What is Success?

Yesterday was Anna's last day of elementary school. Thank goodness! I don't know what happened at the end, but things seemed to deteriorate a bit with high emotions, people getting on each others nerves, and I don't know what else. Anna came home cranky every day this week.

One day that she was cranky was after the "awards" ceremony they had for the 5th and 6th graders. I did not go. I know they passed out some papers for the sports teams. They also passed out Presidential Awards, which was for mostly A's (maybe not more than two B's?). Anna said after they had passed out the awards, they had said something like, "Let's give a hand for our future successful . . . ." I don't know the exact words.

Anna didn't happen to get that award. She was sitting with one of her friends, who is very smart and did not get the award either, among others as well. And she was very put off by the statement they made because she was thinking, "Well, what about us?" She told me just because they got a piece of paper doesn't mean they are going to be successful later in life. Conversely, it doesn't mean she wasn't going to be successful in life either. I totally agreed with her. I told her it didn't mean anything.

I thought it was an important idea, so yesterday I had a conversation with her about it. I said that in our American Society, there is a lot of pressure on people to "succeed". However, most of the time it is society's or somebody else's definition of what that means. I told Anna that only she can decide what her definition of success is. She said, "I know." I'm glad she's a quick learner, because it has taken me about 35-40 years to figure this one out!

I gave her some examples. Maybe someone's definition of success might be to write a book and have it published, even if it didn't make a lot of money (or maybe even just to finish writing a book). Or maybe someone's definition might be to have a family and be able to take care of them. Or someone might want to just be able to help others or live as lightly as they could on our earth. Success could be so many different things. It doesn't have to be like the Jones' or making lots of money, etc. I said I think success is being able to follow your own dreams without letting anyone stop you. Even if you don't reach the goal, the journey of following your dreams is a success in itself.

Image what the world would be like if everybody was encouraged to follow their own dreams and passion. Now that would be a success story!

New Work

This is a piece I finished last week that kind of goes with the aerial landscape series. It was very hard to take a picture of as it is long and skinny. This time I used the paintsticks to create the tree circle before I did the hand stitching. It is subtle but you can see it in the detail picture. It turned out a bit different than my original idea. What are your impressions?

Identity

I have posted this quilt on my blog before. It was the "play-along" quilt for the 12 x 12 group's latest theme of identity. Today is the official reveal so go to their blog to see all the wonderful interpretations.

This is my interpretation. When they first announced the identity theme, I thought that would be a hard one. Nothing came to my mind right away. I didn't even think about it, but what might have been a few days later, this idea came to my head. Obviously, I made it bigger than 12 x 12 because that was what I envisioned.

How does this quilt identify me? I used cool colors on the "outside" of the quilt because I have been told that if you don't know me, I seem to have a unfriendly, "cool" (not the hip kind) demeanor. Maybe because I don't chit-chat a lot, or I have a naturally frowning face. Also, I may seem calmer on the outside than the chaotic thoughts that go through my head sometimes. I used green and blues as those are some of my favorite colors.

However, if you get to know me, you would find that I am very "warm" on the inside and very passionate about some things (hence the fiery orange and reddish colors).

The "inside" square was made with glue resist fabric I made. You probably cannot read the words (which was intentional), but one has "artist" written repeatedly and the other has "creativity" written on it. The leaf in the middle represents the environment and nature, which I care about deeply. I feel I function much better if I am around nature, even if it is only seeing lots of green and trees as I look out the window.

There are six horizontal sections and eleven stripes in the bottom section to represent my birthday of June 11th. The orange square, in my original sketch, was set off-center. But when I was putting it together, I decided to put it centered because that is what I am striving for in my life; to be centered and grounded.

The top quilting lines are more calming and represent the ideas that sometimes float by. The leaf shape forms growing up from the bottom are all the many ideas I have that I may never get to.

Do you think it looks like me?

Knock, Knock . . .

who's there? A funny, little yellow bird.

For the past week or so, this little yellow bird has been knocking on our windows with his beak. We cannot figure out what he is doing. Some birds accidentally fly into our windows because of the reflections, sometimes. This little fellow, flies up and taps his beak on the window. He has done it on several different windows, so I don't think it has to do with reflections. I think there must be some invisible bugs we can't see, that maybe he is catching?

Walking to school one day we also saw him do the same thing to a truck that was parked on the street. He was flying around tapping on the windows. Very strange.

