I took a photograph of my wire sphere in the sunlight and was taken by the way the wire reflected the light- it is black. So I altered the photo a bit further, saturating the color. I also love the unintentional shadow of myself at the bottom of the photo.

I am hoping to create some more wire sculptures today. Not sure what....

I also have a felted project which I began, but have been uncertain how to finish. I am thinking of embellishing with wire. I'll be certain to post results.

Wire wrapping and sculpture

I have been working very small with 26 gauge wire, knitting & crocheting. I decided I needed to move on and go BIGGER! But I really had no idea what I wanted to do... So, i went online and started looking at wire sculptures from other artists. Inspiration! I have a roll of baling wire- it's thick, malleable, perfect for bending and holding a shape. I decided to do a face, starting with the eye and then on to the nose, ear, and the rest using only 1 piece of wire. I remembered when a high school class exhibited their 3D fish sculptures of baling wire at the Art Center. They were fabulous! Really creative, simple, and excellent when hung from the ceiling.

I had always wanted to try my hand at wire sculpture, but just never got around to it until now. This 52 weeks project definitely keeps me moving in new directions. And it's gloriously fun!

I also made a wire ball, wrapped like a ball of yarn. I intend to enter it in the Art Center's Small Works Show. Working with wire is instant gratification! Good for us impatient sorts.

a beautiful fall day

cool morning. a perfect day for working and feeling the sun.

i am readying for the studio tour. began to set up outdoor tables and think about layout. because i love to move furniture so much (really), i want to change my studio around a bit. first, i am going around the room discarding, sweeping, finding new homes for stray items. it seems there is always piles of unfinished projects - not necessarily a bad thing, but seeing the same old projects unfinished can be demoralizing or a call to action. i did finish a wind chimes that i began when i first started fusing glass; completed it and hung it up! that really juices me up!

i'm ready for more!

finished another knitted wire band. also managed to crochet a bit of wire, just simply, as well. want to create a piece with these, but no ideas yet...

it is about time! week 10

it's amazing how fast time flies by when you are trying to adhere to a schedule! i am not a disciplined person; i find it difficult to follow a set routine. boredom? undisciplined? i prefer to think of it as the wacky way of the creative personality! however, this project is my attempt to learn to work consistently while also exploring and expanding my boundaries. this is certainly challenging.

of course, life does affect the keeping to the challenge: i have spent almost 2 weeks out of town in september.

week 9 and part of week 8 are lost... i hope to make up those 2 weeks, or perhaps this is part of the experiment? life happens. ipart of the time was spent drawing zentangles (just a few). on the last trip i made no artistic efforts other than to deliver my felted lollipop flowers wall hanging to my sister-in-law and her new husband! also, how can one possibly work with an adorable granddaughter around?

can work hard in my studio, but life holds other experiences that make the accomplishment of portions of this work nearly

impossible to complete. that is certainly a valuable lesson.

Week 10 is a meshing of work i have started in the past and not completed with some wire work with which i hope to finish these projects and perhaps begin some new ones. i love to needle-felt wool and have made numerous flowers to use as bracelet/cuffs. the problem was making a band which was adjustable.

i began with a felted strap held closed with velcro for some room for adjustment, but wrists just vary too much to make a band one size.

my daughter, emi, suggested i crochet the strap and use a button to slip through the stitches to close the bracelet. brilliant idea! my crochet skills are very limited. my knitting skill is a bit

more elevated: i can knit. i did want to use a more durable material than yarn, so i used a 26 gauge wire. i have wanted to play with wire knitting and crocheting after seeing some bracelets made of wire and beads. the work becomes lacy and weblike, yet strong.

i will try to do some crocheting- wish me luck!

i will continue also to clean and tidy the studio for the studio tour on the 17 & 18 of october. it's a wonderfully busy autumn!

In the groove

so good to be home and working in the studio. most of my masks are faces only, no hair, etc. so i have been re-examining them to see which ones need tweaking. the garden goddess has received green wool felted hair. i am happy with the result (i think). she needed some softening. i have a tendency to keep on embellishing, overworking- not knowing when to stop. it is a difficult balance to achieve: just enough, but not too much.

