The Earth Remembers...?

That's the working title of the piece I'm now working on- or, maybe not.  The title is just not coming to me right now, but it's not really important at this stage of the game.

So this is the top part of the piece, loosely representative of the earth's outer layers. It's made from the cover of an old geography book, and will have additional panels attached below this one. It's more structured, organized, and formally composed than I wanted it to be.  I attribute this tendency to my original training in graphic design school, but I'm working to overcome it.  Baby steps, right?







Some things to think about:  What artistic "stuckness" are you working to overcome, one baby step at a time?  How do you go about titling your pieces?

Look! it's a book!

Well, it's been a while.  With school back in session, life has resumed a pace somewhat reminiscent of a meteor hurtling towards the earth.  Besides that, my daughter is about to get married, and I have been working on the guest book, which is the first book I've made completely "from scratch".  I was very nervous that I would mess it up- which I did, early on- so I still had time to start over. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

Here are all the pieces, ready to be sewn together.  I got stuck at this stage for a while because I was looking at the directions for the stitching order, and found them confusing.  I couldn't figure out the best way to knot the thread at the end, and there were about six different ways of doing it- mainly due to the fact that Japanese stab binding wasn't originally used with hard covers, I guess. 

 Here it is, all sewn together...

 detail

 I'm not really happy with the appearance of the linen thread, and it's not terribly tight; I pulled it as tight as I could while sewing, so I think it must be the knot on the inside, which may not be as close to the spine as I had intended.

 I left the rest of the decoration until after the stitching, so as not ruin it.

I may sew over the stitches with a very thin black ribbon, which might look better than the linen thread, but all in all, not too bad.

In case you're wondering why it's called "Guest gallery", it's because Caitlin and Wes are getting married in an art gallery.  I stamped gold frames on the black pages for people to write in.

I want to again thank Mo of the fantastic blog, "It's Crow Time", who is always willing to patiently answer my unending book-binding questions.  You should really look at her beautiful drawings, especially if you like crows, which we all do, it seems.


In other news, Roxanne Evans Stout, an accomplished artist and teacher (and one of the sweetest people I know) of Rivergarden Studio has included my answer to the question, "What is the thread that runs through your work?" in her post, "Of Golden Threads, part 3".  This is her third post featuring the responses of various artists to this intriguing question, and the answers range from emotionally revealing to surprising to inspirational. If you haven't already, please check it out.


My dear friend Donna Iona Drozda recently did a guest post for the Series "Artist as Collector" on artist Nanci Hersh's wonderful blog, and to my surprise, she honored me by choosing to feature me as her 'collected' artist'.  The post is titled, "Empty and Full with a Fresh Eye" and I hope you'll take a few minutes to read it.  Also, you'll no doubt want to check out Donna's work; not only is she an enormously talented artist, but she shares her "Luna See" spiritual insight through her "Following the Moon" blog, she somehow finds time to work on public art projects such as "Life in Transit", teach workshops for children and adults, and so much more.


Thanks to Roxanne, Donna, Mo, and all my sweet blogger friends- I love you all!

FINI!

It took most of the summer, but I have finally finished my "Book of Dreams".  At several points in the process, things did not go smoothly or according to plan.  You can read about the whole adventure here, here, here, here, here, and here, if you wish.  (Wow- that's a lot of "here"s! This really was more of an ongoing series than I realized.)  One of my purposes in posting each stage of the book's creation was to share my thoughts and technical processes with others who might be able to learn from my techniques- and from my mistakes.  So, if any of these posts has helped you in any way, I feel I have accomplished that goal. (Or even if my cluelessness brought  you some laughter, I'm happy to entertain!)

Front Cover

detail

 

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1st spread

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2nd page spread

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3rd page spread

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open

If you recall, I had a problem with the spine, and ended up slicing it apart down the middle because it wasn't quite wide enough for the pages.  I thought long and hard about how best to fix it.  My first idea was to sew something, such as the spine of another book, over the cut, using the same stitching I used on other the pages.  I quickly realized, however, that I couldn't do that because the pages were already glued in; there was no place to put the needle through. My second thought was yikes- I've totally ruined the whole thing.  I was afraid that if I just glued some kind of paper onto it, it might not be strong enough to take the repeated opening and closing that the book was likely to have to endure, and wouldn't look right, besides.  Luckily, while looking at book binding supplies for the guest book I'm making for my daughter's wedding, I happened to see this Lineco Satin Cloth Tape.  I thought it was worth a try, so I ordered it, and it worked- in fact, the width was perfect.  But the tape was so pretty and shiny and new-looking that it seemed out of place in contrast with the old, well-used appearance of the rest of the book.  I attempted to resolve this by gluing on a 'skin' of dried acrylic gel I had peeled off from the earlier front cover fiasco.  You can see this on the photo of the back cover, below.  I'm still not sure about it, but have decided to leave it be for now.

back cover

FINI!  (The End)

Recent Developments at Shabo-Mekaw

If you've been a reader of my blog for a while, you're no doubt familiar with Shabo-Mekaw, the lovely piece of paradise in the country that serves as both sanctuary and on-going construction project for my husband and me.  If you're a newer reader, welcome; you can find out more by clicking here, here, and here.