We also have a mommy Mourning Dove that made her nest in a tree outside our living room window. We check on her every day, as she has been laying and hatching her eggs. She picked a spot where we really don't have a good view from any angle because of the leaves, but a couple of mornings ago, we got a glimpse of the chicks. You had to look really hard and she was still covering up most of them. I hope we can see more as they grow. Look closely in the picture, she is in there.

Midpoint

It is almost half way through the year. I have been thinking about my goals and if I'm about halfway there. You can see what was on my wall a week or two ago. I have some pieces completed, some still in the works.

It is almost time to transition to the summer schedule. Anna will be out of school next week and it will be harder to find time to work on my art (for some reason it is already hard enough as it is). Anna will have camps. I'm hoping to be doing some paid work at the museum the first two weeks after school, and maybe in July. We have a big trip planned. Anna will have a list of things she would like to do over the summer. It will go by quickly and I need to have some kind of plan of what I want to accomplish and how the heck I am going to do that.

I know the daylight hours will be longer, so maybe I will be working later in the evening on my pieces. Or maybe I will try not to have too many expectations and enjoy the summer with Anna.

Victory!

. . . or Recovery. That is what they are saying about the gardens people are planting now. I think there are a lot more people planting their own food gardens this year because of the economy. We've been doing some work on that this weekend.

My small victory was finally getting these raspberry canes in the ground! I think I have had them in pots for a month. It was suppose to be a simple project. Buy canes and plant in ground.

But you know how those simple projects turn out sometimes. Where they are planted is by one of our retaining walls in back. When I told Frank where I wanted to put them, he said I should dig up the grass all along the entire retaining wall (about 53 feet). I was just planning on about 10 feet for the raspberries.

Then I thought it would be nice to have a raised bed. It didn't look like we had enough wood leftover from the deck re-do Frank did, so I said it might be nice to do dry stacked stones. So we waited until we could go to the stone place and find out that it was going to be much more money than we wanted to spend for a small bed.

As you can see, we went back to the wood idea. We don't have enough to finish the entire wall. I have dug up about 30 feet of it, but I think Frank might have to do the rest since it was his idea. But the raspberries are now in their permanent home (there are two more canes not pictured).


We also put in a couple new garden boxes out front, made from the leftover deck wood. I put mine on the "berm" as we get lots of sun there and we decided to take all the grass out there several years ago. This box is actually the old one but the new one just has a couple of sprouts right now.


Anna had a small victory today when she and Frank went fishing. She received a new pink fishing pole for her birthday. Since then, they have gone fishing several times, but have not caught anything. Today was her lucky day. They caught several fish, this being the biggest (the others thrown back).


When they came home, Anna came in and asked if I wanted to see her fish. Of course I did. I asked what she planned to do with it. She said she wanted to get a big tank and keep him. But she said Daddy wanted to eat it. I said if she wanted to keep him alive, then she should have thrown him back. We now have a very small fish fillet waiting in the refrigerator.

"You can have anything,. . .

but you can't have everything." I have always remembered this quote that was spoken by a relative. There are so many things implied in this statement. If you work hard enough, are passionate enough or save enough money, you can have anything. But if you want everything, you won't have enough money for everything. Or if you are focused on many different things, you might not get anywhere. Anyway, you get the point?

So, what does this have to do with art? There could be many interpretations. But for me, it means I have to focus on one thing. Ever since I was a child, I have loved art (and crafts). I enjoy taking classes and learning new techniques. Each new art or craft, I tend to embrace whole-heartedly (except for throwing ceramics on a wheel - that was too frustrating for me). Over the years I have been into fine art (of course), cross-stitch, scrap booking, rubber stamping, sewing, dyeing fabric, felting, needle punch, etc.

What I realized a couple years ago, is that I can't really do all these things at the same time and make art. I kept thinking that someday all these things would meld together in my art. But they haven't yet. They also became a procrastination technique for art, as well. Yes, they are creative, which is why I like them. But I decided to cut back. I don't do cross stitch much anymore. Although I have one big piece I need to finish and I still have some patterns, but I am not making any conscious effort to do it. I'm years behind in my scrap booking and don't do rubber stamping much, unless I need it for an artwork. Simplification is good.

That is why when the knitting craze hit a few years ago, I decided I was not going to get into it. I do not need to collect yarns and have another distraction from art. But, . . .