“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”

Frank Herbert

(American science fiction Author and Writer 1920-1986)

i believe this is week 7

my trip to chicago interrupted week 6. my intention was to zentangle myself silly. however, not much time was devoted to drawing. i have posted my meager efforts. it is different working out of one's home environment. disciplin becomes much more important: setting up a time and a place to work.

this week i will be finishing up masks, labels, etc for my solo mask show october 2-31 at Hutchins Street Square in Lodi, California. The reception is on October 2 from 5:30 -8:30pm- with wine, music, and friends.

my theme for this week will be felting- i will work on creating a few atcs, and finishing up some hair clips, brooches, and perhaps fashion a felt mask of mira's lovely face!

i am flexible with my themes. what i work on is affected by what is going on in my life, not just a projected creative work flow. hence, since i need to work on felting projects, that is what i shall work on! i am happy as long as i am creating, experimenting, and learning.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
- Ursula Le Guin

back home

i'm home again. my visit to chicago was filled with lots of other stuff; not much time for drawing! i did some zens in the airport and on the plane.




upon my return, i also completed my 2 sewn paper masks:

i decided they needed some "hair". i believe this was an improvement. i sewed some shredded money onto the masks.

ZENS in CHICAGO

must leave soon for plane with sister Andrea to Chicago for cousin's wedding. my plan for my 52 weeks is to draw zentangles. doodle meditation. a sketchbook and a pen. easy peasy. will try to write while gone....

i did manage to complete a wonderful mask made from papier mache and bark with a small embossed metal eye. this mask assembled itself with a bit of help from me!

the bark is from a river birch tree from my friend amy's house and sycamore bark from my local park- gleaned from the ground.

clean up /finishing day

when i am in between projects, cleaning my studio clears my head. my work space becomes very chaotic which is fine when i'm in the midst of the chaos. but when i am not involved in a bunch of projects, i look at the wonderful mess and feel the urge to tidy up. clean up and create some space for new ideas. it's a matter of the physics principle of entropy:

from Wikipedia - "Entropy has often been loosely associated with the amount of order, disorder and/or chaos in a thermodynamic system . The traditional qualitative description of entropy is that it refers to changes in the status quo of the system and is a measure of "molecular disorder" and the amount of wasted energy in a dynamical energy transformation from one state or form to another.

"In Greek myth, Chaos is the original dark void from which everything else appeared. According to Hesiod's Theogony (the origin of the gods), Chaos was the nothingness out of which the first objects of existence appeared. In a similar way, the book of Genesis in the Bible refers to the earliest conditions of the Earth as "without form, and void."

Out of the disordered, dark state of chaos comes everything! That's my story and i'm stickin' to it!

sewn paper mask 2

i used the shimmery watercolors by luminarte to paint the mask. beautiful colors and beautiful glimmer. they are solid watercolors in small jars. i wanted the gold stitching to show up more prominently. i'm not sure if this was the result, perhaps a bit more visible. the colors are exciting! it's either all or no color for me!
i finished off the outside and inside with a polyurythane varnish for extra shine.

a thread of connection

i have discovered in an aha moment that my work involves creating a whole from many dissimilar parts. paper collage certainly is in this category, as is the mosaic work which i love to do (my patio, small mixed media pieces).

i love the idea of patchwork: making sense of a jumble of different materials, images colors, textures. to make order out of the chaos. that is what i do. i looked up patchwork in the thesaurus and found the word "salmagundi". a wonderful word. i reintegrate salamagundi- take the pieces and put them together to create a new "whole".

week #4 already?

week number 4 and i am thinking about is my solo mask show the first friday of october, the art center studio tour that i am participating in mid-october, leaving for chicago in 1-1/2 weeks and going to bend, oregon at the end of september. lots to do to get ready and lots of time spent going other places!

i am excited about my travels- to chicago and bend for weddings. i finished 2 felted pieces for wedding gifts. (see august 14) i have framed the one for my cousin Rachel. it looks wonderful! i need to figure out how to wrap it so i can bring it with me on the plane. the piece for my sister-in-law isn't yet framed but will be going to a wonderful local framer before i leave for chicago. i am recycling an old frame that i can use with a double matte.

i have a sewn mask made of paper from an asian poetry book, an old textbook, old sheet music, and my 1800s 2-volume dictionary. i used gold metallic thread, which doesn't show up well on the white paper. i am thinking of using my shimmery watercolors to show off the stitching. although i do love just the effect of the white and black of the text. i was so tempted to just glue the collage mask with matte medium, but i decided to adhere to my method for the week and sew the mask in sections which i then glued down onto the papier mache mask. i will be taking this week to finish this mask, and the other sewn mask, which needs something....

the 3rd papier mache mask which i started is being covered with sycamore bark. the bark was waiting for me at the park and it just called to be made into a mask! it is leading me away from my paper sewing, but also leading into this week's new material, BARK!!! i have already made several of my sewn atcs with river birch bark which is very layered and papery. it works wonderfully well with the paper. the sycamore bark is too thick to be sewn through, though i may be able to wrap it and stitch on the paper base, in addition to using heavy gel medium.

