Happy New Year!!!

Travels with Lulu

Through the garden ...

and by the farm.

Then across the desert...

to grandmother's house Lulu goes!

& then there is ...

Alice in Wonderland

Happy 2009!!!!
peace

a bit o' buz.

First.... for those inquiring minds....

here is the Clementine dress after about a week -

definitely drying out, but not as hard as i was hoping.

Second ... A rejection....

Sadly my Glass Slipper didnot make the cut for the shoe show at the Fuller Craft Museum. I know this is all part of the job of artist, and one should not take a rejection to heart because you have no idea what the curator was looking for - however this one stung.

Third ....But as they say ~ you got to get back on the horse, so....

I just put a grant application in the mail today(with these supporting images). A fellow artist had mentioned how putting together the material for a grant can be very soul searching which i discovered this week. I am new to this grant stuff but with the direction that my work is going it is definitely time to apply for grants. I found it interesting and rewarding to journey back to the beginning of the dress project and to how the whole thing started. below is the essay that i created to describe the Dress Project ~ thought it was an interesting read.

Wish me luck & peace....

The Dress Project is a body of work which began about two years ago. It centers around the dress form. It started at a time when I was in a creative limbo. I had just had a successful gallery of paintings however I felt as if my work was lacking. I wanted to make my work more personal. It was then that I stumbled upon the dress form. The first dress I made was out of chewed gum – it was about 1 inch big. The next dresses were made on a beach. These dresses were large, two dimensional and made out of materials from the beach. They were ephemeral ~ created on the beach then taken away by the high tide. In creating these beach dresses I realized that I had found that deeper connection to my art. I discovered the truth in the idea that an artist is a conduit to a larger vision/voice. The dresses are a vehicle with which to express my personal thoughts, opinions and feelings.

In creating and recreating the image of the ‘dress’ I have opened a floodgate of ideas and emotions for me as well as the audience. The Dress Project has inspired and excited many who have seen it; there is an intuitive sense of kinship with the work, an innate understanding of the deeper meanings. Besides dealing with my experiences as a woman, and women’s experiences in general - it has tapped into a universal emotion from the audience. On a personal level the dresses have been a lifeline ~ helping me discover as a woman who through upbringing, education, socialization and organized religion had been so buried, had been quieted. On a larger scale the Dress Project speaks to many people, male and female, old and young. The dresses spark conversations, incite stories and generate excitement. However, the reaction that I see the most is that the Dress Project inspires.

P.S. I saw Santa Claus in the post office today when i was mailing off the grant application!!!

I swear - white hair, white beard, a jolly old soul ~ he even 'ho,ho,ho'ed to me.

So ~ yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!!!
I am taking this as a good omen!!!

and to all a good night....

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Merry Solstice, Happy Kwanzaa, Festive Diwali,

Happy Boxing day, Happy New Year, (you get the picture) &

Peace On Earth!!!!!

work in progress - kntting a uterus

I started this blog as a place for artist’s interaction - a way to create a community for support and critique; however i don't feel like that i have been using it as so. Something about only putting on 'a good face' - only finished projects. So here is a work in progress ~ a piece that i am truly excited about and wanted to share.

For the past month I have been knitting a uterus – a womb wrap. I started with a few stitches and I have been adding on stitches and different yarns to create this uterus-like shape. I have been searching out all kinds of yarn ~ different reds and varied textures – trying to capture a sense of the inner lining. I have made a few different uteri out of wire – but this time I wanted to create something soft. I want to curl up and be protected – to go back to the womb.

I happen to have my womb wrap when i was visiting a friend who was feeling quite frazzled and sad so I wrapped her up - knitting needles and all. She said it felt very soft and comforting but i realized that i wanted it to be bigger - more encompassing - so i am knitting more. I plan to make it two sided as well as extend the ends like the fallopian tubes. At the ends there will be something to represent the ovaries – pompoms or tassels??
This is a project that I am thoroughly enjoying and one that can merge my worlds a bit – artist and mother. With all the holiday festivities and school vacations this is a piece that I can bring with me where ever I go, although it is getting a little unruly.

Lastly my uterus getting too long for my 36’ circular needles – does anyone have a suggestion of how to accommodate some many stitches because with the fallopian tubes I am not sure how to continue. Thanks & peace

Spilt oats ....

Ok - you not supposed to cry over spilt milk but what do you do with spilt oats??? Well as I was cleaning up the oats they were too malleable and so I had to put them into a dress form & then a heart ~- an image that has entered my consciences big time lately.... kind of like the dress image ~what does that mean???

& then this AM the light was so beautiful from the serious amount of snow that was dumped on us .. & our red bath mat just radiated ~ and I saw a luscious, passionate red heart…..

the heart again???

It is interesting - I am thinking more about internal organs~ the heart, the uterus!!!, the brain, intestines, …. Oh where will this go??? stay tuned ... i know i am!!!

peace & happy winter solistice!

clementine ~day 1

After one day the dress is coming along wonderfully!!!

peace!

Oh my darling Clementine ~

This is something that I have wanted to do FOREVER – sew orange rinds!! Today I took the Clementine rinds from my girls' lunch and brought them to the studio and VOILA!!! I patched the different pieces together adding buttons on the straps using needle & thread. Now I have placed it in the window so that the rinds will dry – I am very curious to see how it will dry out. As I was sewing the pieces were starting to dry already. I have dried rinds in my studio before and they get very tough so if the dress survives it could be very awe-inspiring and strong. I will try to document the process. Peace ~

Our deepest fear.... & insomnia

This weekend I had a conversation with a friend that challenged me! Noting how i tend to distrust the positive and blindly accept the negative. The question of confidence and honesty was raised which then lead to my most true expression of myself in my work. This conversation has made a tossed salad of my brain and has introduced me a new level of insomnia.
So as i knocked all this around in my head, I remembered a quote by Marianne Williamson that I included on my poetry dress. I feel it is time to reread and reabsorb the essence of these words. I also feel these are good words to share!! peace ~

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

by Marianne Williamson

the fermentation of an idea ~ 2 years

Today I installed a dress in the

windows of Studio one80 in downtown Natick. They have started a tradition of holiday windows and i was lucky enough to be ask to do a window. It was a quick turn around so I wasn't able to take a picture of the dress before it was in the window - so the photos are not great - but when the dress comes out I will have a better shot.

The cool thing about this dress is how it fell in place ~ I was asked late Wed. evening. Immediately i remembered a dress that i had sketched 2 years ago - one dealing with the surreal~ness of the consumerism and festivities of the holiday month while men and women were fighting & dying in Iraq. This dress has an evergreen skirt with dog tags as ornaments and the bodice is a wrapped ace bandage. It was wonderful to execute this dress after it was in one of my sketch books for 2 years!! So keep the faith in those ideas yet realized and know that their time will come. peace

drum roll please....introducing the Small Art Showcase

I have the honor of being included in the Small Art Showcase ~ a web site which is a collection of fine artists who are making their work accessible and affordable to art lovers and collectors. Each artist is showing a selection of their work which is priced between $25. - $500. I am offering my 2009 Dress Project calendar which I just finished designing :-). The 2009 calendar will feature the Eggshell dress, Flower Power& the glass slipper to name a few. Along with the calendar, you can find my book about the beginning of the Dress Project as well as some woodcut prints and photographs.

But besides my wares you can see a collection of many wonderful artists’ work. Artists like Jeanne Williamson, Catherine Carter, Catherine Evans, Deborah Putnoi & Adria Arch - to name a few. So look around and enjoy!!! Peace

flower power ( from the calendar)