follow up to the late night rant . . .

as some of you know i was quite anxious about my submissions to the juried Fountain Street Fine Art's PAPER exhibit (click here to see the blog post about these anxieties)  I spoke mostly about the painting/drawing that I submitted, being a new direction for me, and which stirred some serious critics in my head.  

Yesterday I received an email with a list of the accepted pieces/artists for the show and I am happy to announce that my name was on the list!!! But my drawing/painting piece wasn't.   
The piece that did get in is one of my favorite mini dresses, Take a Number!!! 

take a number

take a number (back)

I especially love this dress because it contains the contradictory element usually found in my larger dress sculptures. The dress is bright and colorful, yet it has an underlying message. As a mother, wife, cook, soccer mom and working artist I have felt so drained and exhausted by all the demands asked of me, and I am not unique in this feeling.  When I made this dress I was feeling particularly taxed.  

thank u 4 waiting

 I chose to use the deli tickets as I did for the dress, Thank u 4 Waiting, but for this piece I used the tickets to suggest the idea of many people needing many things from this one woman. I used red and pinks thread to sew swirling lines onto the paper mache top.   I left the ends of the sewn threads hanging to give the sense of loose ends or feeling drained or frayed.  

  So that is the story behind this piece, which will be part of this exciting exhibit at Fountain Street Fine Art.  Below is the list of all the accepted artists and their pieces along with some other information about the jurying and the dates of the show.  And what about the drawing/painting?!?! well it will head back to the studio to be judged another day.


peace

James Welu selected 47 pieces by 41 artists from the more than 190 pieces submitted by 85 artists, 

The following pieces were accepted:

First Name Last name Title Ann Barbato Frau Finnegan Lisa Barthelson f-sorted family debris series Meg Black Storm Coming Suzanne Booth Escape Arlene Chaplin Wandering Away Brenda Cirioni Rock Nest Cheryl Clinton Summer Shadows I Jane Coder Hydrangeas Patricia Crotty Red, White, and Black 10 Lynne Damianos Pakm Leaf I Bob Evans Visual Eyes, Water Street, Boston Nan Hass Feldman The Rooster in the Kitchen Virginia Fitzgerald Take a Number Amy Furman String Things Milisa Galazzi Waggle Dance 5 Diptych Steve Gatter Columbia Farm Afternoon Ania Gilmore & Bob Hesse Fleurs du Mal Wilson Hunt Jr. Wild Thing J.B. Jones Blue Clip Linda Kimerling Square #1 David A. Lang Wing Walker Randy LeSage Figure I/Figure II Madeleine Lord Hello From Queens Hello From Boston Stephen G. Maka Winter Stone Wall From Series "Medusa" Row Boats Ginger McEachern The Shoe Box All the Colors Robert Meszaros Trunk 1002 Karen Nunley Indian Summer Jeanette O'Connor Initiation Joan Onofrey An American Lobster Roy Perkinson Daybreak, Columbia River Robin Reynolds November Glow II Karen Rothman Papier-mâché mask models posing for still life Mahala Sacra Dominicana in Pieces Dale Savit Untitled Joyce Utting Schutter A Cut Beneath Twining Flask Suzanne Stumpf Egg Shell Nest Susan Swinand Lunar Force Falling Moon Amy Waltch Rust Lillies Timothy Wilson Portrait of Packing Paper Cynthia Winika Firecracker

The show will run from 

Friday, January 13, 2012 through Sunday, February 5, 2012.

the opening reception, which will be held on 

Saturday, January 21, from 5:00 – 7:00 PM.

take a number ....

The creation of this dress was , as it usually is, a journey for me ~ starting off with one idea but the dress taking me in an entirely different direction. I have used these deli tickets before & I love them~ their color, the graphics and what they stand for .... waiting to be served. I have used these tickets for a 'thank you for waiting' theme, but this time the phrase 'take a number' echoed loudly in my head. For me, this dress is a little commentary about how I have been feeling in the last weeks of summer vacation. Now don't get me wrong - there are many, MANY things I love about summer vacation. I especially love having long days with my girls to explore, play, veg out!! However ~ there are times that being mom, artist, daughter, wife, cook, waitress, taxi driver, referee, cleaner, dog walker,... for 24/7 can take its toll ~ I feel frayed, at my wits end. This dress came from that place.

I created the top with pink tissue as a base that I would cover with some bright patterned paper. But as it was drying I saw the translucence of the tissue & I decided to leave it ~ it created a feeling of softness and vulnerability. Then i felt that this dress needed to have a heart, an anatomically correct heart, as I have been feeling that my heart is on the outside for all to see. From this heart I sewed onto the paper top many lines, in reds and pinks, creating a pattern but also suggesting veins. I am VERY interested in the anatomy of the body lately, especially the heart. Many pieces that I am working on now have a heart in or on them. However once the lines were sewn onto the bodice my anatomically correct heart got lost in the fray....so I placed the gem over the heart. Now the heart is quietly peaking out from behind the gem, maybe the gem is protecting it, keeping it safe.

I am always amazed at how my work unfolds before me .... I can struggle with it and fight my internal critics, but if I quiet my mind, and really listen & follow that still quiet voice without doubt, amazing results happen. And sometimes I don't even recognize it until I sit here and blog about the process. After writing this post I feel that this dress is not only about feeling pulled in many directions, waiting on many people ~ it is about heartstrings! It is how it can feel when you put your heart out there and love and care for people ... it can being scary, tiring, painful but also wonderful!!!

peace