i am going where the materials and projects are taking me, in an unexpected direction, which i love! this is what 52 weeks is about! so, finish up all three masks: painting, embellishing, and glueing and sewing bark.

a good week

i completed 3 papier mache masks: my face, my mom's and one from my daughter as a child. papier mache is so easy: flour, water, and newspaper. i usually have these ingredients.



my mother's face is almost complete. i sewed the faced in several sections, then sewed them all together before placing on the mask. this mask came together easily. i have included a photo of my mom and sisters, a mailman to represent my father, and several related texts.

i have begun work on my face: i gathered some sycamore bark from the park which when broken into 3 pieces seemed to fit the face. i adhered them, hopefully with heavy gel medium. i haven't checked to see how that went.

more sewing atcs and 2 felted ones. i am hoping to improve my ability to capture my work in photos .

masks today!

i have 2 plaster life masks - myself and of my mom. i have covered them with aluminum foil and will get to covering them with papier mache and then sewn paper. the paper sewing is becoming fun. i have sewn multiple small sewn collaged pieces together to create the first mask. it all came together so fast! i just started sewing paper that was in my reach and the creative juices led me on!

yes, it is the end of week 3!

whoa! the last 2 weeks were spent struggling with the sewing of paper to fabric and to paper. paper to fabric is more difficult, unless of course the fabric is not too thick and is stiff. i discovered that machine sewing paper to paper can be fun and have wonderful results. i did have trouble with free form sewing on the machine.... i didn't drop my feed dogs! must try doing this today.

my project for week 4 will be the creation of a mask out of stitched paper affixed to a plaster life mask. i believe i now have a few skills to be able to accomplish this.

more machine sewn atcs

the first 2 cards were tacked onto parchment paper
with matte medium, then sewn when dry. the next atc was built from the top down: sewing 2 pieces together, then adding another piece below it, etc. this was a good way to sew together paper without having to tack or preplan design. it took shape more organically than the others.

the last atc shown here was built with 2 larger and sturdier pieces of paper - the green paper and the sheet of music. the other pieces were just sewn on top without a need to tack into place.

sewing small paper collages

i decided to scale back my sewing collage projects and worked on card size collages and atc collages. here are 2 of the atcs. the card collages on posted on my flickr.

i realized that is was so much easier to keep the small work organized for sewing by dabbing a bit of matte medium on each piece which i then attached to a piece of cooking parchment paper. this helped to give these small collages a bit of stability and so much easier to sew. today i will work on a few more small paper sewn pieces.

felting on the side

i have been felting the last month and cannot seem to stop. i ordered some wonderful felt from sara's texture crafts on etsy. the colors are amazing! i have become enamored of felt squares and circles. http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com

i am attending 2 weddings in september and decided to make the gifts - felted wall hangings. i have made them both. i haven't decided how to frame them; but will take them in to be framed next week. perhaps in a double matted glassed frame. i am hesitant about leaving the felt open to the elements (dirt/dust in particular).

the felting itself is very calming. i love forming it with my hands. fiber sculpture, sort of...
and of course, i am continuing to make brooches and hair clips from felt. i am documenting all this here so i don't forget that i was busy with other projects beside the main 52 week projects. a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

i have a very clever friend, mira, who has reminded me that if i look back on what i have done, i will be able to see the common threads which run through my work and define me as an artist. one revelation i had this morning while driving in the car, is this: i work in bold strokes and am less interested in the details, than the whole. i have been looking at some beautifully detailed and crafted needle felting with embroidery. i love the hand sewing detail, but it is just not my thing! i become too impatient! i am more of an expressionist in my work. the process is my focus and what excites me most, especially when it expresses my vision.

thursday already?

i thought i had written in the blog in the last couple days, but i guess i just thought about it! i was very frustrated with my green fabric and paper stuffed collage project. i let it sit a day and then decided i could fix it by cutting off a piece. here is the unfinished, as yet green collage and 2 cut off pieces. i made atcs from the small cut offs. i am going to try to fix the filling and iron the piece to see if i can "straighten" it out.

monday afternoon

i did figure out the poor green paper/fabric collage. i cut off the end where the fabric seemed bunched, took out some stitching and re-stitched. am getting ready to iron and finish the sides and back. yay! it seems that i do best when really having to overcome a project that has gone awry. it certainly is a good way to push myself beyond my usual stuff and creating something new and exciting. if maybe not always fantastic, the process is transformative.

i have taken the smaller piece of this piece i cut off and cut it into 2 pieces, zig-zagged the edges and will mount them onto an atc blank. cool.

saw some fabulous fabric atc cards on sanna's blog: transferred photos on fabric, then embellished, felted, bejeweled. more inspiration! thanks, sanna. (sannasartmind.blogspot.com)