The studio window at 10 a.m. – a valiant effort to keep the heat out.
Well, it is hot as Hades here, just like you would expect, except hotter. The church is concerned about me leaving the air conditioner on in the studio when I’m not there, although when I told the secretary that it was too hot to hang around up there if I don’t turn on the AC, leave, and come back, she understood and asked me not to leave it on if I won’t be there for 24 hours. But I’ve found that if I don’t leave the little window unit on low it just can’t catch up to the effect of the sun pounding on my windows all day combined with empty hot rooms around my studio on the third floor, so I’m bringing home some stuff for a while, at least until it gets out of the 90s every day.
Another reason I want to make my escape direction northwest!
I’m doing some kind of mindless stuff up there anyway. Sorting colors of scrap paper for collage, ironing and rolling up fabric scraps, organizing. This weekend I started painting shiny junk papers with gesso to give them a ground with some texture for printing. I collected a lot of book catalogs and calendars from work that have fairly sturdy cover papers and some interesting backgrounds, and I think that they would make a good collection of collage papers. Maybe for a journal.
Since I get drawn into so many directions of what I’d like to do next, I’ve had to give this subject of “what do I want to do” some deep thought since obviously I don’t have the time and energy to do it all. Tapestry is my first love, but I need to do something else sometimes. When I think about the tasks and techniques and art forms I do that give me the most satisfaction, they mostly have one thing in common. They use materials that would probably go to waste or languish in somebody’s closet or attic somewhere.
So, junk mail and fabric scrap collage and cloth strip weaving and fabric piecework it is for a while. Just playing and loving it.
Many thanks to Jude Hill for her training and inspiration in this area.
One thing the heat IS good for – drying these papers quickly
I’ve been participating in Jane Dunnewold’s Creative Strength Training Facebook group this summer. This is from last week’s prompt, which was to take a photo of yourself full-length and turn yourself into a tree. This photo is from my trip when I am high up in the central Oregon hills identifying the mountains on the horizons from the guide at my feet.
“The Hot Seat” – This is an unfinished project from the Abstractalicious workshop I took from Lyric Kinard several years ago. I am a beginning quilter so I have many mistakes ahead of me to learn from. I was upset and angry last week and adding some spiky stuff to this design seemed to help.
The butterflies don’t seem to mind the heat. I planted Joe Pye weed with the idea of making paper from the stalks, but the main purpose served has been food for the bees and butterflies
