exploring techniques

I borrowed a book by Sherrilyn Kahn that is full of techniques. Now I want the book but can't wait until I can afford it, so have been working my way through the techniques. Learned a few things that I swear I will never touch again, and a couple that look promising. I can't seem to settle to any one task, so have decided to explore the Beryl Taylor suggestion of creating a stash of bits and bobbles to use in collages. This has led to me finishing a collage I started a couple of years ago when I took a collage workshop. The workshop piece was awful and I told the instructor that I planned to paint the whole thing black! But instead, over the past couple of years, I've been working away at it. Layers of gesso and walnut ink and watercolour paper etc. Now I've added some painted make-up wipes, from the Kahn book, and I think it's finally finished. Very different from anything I've ever done before, but maybe something to pursue.

Dancing Muse

yes, she is. The ideas just keep coming! I can't get them on paper fast enough!

The photography didn't work out. I really need to play with my lighting, expecially given that I need to start to use one consistent type of light source, rather than the two I've used up to now. The fusing/piecing for Rock Face is done. I'm not really happy, but I'm not sure how to change anything. I believe that I should be able to modify it with some carefully planned quilting. This will be a bit of a stretch for me--up to now, my quilting has "just happened".

Last evening, a friend gave me some pieces of paper she acquired while in Japan. I'm interpreting this as a "sign". Over the past week my mind has kept going back to some ideas I've had for collages that would be much more paper based than fabric based. Now I have a few pieces of very special paper to use. This has beeen a recurring thought for about a year, and it makes me wonder if I may be moving into a different phase of my art work. This isn't necessarily a Bad Thing, but rather something I've been fighting for awhile. Maybe the gift of paper is telling me to stop fighting.

Government--Argh-h-h!

After a few years of avoiding the priviliege of collectign retail sales tax during my sales, I finally "bit the bullet" last November, and registered. I collected the tax atthe sale in November, and again at the sales in lat April and May1-2. Then this week I found out that the government had decided that it was no longer necessary for any business with gross income of less than $10,000 to collect. Now, neither can we take advantage of being able to purchase goods without paying the tax, but this isn't something I've been doing. So having finally finished filling out overwheming government forms, I have to start all over again, in order to reverse the whole process.

However, I'm finally working on my Rock Face piece. The idea has been developing over the past 3 years. I've collected pictures and fabric, I've had one picture enlarged and I've drafted a pattern. I dyed fabric, and created a vinyl overlay to use during the piecing process. But now I'm actually cutting and fusing fabric.

Yesterday I took a workshop on photgraphing two dimensional art work. The lessons I learned were that lighting is everything, to use my "point and shoot" in manual, and to use a tripod. So I plan to practise while I'm working on the "Rock Face" piece, and see if I can document the process.

Even more exciting, my creative muse appears to be coming back to life. I have ideas for two new boxes, but need to get them onto paper. Exciting times!

First Sale done!

The first big one of the season. This is the third time I've participated in this sale, and I did as well as before. Enough to make me consider going back, but certainly not enough to retire. Two things helped--I sold one big piece, and I was able to accept credit cards, by processing them through the Crafts Musem. The Crafts Musem will take a 20% commission on the sale, but this is still better than loosing the sale. The small colourful purses attracted a lot of attention, and most of them sold. The next craft sale--as opposed to art sale--isn't until the end of July, so I have time to make a few more. I had some journals, and they attracted youg girls, but only one of them sold. That fad is over! Now there is a one-day art sale in two weeks, then nothing until mid-July.
To try to get over my creative blosk, I decided to try Morning Pages again. It seems to be working. I have several ideas, and now need to spend the next couple of days getting them down on paper.

Recycled craft

I attended a lecture on environmentally friendly and sustainable craft on Thursday ( Earth Day). While the speaker was a knitter, she covered many aspects of environmental sustainability in craft work in general, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed her talk. It was also nice that many of the suggestions and considerations she spoke of were a validation of some of the approaches I've already explored.

The second part of the event was a small sale of crafts produced using aspects of recycling. Knowing the sponsoring agency and the location, I did not expect ot sell anything, but had gone in hopes of getting feedback on the pieces I displayed and the direction I seem to be moving. There was a great deal of interest in my work, and the comments were all favorable. I made three sales, out of a total of four sales for all vendors combined. All the sales were my small purses using remnants of the African fabrics I've been working with, but there was just as much interest in the small hangings--enough that I now plan to take them with me to the next couple of more mainstream sales. I won't make any more of them until I see if any of them actually sell, but I have fabric ready should that happen. The next sale is May 1st and 2nd.

Exciting times embarking on a new style of work and new direction.

The quilt show was last weekend. Although I did a stint as a volunteer Friday morning, on Saturday and Sunday I took a workshop with Pippa Moore from Vancouver Island. Pippa has a blog www.kitambaa.blogspot.com where she talks about her work trying to establish quilting as a cottage industry in Uganda.

This gives her access to African fabrics, and the finished projects her ladies make, both of which she markets in North America to support the work done in Africa. So the workshop was making an African inspired wall hanging, using mainly African fabrics. I bought a second kit and made a second hanging over the past couple of days. I had hoped that the workshop would "jump start" my creativity, and while I'm pleased with what I produced, I'm not sure where I might go from here. I have lots of scraps of African fabric that I can use in making small items that can be legitimately called "re-cycled", and I plan to pursue that. But little of my stuff sold at the show, and I'm somewhat discouraged right now.

Where did the time go?

I turned around and it was craft sale season again! My first sale--a small one that I send goods to on consignment--is next weekend. I started going through my inventory yesterday and realized how very little there is! Panic! There is another small sale on April 22. Anything offered for sale then must be made from re-cycled materials, and I have about 8 small pieces, made especially for that sale. Those little guys are such fun to make that I've used up most of my re-cycl-able stuff. It's hard to stop. But I think they have very limited appeal and I shouldn't make any more until the first batch sell--a very limited market. Then the first "big sale" of the season--May 1st-2nd. I have reserved space for my full booth--and will have to fill it! I hadn't really looked at the calendar when I sent some of my newer work out to a gallery in another town. I can't get it back until May 2nd. I think I may just enquire about picking it up April 30th. Bad form, I know.
Anyway, I think I've figured out what I would be doing for the next few weeks. Not what I had planned at all.