One Birdie, Two Birdie, and so much more

Bird by bird is a mantra I use often, especially when things seem to be getting a bit out of control.  When my monstrous list of things paralyzes me  I just remind myself bird by bird (thank you, Anne Lamott), one thing at a time and I can breathe more easily.  Not surprisingly,  with all my recent life transitions, I have been reciting this phrase a lot, even hourly depending on the day.  So there should be no wonder that birds are taking center stage in my artwork!! And I am loving it.Now birds are no strangers to my work - they wormed their way on to the walls of 'this comes from within' and there are many daily dresses referring to 'bird by bird'.  For me birds symbolize many ideas - freedom, Spring, rebirth, nesting, nurturing, mothering, singing and flight.  So I am so happy to be featuring birds in two upcoming art/installation events.

First is this utmost exciting installation that I have been commissioned to create for the Attleboro Public Library.  I was ask to come up with a community participatory installation/sculpture to celebrate National Poetry Month (which is April).  I am working with a spectacular and passionate librarian, Amy Rhilinger. (click here to read an article about one of the many poetry projects that Amy initiated) Amy saw my piece 'insatiable' at the Green Exhibit and the Attleboro Arts Museum this summer and loved how people could add to the piece.  She contacted me to help create a similiar project for her library.  

After meeting and seeing the space and figuring in finances, we brain stormed on what would work best.  We both wanted to incorporate recycled material since Earth Day is also in April and we both loved the idea of highlighting the endless possibilities of materials that we usually cast aside. Our first idea was a quilt like banner using recycled materials.  After many weeks of cutting fusing plastic bag and sewing them together, or experimenting with uses of subscription cards with the idea of creating a quilt like banner - I was stumped.  I didn't like any of my prototypes.  Another meeting with Amy was needed, so off to Attleboro I headed.  

There Amy and I revisited the library's beautiful open atrium and were inspired.  Instead of banners we saw birds - birds in flight;  garlands of birds, covered in poetry. 

I loved the idea ~ poetry in flight, words take wings.  And I could see how i could incorporate recycled materials and make it easy for anyone to participate.  

working prototype of poetry bird garland

garland as seen from the underneath

The body of the bird is made from cardboard ~ cereal boxes, moving boxes, shoe boxes... then I cover each bird with recycled paper with bl/wht or brown/wht text.  I am using the 'text' from the paper as pattern/texture, not to be readable.  As I make many different birds I am realizing that the sky is the limit  for the different materials we can use on the birds ~ newspapers, magazines, sheet music, brown paper bags, extra tax forms :), blank coloring book pages, old receipts?!?! the list goes on and on.  Each different 'paper' gives each bird a different color, a different look. 

some of the bird forms before the wings are added

I hope to limit the palette of the birds to black, browns, creams, whites and grays, but then I was thinking of using/recycling the endless supply of old phone books, so yellow might sneak in.  Also an art teachers in the Attleboro Public Schools is going to make pieces for the installation based on a poem about gold.  So we might have some gold wings, or such.  So who knows how our flock will end up?!? or how big it will get?! 

I will be leading a workshop at the library next Wed, from 1-3 pm.  During the workshop will will be covering birds and putting poetry on their wings.  Should be much fun & an good activity for April vacation!! Click below for more info :

Interactive Poetry Sculpture Workshop -- Open to all ages!

Also I plan to post a step by step instruction with templates so you can make your own poetry bird which you can send to the library to add to the flock!! What a great way to celebrate National Poetry Month!!

So that is 'bird art project' ONE.  Now for number TWO.

Once again Fountain Street Fine Art is doing their one size, one price show in conjunction with the Fountain Street Open Studios weekend.  This year the size of the panels is 12 x 12.  So each gallery member, and a few lucky others, were supplied with a 12x12 wooden panel on which to create what ever their heart desires.  First I thought, dress, but then I realized that I love doing my line painting/drawings and that this would be a good place/time to exhibit it.  So I started to sketch some ideas on the panel and voila, birds appeared.  So below is the panel in process.  It is due at the gallery this weekend, so it will be done soon!! :)

10 x10 exhibit

Last year Fountain Street Fine Art did a 10x10 show and it was a great success and looked awesome!!! I wish I had bought on of the panels, but they got snatched up quickly.  This year the price for one of the 12 x12 panels is $200!!! So there will be many a good deal to be had.  Show information below.

