Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Roots continued

I am having a fascinating time with the idea of roots. Our roots, the families and background we come from, our birthing roots, our historical roots, our familiar roots, our cultural roots, the roots of trees and plants, the roots we set down, the root of it all, all these things have been dwelling in my mind as I work on more roots pieces.

Yesterday I work on this piece which is a cross section of something...not sure what but is related in some way to roots.



I finished it this morning and worked on this second roots piece. I am finding the quilting time so meditative and quieting. I listen to my music of the day, allow my mind to wander on thoughts of roots and my own personal roots and George and I just hum along.



Then, this is the second of the commissions but is not finished in this image. I will have professional images at some point.

I also finished another journal today. There is such a feeling of completion when I make these books. I fondle the paper, I take joy in the stitching of the signatures, and I love creating the canvas covers. Perhaps I will have an image of the new one tomorrow.

almost as promised

This is one of the commissions for the county. Doing public art over a nine month period of time is a very interested project. The process to get hired takes a lot of time. And the, I had to submit drawings of the three pieces I was going to do.

I tend to work very spontaneously, with the image of what I want to do in my head. Once I commit it to paper, it feels done. So doing something that I have drawn five months before isn't as much fun.

But the county was happy so I am happy and I delivered as promised.


Another picture from Lake Siskiyou...the little blues. What a beautiful color...they were at the lake getting little tastes of water. Fascinating to watch.

this is the stitched and then painted tree which is becoming a part of my roots series...very interesting subject to contemplate.


and then, this is a detail of it.

After stitching, then painting, then painting some more, and then some more, I took a pen with black ink and started doing some more stuff to the bushes and grasses and then created leaves for the tree. don't know if it is done yet


and finally, one of the sunsets at Lake Siskiyou

Monday, July 20, 2009

the Lost Blogger

During Open Studios, I hurt my back between the weekends. This then turned in to sciatica which put me into the recliner for two weeks, including sleeping. I managed to get about 5 hours or sleep a night so was not doing very well.

I was getting better and then I decided it was time to pull some weeds in the front yard. Wrong thing to do. The back acted up again. Another week in the recliner. Not fun.

Mt Shasta
We took out the RV and headed off to join our daughter and her family at Siskiyou Lake near Mt.Shasta in northern California. They had been camping in their tent trailer for a week when we joined them.

Ashton with a very dirty face

I spent a lot of time on the couch which was fine because I got to listen to music while everyone else was out watching the parade, fishing, etc. I enjoyed the down time and did a lot of observation of the light on the manzanita outside the motorhome. I even did some sketching.

Jacob with his dad and hisfish

The Sacramento River in the mountains
Another view

I am finally back in the studio and doing some different work. It feels good to be there.

George and I rekindle our love affair

I started dong some doodling on plain which fabric after finishing several other pieces. It has turned in to a roots series.

Roots
Roots detail
New untitledwork
Another new piece untitled

Well, I have more to share but it is time to go to bed. I promise I will put up more images tomorrow.