New Prints in the Making: Thread, Weeds, & Wool

(a little bit of brown.)

(raw wool, from a friend's lovely farm.)

(new print, nearly finished.)

(playing with photos & thread & thistles.)

(a few favorite tools.)

(close, little star.)

(new print: take 2.)

(thistle becomes a thistle.)

Hello my friends. I have been a bit off schedule, as you might have noticed! Since our trip to NY, I've been swirling in details and playing catch-up and then last week was like a little cyclone all of its own. But I'm back and happy to share a few things here. Funny how it seems like I've been away from this little spot for a longtime, but it was only about 10 days. (Smile.)

I am in the midst of a handful of new prints on paper. After the show in February, I've been inspired to make bigger projects for myself, to think more thematically of my printmaking work instead of just a dabble here and a doodle there. Not to say that dabbles and doodles aren't perfectly wonderful, but just to say that I think I work best when my analytical parts can hold hands with my dreamy parts and make the artwork together.

I like to research, I like to challenge myself to think of how my work is or isn't contributing to bigger social/ environmental/ political conversations, and I like to tackle big impossible themes in very small or abstracted ways. I like all of this. And I also like to be able to put all of this thinking away for a few days and wander around the city with my camera and notebook in tow, all sunshine and lightness in search of new blossoms. These photos are bits of things I've been making in my studio. Just tidbits in progress, that might be leading up to a bigger whole. Happy week to you!

PS--

Some inspirations... I am currently loving the jewelry work by Pepita, I mean Loving with a capital "L". I also just fell head over heels for Austin Press, Clare Goddard's collages which aren't on her site but you can get the feeling, and the Elle Decor article on Olivier Gagnere's house made me want to weep with possibility for color and pattern and textiles. Just a few things for the swoon list... xoxo, k.

New York to California (and More).

Our trip to NY was short and sweet. We didn't make it to NYC this time but instead stayed in the small town where my mom lives and where I grew up. We spent the week mostly cooking and nibbling and chatting with family and friends but we also managed to pull off a surprise party for my mama's birthday: yummy Mexican food, followed by bowling, followed by wine and presents. It was quite a delight to see my dear mother all lit up with birthday wishes.

When we weren't eating or chatting or visiting with beloveds, we did manage to take several walks up the country roads to marvel out at the bare branched trees, overcast skies, and heaps of wet brown leaves. There weren't any buds or blossoms on the fruit trees yet, but a warm afternoon before we left makes me think that spring is just around the corner there too. I felt like I was in a fairytale when I woke up this morning in CA and the warm breeze crept in through the bedroom window and the peach tree showed it's pink blooms. Delight!

I managed to return to CA with a dose of jet lag, a hearty cold & sinus headache, a long to-do list, and just about as much wanderlust as a heart can manage. (Sad but true.) We used to travel quite a bit and this trip made me realize that we haven't been traveling as much as we used to. Perhaps "travel" is just a synonym for "adventure" which could be physical traveling, or states of feeling/ thinking, or just more time for doodling and daydreaming. We've been so busy working that we haven't had much time for dreaming and I think dreaming is key to a healthy art practice and studio life. So... I don't know exactly how, but I do know that I need to carve out a little more time for dreaming.


Before I go...

1. I was so honored to be the ShutterSister's Daily Pick last Wednesday, March 10. So exciting!
2. I was interviewed by Nicola of LovelyPrettyCheeryThings, click here if you'd like to read.
3. Spring and fall are so busy with art events in the Bay Area, so I'm trying to share some of my favorites here. This weekend, check out Sara Kraft's show HyperReal at YBCA. Not to miss...

Medium Format Film & Almost Spring in Our Urban Garden

...over the years, we will know...

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...my (always) california...

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...where the nasturium grow wild...

...two trunks, like you...

Hello friends. It is not quite spring here in the Bay Area but is very, very close. It's the one place that I've lived where the official season start-dates nearly hold true. March 21 will just about be officially spring in our garden, at the farmer's market, in the nearby park where the cherry blossoms bloom, and also in our tiny orchard where the peach tree lives. Oh, heart! Oakland is almost full of intoxicating blossoms and the most vibrant greens and the palest pinks, peaches, and mauves. (I love the endless inspiration and promise of spring.)

I'm flying to NY in just a few days and my fingers are crossed that temperatures will stay above freezing for my visit. A March snowstorm would not be unwanted, but long walks in 50 degree weather with my camera in tow are also sought after. I'm hoping my mother will teach me to crochet on this visit. She taught me to sew when I was a teenager, to knit when I was about 25 and visiting from Brooklyn, and I'm hoping this time she'll teach me to crochet pretty little circles and snowflakes and star-shaped things.

These photos are from last spring. I just developed a few rolls of medium format film and looking at the images is a little bit like looking at a time capsule I buried just for myself. I'm falling deeper and deeper for the textile-like qualities of film. I love my digital cameras and my basic Photoshop skills, but there is something so resonate about film and I just can't get enough of it. I hope to spend the spring intoxicated by blossoming fruit trees, noticing each new bud in our little urban garden, prancing around Oakland in sundresses and vintage cardigans, while capturing it all on film. Sigh. A girl can dream.

2 more things:

1. I am loving Selenography by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, just published by my colleagues at Sidebrow Books. Poetry & polaroids are a fine combination and I just love Wilkinson's work. Amen.

2. Congrats to SoEx for the recent Monster Drawing Rally. Such a great art fundraiser and so fun to bump into friends, share cold beers, tuck back into the corners of the big room and watch the artists draw under the pressure of the clock and the crowds. Such fun!

Collections, Denyse Schmidt, and the White Elephant Sale

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Hi friends.

I've been thinking quite a bit about collections lately. Like the arrangements by Lush Bella, Camilla Engman, Lisa Congdon and the Bits and Baubles from Nature group. I've been seeing gorgeous photographs of collections everywhere and I think it's super inspiring: To organize, arrange, document, and photograph ordinary or extraordinary collections of things. I'm intrigued by collections of natural and human-made things; strange and beautiful things; color-coordinated things; texture coordinated things; rare things; common things; just the overall careful curation of a certain group of beloved objects.

All of this has me thinking about my own collections. And my mother's collections. And the many collections of my father's. And how our personal collections create a lineage of objects that traces through the family lines like physical characteristics or personality quirks. This thinking on collections has me nostalgic for the shelves in the basement of my childhood home; the odd collections I've carted with me back and forth across the country; the new collections I'm intuitively beginning without recognizing them yet.

It also has me thinking about how to make collections of my work online and in my portfolios. Over the next few months I'll be tackling the virtual cobwebs in the corners of my cyber worlds, but I'm inspired to include a bit more of my "junking" and collecting into the portfolio of my work. How to arrange my work into collections and how to name those collections by medium or texture or discipline? (And I keep returning to a simple vision of brown kraft paper and natural linen with bursts of bold pattern and bright color. Oh, the endless joy!)

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2 more things:

*I recently finished this scarf, my first attempt at following a Denyse Schmidt pattern. (I love her refreshing quilting patterns! This was a great excuse to re-purpose a stack of small fabric scraps.) And yes, my husband took these photographs that's why I'm looking straight at the camera with a bit of a flirty grin.

**The White Elephant Sale is this weekend in Oakland, CA! It's the time when all good things come together under one huge roof: Charity for a local museum, amazing thrift and vintage finds, recycling/ reusing/ and re-purposing all at once. Happy first day of March!