Fountain Street Open Studio Weekend: 4/27- 4/29

12x12 @ Fountain Street Fine Art : 4/20 - 5/6

Opening reception for 12x12 : 4/27, 5-7pm

So that is a 'brief' review of my 'bird' projects! more to come!! stay tune!! peace, chirp, chirp!!!

illustration, illustration, illustration. . .

last week a 'call for illustration' came to my attention which i could not pass it up. so I started to dig through my portfolios and what i found made me smile.

watercolor

with the submission they requested a web site, however my illustrations have yet to be on my web site, so i thought i'd put a few on my blog and submit this address.

watercolor and inks with resist

for you lovely followers of this blog, you have seen some of my illustrations before and for some of you, they may be a new.  however, i wanted to get a good collection in one spot ~ so voila!!

watercolor and inks with resist

i must confess, rummaging through these images has reminded me how much i love illustration, the visual telling of a story or idea.

watercolor and inks with resist

i have ALWAYS dreamt of illustrating an ABC book - I am amazed on how many letter illustrations i have tucked away in portfolios.  

acrylic

as u can see i work with many, MANY different media and have some different styles (sometimes i wonder if that was/is not a good selling point?!?!) but that is ME ~ many ideas, many media.

acrylic

 years ago, i worked hard to be a freelance illustrator but i was discouraged when so many people spoke of how hard it was to break into that world :(

acrylic

but now i would eagerly to get back to the drafting table and return to this world!!!

mixed media collage

but i am hoping to get my submission in before the nth hour so i must go before exhaustion wins out.

gouache

so, good night & peace

collage with aluminum can

acrylic paint on paper

 

sharpie on plastic board

detail

pen and ink (seen on my daily dress blog)

pen and ink

scratchboard

pen and ink

pen and ink

spot illustration/pen and ink

back from the dead and taking 'flight'

Hello all and hope you are all well.  I don't think I have ever gone this long between blog posts but it seemed as if mother nature and life had a different plan about my past 6 weeks.

As many of you may know I am in the process of getting divorced, which is taxing on many levels in itself.  And the plan was to move into a new apartment on February 1st, but instead of packing I ended up sick in bed!! I seemed to have contracted a new, 'trendy' and wicked virus that can take people out for weeks - and that is what happened.

I was down, but not out & luckily I am slowly getting back to normal.  In the past few days I have made way too many trips to Ikea to count - but boy is that a great place to outfit an entire apartment. Last week they delivered 33 boxes to my new abode!!! allen wrench, anyone.  So hopefully before April 1st I may have my apt. assembled and my girls and me settled (fingers crossed)

I have also been trying to get back to my art. ( I don't think I have darkened my studio door in weeks, but I digress)   To help get me back into this wonderful state of mind - I had a show which opened on March 1st ~ Flight of Fancy at Amazing Things, Framingham, MA.

'insatiable'

'womb wrap' seen thru the doorway

my 'creatures' !!!

For those who follow my facebook artist page you might have seen the announcement.  For those not on facebook, I apologize. Facebook updates were about all I could do that opening week.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook (well I am questioning social media in general - but that may be for another post).  However it offers an easy way to announcements out there in the whole.  So if you want to, you can 'like' my artist page, and all that means that you will get my art news, but no pressure!

The opening of Flight of Fancy was well attended, even with the snow storm!!! And the show looks great!! It is a three person show ~ David Lang, Carl Staley and moi! and all of our pieces compliment each other's wonderfully.

