Carol Larson - textile artist

It seems I have had my nose in the computer for months. In addition to actively marketing the TallGirl exhibit, I wrote proposals and bare-bones outlines for two new lectures and submitted them to two venues.

So last week and the week before I received two bits of good news. One of the lectures was accepted for the 2011 SAQA convention in Denver and the TG exhibit will show at a college gallery in Ohio sometime during the 2010-11 academic year.

I decided I best get to writing the lectures then, especially since the one scheduled a year out also has the potential to be accepted for a local fall gig. It is a bit more challenging to work on of course, especially in light of the request that it now be twice as long as originally intended. The other as yet unscheduled is a joy to write and design in PPT. So here I sit on the first glorious spring day in many a moon working away.

I do this only because my chiropractor forbade me from working in the garden this weekend. He must have read my mind.

Time for a break, either to work on my leafy greens challenge or to return to the deck for another chapter in a great read and recommended book The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists . I am learning so much about my family dynamics. Hmmm, which would you choose?!

bits and pieces from our road trip…

Images for mark-making….a value study leaf, paths in the Portland Japanese Garden
and the rubber placemat in a restaurant

We spent two days in Seattle with my cousin who collects. Like her mother before her she loves garage sales/thrift shops and proudly displays wonderful collections all over her home of treasure she has bought for a song.
It is like a living history museum. The guest room had 14 mirrors on the wall!

To the naked eye the plastic suction cup magnified and distorted the screen behind it. I was mesmerized by it but when shot some of the distortion was lost…

We were first to board the ferry on a late Sunday afternoon to sail to Port Townsend. Here I was once again taking strange photos… of the corroded ferry floor and the net that basically prevented us from rolling off into the drink…how comforting!

Did I ever tell you about the time we got drenched in the rainforest? Even the rainforest loses appeal when one is dressed for the weather and still gets sopping wet.

More marks…a menu from a crusty cafe at Lake Quinalt. I thought the menu would make a great print screen and so took far too many blurry shots while simultaneously holding up the line of hungry patrons.

Other people’s art…Chihuly on the glass bridge in Tacoma

Paul Sorey’s Salmon Waves at the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Seattle
and
as part of Portland’s extensive public art collection this was team-designed for the Washington Park MAX station.

While in Portland we popped into the Button Emporium. The shopkeepers’ actions were a carbon copy of what I have always thought would be the dynamic had hubby and I owned a retail shop! The woman was joyful, enthusiastic and excited about the various buttons and their history. She had tales to tell even though it was near closing time. Her husband on the other hand was grumpy. He groused how a customer gave him a $20 for a two dollar purchase and how everyone today wants something for nothing. I wanted to give her a hug!

You know you have been in the car too long when you take 40 iPhone shots of clouds!!!

We are just back from a 12 day, 2433 mile road trip to the Pacific Northwest. Some months ago I registered for a nuno felt collage class at the Pacific NW Art School in Coupeville, WA. This was my third trek to Coupeville as they hire the best fiber folk to teach classes there. My intention in registering was simply to take a class outside of my medium and have an excuse to go somewhere.

It’s been a while since I have taken a workshop so I was quickly reminded how different a style I work in than most. I am clearly the rebel artist. While the instructor’s work was spectacular and she a very gracious person, she did not actually instruct. She demo’ed the layout of a design but not the actual process; instead requesting that we ask questions of her when we were stuck. Additional was the thick handout, which I discovered today has the full instructions for the process in it Well alrighty then…had I wanted to read about it, I would have stayed home and gone to the library!

So suffice it to say, I missed the part about how to make the nuno felt wispy thin. I am happy with the results although it was a mighty ugly struggle between her style of teaching and my style of learning. Past conflict though has taught me that scissors are my friend!

She repeatedly strolled by and commented I was doing it wrong. I swept all the fiber off the table, re-laid the surface and started in again. The comments continued. In retrospect this was probably when I was supposed to ask the questions. After the 3rd comment, my hackles raised, I cut it apart. Gasp filled the room!!! The rule followers started in with their degrading comments about those wacko Californians. Shouldn’t there be a separate state for the anal retentive artists? Oh wait…maybe I was there!

I digress…I re-arranged in a jigsaw fashion the cut pieces, face down and then re-felted. Then came the oohs and aahs. They all wanted to know what I was going to do with it? I didn’t know. I still don’t. I have ideas, I am not worried about it. This piece is very fragile and in fact sheared into two gorgeous pieces. I love it!

The second day I was sure I had learned my lesson and decided to make something I could actually wear which seemed to be the class theme. I chose a blue piece of silk chiffon shibori-dyed for the background to match my eyes! I loved the result while teach was not pleased as the wool parts were too thick; but if I liked it and didn’t “blame” her then she was okay with it. What am I, five?!

For our final number we were to do a story piece. I chose to do the night sky image which I photographed so many times at Lake Tahoe last summer that it had fused to my brain cells.

So what did I learn in school today? I re-learned that I am a somewhat dyslexic visual learner and that a handout with written instructions in the back is of no use to me a week later. I march to my own drummer. My creativity is spontaneous rather than prescribed. And finally felting is really hard work. I knew that but had never fully(pun) experienced it. My back and knees STILL hurt 9 days later and I can cross that off my bucket list. (another pun). I also learned that while I really enjoyed the instructor as a person, we will never cross paths again as teacher and student. I would however love to go to her studio and buy LOTS of her gorgeous nuno art to wear.

I have much more to post that I will continue this saga after I deal with more chores…

Since my creativity tanked with the onslaught of elder parent issues, I began sewing scrap purses. There is definitely something very metaphoric about piecing when all around is disintegrating. The other motivation has been to create something to sell in the gallery at the right price point. After a discussion with another textile artist who sells work there, I decided to make some small one-of-a-kind bags.

As a fabric dyer and painter I have awesome scraps. I basically toss anything smaller than 2″ in commercial fabrics but will hold onto nearly any smidgen of my designed fabric or other hand-made fabric. My initial plan was to make a dozen, but then I got hooked and made two dozen, and now nearly 3 dozen later I am taking a hiatus. Yet there are inner stirrings to do more. And here I was worried about assembly line work!

I am also reusing buttons from an old collection (mine and Mom’s). A touch of spray paint transformed a number of boring whites. I hated the actual spraying part, and knew I would never find work as a tagger as just 5 secs of fumes bothered me despite gloves, mask, fan and open door. In judging the results I may have to rethink that one. Can I possibly train hubby dearest to spray to my specifications? He could care less about his health!

I shot these on my design table, obviously not the best place to shoot work. Like body parts in family photos, I immediately was picking them apart…crooked seam here, thread there, lining showing there. Who cares?! They are hand-made. You want perfection? Go to Macy’s…