In early spring, we walked downstream to look for an old beech tree that our friend Ken Lobitz was curious about. Ken, former owner of Shabo-Mekaw and builder of the original cabin, wondered if a particularly huge old beech was still there.

Unfortunately, we were not able to locate a trace of it; presumably it had fallen and decomposed.  We had a nice walk, though, and saw parts of the creek that we don't often see...

... strange and colorful fungi...

 ... names carved into trees in 1944...

... and my favorite spring flower, mountain laurel.

 This summer, we have been working on insulating and siding the original cabin.  This is what we accomplished the day I broke my ankle in the creek.  Needless to say, it was a while before I was able to go back.

 

When I did, we found a large oak laying across the drive.  Like most of the country, we've had some pretty wild storms lately, accompanied by unusually high winds.  If you haven't experienced them where you live, you've probably seen pictures on the news.

I couldn't do too much other than sit and watch my husband prepare the back of the cabin for siding, and help to hold up an occasional board.

After yet another bad storm, I was alarmed to hear that part of a huge oak had split off... 

and fallen across the front yard and onto the cabin.  (I don't have photos of the part on the cabin because my husband had it mostly cleaned up by the time I got there.) 

We were extremely lucky that there was so little damage to the cabin- the roof was bent in a few spots, and the metal chimney (you can see it in the first photo) was knocked off, but that was about it.  Unbelievable!

 The poor pine tree in front of the cabin was not so lucky, however.  All of the branches, except for the ones at the very top, were either blown off by wind, or knocked off by the falling oak. (You can also see the absence of the metal top of the chimney in this photo.)

 The next time we came out, I was able to help with siding the back of the cabin,

 which is starting to look pretty nice, don't you think?

I still couldn't walk down the steep hill to the creek, so I had to content myself with taking a few shots from above, behind the cabin.

I was very careful not to fall off here onto the spot where I broke my ankle!  How would that be for irony (and stupidity!)?

I couldn't see all of it, but I could see the part of the swirl hole where the water flows out of it...

... and very soon I'll be down there again...

... maybe tomorrow!

Spread #3 of Book of Dreams

I have finished the third, and last, spread for the Book of Dreams!  (You can see earlier stages here, here, here, and here.)  This page is almost purely a monotype, with just some added watercolor pencil here and there to darken or blend the different areas of color.

 I'm still not sure that it doesn't need to be darkened a bit more, but I think I'll let it rest for a while until I can decide.

Here are few close-up details:

Unfortunately, I haven't quite solved my binding issues.  The structure of the book is actually similar to a child's board book, which I believe, in bookbinding parlance, is called a drum leaf binding. 

 Because mine was not done in the proper order, it is a bit wonky, but "live and learn", as they say. Thanks to Mo Crow for the link, and for all the other instructions and suggestions. 

 When I got all of the pages glued together, I discovered that the spine of the original book was only a tiny bit too small.  So, since the spine doesn't serve a structural function in this case (the end pages are glued onto the covers, not the spine), I think I may be able to do a cosmetic fix by just sewing on a strip of something(?) to hold the edges together and make it look better.

And then, I'll need to do something with the back cover, so stay tuned for more disasters and discoveries!

A Small Taste of Summer

I've been stuck inside most of the summer, but I still managed to catch a snippet of it here and there, and thought I'd share a few tasty bits of my summer with you.

azalea after the rain 

 Well, okay, I had to throw in a little slice of Spring, too; I wouldn't want you to miss anything.  We had a very early warm spell in March, and everything bloomed at least a month early.

By the time I photographed the magnolia, the blossoms were already losing their petals.

cherry blossoms

Have you ever seen a dogwood so full of blooms?

Geese- everywhere I go, still! What do you suppose it means?

Our big excitement this year was that my husband got bees!  

They're already making honey- what amazing creatures!  They pollinate our fruits and vegetables, so we need them, if we want to eat.  And I, for one, like to eat...

 ... especially when the food comes from our backyard garden.

In recent years, I've seen no honeybees at all in this area, and the lack of honeybees is a global concern.  To read a short article on Colony Collapse Disorder, click here.

The rest of the summer so far has been HOT- just humid, steamy, sweaty, nasty, and uncomfortable...

... which makes it seem like not such a bad thing to be stuck inside!  I hope you are all having a great summer.  I'm going to get back to work now, so I can show you the progress on the Book of Dreams.