A Quick Trip to the Vineyards

Hello friends! For those of you stateside, I hope you had a lovely long weekend. I didn't manage to attend the usual barbecue or park picnic but I did manage to take a day trip to Napa. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've now lived in the Bay Area for a total of eight years and this is the first time I've ever indulged in a tasting tour in wine country . At least I finally made the trip! And I was not at all disappointed.

(Pretty blue skies and grape leaves reaching for the rolling hilltops.)

(My favorite winery was dotted with vintage white lights, so perfect against the shadowy orchards.)

(Dear friends in from New York, to toast and giggle while we gathered.)

(Aisles of broad grape leaves dotted with pretty orange California Poppies.)

(It seemed so decadent, tasting wine in the middle of a sunny afternoon, as if this is really my daily life! Just the thought of it makes me chuckle.)

(A bit of Bocce ball in the grass below the orchard. For just a few hours, it was our little slice of quiet tasty heaven.)

It was delightful to take a day off from all the other things that wanted my attention. The rest of the weekend was dappled with work but with the very best kind of work: photo shoots and dresses and rehearsals and even a visit to a nearby letterpress studio for some beloved printing. I hope you had a lovely weekend. Did you picnic? Did you barbecue? Oh, say you had a veggie burger and a cold brown beer for me too! xoxo, k.

Poetry & Fashion & Flowers

Dear friends,

I am getting closer and closer to the June 25 opening of The Dresses/ Objects Project. The choreographer and dancers are well on their way in rehearsals, the behind-the-scenes team has been assembled to assist the production, the dresses are just waiting for a little mending, and we are scheduled to start installing on June 14. Oh, heart! In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my wandering thoughts focused on the to-do list and the things I can do before we begin to install. Aside from designing the postcards, shopping for dress forms and vintage slips, securing in-kind donations and coordinating meetings, I am also focusing on poetry, fashion, and photographs.

Today, it started with a favorite breakfast before my studio day. A scone, a cup of black tea, and a bowl of fresh fruit to accompany my thinking.

A bouquet of beautiful flowers has kept me company too, encouraging with yellows and purples and blues amidst an overcast day.

I'm writing a long poem for the walls of the exhibition to be scrolled behind the dresses and photographs and ephemera. I'm using my own text alongside found text from favorite crafting books, the amazing and horrifying Etiquette by Emily Post, and of course Tender Buttons too.

I still see shades of purple and gray wherever I go, encouraging my color study for the installation.

I'll be using these favorite cameras to create a few more fashion shoots. I like to use square format film alongside my trusty digital SLR.

I've gone back to a handful of favorite fashion shoots including this spread of Zooey Deschanel in C Magazine, September 2006. That light alone is just heartbreaking.

I love this spread in an old issue of Metro.Pop (issue 31). The background makes me swoon: warehouse walls peeking through lush draped fabric and models looking straight at the lens.

This one is a little more recent: the November 2009 issue of C Magazine.

I dug out an old inspiration folder and pulled out some of my favorite fashion images. This folder was full of torn out pages and dogeared corners from catalogs and magazines. Some of the images were tucked away years ago and it was fun to find them now and love them once again. I'll use these images to inspire the next photo shoot of artists wearing the dresses. Okay then, stay tuned...

Dance, Dance, Dance.

(one.)

(two.)

(three.)

This weekend we started the dance rehearsals for The Dresses/ Objects Project. Well, the choreographer started the rehearsals with five amazing dancers and I happily sat off to the side watching and taking photographs and writing poems. It was wonderful to watch the process: to be witness, to completely observe, to just perch at a little table off to the side with my thoughts drifting out and in.

Her process reminded me of my own writing process. How I often start with a topic or theme or emotion and then the work gets edited over and over, one part gets erased, one part gets embellished, one part takes center, one part takes to the side, and somehow what I end up with still resembles what I started with but it's also completely transformed. Does that make any sense?

And I met with my intern today for the very first time and she is a delight. We talked poems and nervously shifted over coffee and tea and a book by Gertrude Stein. She just finished her freshman year of college, of course she's studying poetry, and this made me remember those very first years that I fell in love with poetry too.

The way each author opened up a new space inside my heart. The way each poem was somehow a portal to a place inside my thinking or feeling that I hadn't yet inhabited or noticed. The way I was absolutely and totally convinced that poems were the most important part of the world. They way they were the most important part of my world and, sometimes, they still are.

Before I go: My husband is co-directing this show at YBCA this weekend with Sara Shelton Mann. Think: experimental dance meets provoking text meets video marvelousness. I think it's going to be quite good. xoxo, k.

