Website outage

Not that you're all beating a path to my website, but just in case you try to reach it in the next few days, I just want to let you know what I'm changing my DNS registrar as part of an overall simplification and rearrangement of my web "stuff". The site (www.russlittlefiberartist.net) might not be reachable at times over the next several days.

As I write this, I'm on hold with GoDaddy tech support listening to big band music. Considering some of the really terrible stuff that you sometimes hear on hold, this isn't too bad.

Want to hear some great news?

Last week I had my first post-op echocardiogram. Today I went to see my cardiologist for a follow up. It's so much better than I even dared to hope. He said that the echo looked so good that if you didn't look closely and didn't know that I'd just had valve replacement (not to mention most of my ascending aorta) you would think I had a TOTALLY NORMAL HEART. It was all I could do not to say, "You're F$#@ing kidding, right?" The blood flow is perfect. Best of all, my heart has shrunk to within normal range. That means that the surgery is now completely and officially a success. The new valve and proper hemodynamic action have allowed the dilation of my heart to reduce, meaning that there's no longterm damage to the muscle.

I know that this adventure will continue for the rest of my life, but for now I don't have to see the cardiologist for another year. I've been on a 3-6 month schedule for a long time. It's hard to get used to being healthy enough to be on my own for a whole year.

I've been smiling so much today that my face is tired.

Truly amazing. Thank you God. Thank you indeed.

Not so recent work

The blog seems technically back on its feet and I'm working on a portfolio page. (I'm still thinking that my blog page might replace my website--much easier to maintain).

So, now that things are back in working order perhaps it would be good to talk about art a little bit. Here's a piece called "Vessel" that I finished a while back. It was accepted into the 41st Annual Laurel Art Guild Open Exhibition, which was hung for the month of March.

I'm very happy with the result from a color perspective. It seems to get good reactions from people who see it in person. My concern is that is yet another piece in a series of one-offs. How does this relate to anything else that I've done? Although...now that I look at it, it seems to have a stained glass quality (not necessarily a good thing), which relates to some liturgical work that I did a few years back.

In other, completely unrelated news, I've signed up for Carol Soderlund's workshop "Color Mixing for Dyers: Part II" at the Crow Barn in early May. This will be my 2nd class with Carol, my 3rd visit to the Barn, and a week of very hard work. I'm looking forward to both. One of the big focuses of this workshop is controlling value (light/dark) in thickened dye. I've got a good handle on hue from Part I, and I've been working successfully with thickened dye, but I don't have the predictive control over value that I would like to have. If Part II is anything like Part I, I'll be back in my studio by the end of May doing some really great stuff.

Digital simplicity: is it possible?

The blog is on the mend. In the process of repairing the damage that I did yesterday with the click of a button I discovered some nice new Blogger features. For example, you can create up to 10 standalone pages and link them to a menu. Nice. I'm starting to wonder if I could give up my hosted website and move my domain here. I'm just starting to feel like I've got too much technical stuff to maintain. Let's see, there's a blog, a website, and a Facebook page. Add to that all of the back end tasks of personal and studio accounting as well as studio promotion and it becomes a whole lot of computer time.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no Luddite. I think technology is great. I just seem to have too much lately. When I get overloaded I back away from all of it, ignoring the good and useful (my website) along with the questionably useful (Facebook).

Well Cr@p!

I just "broke" my blog. Ironically, while considering a redesign (I know, I should consider actually writing instead of redecorating), I thought to myself, "I should really backup this site design before I mess it up." Instead of creating a backup I changed the template, thus irrevocably deleting all color, font, etc. changes that I had made. I'm not happy. Where's the undo button?

So, the blog is going to go through a bit more renovation than anticipated. Maybe I'll write about it. Your never know. Stranger things have happened. :)

Distraction

It's starting to feel like a great time to be alive (war, suffering, and natural disasters, aside). I've got more energy than I've had in months. I think I'm finally getting to that point where I'm starting to feel so good that I'm realizing just how bad things had gotten before the surgery (not to mention immediately thereafter).

Now I feel as though I've got a year's worth of pent-up creating that's trying to get out and I finally have the energy to do something about it. And yet, there are the distractions. Work is busy--very busy. But, that makes the days go quickly. Home is busy. I'm still amazed by how much laundry there is to do for two adults. I don't even want to imagine a household with kids' clothes to clean. Shopping, cooking, blah, blah, blah. It's the same litany that every one lives with. I expect I should be grateful that I have clothes to clean and food to eat.

