The Final Final

I'm getting incredibly excited to be done with school. I hate to have to reference a certain Pointer Sister's song from the 70's, having never been a fan, but I can relate to them.
My website is really coming together and I'm looking forward to it's big debut. It has gone through more than a few phases, but I'm happy with what I've done to it recently; it just took a whole lot of practice and a little tweaking of design issues. I'll be sure to list it here when it goes live!

Artist's Website VII

Last Friday, I got to work on a project of the local artist, Tucker Nichols. When I say work, I mean package and label for shipping, so not actually work on the project, but it was fun. I can't say much about it, because the project is a secret, but I'll remember to unveil the secret when the time is right!
I was first introduced to Tucker when I went to a visiting artist lecture about 6 months ago. The lecturer was the owner of Lincart, a gallery on Market. Tucker seems to be a gallery favorite so he was in the video that the artist/gallery owner had shown.
His work is great and his website really reflects it.

Finally!

I finally got some time in the studio today. Lately, a lot of my time at home (the little that there is) has been spent working on the computer. I found out today that my website isn't actually due for a while, so I decided to step away from the desk and really sink into the studio.
I've been working on the same painting for a few weeks now, and feel like it's really coming along. I'll be able to add it to the image library that I'm going to put on my website shortly. This is what it looked like when I first started it:
A lot has been done since then, so I'll post pics when it's finished.
My internship has been going really well. It's a little bit of new stuff that I haven't done before, but I've felt really comfortable with it so far. I'm looking forward to really digging my feet into a project, hopefully soon.

My Last Paper/Running 12 miles

Even though I plan on doing quite a bit of writing in my career, I have just completed my last paper for a class.  It's an amazing feeling, I must say. I really enjoy writing, but I like to do it on my own terms and write about things that I'm interested in.  As the end of the semester is approaching, I'm happy to say that I can check this one off of the list, and now I can focus on other things.  

On another note, I'm officially in the "Building Mileage" phase of the marathon training.  It's crazy.  I know that I did this all last year, but it's amazing to know that I'm going to be running 12 miles, two days from now.  Last Saturday, I ran 9 when I was supposed to run 11. And I wonder why I'm always hungry.

crap!

I've been so busy lately; trying to prep for a new job, take care of everything at the old job, work my second job, work on my website, write papers that I truly don't want to write, etc. etc. etc.
The list just goes on and on and on. But I've started my internship, so I can just move forward and take care of everything else. I constantly have to remind myself that I can only do one thing at a time and not get bogged down by impending projects.
I've gotten in a little studio time over the past few weeks. I've been developing the same ideas from the last few pieces that I've done, including the one at Somarts:
I have 3 panels that I've built that are dedicated to this body of work. I'll build at least two more to tide me over the summer. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to sneak back into school in the fall to use the machines to build panels.
I love working on panels and I think that there's something really special in being able to build your support from the ground up, even though building them can be a pain.

The little project that could....

My newest textiles project that has been eating away at my brain involves a self-portrait done in embroidery. Having been an art student for so many years, the number of times that I've been instructed to do a self-portrait is too many to count, but this one is a whole new venture; portraiture is hard as it is. I've decided that because I've had the opportunity to do so many figure studies, I should take advantage of this knowledge and try to work as realistically as possible.
But I've had a hard time working this one out. All of my sketches are rendered the way that I want them to be in pencil, but I know that the translation from sketch to embroidery thread is going to be hard to manipulate.
I finally settled on the idea to create this piece as if it were a drawing/sketch from one of my notebooks. So I started by creating a college-ruled piece of notebook paper with my sewing machine. Here's a picture of the beginning:


The final piece won't include all of the loose ends, but you get the idea. The rest of the piece will be made up of embroidered versions of actual sketches from my notebooks from the last few years. I'm looking forward to going through my notebooks to revisit my thoughts and ideas from the past.

I heart textiles

In preparation for having to create an embroidered self-portrait for my textiles class, I've started a little side project/practice session. I can remember embroidering pillow cases and handkerchiefs with my mom when I was little; the time when I lived for baking cookies, napping in the garden and playing with the cat. It was a rough life.
Now I'm attempting to treat thread as I would treat paint or a pencil. Each stitch is like a brush stroke. I'm making up my own and reintroducing the classic stitches into my vocabulary. I did this piece in the Fall that ended up as part of a series that was in the Stillwell show:
I really enjoyed this and have wanted to explore it further. I like the idea of working with one continuous piece of thread, the thought that if one area is snipped, the whole thing falls apart. It speaks of fragility and impermanence, two things that I've been dealing with lately in my work.

Time. There's not enough of it...

I wish that I had more hours in the day. I'd be able to go to school and/or work, run, get into the studio, work on side projects, homework, take photos of my progress, and then write about it. I'm lucky if I get to do two of those things, but one of them is always work or school.
The curator of the last show that I was in at SomArts sent pics of the show, which you can find here. You can see my piece starting at image 15. My new project includes two 24"x30" panels and one 24"x27". It's a further exploration into this installation and because it was temporary, I'm feeling the need to re-visit it. My problem now is that I feel like I have no time, but I'm in the process of creating a written schedule for studio time. It seems like a good plan, I'll keep an update.