When we were granted this exhibit opportunity we decided to have our theme be play!!! We all recognize the importance of the journey and the process as much, if not more, than the end product.  I was pleased to exhibit mostly fiber works and I even performed 'insatiable' during the opening. And to add to the fun, some of the people who came to the opening (such loyal followers :) had come to my 2010 Open Studio when I was just introducing  'insatiable'.  At the opening they marveled at how much the piece has grown and changed!!  I hope to go to the gallery at last once more to work on the piece ~ that would be between all my box opening and furniture building.

This 'moving' has presented me with an interesting conundrum. With all this unpacking, I have been swamped with endless packing material, much that I think would be great to crochet into 'insatiable'!!!  In fact I was thinking of starting an entirely new piece, made solely from all the plastic packing material from my move ~ the plastic from the new mattresses (so wonderfully thick), the thin white plastic wrap that was protecting some of the furniture and the endless plastic bags that carried all the smaller purchases. This is a challenge as I can't throw anything out - much to the chagrin of my eldest.  But I can guarantee that at least some of these fine material will make it into 'insatiable' and hopefully during 'Flights of Fancy'!!!

So stop by if you can - the show runs thru March 29th.  If I do go 'preform' I will post it :).

Also there was a marvelous write up in the MetroWest Daily News:

March 1, 2012
'Flights of Fancy' in Framingham

Three artists making "sexy" woodworks, crocheted "creatures" and moving sculptures that broadcast old baseball games are quoting Socrates' observation "Wisdom begins in wonder" to describe their show at Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham. Carl "Chip" Staley, Virginia Fitzgerald and David Lang are showing varied works that seem to fit together in "Flights of Fancy: The Importance of Play" which runs through March 29.

Chip off the block A cabinetmaker and artist, Staley creates sculpted woodworks shaped to suggest the flow of music and imagination. The Natick resident is showing a dozen sculptures he called "graceful, sexy 3-D doodles." A carpenter whose business is named "Wooden Wisdom," Staley said, "My work is mysterious and spiritual. It takes you places."

Tangled up in blue Departing from prior work, Fitzgerald is crocheting semi-abstract pieces she called "creatures" that seem to take on lives of their own. The work named "Medusa" might be a knit orange hula skirt for a mermaid. Beside its tactile appeal, a three-part piece, "Trinity (Trust, Strength and Wisdom)" seems to subvert the Greek myth of the Fates who measured out men's lives in yarn.
Her most ambitious piece, "Insatiable," has "grown" to be 8 feet tall like hanging moss. "It's turned into a monster that doesn't want to stop," said Fitzgerald. "It's become a performance."

Clockwork orange Part tinkerer, part conjurer, Lang transforms gears and feathers, sprockets and copper tubing into automatons that shake, rattle and roll out the whimsy. They enact mini-mechanical pantomimes that might be jokes, nostalgic skits or even moral tales. Featuring clam shells and pictures of Renaissance nudes, "The Day the Castinetti Sisters First Learned to Fly" is an elaborate sight gag. Resembling an old buggy built the Unabomber, "Play By Play" will emit radio recordings of vintage baseball games.

"This show embodies the idea the best art is serendipitous," said Lang, of Wayland. "When you work, unexpected stuff comes out."

A reception will be held Thursday, March 1 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Amazing Things is located at 160 Hollis St., Framingham. For information, call 508-405-2787 or visit www.amazingthings.org.

well, thanks for reading, happy to be 'back' & peace

new year, new challenge

So for the few past weeks I have been floundering and flopping around about my work and the direction my art is going.  I have been pouring through many books, magazines and blogs about inspiration and 'living the creative life'.  In fact I have recently put a list of some of these books on this blog's sidebar. > 

matted origami dress with quote

 I am sure much of this insecurity and uncertainty stems from my current personal situation as well as the holidays. Besides both being mentally taxing I had not been in my studio for way too long.  So as I was hanging with my girls, I was also surfing the web, looking for inspiration, and one site I discovered was Creative Every Day Challenge by Leah Piken Kolidas. This site's description spoke directly to that place of longing and yearning that I had been feeling so acutely. I saw in this challenge a very informal and low stress community that speaks to my omnipresent, almost all consuming desire to create. 