So, despite all of the distractions, I'm working on finishing a piece to submit for a local art show. As soon as that's finished, photographed, and submitted I need to start quilting a piece that I'm submitting next month for a national SAQA show. I've gotten to local and regional shows, but never a national show. It would be nice to reach that goal with this particular piece. Sorry, no photos today, but soon. Promise.

No more anonymous posts and hopefully less spam

I've switched the setting on my blog (largely inactive though it might be) to not allow anonymous commenting. I regret having to do this, but recently I've been getting a number of off-topic anonymous comments that are phishing or just plain weird. For example, I posted a while back about going through a "dry spell." I was referring to a lull in my blogging. Apparently someone (more likely some bot) interpreted that as a bedroom reference and I ended up with several postings related to--how shall I put this--men's pharmaceuticals. I suppose it's funny, but I'm not laughing.

I hope this doesn't exclude anyone who wants to post because I enjoy and value your feedback. You can still post if you have a Google/Blogger account or via an OpenID user name (i.e., Yahoo, etc.) and you can reach me directly through email.

A new year

In "The Artist's Way," Julia Cameron recommends (requires) that you write one page every day. It's intended to be a way to unblock the stifled creative voice. The daily discipline is even more important than what you write. According to Cameron it's OK to write something like, "I don't know what to write" over and over again.

I sort of feel that way.

I'm sinking into the winter blahs. Too much snow, wind, rain, clouds, and cold. I need sun, warmth, and the smell of green things coming back to life. And that's months away. Pooh.

Dan and I have been off work since Christmas Eve. We visited family in NJ, stopped in Wilmington on the way home for an overnight at the Hotel DuPont and dinner in the Green Room for his birthday. Since then it's been puttering around the house, catching up on chores, and a couple of movies. Yesterday I was moping around so much that he sent me to the studio. Good thing. It was just what I needed. Too much vacation.

I had a fantastic December in the studio from a retail perspective. I sold oodles of scarves and grossed enough to cover more than 6 months of rent! It was a great feeling. I got to work hard and make pretty things and lots of my work when out into the world--I hope to the surprise and delight of the recipients.

Today we're off to have dinner with my parents, with a quick shopping expedition along the way. Tomorrow it's open studio (Greenbelt Community Center, 1-4pm if you're in the area). Monday it's back to work. Returning to the "routine" won't be such a bad thing.

Venturing out for the sake of art

I haven't had too many excursions out into the real world since surgery. It's been mostly trips to see doctors. Yesterday was a milestone. I drove (white knuckle) to the studio with Dan to see the "My Island" exhibit that's up in the gallery. It's the annual exhibit by the resident artists. I've got 2 pieces in the show and I was delighted to see how well the show has been hung. It really looks great. If you happen to be close by or find yourself in Greenbelt between now and mid-September stop by.

So, here are my pieces. "Island Meditation" is a journal quilt. The text has a lot to do with fear and its sources, about letting go of fear, and about connecting with others rather than being isolated (i.e., islands). I was delighted to find it hanging on a column by itself, with nothing close by. It really shows the piece quite well.

Here's Dan standing in front of "Island of Misfit Stitches," which began with me fiddling with some torn fabric strips and turned into a wild crocheted "thing" stitched down to a piece of canvas onto which I painted and stitched and appliqued bits of cloth. I don't know that I'll be doing another one of these soon, but you never know. Idle hands...

Here's a detailed view of the piece shot in the gallery.

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.

Must post

My last post was on March 2. What a scandal. I still consider this blog to be active. It's just lethargic, that's all.

OK, really quick, I've got three photos to share. First, I was so proud to see "Seeds of Change" at the Laurel Art Guild show. It's been up most of the month of March and closes this weekend. The show was hung very nicely. There were a couple of other fiber pieces--all of us very different from each other. This is the first time I've seen my work in a show that included other media. It is interesting to see how very different fiber feels from everything else.

Second, I've been experimenting with flour paste resist. I love my soy wax but the wash out is kind of a mess (I know, I should be on my knees thanking God for soy wax instead of paraffin). So here's a piece in process. At this point it hasn't been washed out, but you can see where the flour resist is. It worked very well. I'll post an "after" pic soon.

And finally--brace yourself--I got it into my head that I needed to save torn scraps of cloth (selvages, etc.) and turn them into something. I decided to do some completely unstructured, uninhibited, and unorthodox crochet.

I started out just goofing around, but I think this might turn into something. Who knows? This might be turning into a piece that I could submit for the studio "Island" show.

And, ugh, speaking of the studio. It's almost time to reapply for my residency. My original award was for a little shy of one year. We need to reapply every year in an open competitive process. I went back and forth about whether to apply again. Now I'm committed. I really do want to stay. I feel like I've got more work to do in that space. Fingers crossed.