Carol Larson - textile artist

I am happy to announce that my book “TallGirl Series: A Body of Work” is now available on my website.

This is not a vanity book but rather a deeply personal chronicle of a body of work I began four years ago. I had begun to delve into issues about being surgically shortened as a teenager, and never having openly discussed it.

Repression and debilitation had enveloped my body and was causing me great physical pain, emotional pain and distress. I had forgotten so much of the story that I began a lengthy and difficult excavation to retrieve those vintage memories. I wrote & wrote until I had 22,000 words, and still it felt incomplete.

Eventually I decided to create textile art, which is my passion, to fully convey the meaning of my words. By designing screens of various stories, changing the fonts, and screen-printing to cloth, I was also releasing the pressure valve of holding this secret for over 40 years. It was a win-win situation, as I created beautiful cloth yet the stories were still cryptic. And that is how the TallGirl Series began..

One of the challenges for me in creating this work was my inability to draw and my lack of depth perception. My fabulous mentor, Marion Coleman, suggested I find media images that suggested a certain motion or idea and convert them into my own, which I did quite successfully. My adult daughter was most gracious in striking a pose whenever I needed it. Hers is the body of the tallgirl on the ground, standing tall, standing sideways, hands on hips, etc. As I progressed through the 23 pieces, I discovered that I could best capture the hands and feet by tracing my own and reducing on the copier. Some pieces sailed off the design wall, while others took over a year from idea to completion.

It was for my own healing that I have written this book and I am very proud of how it has turned out. And while I am finally ready to share it with those who care to read it, there is still a little piece of my heart in the binding of each copy.

After four years of introspection, revelation, bodywork, dye, paint, stitch, procrastination, anguish, tears, encouragement, despair, adrenalin, defeat, hypnotherapy, acupressure, determination, fresh air, writing, designing and absolute joy, I have completed the TallGirl Series: A Body of Work.

And the truth has set me free.

In these days between ordering my book and it actually arriving, I decided to do something I have been putting off for awhile. The time seems right on many levels, the predominant being hubby dearest is off skiing and will have no idea how much I actually unload this week! Although I am not sure that is an issue as he also has a large woodshop crammed to the gills with stuff. Maybe I could set a good example, here!

Today I spent a couple hours downstairs in my dye-paint area, throwing out old paints, packaging up lots more, rubber stamps, commercial stencils, and lots of stuff that I thought I had to have but didn’t. All will go to the local thrift shop, which specializes in arts-crafts supplies.

Not going to the local craft-oriented shop are these treasures. Three rolls of foil, one each in gold, silver and copper. The gold and silver are less than a yard each but the copper was a 25 yd roll that I have used maybe 2 yards. And I paid a whopping $75 for the privilege!!! I actually used most of it to staple to the cherry tree to keep the crows from eating that divine fruit. Yikes!

Also there is this lovely unopened quart jar of foil screening adhesive which needs a good home, other than mine. I love foil on other people’s work, but hate it on my own, obviously.

And finally, these two squeegees. The Speedball on the bottom of the photo was used once and the other from Dick Black was never used. I prefer my cheap kitchen cake spatulas for pulling paint, thank you very much.

So how can you partake of this treasure? The first person, in the US to e-mail me (not post a comment, but an actual e-mail) takes it all. All I ask in return is you pay the shipping, as the adhesive is a heavy sucker.

If you only want the foil, or you only want the squeeges or you only want a yard of foil or you only want the adhesive, then the cost is $500. This is not Macy’s!

If I still own it in a week, it is going to the thrift shop, where I am sure no one will appreciate it! Being the daughter of a war bride is often very challenging….everything must go to a good home…or not!

The proof copy of my book arrived and it is gorgeous, although I was a bit taken aback at how small it is. Seven by seven is actually six and three fourths by six and three fourths. And with 46 pages it could pass as a handout.

So I decided to add more pages beefing it up to 58 pages, and included ALL of the Tall Girl works. I am delighted with the photo quality and color, and that I was able to shoot all but two of the pieces myself. I elaborated a bit more on some of the tales, spell-checked, proofed, tweaked this, moved that, sat at the computer far too long last night so I couldn’t fall asleep ’til two, got up this morning and changed things I obsessed about during the night, then tweaked a bit more and NOW we have soup! Have I mentioned just how addictive this online book publishing is?!

