thelmasmith

When a dear friend was in the process of moving the inevitable down sizing occurred.  Things were going up on Craig’s list.  I got a note saying, oh, I think the overhead projector is priced too low. I’m also worrying about the space for the easel.

So, last Monday I trucked on up to the edge of Oro Valley.  Or maybe it’s technically in the town of Marana.  I don’t know.

Anyway, look what came home with me.  I’ve learned something about manifesting abundance.  I have always known that first you notify the universe and then you get to work.  That has now been technologically enhanced.

I use Firefox  as a web browser.  It gives me the ability to open innumerable tabs and my macbook remembers them from one day to the next.

I had been researching easels.  I must have had every style and every manufacturer and every retailer of easels in my tabs.  At the end of getting my web work done I would browse through all the easel tabs.  Finally I deleted them.  That’s when I got the note from my good friend.

Yes, the universe does work in interesting ways.

a national women’s art exhibition – deadline August 1
Sponsored by the Oakland Community College Womencenter, Farmington Hills, Mi., From Our Perspective is accepting digital entries, with a deadline of August 1st. This juried exhibit will feature women artists and will include two- and three-dimensional works of art.  The Juror, Susan Goethel Cambell, lives and works in Detroit, Mi. and has work in many public and private collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The New York Public Library, The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Toledo Museum of Art and The University of Michigan Special Collections Library. Fee: $25 for up to 3 works. Awards: Best of Show $800.00, President’s Award $250.00 and a Purchase Prize of $250.00 (for smaller pieces).  To view full prospectus, and to upload images online, go to www.oaklandcc.edu/womencenter/artshow.htm.  Exhibit runs Sept. 18-Oct. 10 2008.  Please contact Arlene Frank with any questions at womenart@oaklandcc.edu

Dinnerware Artspace is beginning a new mural located at
Arizona Alley at (the 200 block of) E. Congress Street.

Young and older latino artists are invited to participate.

This mural is being created in conjunction with the
National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) Regional Conference,  April 25-26, 2008, and the Tucson/Pima Arts Council.

Check the NALAC.org  website for more information on attending the workshop.

The mural title is “Tucson Colectivo”.
Bring your own paints and brushes.
The mural format is two giant spirals on a 40ft long mural.
Latino and latina artists can claim a section to paint on.

Tell your latino/latina artist friends about this project.

Contact me at Dinnerware Artspace for more details.

David Aguirre
Dinnerware Artspace
520 792-4503

Someday I’ll tell you all about the Lady’s Aide. Today I’m just going to boast about my mechanical prowess.

My macbook now has 2 GB of memory. Thanks mostly to my set of lady’s micro tools that are kept in the bottom of my desk drawer.

Here’s the strangely wonky image from the macbook screen. It shows I got it right the first time.

Gamblin was the color man when the Smithsonian set out to recreate the renaissance, earth, colors of the old masters. He gives a twenty minute tutorial on thinking about color.

I received this DVD as a gift at a recent art’s materials exposition. Check with your supplier of art supplies and see if you can obtain a copy of this.  OOPS,  go to the Gamblin website, linked above.  You can view it online.   It addresses color in several ways including the historic time frame and the colors produced and used.

I was at the University of Arizona Museum of Art today. This is from a new installation by
El Anatsui.

These works are copyright of the artist and are shown here under the doctrine of fair use for educational purposes. The work above uses the rims of screw on caps of cheap liquor that the anglo world has exported to Africa for the last several centuries. It references that societal problem, the problem of garbage, and also the West African textile tradition.

Not to mention that it is lusciously gorgeous and cries out to be carressed.

More societal commentary. Aluminum printing plates used in their most maleable form to comment on waste and waste paper in particular.

If you are traveling or happen to be around Tucson, Arizona, do yourself a favor and go to the University of Arizona. There is the Museum, two galleries, the Center for Creative Photography, the Flanrau Observatory, the Arizona Historical museum and much more.

This is one of the first semi-successful prints from one of the linoleum blocks I’ve carved. My husband stole the print of the cat laying in front of the full moon. The old cedar tree taught me that it is much more sensible to carve the object. Carving away the background even when you leave a border to support the brayer requires much more skill than I have right now. I’ll have to actually get my printing done on good paper instead of just testing on typing sheet sorts of samples.

Last Wednesday I struggled with intaglio wiping the large, multi color, chard collagraph. I failed miserably. Then printed it again after more wiping. It was only a minor failure.

I cleaned the plate. Printed a blind emboss from it Wednesday and it is only a minor failure. The blind emboss, done Thursday, from the bamboo was good with only minor creasing. These are a couple of details from the blind emboss from that plate.

However, the real success on Thursday is a bunch of small square and rectangular offcuts from the big bamboo plate. I did one and then rearranged the modules.

I did five consecutively with increasing pressure. The last one was two half inch foam blankets and then thin, thick, and medium regular blankets. The blind emboss combined with the half sheet (smaller) of paper meant that I could put on gonzo pressure and still not break the paper.

Pretty rewarding to see the progression of the five. I forgot to take the camera with me on Thursday. Now I’ve got my confidence up just a bit I think I will ink each module with a different color, wipe, and print. I’ve also taxed my body mightily even though the gearing on the big press is pretty good. My shoulders and my back are telling me I ran a LOT through that press last week.

I have fallen way behind the pace of the work and the assignments. I don’t know how the kids who are taking twelve to sixteen credits are handling the volume of work.

The big plates are beautiful but a real headache. The press is thirty years old and has experienced all that teen aged students can imagine in it’s life. The bed will take a fifty inch long piece of paper; the roller is about thirty inches long.

I guess I should spend the weekend reading the text books. However, the two women, with great experience, who come in and work on lab days are very kind and teach me a lot. I’ve been delivering pomegranites for rewards.

