Various experiments and works in progress. Larger images are available on Flickr. Just click on the pictures.

These are the art books that were left out of my art books are love post on Valentine’s Day. They were spread all about the studio and when collected made quite a pile. I thought I should include them, seeing as these are the books most currently referenced, they are probably the most important. The difficult to read titles are Ray Johnson’s “Correspondence” and Shirin Neshat’s catalog from one of the most amazing art exhibitions I have ever experienced. It was in Edinburgh’s fabulous Fruitmarket Gallery and it literally choked me up. That doesn’t happen often, especially at modern art shows. The rest of the studio book collection is in this previously mentioned post

“Miasma” is an experiment with an old scribbled upon book cover, a pot of ink and little gouache. The drawing was already there. I just embellished it. It’s something fun to do while paint layers are drying. “Flower of Eye” is just found art. There is something about that drawing that amuses me and looks like a floating creature of some kind.

Speaking of scribbled upon falling apart old books…

Up for your amusement is this disbound, bad, stained, soiled, heap of crap. It smells of smoke, dead fish, cat pee and who knows what. It would serve as excellent fodder to start your summer campfire or supply your camp outhouse.

If you have millions & are looking for a good investment opportunity then take a look at this!!! All your friends have these rare & pristine books to show off, but YOU will have a one-of-a-kind pile of raggity papers no-one can do a one up (or down) on you with.

BOOK CONDITION: On a scale of one to ten this book doesn’t register. It is disbound, rubbed, worn, shelfworn, sunworn, cracked, cracking, stained, soiled, torn, ripped, dog eared, folded, faded, foxed, browning, wrote on, wrote in, wrote over, wrote off, but hey… you could truly own a one-of-a-kind book!!!!

Yes friend, there is rare art contained within these pages (scribbling, drawing, coloring) duly drawn and preserved in the contents by budding young artists who never made it & are deceased now, their work all but forgotten but for the pages herien. In 2 or 3 hundred years when handwriting is lost art this book will be worth millions!!!

This sounds like my kind of book except for the fishy feline odor. I was browsing through the antiquarian books on ebay and found this listing. I almost fell off my chair, even though I think he’s kind of making fun of people like me who love books like this and think they are art. Weirdos. I wouldn’t actually buy them on ebay though and I wouldn’t pay more than a few dollars and not at all if there was an actual odor apart from a whiff of mildew. I draw the line at mildew and must.

Materials: A vintage book cover, pencil and ink, plant shape woven out of jute, and a pressed miniature rose.

I’m still floating in the mist. I think it’s called a brain fog. The signs of life I refer to are (unfortunately) not mine. Not yet. They are outside, here on the coastal homestead among the flora and fauna and wildlife. Spring flowers, mint, oregano, garlic, purslane, parsley, dandelions, sage, spring onions, rhubarb, and asparagus are all peeking up now. My fig tree and wisteria survived the winter and have new buds. There are signs and indications that I will join them soon. Last week began the long slow tease of a spring which never quite arrives. Then it will be summer. We’ll sneak in gardening days whenever the sun miraculously appears or the whip winds of a sudden storm off the Atlantic. I love it though, living and gardening on a cliff by the sea. It’s like resistance training for the spirit.

The compost came out better than I had hoped and there is plenty of it. Rich and black. Nitty gritty down and dirty with the earth is what really wakes me up and gets me going. Solar power also helps. My cozy by the fire evenings and lazy daze of winter woolgathering are over though…until December.

Wild turkey trot through the garden.

Nemo is fascinated.

“Those are the biggest chickens I ever saw!”

Starting the season.

Transplanting seedlings from greenhouse trays to beds and containers.

Daffodils and driftwood.

We created a micro-climate by hollowing out a bowl for a sunken garden and surrounding it with a stone wall, then installing raising beds filled with generous amounts of organic compost. We still need these walls-o-water to plant tomatoes and peppers. Otherwise the season would be too short to yield fruit. Everything else grows fine in the beds with just an occasional frost cover or extra windbreak.