Anna received a knitting kit as a gift some time ago. One night I came downstairs and found Frank trying to teach Anna how to knit by reading the booklet that came with it. He gets an A+ for effort, but since he didn't know what he was doing, it didn't work out so well. I said we need to get Grandma Peggy to show Anna how to do it.

One time while Peggy was visiting, I remembered to ask her to show us how to knit. Since Anna was at school most of the day, I said Peggy could show me and then I would try to teach Anna. I got it, but then did not practice after she left and, hence, forgot how to do it.

On her last visit, I decided to video tape her hands while she was knitting so if I forgot, I would have a reference. So once again, I tried to learn knitting. I also ordered a book (seen below) that SouleMama had listed on her blog. It said it was for "kids of all ages".

I have been practicing and have managed to show Anna how to knit and purl. She is excited by the book because it has a pattern for a cat washcloth in it. We have not gotten that far yet. But you can see my practice squares in the pictures below and Anna's practice square on the cat needles. So, I guess I have been distracted a bit from my focus.


And I would definitely recommend the book. It has good, illustrated directions and some nice, fun patterns. (Peggy, if you are reading this, it shows how to knit on like you do.)

Series Comments and a New Work

Thanks to all who left a comment about my series. I enjoyed all the nice comments. I also like reading suggestions and constructive criticism as well. For example, someone said the series title didn't add anything to or tell the story of the pieces and she gave some suggestions. I did struggle with that and she has a point, so I will come up with something else. Right now I am thinking about Man's Hand on Land (I just like the rhyming of that).

Terry commented that there wasn't much contrast in the rural piece. That is something I can think about if I plan to do another piece in the series. Actually, the piece below kind of goes with the series although it is very different. This is titled Japanese Rock Garden 1. Same aerial view idea, but more specific and focused. I am currently working on a second one and went to the library to do some research and think I will be doing a series of these.

This Post is for the Birds and Clare

Tuesday morning, Anna and I were walking to school on our usual route. As we were walking through "the field" (the open reserve area near our home), we noticed a woodpecker. They are not usually in the field much. Then I saw another bird that looked like a flash of blue. I thought maybe it was just the morning light because we rarely see bluebirds around here. But no, it was a pretty little bluebird. There were robins and a magpie flew overhead (those are common).

Walking back from school, I saw a quail bird (very common in the field), a red-winged black bird (which can usually be found in the pond in another area, but not necessarily in the field), a yellow finch and a hummingbird. Lots of different birds in one area. Amazing.

An speaking of amazing, check out the artist who did this bird. Her name is Geninne and you can go to her etsy shop here.

On a sad note, Anna's dwarf hamster, Clare, died in her sleep on Wednesday night. It was a shock to Anna to wake up and find her lying still. She had seemed just fine the morning before. A dwarf hamster's life span is about two years old and I think Clare was about that old. She didn't seem to suffer. It's been a rough week for Anna.

Fence Art: Part 2

After several schedule changes, I did the second half of the class art lesson yesterday. Since the weather did not cooperate last week by pelting the fence art with hail, rain and wind, I thought I would try using strips of tagboard. By weaving these in the fence, I thought they would stay better.

We had a windy day in which to work. Some of the students also wanted to use the squares, as well as the strips. Today I found several pieces of tagboard on the ground that was either blown off or pulled out. I do think the strips worked better and it was a bit easier for the students to weave.

After seven years of teaching art to Anna's class, this was my very last. At this point, I am happy about that.

The Series

This is the series of pieces I have been working on, all together. They are suppose to go in this order, although I did not finish them in this order. The first piece, Wilderness Landscape, was actually the last piece I finished. The next in the series is Rural Landscape, Suburban Landscape and, lastly, Urban Landscape.

I'm thinking of calling the series, A-scapes. They are meant to be an Aerial view and they are also Abstract. I welcome any other suggestions for the series title.

Hopefully, you can see the progression in the pieces from organic, free flowing shapes to more geometric shapes and straight lines; man's influence on nature. The snowflake-like hand stitches, which represent trees, change throughout the series as well. In Urban landscape, there is only one tree left. Another progression is from mostly hand-dyed fabric to more commercial fabrics with geometric patterns.

Please let me know your thoughts and impressions about this series.