I just uploaded the book, sent the cover image back to myself, finished up the new page to add to my website, and popped the cover in here for official ogling. So now as I patiently wait for the copies I ordered, I can clear the paperwork off the desk, finish sewing together the two teen b/w quilts in progress in the studio and re-assess my goals for 2009, since two of them have been met! Those were to finish the TG Series and publish a book about them.

I love number 4 on the list. It says…minimize PC time to make more art! Yeah, I think I will do that right after I finish the powerpoint presentation of the TG Series!

I’ve finished designing my Tall Girl Series book and uploaded it to Blurb over the weekend. I am now waiting for the one copy I ordered to review before I order more. Even before I have seen it, I have made some changes! So I have a new edition to upload when I actually get around to publishing it, in the next week or two.

It was great fun to create until the files became laden with hi res images that the cursor just crept along. And I got the BSOD a couple of times when I had PhotoShop open at the same time. It was a learning curve, and in the end I love the result.

Today I designed the TG page for my website, although I have not uploaded it yet. I will post when all is ready for primetime. I am overjoyed with be nearly finished with my top goal for 2009. And it is just February!

This image is the detail view of a TG piece. This is some of my art-cloth which became the TG’s shirt in the work Awakening.

I’ve just come home from an incredible bodywork session, to see a desk laden with paper…again! I need a secretary! With art taking up 1/4 of my time, the business of art another half with the last 1/4 being body maintenance, cooking, & sleeping. And it seems just as I get my real desktop clear, it starts mounting again.

I need a secretary to clean out the dishwasher, and dust the living room. I need a secretary to read the magazines stacked on the kitchen table. By the time I get to the FAMSF quarterly publication, the quarter is nearly over. And the two years worth of Smart Computing, which now rest graciously on a bookshelf, have never seen the light of day. This is a great little user-friendly non-geek magazine. But do I read it? No! I save them so that when something major goes wrong with the PC (notice I say WHEN not IF) I can then sit down in my ever patient mood and read the friggin magazine….unlikely to happen!

I need a secretary to read all the books I have bought knowing full well that if I read a book a year it is a major big deal. I need a secretary to make my husband’s appointments for him when he forgets that he knows how to use the telephone. I need a secretary to go to the gym and do those crunches when I need to be in the studio.

When I was a paid worker, I was a master at time management. After a decade of retirement and art making, I have CHOSEN to not stress out over time management. But I really have come to realize that a lot of stuff is just not going to get done, if I want to make art. So I just need to let go of the books, the magazines, the husband…not so fast!

These people who say they could never retire because they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves need to call me…I have a job for you!

Oh, the glass piece…is from a garden sculpture at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. As I recall it was a partial exterior of a skull that was about 8 feet tall.

What an art-filled week this has been! I have been to a SAQA regional meeting where inspiration was overflowing and out the door. I have been to a SDA regional meeting today in the Mission district of SF. The space was incredible! It brought out all my inner yearnings to be young and free. Mostly I don’t want to to be younger, but in reality I cannot see me convincing husband dearest to leave our home of 35 years in suburbia and move to an artist’s loft-studio in the Mission! Being in this gorgeous, open, airy, light infused artistic living space and studio, with two of the most beautiful bathrooms I have ever seen was the epitome of inspiration. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera!

The show and tell was not particularly inspiring, but I found great joy in seeing old friends, from many paths. Women I knew as a weaver 25 years ago to women I traveled to Finland with 2 years ago. It was all good.

I was drawn to this meeting by the speaker Daniella Woolf talking about encaustic textiles. I have been toying with this idea for awhile. So I learned a bit more about it, and what might work for me and what wouldn’t.

And I joined in a critique group through the local art association this week. While not a big fan of critique in general, I enjoyed the small group, learned something, and came home energized. After, I had lunch with a former co-worker, a Catholic nun in a previous life (not me, her!), who was astonished that my work no longer has binding!

And I volunteered at the Art Center as the box office lady for a Klezmer concert. The music appealed to my inner Russian and I enjoyed quite a bit of it before I left.

And I collected, sorted, re-named, zipped, burned images for the Art Cloth Network’s next exhibit Quake! and got them off to the juror.

And I began to work the last of the Tall Girl designs. When complete the series will have 21 pieces. It is exhilirating to be near the end of it, an end I had thought might never come. I could see myself at 80 still making one last TG piece! Now, I need to photograph, and organize for the next step….to self-publish!