The Alabama Stitch Book: My Calm Before the Storm.

I like to have smaller projects in the makes when I'm in the midst of something else that feels huge. Maybe it's the scope of it that feels so manageable with an end easily in sight. Maybe it's having something for my hands to do at the end of a long day when my brain is mush. Or maybe it's just the part of my brain that still believes it likes to multitask and switch from one thing back to another. Currently, I'm finding a few moments in my week to settle in with this sewing project from The Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin.

One side of the shawl is finished, sitting pretty with a slew of hand-stitched applique.

The other end is still waiting for the final stitches. The original pattern included roses and leaves but I swapped out the roses for my "tattoo bird" stencil and rearranged the leaf pattern too.

Pretty simple pattern, just a few thrift store t-shirts in gray, brown, red or the color palette that best suits your mood and a bunch of hand stitching.

This is my first project from this book, but I do adore it completely. It's quite a nice respite from the big huge project on my brain.

I like the backside of the stitches too. Makes me think of Lisa's beautiful embroidery with the knots on the upside and the smooth stitches facing down. Just a little bit of calm before the storm, I do believe, as we start rehearsals with the dancers this weekend. OMG!

Point Reyes National Seashore: A Break from the Studio

I took a break from the studio this weekend and headed to the Point Reyes National Seashore for an afternoon hike. There are few places that I love more than the Tomales Point Trail heading out of Pierce Point Ranch. There is something magical about that place: historic dairy farms along the twisty road to the trail head; a smattering of old white barns dotted along the far end of the parking lot; the wildflowers up to our shoulders as we wind along the first hill and peer out at the Pacific; the always humbling herd of Tule Elk along the hillsides. Before we knew it, the sun was already setting so we scurried back along the dusk-lit path to reach our car before the last of the daylight slipped off to sea. I was able to capture a handful of our furry and feathered friends through my camera lens, lucky for me.

(Wildflowers up to our shoulders as we wander.)

(Barn Swallow, with sunlight on his wings.)

(Pretty brown cow in late sunlight hours.)

(Truly, a sea of blooms and blossoms.)

(Tule Elk against the clouds, above the wild iris.)

(Songbird resting on the flowers... and then we are out to sea.)

(The California Quail with perfect forehead feathers.)

(I couldn't resist that light, or lavender, or spill of petals.)

PS-- Stay tuned for a few blog changes. I am going to TRY to post twice a week for the next few weeks. Maybe sometimes with more words and less photos, or more photos and fewer words, or just a chance to mix it up now and again. Some of you have noticed, I've been experimenting with new blog headers. For now, I'll keep this one up. Okay then, time to pull my thoughts out of the wildflower fields and back into the studio!

Preparing for The Dresses/ Objects Project

My friends,

As you know, I'm preparing for an installation of The Dresses/ Objects Project to open in San Francisco on June 25, 2010. This is quite a feat in organizing people, objects, and my own creative thinking but today I'm just focusing on the objects and elements in the room: dresses, photos, poems, and dress forms. More so, today I'm focusing only on the walls of the room. So, I'm collecting things and thinking in colors and shapes and fragmented lines from the beloved poet, Gertrude Stein. Here's a list of my thinking:

Everything starts here, with this letterpress print of a Gertrude Stein poem.

Last week, I spent a few hours in a fabric shop searching for grays, purples, and plums in wool, linen, cotton, and canvas.

Now, everywhere I look I notice the purple and gray: these little flowers outside my front step will probably find their way into tiny little vases in the installation. They are the perfect shade of purple, after all.

I made a new mixed media print using a few inches of the new fabric. That circle of text reads: wedding ring, feather, clouds, and rain (beloved gray & silver things).

I wanted the fabric to be layered together in a mishmash way, letting the various stitches sit on top of the patch instead of hidden underneath.

I've gone back to my first copy of Stein's Tender Buttons. I want to use her text to make my own short poems to be painted on the walls.

Flipping through the pages of the newest Elle Decor, I found this photo of my color theme: gray, purple, beige, and an inevitable bit of botanical green.

I've created a gallery of inspiration boards on Flickr, but this one was in the new Elle Decor. I love this photograph so much I just might keep it in my wallet. "Live beautifully", amen.

My notebook is full of lists and more lists. This one lists the elements that will be in the room, complete with question marks where I'm undecided.

And this page of my notebook is complete with sketches of the gallery space. Seven and 1/2 weeks until the opening: I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.
xoxo, k.