Hello,

Today on my walk I was struck by the effects of sunshine and light.    It was not sunny today by I noticed how bright the Black Eyed Susan’s were at the entrance to the condo complex down the road where there is full  sun shine.  By contrast the  there is so much shade in my yard that there are mushrooms growing along the drive on the north side of my house.  Granted they are quite small- only a out the size of a young child’s finger tip- but growing there none the less.   Sunshine never falls on this area of my yard, but Nature still  finds a way to put life into the space.  I am so lucky to live in such an abundant part of the world.   To add to the abundance of my visual world there is an  abundance of activities going on too.

 Last week I spent three days exploring with Cheri and Terney printing techniques.  We started out intending to do wood cuts and we all did one, but soon found out that although the look is wonderful, the process does not allow for much cross grain cutting.    I think now that our tools needed a bit of sharpening  because we all became quite tired of all the effort necessary to do the work.    Cherri was the most successful and her’s are  the two  round ones on the pin wall.  Treney had never done Gelli prints before and the other prints   on the pin wall are her works in that area.     I decided to make  foam prints and got going creating graffiti stamps of everyone’s name.   I wrote the names out with a paint brush so I would have a flowing design and  then did a second copy on the paper side of the sticky fun foam.   I then carefully cut out the graffiti with an exacto knife so I would have a positive and a negative copy of the works.    This picture shows Cherri’s name.   The black is the foam and it appears backward so when it is printed it will be forward.  The red graffiti of her name is a back view and it still has the paper on it.     Tierney printed her name on the Gelli plate fabric she created the first day.     I have not cut out my name yet because I made it too big for any of the clear plastic  that I mount these on.  I will have to save my take home container from Wegman’s salad  to accommodate them. We had a good time   working talking and laughing.  It is always more fun to explore with other folks. 

I made one last stamp  on Friday and printed it when I got home.  Last week when FAB went to Genny’s she had a wonderful kimona on the wall and I could not get the flower  image out of my head.  So I designed and created my own curcumthum.   I made one fourth of the blossom and then rotated it as I printed.  I did a second color on top just off center a little.  I look forward now to using that fabric in the near furture.   I found out that I really like the flexibility and speed of foam stamping too.

Then on Tue this week I went to the Kuhlman Foundation opening at Cornell University.     Seven scholarships are given to students with a theme that they need to interpert.  This year the theme was Layers of Leather.     The approaches were all different and the students were there to explain their work.  It was a fascinating  event.

Then there were also some interesting things going on in a hall display as well.  The second mini show was of wearable art that was all lazer cut polor fleece.   Valerie Goodwin my teacher at QBL had talked about this process in my class and I was delighted to see a second example of the process.

Progress Report:  Elsie’s Stone     I  am still working away on this Foundations piece.  I am  having a good time working with the close values in this stone  as well as playing with the strong textures.   Once I heard that one should make art to be seen on two levels- from a distance and then drawing the viewer in to take a second look.  I think this series does a good job doing just that.

 Necklace# 7    I still seem to find the necklace process that Noel started in me a few month ago working for me.  I think I am nearing the end of the necklace  obsession though.  I think I may apply this idea to a quilt top in the furture.  I  do have two necklaces that are started so I will finish then an then go forward with that idea.

New Work    I pulled out fabrics that I though I might use in a new project starting with one of the silks( the orange, white and black print)  that I had purchased from Ginny last week.    I think I will add some more browns to the mix and then begin to build the work.

 Daily News  This project was at a stand still until the velcro arrived.  It is moving forward now and although I only seem to get five blocks done a day I am making progress.

I hope all enjoy the  Labor Day holiday week end in their own fashion.

Keep Creating

Carol