Nuno Felted Bracelets

Ya gotta love the internet! Last week I sold 6 wool and silk organza bracelets because of this blog. Just when I was sure no one was reading this. The email came late at night from someone in Atlanta, Georgia saying she saw my wool bracelets somewhere, maybe on my website, their not on my website but are in this blog and that she would love to buy some! She used lots of exclamation points so I thought maybe it was a scam. I answered and told her I'd send her some photos of what I had. I photographed just about everything I had and sent it off in an email. She responded with the 6 that she would like to purchase. Sceptic that I am, I still thought maybe it was a scam. She paid my paypal account right after I sent the request so, yeah for me. I created some beautiful packaging and sent them with love to Atlanta, Georgia. Wow! Needless to say since then I've been working on my etsy site.
It's almost impossible to photograph your own wrist but I do it anyway and then sweetly ask my daughter to help me out. Our patience for each other usually lasts just long enough to get one bracelet photographed.
Here's one I just listed.

In the studio I was stretching canvases and other boring work this week. I was glum about it and my friend Dennis reminded me that's why they call it artwork. So yesterday I rebelled and sewed some of this green silk I dyed last week onto circles made of boning. I said I was going to play around with the fiber installation so I did just that. This isn't finished and I don't even know if it will ever be anything. It's is a sketch, a study done in silk organza, boning and fishing line.

Another shot of fabric draped over a painting.

Encaustic Painting, Fiber Installation

I worked again on encaustic paintings this week. This is one that I finished, it's 6 x 6 inches. I worked on another one forever, laying on color and then scraping it down only to not like what I scraped down to, and then painting it over again, ugh. I just don't know if I should throw in the towel altogether or just give it more time. With my students I never let them be hard on themselves. I tell them you didn't learn to walk overnight, you fell down a lot but you didn't give up. I don't know what to do. My very wise daughter of 11 years, said to go on to something else and then come back to it. She says whenever she does that she learns something from the new thing that she can use in the old thing she was frustrated with. So I think I'll take her advice. I did work on 2 others I kind of like that I'll post next week, then I think I'll give it a rest and come back to it. Hopefully my daughter's advice will play itself out.
All the fabric from my window display was in a huge box in the middle of my studio last week. Since I was opening the studio I had to deal with it in one way or another so I hung it and then I played around with it. Now that it's hung I'm forced to deal with it. This is a close up shot of part of it.

I'm going to continue to work on it and figure out what it wants to be and how it can evolve into sculpture. Sculpture? I did some soft sculpture in college but it was stuffed and heavy, I want to make this light and airy. I'm going to be adding some greens to the turquoises and creating forms with wool felting and sewing.

Remember this?

I had my friends Drew and Steve look at it and found out with their help that it actually works much better when they're hung closer together. I had them about 6 inches apart now they're 3 inches apart, or it might be even closer than that.

I just had no idea that the measurement between a two pieces of a diptych could vary so much and what a huge difference it makes. Wow, thanks guys, now I think it's done.

Open Studio

Here's what I worked on last week.

This is 2 canvases that are 36 x 26 inches each.
I just don't know if it's finished, Im probably going to do one more subtle pour this week. It's almost there.
My studio will be open along with other studios and openings in the galleries this Friday evening 5:30 to 9:00 at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, 200 S. Madison St. Check the website for details www.thedcca.org