Garlic! Planted last fall and ready to eat soon. Repels vampires too. So very handy.



Dandelions for dinner.

Layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, layer, glaze, layer, glaze, cut apart, reassemble, and repeat indefinitely…usually until the rare moment of lucidity or financial inclination motivates me to stop long enough for something to be released from this eternal cycle of construction and destruction. It hasn’t happened lately. Now if only I could combine composting with art making. That would be heaven. Hmmm…

Denny Crane claims that the secret to life and success is to pull a rabbit out of your hat. I’ve decided that since everything around me seems to be reversed (as in upside down and backwards) that the secret to health and happiness is to follow the rabbit down the hole and through the looking glass. You don’t necessarily have to take the rabbit out of the hat first. I usually forget that part and it always works out just fine.

C.P. McDill and I just finished completely gutting my workspace and the creative process along with it. The “crow’s nest” that we use for a studio is the attic of our tiny cottage. It has a low ceiling of only 6′ at the highest point. The previous owner had installed a drop ceiling and glued down wall to wall carpet which made it seem even more cramped and office like. We ripped out the drop ceiling, liberated the wooden rafters, exposed and sanded down the lovely hidden wood floorboards. C.P. installed full spectrum lighting and painted the walls and ceiling a warm brilliant white. The difference is amazing. It’s so bright and warm as well as feeling much larger than it actually is. Then we created a more open floor plan with two work tables, one for wet media and the other for textiles and paper.

The placement of objects, the abundance of oddball artifacts, fragments and scraps, debris and detritus of all kinds is an important part of the process of art making. Where to put it all is a challenge though. I need everything in sight and at hand without being in the way or feeling too cluttered. The space didn’t lend itself to flow and movement in it’s previous incarnation.

We’ve been working on it all winter. C.P. is responsible for making such a truly tiny space look and feel so spacious and full of light. He’s so good. The room is 12′ x 15′ which is about a quarter of the size of my old studio and our cottage has no storage. We plan to remove the ridiculously low drop ceiling. It won’t make the room much higher, not even enough for C.P. to stand up straight, but it will feel less cramped with cross beams exposed…and I can then hang thingies from them.

The heat wave has broken so I will post an article and then work in the studio for awhile. It has been too hot to be in the crow’s nest where my work space and office are located. I’ve been sitting in the first floor kitchen which is more or less below ground, in front of a fan ripping stitches and sorting embroidery threads and materials for work on another tapestry. I keep my mind and hands busy when it is difficult to concentrate. The situation in Lebanon doesn’t do much for inspiration so I have to work though on pure coffee and spice.

I distract myself with pretty books, ideas for art making. I tracked down used copies of Shining Cloth which is sort of a textiles version of the Amulets book and also Relicarios, a book of devotional miniatures from the Americas. Why do I allow myself to be seduced by books when I am always trying to get rid of my possessions? I think I make exceptions for anything related to my work. Ideas for current projects are considered exempt from the “no collecting” rule but this can be dangerous.

Otherwise, I am in recycle and reuse mode and refuse to buy materials until I find a clever use or a new home for every single fragment and scrap within these walls. I have piles and piles of fabric and mirrors and metals and threads and ribbons so I work with C.P. McDill on torans and tapestries and a large quilt for our bed. This is something that we can do on the porch or in the garden or anywhere else when we do not want to be in the crow’s nest. He taught himself embroidered mirror work yesterday. I did not help him at all. I’m impressed.

From “Shining Cloth”

The Obi is a Japanese wearable art form from the Nishijin region.

This man is a king of the Kuba people. His cowrie shell regalia is a sign of wealth and prestige and a tribute to the Kuba ancestor god Woot! Isn’t he glorious. You will think of him the next time you say “Woot!”

From “Relicarios”

I tend to favor Mexican style of relicarios.

The Mexican tin and mica relicarios resemble some of the northern Indian tin work and I think this kind of frame would also go well with my painting style.