Wilderness Landscape

Rural Landscape

Suburban Landscape

Urban Landscape

Wilderness Landscape

Yesterday and today I finally had some time to work on my artwork. I managed to finish this piece. It is called Wilderness Landscape. Once again, I cannot decide which way I like it best. What do you think?











This picture above is so you can see the detail of the hand stitching. This weekend, I will put pictures of the series together, so you can see them all.

Projects Done!

I finally finished cutting the million little squares and punching the holes in them. Today was the art project day. It is also suppose to be the rainiest day this week. As the constant drizzle of rain continued this morning, I was getting quite worried we would be working out in the rain (I had no back-up plan). However, as the time came, the rain cleared.

Below are pictures of the kids doing their art installations. Each square was put on a paperclip (I bought a 1000 paperclips) and wrapped individually around the wires on the fence. I had no idea how this project was going to turn out. It could have been a complete disaster or a good experience for the kids. I think it was the latter. They had to work together in groups to complete each design.




This is only the first half of the class. Next week, I will have to take them all down so that the second half of the class can do it, too. I hope it does not rain too much to ruin the tag board squares. I also hope the other kids won't take them down or re-arrange them. I asked the principal to make an announcement about it. Hopefully, . . . .

I also finished Anna's costume today. Yippee!

Two Done

I managed to finish the two auction quilts this weekend. They are now hanging up at school for a preview. It's hard to tell from the pictures but the quilting is stitch in the ditch around the sashing and I free motion outlined the major components of each block. Pretty simple, but also complete!





I've also made more headway on cutting squares for my art lesson. I just need to finish punching holes in them. I also made it to the grocery store. We bought Anna a new bike (and sold the old one on Craigslist). We also made fresh pasta for dinner.

First you make some dough, divide it into sections and then flatten it out with a pasta machine.

Then you use another attachment to slice it into strips.

Hang on rack to dry or cook right away.

There is still a costume to make. I have found a skirt pattern online that I will attempt to lengthen and hope I have enough fabric for it. I'm not sure about the shirt just yet. They had high collars and puffy sleeves in the 1800's. Stay tuned.

Panic attack

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have the two auction quilts to finish by next Friday. Although they would really like me to have it done by Monday to hang at the school for a week before the auction. Yesterday, I managed to sandwich both of them and started the quilting on both. Still a long way to go.

The fourth through sixth graders are putting on a musical at school on May 15. We are told that everyone has to have a costume. I remember Anna saying she wanted to be on the stage crew. So I asked her yesterday if she was. She said yes. I said, "Yea! I don't have to make you a costume." She said she still had to have one as she will be working where the audience can see her. Oh. . .

Of course, it is set in the 1800's. I'm sure I can just whip up a costume from the 1800's in no time . . . not! Anna said it didn't have to be homemade, we could go to the thrift store. I doubt there will be loads of 1800's costumes at the thrift store. They will be checking next Friday to make sure everyone has their costume. No pressure.

I am also trying to get my last art lesson ready for next week. It requires cutting up millions of small squares and punching holes in them. Why do I do this to myself? I did manage to punch holes while watching Anna's double header volleyball games last night (pictures below), but there is still so much to do. That doesn't include the plants that are waiting to be planted and the other yard work to be done. Sometimes the weekends are busier than the week.

I haven't worked on my art this week and that makes me less happy as well. I think the mental aspects of knowing what needs to be done has been draining my energy this week.

I'm constantly searching for that balance of things and have yet to find it. While I was at the museum, I was talking to a co-worker about all the ideas/projects/etc. that I have that will never get done. She said she thought I got quite a bit done. Well, not as much as I would like. Now that I have vented, there's work to be done!

Serve's up!

Huddle up!

Glue Resist Fabric

I haven't been getting in the studio much this week. Maybe it's because Anna has volleyball two times a week now. Maybe it's because I have the auction quilts looming over my head as the deadline quickly approaches. I don't know, but I was able to do some more glue resist fabric.

This first picture is more words. I decided to try some commercial fabric as well. The orange piece in the upper left is commercial fabric, but I did not put enough paint over it so it is hard to see where the glue was.

This second picture is just drizzles and doodles. The red piece and purple piece are folded over so you can see the difference between the front and the back. They were both commercial pieces as well.

V-ball

Anna has started a new session of Y volleyball. They had their first game last week after only two practices. This time Anna has a really good coach (they ask for volunteers to coach, so it is usually a parent). The coach had asked them before the game to concentrate on moving to the ball and having fun. They lost, but as we were walking out, Anna said she had fun. That's what I want for her; to have fun and be part of a team.

