glitter

Category : Art, Nature, Textiles
Date : January 1, 2024

seek glitter amidst it all

sending new year wishes 

[oranged orb, 2022, safflower on silk/cotton thread & textile, 11 x 11″]


ROY G BIV

Category : Art, Books
Date : December 13, 2023
“The human eye can perceive over a million different varieties of color, but the human brain has better things to do than name them all.”

“Newton segmented the spectrum into just seven named colors:
the classic ROY G BIV divisions.”  

“While this might have seemed arbitrary, much later research by anthropologists concluded that most cultures at least have names for

black, white, red, green, yellow and blue: 

six basic color terms typically in that order, as if there were an innate hierarchy.”
[ from Neil Parkinson, “The History of Color:  A Universe of Chromatic Phenomena”]





Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson

Category : Plants, Poetry
Date : December 11, 2023

December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886

The Dandelion's pallid Tube
Astonishes the Grass
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas--
The Tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er

Emily Dickinson
8 November 1881

Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them, edited by Cristanne Miller

and a bit more reading about the dandelion—-


artist fellowship at Winterthur

Date : December 6, 2023
90,000 artifacts (textiles, ceramics, furniture, ironwork….)
20,000 American & European imprints
3,000 record groups of manuscripts, trade cards, photographs, ephemera
7,500 plant specimens
1,000 acres
+Specialists, Conservators, 
+Librarians, Archivists,
+Curators, Gardeners,
+Scientists, Fellows

“Research is a material”
and earlier this year,
as a Maker-Creator Fellow,
I explored Winterthur's Shaker collection
(and others) and loved every second
of researching, working with archivists, 
conservators, curators,
fellows and librarians;
and walking on their incredible grounds.

Artists & Makers
consider applying for 
Winterthur’s Maker-Creator Fellowship!
Happy to answer any questions.
Applications due 1/15/2024
 
Application info right HERE

community encircled

Category : Art, Shakers
Date : December 3, 2023

community encircled

past & present

near & far

‘Hands to work. Hearts to God.’

Shaker mops made from so-called ‘waste’

fabric pieces include chair and rug tape & old cloth

sleeping mats & ottomans made from ‘plarn’ aka recycled plastic shopping bags

Thanks to Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon for the panel discussion about reuse and the necessity to make with one’s hands and use what we already have in hand.

Panel moderated by Shaker Museum’s Sarah Van Buren with Jerry Grant (Shaker Museum ) Elise McMahon (likeminded objects), Sabine Steen (Triform Camphill) and Fahari Wambura (Fahari Bazaar)

As Jerry Grant noted, if you can end the day knowing that you made something, there is a satisfaction for both body and mind. 

Find more information about The Alchemy of Re.Use on view until December 17 2023, HERE


butterflies & moths

Category : Art, collage, Poetry
Date : December 3, 2023

one of my teachers used to say

make one, make fifty

and so here a kaleidoscope*

made sixty five or more

and still no wiser

as to the whys

and wherefores

* a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope

.

.

and a Mary Oliver poem
.
.
One or Two Things
Don’t bother me.
I’ve just
been born.
 
The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes
 
for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.
 
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
 
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever,
 
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.
 
One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning—some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.
 
But to lift the hoof!
For that you need
an idea.



studio slanted light

Category : Art, Shakers, Textiles
Date : December 3, 2023
studio slanted light

.
studio slanted light
Shaker color research
Mary Gartside’s colour blots
circular stitching.

Mary Gartside (c. 1755-1819) published 3 books on color theory. Her 1808 An Essay on a New Theory of Colours is illustrated with these amazing ‘colour blots’ —abstracted views of ‘white, yellow, orange, green, blue, scarlet, violet and crimson.” Abstract before JMW Turner, before Kandinsky, before…………

Thanks to Alexandra Loske  for her research on Gartside. [quotes and info from Alexandra Loske, ‘Color: A Visual History from Newton to Modern Color Matching Guides’]


it’s in the mail

Date : December 6, 2020

Thursday December 10th marks the poet Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday. Dickinson sent many poems to her friends in letters and as letters, often with a flower enclosed.  During the 1800s, the Shakers communicated amongst their 19 villages with letters, setting aside time in their schedules to read these aloud to the sisters and brethren.

And how do these two strands weave together you might be wondering? These acts of correspondence inspired a project between the bookbinding studio at Camphill Village and me, the artist-in-residence at Hancock Shaker Village.

For the past months, we have been sending letters, books, poems and art materials back and forth. This course of action chosen, for we are unable to collaborate in person due to Covid-19.  

Recently, I received this from one of my collaborators:

“I just wanted to touch base and thank you for the wonderful creation that we are so fortunate to be inspired by. Every time I see that original envelope my heart leaps with joy. And the poems are such a healthy nourishment for the soul.”

In light of Dickinson’s birthday and in hopes that President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will choose an inaugural poet, we offer a few of the poems that we have shared, “nourishment”  for your souls.

Prayer Bowl by Al Hunter found in “When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs came Through” edited by Joy Harjo
Necessity by Stuart Kestenbaum found in his collection of poetry, “How to Start Over”
When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver found in her “Devotions The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”

Emily Dickinson, #1693, date unknown found in “The Poems of Emily Dickinson” edited by R. W. Franklin

(more…)

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