Doing the Happy Dance

I am SO excited right now!!!  I made my first Etsy Treasury today. Treasuries are member created shopping galleries organized along a common theme.  My Tropical Waters scarf is featured, appropriately, in "Colors of the Tropics." Visit the listing!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=96149

Just had to share.

Etsy

As I have been working to set up my Etsy store I have been confronted with questions that have not always been easy to answer; searching for answers has lead me to discover some interesting things.

First I looked at why I am so attracted to the idea of small business.  On first brush it was easy, I like working with people and big box stores employees tend to be there only for the pay check, not because they like working with people.  I wanted to be closer to the top of the chain, not at the very tail end of an epic distribution line.

Working with small business all my life and working for them since I was 16 has really warped how I think of retail.  I mean, my parents still go to a small butcher who sells local meat, rather a rarity in this Sam's Club world.

While looking into small business practices The 3/50 Project came to my attention.  It is based on the idea that if you spend $50 dollars a month at 3 local business you can seriously impact their wellbeing.  Please just take a few moments to look at their information, it could keep some of your favorite stores open. Spread the word.

O.K. off my soap box now to the fun stuff!

Pretty things that I am working on, some of which are in my Etsy store.

This was one of the scarves that started the current series, it showed me what types of things I could get away with.  I named it Tropical Waters because it reminds me of water reflecting the shoreline vegetation, and it was made at the August height of the Florida heat, when water (and cooling off) was high on my priority list.

Photographing these scarves (and editing the photos) is proving to be almost as much work as making them.  I have tried to get the colors as acurately as possible, but I have yet to capture the visual texture to my liking.  They are just so much more alive in person.

This scarf was an unexpected success.  I kept over dyeing it and I was never quite satisfied, it just was too boring.  At 90 inches long it is by far longer than the other pieces I work with.  Then I had a brain storm, I did a variant of pole wrapped shibori (Japanese Tie-dye in a very general sense) and instead of adding dye I used a dye remover.

Boy did that idea stink, literally, but it was SO worth it for this rich texture.  Just next time I need to remember to iron it on the patio...

I really adore this scarf.  It is a silk gauze with a rayon velvet pile and it is just so very soft.  I saw scarves similar to this in Liberties of London last summer and fell in love.  When I dyed this one it was the perfect combination of deep green and this rich bronze.  The leaves look brown until the light hits it just right, then they blaze a warm gold.

Originally I was going to steam out the fringe, to lay it nice and flat again, but then after seeing it for a few days the slightly tangled, crimped texture grew on me.  Fringe always tangles, and this just looked so much more natural with the scarf that I chose to crimp and curl it some more.

I am going back to editing photos now.  Enjoy.

You Spin Me Baby

In June a family friend, Julia, was going through her attic and over flow fiber arts supplies.  She asked if I might be interested in a spinning wheel, since she had one her mother had purchased in 1987 (I know because that is the postmark date) and had never unpacked.  I had always wanted to try a spinning wheel and jumped at this chance, since normally spinning wheels are prohibitively expensive, at least $300,  to a college student who only wants to try it, even though I liked playing with a drop spindle.

A lovely hand turned, numbered and signed wheel named Belle Fleur #80 by M&M Wilson made in 1976.

Since getting the wheel I have been spending quite a bit of time happily spinning away.  I would like to share some of the yarns I have produced since moving down here to Florida.  If you want to get odd looks and lots of attention unpack your spinning wheel in public down here in south Florida, the vast majority of people have never even seen a wheel, let alone in person.  It has been a fun way for me to meet people,and start conversations, especially when I found the Florida Fiber In convention where I met other people who share my joy down here.

Here are some of my recent spinning adventures.

(Here is a link to basic spinning terms, so that my friends who aren't spinners can have an idea of what I am talking about.)

This was one of the first few rounds I did, I hand dyed the roving first as a rainbow, then spun the wool into singles, then did a nifty technique called Navajo Plying (click here for a YouTube video of the technique, which reminds me of making a crochet chain) which lets you spin one single against itself so that you can preserve the color changes along the length of the yarn.  I chose this technique so that the yarn would actually have chunks of single colors.  I LOVE how the colors came out.  The roving I used was pretty rough so the finished yarn is scratchy, but I am thinking of making a rug out of it so I can enjoy the colors anyway.

The balls here are pictured with a nifty tool called a nostepinne (or nosty for short) which is a old fashioned way to wind these center pull balls of yarn.  This one is from A Spinner's Lair on Etsy, made from reclaimed cherry wood.

(For a really nice how-to lesson see the Fiber Fools post on the subject.)

These skeins of yarn were spun from pencil roving that I got with the wheel, fast and easy to spin up, but still pretty scratchy. It is made of two-plys, one grey, one white.