In many ways I am doing something creative every day already.  This site just incorporates many of my  'projects'  in one place.  Here would be a place/way to record my daily work which I think is one of the important aspects of this 'site'.  As many of you know, I have some serious inner critics and I am thinking that documenting my daily activities may be a way to appease these critics, when they are berating me for not working.  Also I am hoping that this 'exercise' will help to diminish the 'precious' aspect of my work for me.  Much of the time I see myself getting stuck on the 'end' product, how a piece should look, how finished everything should be  presented.  And these thoughts are contrary to my true nature ~ I love a mess, I love to see process, I want to break down all shoulds;  I really just want to create, put myself out there, excavate my creative soul and see what comes out.

For many of you who follow me on facebook, some things maybe be repetitive ~ like the dresstags.  And I have a few friends wondering why I am even adding to my very long list of daily responsibilities, but for whatever reason I am going to try, I am going to jump in! 

I am still figuring out what this challenge will actually be for me but I am planning to post my daily creative 'acts' on my Daily Dress Project blog.  And I hope just to post them - not photoshop the photos, not write a long essay, just document.  So that is what I am up to, and my first posting is today, January 4th. :)

Below you will find the text from the Creative Every Day Challenge site.  If anyone out there is interested, come join the fun!! what I really love about this 'challenge', is that it is celebrating the act of creating - be it cooking, art, singing in the shower, arranging flowers, you get the idea :) and it is low pressure!!! that is key for me!!! 

So Happy Happy New Year to all and peace, Virginia

The Basics:

I started Creative Every Day Challenge in 2008 to help infuse my life and lives of others with daily creativity.

Creativity is meant in the broadest sense, so it doesn't have to be something art related. Your creative acts could be in cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay...or whatever!

You do not have to post every day! I know for myself that having to post every day for a year would be too much. You can post about your creativity in whatever form you like, whether that be once a day, a few times a week, once a week, or once a month. Do what works for you!

This is a low pressure challenge, with the idea of bringing more creativity into our lives. I will not be the creativity police. I hope that we can all find ways, simple and grand to express our creative selves. Have fun with it!

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.

wishing you . . .

a joyful, enchanting, magical & heavenly holiday!! 

Hope all your dreams and desires come true during this festive season!!! 

Please know that I am so grateful for your witness of my thoughts and works, and for your cyber support ~ thank you & peace, Virginia

late-night ramblings after a long day

Today I was possessed, as I have been for the past 4 days, by my driving desire to enter a 'new' work to the Fountain Street Fine Art's PAPER exhibit.  So even though it has been a long day, my heart and head are still spinning, and I felt that I might 'talk out' my thoughts here on my blog.  Today has brought up some fundamental questions that I feel many artists face now and then. 

the piece that I left @ FSFA

Fountain Street Fine Art is celebrating its first anniversary with a Paper Show (paper being the traditional first anniversary gift).  Besides wanting to be part of any show that this wonderful gallery puts on, James Welu, Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum, is the juror.  

I have known about this call for weeks and I had SOOOOO many ideas.  But, as is usually the way my creative life unfolds, other life needs kept me away from focusing on this call, until this weekend, which was a little late.  

I mean - what a wonderful call - PAPER, anything to do with paper - my head was exploding with ideas -  

"Media may include, but is not limited to paper, oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, collage, photography, video, ceramics, metal, fiber, glass, wood, and stone. '

~i wanted to create an interactive piece with my little dresstag dresses, pinning these dresses on a wall (each with a fortune) to create a dress and encourage the gallery visitors to take a dress/fortune.  

Ever since I started the Dress Project I wanted to set up a situation where participants would disassemble a dress.  I always wondered how would the dress 'decompose', would there be areas of the dress that people would not remove?!??  But alas, couldn't fold enough dresses construct a dress.

~I also started a small paper mache dress - on which I was going to 'collage' letters and images of internal organs.  