As Anna and I were talking about the games, I said part of the reason they lost was because her coach asked them to serve behind one of the two lines marked on the floor (one regulation line and, I guess, the other a recreational line), The other team was serving wherever they wanted to on the court. The Y league doesn't really care about where they serve because they just want everyone to have a successful experience. But Anna said, "I'd rather play by the rules and lose than break the rules and win." That's my girl!

Stage 4: Quilting and Finishing

The last stage of this piece is the quilting and finishing. When I drew the idea in my sketchbook, I did not have any particular ideas about the quilting. Most of the time, my ideas don't include quilting lines and I have to think about them as I'm working or after the piece is all together. Sometimes, the quilting is part of the initial idea.

This piece, I wasn't sure how to quilt. I drew out some ideas on a clear sheet of plastic (with a dry erase marker) on top of the quilt. Here is what I decided upon. I think the curvy lines are a nice juxtaposition to the rectangular blocks. I decided to echo the leaf shape in one section to help tie it together. There is also a thought behind the growing leaf shapes (I'll explain another time).




To completely finish it, the edges have to have some treatment. Most of the time, I put on a traditional binding. I did not want that extra little border for this piece, so I did the facing technique. I will also need to put on a sleeve for hanging and a label on the back.

This is the "play-along" piece for the Twelve by Twelve group's current theme which is identity. I am way early in completing it. Therefore, I will put it on my blog again when they reveal theirs and give my explanation on how it fits with this theme.

Stage 3: Piecing

Continuing on with the explanation of my work progression; the next step is piecing. Here I have the pieces sewn together. But something was bothering me. It was the proportions of the bottom layers. So I put it on the wall and pinned places to create different dimensions.



After a couple of tries, I decided it was the striped line that was bugging me. I ripped the seam and turned it upside down. This made it feel more grounded to me. Then, I messed with the proportions a little bit more.


Next: quilting and finishing.

Party!

Even though Anna's actual birthday was several weeks ago. We finally had her party yesterday. It was a beautiful day, so I'm glad we waited. She wanted to have an outdoor party this year (which is always iffy in the springtime). It was held at a local park. Anna wanted to have a hula hoop party.

Friday night we were cutting sprinkler tubing and making circles with connectors. We made eight. Anna and I had picked out some colorful duct tape for decorating the hoops (you can get it at Michael's). Below, Anna's friend, Jesse, is getting started.

When the hoops were all decorated, we had some hoop contests. One was to see who could hula hoop the longest. Since we could have been there all day with that one, we had to make it harder by having the person spin their body while hooping and then stopping and reversing the body spin. Eventually we had a winner. There was also a contest to see who could do the most hoops. The funniest was a team relay race to walk and hoop down to a tree and back.

Below is everyone with their decorated hoops. Only one person did not show up, so Frank decorated that hoop.

Anna decided she wanted to have cupcakes instead of cake. She also wanted to try out some food coloring spray that we saw at JoAnn's. Here's how they turned out. Note: The spray is a bit messy and would be better on a flat surface, like a sheet cake, if you are doing a stencil.

On Friday at school, they had class pictures taken. Anna wanted me to curl her hair that morning. My curling iron, that comes out once every 5-10 years, is still functional. We curled her hair. But the one thing of hairspray I had didn't work, because it rarely gets used as well (we are pretty much wash-and-wear people here). I warned Anna that her hair might not stay curled until they took the pictures. By the time we walked to school, most of the curl was gone. She was quite disappointed.

I told her we could curl her hair for her party day and take a picture right away. That morning she washed her hair. I put some mousse in it and blow-dried it. Then I curled it, which took quite a while. I remembered Grandma had left some hairspray downstairs and got that to put on (she didn't like the smell, which was unscented. Neither did I, which is why I don't use the stuff.) Below are a couple of the pictures we took, in the same place as a few weeks ago. Now the tree is in bloom and her curls lasted a bit longer.

This first picture is the one Anna likes best, probably because her curly hair is in her face.

This is the one I like the best. I remembered after the first picture to turn the flash on my camera. (If you are taking pictures outside in the shade, it really helps to have your flash on.) I pushed her hair back behind her ear, because I wanted to see all of the beautiful face! Sounds like a mother, doesn't it?