This was one of the first really soft yarns I have done.  Two-ply yarn from Louet's Silk/Merino blend, sadly I can not remember the color name, but it is still really pretty.  It is a soft sage green with hints of rose, gold and blue.  Truly touchable and cuddly yarn.

I am in love.  I have discovered the wonders of spinning with Blue Faced Leicester wool.  It is a long stapled, super soft wool, that has an amazing shine.  I have seen other spinners call it squishy and it is true, you just want to cuddle this stuff.  I am really happy with this because I dyed the roving and the dye struck far faster than I expected, turning the wool almost black when I applied the dark blues, greens and purples.  But I took the chance and spun it anyway, what a relief.  I am thrilled with the colour results.

This is the current project.  I am working again with some of the wool that came from Julia.  I had this eye popping turquoise, but it just looked flat, I wanted to add some visual texture and variation.  So I added some yellow-olive green color that I am not fond of on its own and carded them together.  

The Rovings

The rovings have been carded together with my hand cards and made into rags.  Here they are waiting in their basket for me to spin.

Here is some of the wool spun into singles, I will then spin it with another bobbin of singles to make a two-ply yarn.

The result reminded me of the turquoise my Mom has from Colorado, rich blue with veins of a yellow-green color that just are facinating.  I am totally excited by the results and I have about 3/4 of the bunch to ply yet.

Thanks for bearing with me, there should be more coming soon.

Big Steps

One of the big hurtles to business that I am finding working online is how to show people my work.  Much of my work is based on texture and touch, how do I convey that through a computer screen.  I have been taking some pictures of my work, but I am not satisfied with the quality of the images, whether is is the lighting, or the presentation, or another element.  I use photos to capture inspiration, to document experiments and the like, but photographing my own work is proving to be a huge challenge.  Jewelry is fairly easy to photograph for me, but fabric plays with light differently.  If I photograph yarn I want the color true, but that is turning out to be more difficult to do than I anticipated.  Then there are the scarves, just how to I show the pattern and drape of something so big?

The solution, find a professional.  Well easy said, but I am new to the area, without the connections I have developed over many years.  So what to do, call the local ArtServe branch.  They took less than 10 minutes and gave me names and numbers.  Rock my world.  Hopefully I will have gorgeous new photos to show everyone soon.  My goal is to properly display my work, so that (*crosses fingers*) I will be able to market, sell and share.

A word on Networking.  The single most important thing that school brought me was the time and motivation to network.  If I need thing X, say photography, and I cannot do it myself for whatever reason, then pass it to someone who can.  If I don't know anyone, someone I know will, be it an individual, or group, like ArtServe. The help these organizations offer is invaluable to anyone in the Arts (or in general, just ask my brother in politics, "It's all in who you know").  This links right into my belief that everything goes right into the discussion on six degrees of separation in Art? This is what happens in my life, it just keeps on circling into itself.

Fire Breathing...Raven?

We all know (well, I know) that artists have a habit of being, well, eccentric.  The same is true of theatre folks.  Those reputation are occasionally well earned, I personally have picked up some interesting talents from being around the cornucopia of people that inhabit these worlds.

In 2007 I worked fro the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair as a costumer, I lived on the grounds from May until the fair ended in late October.  The fair is in a rural area, far enough from the local towns that not having a car was a very effective isolator.  One of the men who was to play a knight known as the "Dragon Of York" whose symbol was a blue dragon rampant.  His signature was breathing fire from horse back at the joust and around the grounds.

At one point during the season a few of us were rather bored and asked if he could teach fire breathing. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to add such a unusual talent to my skill list. So over a few weeks we practiced outside of the bunk houses.  By the end of the season I had a good grip on the process.  Then I came home and had the perfect opportunity to display this skill at a Halloween party, much to the joy of my friends back home.

Since then I pull the stunt out on special occasions, especially at bonfires because we already have the equipment out encase something goes sour (trying to head off Mr. Murphy).  I have never seen what I look like blowing fire, I just see the basketball-sized end of the flame in front of my face.  I have been told it looks really neat though.

On the Fourth of July this year I did a short show for my friends and was pleasantly surprised that someone had taken pictures of it.  Rob is an armature photographer with lots of talent and he has graciously allowed me to post copies of his work here in my blog.  He took far more pictures with a timer button, so that it works almost like a flip-book of what it looks like, which is really nice for me to see, hopefully it will help me improve.  These are the three photos he chose to post on Flicker.

You can see more of his work at:  www.flickr.com/photos/robthephotog

Here is the initial ball, when the fuel first hits the torch.

This is where the initial ball of fire spreads out and starts to move upwards.

And here is where I am almost out of breath, and the ball floats upwards from the torch.

