Beelandia Mosaic Apiary Sign

I've been working on the Beelandia sign for Abelisto's apiary. The migraine last week slowed everything down for me this past week, and along with a number of the "must-do" things that often get in the way of making art kept me out of the studio most of the week.

Today I escaped from all that and worked on it for a few hours. I got much of the background done. I think a couple more evenings and I'll have this one done.

Beelandia Apiary sign 1 week ago - the bees are done and I started the background.

Beelandia Apiary sign when I started on it today.

Beelandia Apiary sign when I stopped working on it tonight.

Mosaic Art

While I wait for the payment for the commission (which should arrive in my bank account sometime in the next 24 hours) I'm thinking of ideas for the next mosaic(s). At this point, unless I get another commission soon I will be doing a couple different pieces for myself - just because...

One of them is going to have to be a river/water/place piece... that's what's pressing right now; that's what seems to be spinning around in my head. I think it will be another stone & glass piece...

In the meanwhile, I'm cutting up marble - for fun and practice and for future work - I can work on my hammer and hardie skills while my mind thinks about what's next.

This is what I cut in about 20 minutes tonight:

 
I'm getting better at this... better cuts (shapes and sizes that I want to make, as opposed to however they come out), and much, much less waste.

And here's the scraps:

That's all that I wasted.

Mosaics in progress

For some reason, after a hiatus in the studio (sort of forced by too many hours at work and the beginnings of the spring allergy season) I now find myself with four mosaics in progress... I worked in the studio for several hours and got two of them about halfway done.

I have two more days of break. I wonder if I can finish any of them.

Studio Reorganized

One last - and short - post for tonight.

Spent some time over the weekend reorganizing my mosaic studio (with the help of Eli and Emerald) - moved things around and started reorganizing the materials on the shelves and under the bench. There's still some sorting and shelving to be done.

Here's what it looks like now (this is a panorama made up of photos stitched together in PhotoShop - used the Photomerge process so there's a bit of distortion at the junctions of the photos I took from the center of the room)...

If you click on the image you can see what is what...

Dragon Mosaic

Made some progress this weekend, but not as much as I'd hoped.
Spent some time:

1. with daughter #4 and her partner, playing our favorite board game, Arkham Horror, a game based on the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. 
2. going to a friend's 70th birthday party - in an art gallery. Very cool. 
3. doing way more work than I wanted on a website that I'm working on for a local group.
4. clearing the ice from the roof of the side entrance at the Winona Arts Center. The ice was melting and causing a leak. Will need to get back up there and fix the roof soon.
5. and doing the household chores that I tend to let slide when I'm more interested in doing art than doing chores (which is almost always...). Didn't get much of that done though...

Anyway, here's where I'm at with the mosaic:

Need to finish soon, the next mosaic is clamoring to get out of my head and become something real.

Working in an organized studio

After Nova and I cleaned and organized my downstairs studio I moved the tapestry from the front room (I hesitate to call it a living room - there is not much in the way of traditional living room furniture in it - three desks, five bookcases, a stereo on an end table, and a printer stand...)


In these photos you can see the progress as of tonight. I will be weaving more as soon as I finish the website work I need to do. You can see the AVL loom that Abelisto bought for me a few years ago. Later in the summer I will be setting it up and teaching a couple people to weave.


It is really nice to have the studio organized and cleaned up. I will need to learn where we put everything. Most of it went into the tall cabinet you can see in the photo below. We got some crates at Target (plastic unfortunately - bad for sustainable living, but the price and availability were right) and sorted things into categories - sculpture-plaster, sculpture-clay, sculpture-found object, fiber work, tablet weaving, adhesives, beeswax & torches, pencils-pens-scissors-paints (non-encaustic),and general/miscellaneous.

Funny - well, maybe not...

I think my art practice has been depressed lately.

It is funny - or maybe strange - how having some sort of success reinvigorates my practice. I can get so down about doing art, I find myself constantly saying "I need to do some art..." but no art happens because I tell myself I am not in the mood...

It is not that, not really. It is just that when I get out of the practice of doing art, or when I have not had any meaningful successes with any of it, I lose my focus and it gets harder and harder to make art, to get started making art, to even decide what kind of art I want to do.

And of course, this is a downward spiral - I do not make art because I have not made it. I have not made it because I have not made it. And so on...

It is important to step out of that circle and actually do something. The life of my practice may depend on it - and considering the stress relief I have experienced over the last couple days, my life in general may depend on getting out of the morass and making art.

Right now the inspiration for weaving tapestries is flowing through me like a river.

A productive day, I think...

It seems like today was a fairly productive day. I have been stressing over this upcoming art show and the fact that my summer schedule has not been what I thought it would be. I do not know why that surprises me, since when has my schedule been what I thought it would be...

Read more...
Today, though, went well. I managed to (not in this order):

1. Begin work on the triptych piece I have been wanting to do for the show, which involved:

a. going to Menards to get some boards and a new vice (picked up a sweet Dremel vice that is perfect for the small work I do)
b. digging through bins of fabric in my studio to find the pseudo-leather fabric
c. customizing the small brass hinges that I got yesterday (again at Menards) with the vice and a 6 oz. tack hammer
d. cutting and sanding the boards
e. gluing the boards to the fabric (in very precise places)
f. attaching the hinges to the boards (over the top of the pseudo-leather fabric)

2. Do some organizing in the studio, although it is still a huge mess, and will be until we get back from Indiana.
3. Lay down for a short nap (which is why I am still going, full of energy, at 9:45).
4. Make lunch (Abelisto made dinner)
5. Spend some time trying to convince my 18 year old son the importance of taking care of someone else's tools better than you would care for your own.
6. Read the last 5 or 6 short stories in Charles de Lint's Moonlight & Vines.
7. Brush Sheldon (Abelisto's cat) to remove some of the mats in his fur.
8. Pack the encaustic painting supplies and tools for the trip to Indiana.

There was more, but this was enough to list.

Looking back on it, listing all this here, it feels like a really productive day. Now if I only had a whole other month of days like this, I might feel like I was ready for the art show.

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