I like the multi cultural and multi generational aspects of the class a lot. I guess it is time for me to become a bit more social person again.

I still have not printed my linoleum cut. I’ve another to cut and I want to add some lines to it before I do. The class moves on. I’m being dragged along without enough hours in the day or energy in my body.

I do come home from the end of class with my enthusiasm renewed. We have begun working on collagraph. I had ordered Collagraphs (Printmaking Handbook) by Hartill & Clarke. Their shipping policies are more kind than those of US companies.

Yesterday I got a look at Collagraph Printmaking by Mary Anne Wenniger. Looking at other people’s books always costs me money.

Anyway, here’s a look at the plates I’m working on.

Bamboo underlaid with tissue paper and gauze. The sidebar is heated tyvek, ironed to flatten. All these plates need more acrylic medium and a lot more sticking down. My husband brought in the shrink pack of generic super glue.

The cats jumped into the fishtail palm that is recovering from last winter’s hard freeze. I decided since this was already broken that it was fair game for a collagraph plate.

This one is dry bok choy. I had to reconstitute it partially to unfold it. I think it will make a good looking print. One of my classmates grew up in Hong Kong. The scent of the soaking bok choy drew her to my table. The remainder of the package, reminding her of home, went home with her to make soup.

From food for the soul to food that feeds both the soul and the body:

Fresh waterchestnuts!

If you have never had the opportunity to eat fresh waterchestnuts do keep watch in the oriental markets. They are a pain to peel. I simply sautéed them with a little peanut oil, garlic, ginger, and green onion. Food fit for the gods. You will never buy a tin can again.

I’ve been here and not here. I signed up with Pima College for a Printmaking class and a Museum and Galleries Practices class. So I’m running to town three times a week and trying to shoehorn grocery shopping and errand running into that fuel usage. It’s interesting but fatiguing.

The first printmaking assignment was not intimidating. Thank goodness. I’m rather pleased with myself as I had never done carving before. This is the scan of the proof sheet for Lady Alice. The print block is 4″ x 2″; I was using up someone’s purple ink. Click to enlarge.

The second printmaking assignment was alter ego. I finally asked Karen, my table mate, what she had done about the topic. “I know who I am and I’m happy with my life; I don’t need Wonder Woman. I just did what I wanted to.” This after I had been through four iterations that neither fit the assignment nor was anything boldly graphic. I could not figure out how to carve the things I had drawn.

I had been through my image files on the external hard drive and even dug out the snapshot files from before I owned a digital camera. Nothing made any sense. Finally at one in the morning, after tossing and disturbing every cat in the house I just gave up and got out of bed. I went and pulled a snapshot of a tree I have always loved. The hell with the assignment; I know I can make a good positive/negative out of this one.

This is the unproofed plate. Click to enlarge. I painted the grey battleship linoleum with gesso so that I could see my cuts. My fingers and fingernails tell me that there is some clean up to be done once I see a proof. I can feel the chumbles that will give me trouble.

The textbook prices will make one cringe. However, when I saw the amount of technical detail in this one: A Printshop Handbook: A Technical Manual For Basic Intaglio, Relief, And Lithographic Processes. I did not hesitate. One good text book is worth a dozen, popular press, quilter focused, technique and process books. This one is authored by Beth Grabowski. I wonder if there is any kinship with Kerr Grabowski.

The other textbook, The Complete Printmaker is both historical data and technical information. I think one could work a lifetime with these two books.

So, though I am more than usually silent, I am here and I am working. I have four days a week at home. Day by day I have been working my way through deadlines; real ones and ones I have imposed on myself.

The other fly in the ointment is a speeding ticket. How humiliating to drive a roadster and get caught in a speed trap going so fast: 46mph.

Pictured above are Sonji Hunt and Rhonda Blasingame. Do go to Sonji Says for a much more complete description of the class. Rhonda, please contact me; I’m unable to find how to email you.

Among the things I firmly believe is the idea that textile art is not well served by being kept to itself. We use the words art quilt and wonder why no other artists are interested in our work.

I went to the Tougaloo Art Colony in Jackson, Mississippi, last week because the words said art colony. I have never spent a week so joyously.

Ceramicists, painters, enamelers, textile workers, all noted and acclaimed instructors, most who were professors at other institutions came together for a week of very intense study. Very intense study was combined with very intense discussions, meals, trips out here and there.

Adding to the mix of intelligent conversation and hard work was the multi cultural aspect of Tougaloo. Above are Debbie, Sonji half hidden, and Annie from Chicago. Sonji will have much better pictures and more details.

I think this was about the point when we had all painted yards and yards of fabric and were beginning the next step in Sonji’s process.

It was quite interesting; each of us immediately had a recognizable painting style. We were creating layer after layer of painted fabric. Each layer from the big stack related to the painting before it.

Rosalind, our teaching assistant, is backed by Rhonda’s rust dyed works just behind Rosalind and on the left. The bright multi colors to the right are all Sonji’s brought to give us some idea of what and how the process goes along.

Do not be fooled by Rosalind’s seemingly plain pink fabric; when done it was a gorgeous blue fabric with pink underlays.

I’ll be more on my game tomorrow and the next few days. In the last eight weeks I have made fourteen separate flights. The airlines are fourteen for fourteen. Every flight was either delayed, double booked, canceled, delayed for mechanical problems, delayed for lack of crew, or delayed by weather. In spite of the cost of fuel I think next time I will drive.

That means I plan to go back to Tougaloo next Art Colony. It will be an entirely different group of professors. I have no idea what I will sign up for. I do know that I wanted to get my hands in to every medium that was taught next week. I’m hoping they will extend the Art Colony beyond one week