Floored

I am an avid listener of Public Radio, often while I am listening a story will grab my attention and off I go exploring a new topic.  Today's revelation was that a new hoard of precious metals, stones and other goods has just been found Staffordshire, England which is located in what was Mercia, near the River Trent.  (For a map of Anglo-Saxon England click here.)

Image originally in the article by DAILY MAIL REPORTER sited at the bottom of the page.

What is so stunning is the size of the hoard, there are an estimated 1,500 pieces, with over 5 kilos of gold alone. This find is also 1300 years old.  Most other large finds from the period are burials, generally of royals, where the grave-goods make up the bulk of the find; this what is known as a hoard, someone buried this for safe-keeping, likely intending to come back for it later.

Last summer I had the opportunity to visit the British Museum in London, England, there I was privileged to see a portion of the Sutton Hoo burial and other artifacts from this period.  Seeing these artifacts was a profound experience for me, as this period and place have been an object of fascination of me for many years.      Hours, days and even weeks have been filled with images, stories, re-enactment and archeological research  about this stuff. Seeing it in person, the patina on the metals, the craftsmanship, the way light glints off the incised knot work, this is the stuff of dreams and inspiration.

Now this hoard has been brought to light, and it is compared to finding another Sutton Hoo, or Tut's tomb, both finds revolutionized our concepts of those cultures.  Archiologists are awed and stunned by the find, there was no clue it could be there, and it was found by an unemployed man with a metal detector.  That makes my mind whirl.  What else is out there, what more can be found, when next will history be reshaped or clarified?

According to the British Museum is will more than 20 years before the full implication of the hoard is known.  Considering that each piece has a story to tell, that is outstanding and more than enough fodder to fuel my muses for a while to come.

This is one of the more in depth articles I have found so far on the subject:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215723/Staffordshire-hoard-Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-Britains-biggest-haul-Anglo-Saxon-gold.html

Information on the Sutton Hoo burial at the British Museum

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/h/helmet_from_the_ship-burial_at.aspx

Art?

Warning: Philosophical and academic hyperbole to follow in this post.

What is Art? The loaded question, art is used in so many contexts that it makes my head spin. Is it based on creativity, or skill, or the knack of arranging elements or what? What qualifies as Art? Why am I an artist, not a tradesman or craftsman? What defines Art? And why am I capitalizing it?

I find that the most heated debates can rise from a difference of definition. In an effort to head off some of this conflict I will attempt to define Art in this context before going further, as it applies to me.

To start with the easy question, I am capitalizing it because Art embodies a collection of ideas that is so central to my way of being that I feel it has become a collective entity. In this case the capitalization reflects the tendency of pre-20th century writing to use capital letters to indicate emphasis.

In this case Art is defined as the attempt of one person in a specific time to communicate with another person and/or moment. How is that for vague? I am trying to say that it is when something is created, (an image, poem, novel, sculpture, play, speech, etc.) in an effort to preserve or transmit information for another.

Sometimes the communication is secondary to function, such as in the design of a chair, some times it is primary as with a poem. But it is the use of skill to craft this in such a way as to convey more than mere purpouse.

Designers use this when they use a particular color to invoke a response from their audience. If I were to see a woman wearing black I get impressions associated with that color, like night, shadows, mystery, Audry Hepburn in the dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's, the beatnik movement, Goths, mourning and a host of other things that I probably will not consciously register in the moment.

Manipulating color to create a response is one of the Elements of Design, which along with the Principles of Composition, create the core of a classical art education. For a basic discussions of these things see http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/Compose.htm where a simple handout gives basic definitions of these things as they apply to the visual arts. I say visual arts because I have the most experience with these, but they can apply to other disciplines as well, just with some modifications. I will not go into these more in depth because I spent the last six years trying to learn about them, and only recently have been able to manipulate them with any, pardon the term, Art.

Anyway. So Art is using rules (or purposefully bending, breaking and rearranging them) with skill to communicate (with yourself and/or others). O.K. so is that ambiguous enough?

What I am trying to say is that for me it Art is a way of connecting the interlacing strands of the Universe and showing them to others. How A, influenced B, which is reflected by C, connects to M-Z and back again. It is this intricacy that defines my life, how no one thing is isolated that comforts me.

A play called Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare is based on the idea that if knowing someone is one degree of separation, and two steps is knowing someone who knows someone then everyone is connected by at most six from anyone else on Earth. It is also called "Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon" You can make your own on Facebook's Friend Wheel. This model is used by biologists, market analysts, web managers and others within their own field to find connections and influences. I, like others, take this further and apply it to everything, sometimes it takes a few more steps but it does work when given a chance.

So you see, sometimes these things get away from me, and I get a bit lost out amongst the connections. This leads to long rambling posts that I hope still get my point across before everyone looses interest.