right?

So, that's just the quickest of updates. I've got pics of what's happening in the studio. Perhaps I'll post them in the next day or so. For now, here's this month's open studio announcement. I've just finished a batch of about a dozen scarves in silk habotai and crepe de chine. It's amazing to see how the two fabrics take the dye differently. I'm really starting to love the crepe.

Open studio this weekend (Sun, 5/3, 1-4PM)

Home again

I'm back from Ohio after an uneventful flight. I really do love Southwest. Nobody's perfect, but they're way better than average.

After a week of hard work at the Barn I've been thinking a lot about just that--hard work. Yes, I have my lazy, slack-jawed moments in front of the TV, but generally I think I'm pretty hardworking. Or, perhaps it's just that I'm in constant motion--mental and/or physical. The last week has reminded me of the importance of spending time on an idea or design and going deeper; approaching it from different angles and resolving issues. Looking back at my work for the last year it has been, to a large extent, a series of one-offs. Now I'm feeling the need to focus on design work and to do more series work. In doing so I think that I will improve my critical eye and ultimately improve as an artist. I've also got to develop a mentoring relationship of some sort, either here or somewhere reachable by mail. I need some consistent critical feedback.

For the last couple of years I've tried to set a developmental goal. The goal for the last 12 months was to improve my knowledge of color theory and my use of color. I believe I've achieved that, though clearly a lifetime of applying and refining lies ahead. I think that the goal for the coming year is going to be to create a body of work that:

• Covers a limited number of themes
• Explores each design through several media (e.g., art cloth, art quilt, painting, drawing, photography)
• Includes design and color iterations (i.e., the same piece executed in multiple design variations)
• Applies what I have learned about color
• Requires a deeper study of design principles

If I can do that in 12 months (along with everything else that's on the calendar) then it will be a banner year. Someone blow the starting whistle.

Color: Days 4-5

I got home so late last night that there was no way that I was going to post. That means that you get a condensed version of the last two days. Heavy on the pictures and light on the words.

This is the crit wall from late yesterday morning showing all of the free studies created from the proportional color inventory exercise that I finished Wednesday night. The caliber of the work was really amazing. You can find mine in the 2nd picture. I did a very geometric design from the color inventory and a much more abstract design in reverse proportion . Can you tell that it rained for 4 days this week?

There was more crit, more discussion, and more work in between, but cutting to the chase, here are shots from the final crit. We were to pick 2 of our best free studies.

Everyone's work just kept getting better. I think we all agreed that if we could have a day of rest and resume work next week with a focus on design we could do even more. Perhaps that's a class for another year.

For now, I'm off to meet some folks for dinner, then back to pack, and fly home tomorrow morning. It's been great, but I'm ready to go home. Dan and I have been off on separate adventures this week: me to Ohio and him to NJ to visit family and play golf with his brothers, then on to Hyde Park for a couple of days of quiet and Holy Cross, then home just long enough to eat and sleep before heading to car show in PA. We've both got Saturday and Sunday to be home together and get our feet back on the ground before it's back to work on Monday.

Color: Day 3

How did it get to be day 3? Another 12-hour day, but today it flew by--well at least the afternoon did. We spend the morning discussing progressions (hue, value, design, etc) and color interaction. From about 1 until 830 we did Albers-style color interaction studies and started working on proportional color inventory exercises from the color research chapter of the book. This is all helping me so much.

The photo below is part of a wall full of color interaction studies. They are designed to show how different surrounding color change the way we perceive the value and hue of a single enclosed color. It has tremendous design implications. Mine is the one in the middle. The colors don't really read true in the photo, but I offer it as proof that I'm working hard.

This one study is designed to show how all of the principles--shifting hue, shifting value, and shifting both by carefully selecting various surrounding colors.

The last thing I did before going home was to glue up this proportional color inventory taken from a photo of a mosaic. Each square at the bottom represents the proportion of the color that appears in the image. I think I'm close, but not perfect. We had to mix all of the colors ourselves and I'm pleased with how close I came (It really does look better in person). Tomorrow we'll build a design using these colors and proportions. I hope we're doing an inverse study as well.

Rain and paper collage

Those were the themes for the day; very much a continuation of yesterday.

Here's the approach of the rain as seen from the driveway leading to the barn. It cut my walk short but it was wonderful to see such an expanse of beautiful, rich, cloudy sky. At home there are so few places to see wide open sky.

And here's the growing wall of collage color exercises. I took this shot just as we were about to begin our first group crit. right before dinner.

When I arrived I was a little leery about painting for a whole week, but I must say that I'm really learning a great deal and I know that this will help me when I get home. In fact, I'm wishing that I could get back into my studio to put some of what I've learned into practice on cloth. That's a good sign. I can also see the collage have an impact on my future work. I've been wanting to do some mixed fiber/paper sewn pieces and this week plays right into that.

I'm also starting to think about taking a class with Nancy. It's an intimidating thought. Most people show up with about 200 yards of fabric. I'm not exaggerating! If I dyed it all myself it could take me a year and a small fortune to prepare. Then again I would have quite a collection of fabric. We're putting in 12-hour days. Most of her students are working 15's. That about a 70-hour week. Maybe next year...

So, one last thing. After two days with David I can say that the following photo is a relatively high key composition of mostly chromatic grays with one anomalous element; and that the green leaf acts as a bridge color between the blue overtone of gray gravel and the yellow flower. I knew all of that before. Now I have a better vocabulary for describing it. This week is time well spent.

Greetings from Ohio

I'm in Ohio this week at the Nancy Crow Timber Frame Barn taking a class with David Hornung called "Color: A Workshop for Artists & Designers" It's based on his book by the same name, which he developed after teaching color theory for years at places like the Rhode Island School of Design. By his own description we're cramming a 16-week class into 5 days. Today was the first 12 hours of it.

I'm so glad I flew here this time instead of driving. I'm pooped as it is. Driving all day yesterday would not have made it any easier.

Today was a morning of lecture and the rest of the day painting 4x4" color swatches and critiquing them. Lots of swatches.

It sounds tedious, but between mixing, painting and sorting all of these chromatic grays and muted colors I finally understand the part of color that has confused me for the longest time, saturation. Hue and value--no problem. That's just what one might typically call color (red, blue, etc.) and light or dark. Saturation is about the concentration of hue. It's still hard to explain, which might be why I've had trouble understanding other people's written descriptions, but today as I was mixing paint it finally clicked.

Tomorrow we cut up the painted squares and collage them together into color studies. Wednesday, who knows. I'm just taking this one day at a time.

OK, off to bed, then up early to read two chapters over breakfast, and off to the barn.

Open Studio this Sunday (4/5), 1-4 PM

Flour paste resist - after pictures

As promised, here are the "after" pictures from one of my flour paste resist experiments. I soda-soaked the yard of rayon before applying a thin-ish flour paste using a squeeze bottle.

In the detail shot below you can see that there's a halo around the lines. I think that the water in the paste migrated into the fiber and pushed some of the soda ash away from the flour paste. I let the paste dry on the cloth overnight and I think that helped produce good contrast. Cleanup was a lot easier than I thought. After a bit of soaking, most of the paste flaked off. The rest dissolved. After a trip through the washer there's no trace of the flour.