This dress was going to reflect how I have been feeling during my divorce process - exposed and raw.  The initial dress form turned out very successfully, a nicely defined figure, but I didn't have enough 'quiet' or reflective time to be able to take the next step.

~I fantasized about expanding on my Daily Dress collages.  I wanted to push the possibilities of working with paper - collage, sewing, burning, transfers, . . . 

~I also have been working on a series of works on subscriptions cards ~ yes those pesky cards that are always falling out when you are trying to curl up to read Oprah.  And last time I checked subscription cards are paper.

But as the due date approached and the days/hours/minutes ticked away I was drawn to a piece that I started in March at the Vermont Studio Center.  It is a painting on paper, inspired by the wall paintings in my 2009 installation, 'this comes from within'.  

although I exhibited this dress
I didn't think it was finished

I started with a simple drawing which I then reworked and repainted, adding and embellishing with creatures and hands and insects and bodies.  I have started MANY projects using this painting technique - a mostly monochromatic line painting/drawing.  But with all these starts I have hardly finished one of them.  Even with the walls of 'this comes from within' I only stopped painting the walls because I needed to build an 8ft dress out of eggshells. 

So for the FSFA's Paper show I 'finished' my line painting on paper, which has churned up many doubts/questions in my creative soul.  

First, for the longest time many people felt like the painting was finished when I brought it back from Vermont.  But I didn't, I liked parts of it but I felt it needed more.  So off and on I have been adding and subtracting to the painting.  Then, in the past week I tacked it back on the wall and went at it.  Again I had some colleagues suggesting that it was done, but alas I kept seeing areas that I felt was weak, lines that I wanted to strengthen, so I kept on working.

the piece that I left @ FSFA

the 'start' of painting (VSC)

And I LOVED it - I LOVE this technique!!! It is very intuitive, I just start working on an area and I start to see new images emerging or morphing into something else.  I am drawn to creatures and internal organs; these painting seem to just unfold.  I think i could paint like this for hours and days (which I did @ VSC)

So why the questioning - I don't think there is any artist out there who hasn't struggled with the concept of 'over working'??!?!  Also as the 'last call' for entries was approaching I still kept seeing one more area to tweak, one more line to clean up.  And then when I delivered the piece and hung it with the other work I REALLY started to question the work?? I wanted to take it down and rip it up.

So I am struggling with questions ~ who knows when a piece is done?? How does one know?? If the work feels so authentic does that make it your real art, no matter what the end result is or the reception??

I am in the process of re-reading Art & fear: observations on the perils (and rewards) of art making by David Bayles & Ted Orland.  It is a good book about the obstacles that we artists deal with and even create for ourselves.  It addresses the numerous ways that fear can affect, alter and at times sabotage our art.  

Entering this painting to the jurying process has stirred up some emotions for me, one prominent emotion is insecurity?!? I surprised my daughters as I questioned if I should really leave the painting in the gallery.  It is hung by T-pins, so one of my daughters thought it might need a frame but then pointed out that a frame would obscure the surface texture!! 

I am thinking that these emotions are stemming from exhibiting something that is truly personal and new for me.  Besides the installation walls, this is a unfamiliar 'work' for me.  I wondered if I would have felt like a 'fish out of water' if I had submitted a dress?!? A few years ago it was a little out there to submit a sculptural dress but now I think of it as normal.

So why the whirling brain - the endless questioning of myself and my choices.  Was this the right piece to put into this show?? Now with my divorce I need to analyze which projects I spend time on - i need to consider the financial benefits and this makes my head spin.  

So thank you for indulging me in my ramblings and if you have any thoughts or suggestions I would be to hear them.  And even though I have more to say on this subjest, the clock is appoaching 2am and I am driving the carpool at 7:20 am.  (wish I wasn't such a night owl :)

So ~ नमस्ते, Buenas noches, Buonanotte, Bonne nuit, Slap Lekker, Gute Nacht & 

Happy Winter Solstice & peace