Off the Wall: Mixed Media Works Opening

You guys have heard me talk about this show for months and months, and it's finally open at the New Mexico State Capitol.  I was thrilled to be invited to participate by Betty Busby who organized it all.  Also thanks to Cynthia Sanchez,  the Capitol Art Director who provided the great venue.  The reception was well-attended, and I'm excited because the Capitol gets a lot of foot traffic.

Two of my big flowers were hung flanking the gallery entrance, and they make a great welcoming statement!

Most of the rest of my pieces are in the big center area just as you walk in.

This is one of Betty Busby's pieces-  it's gorgeous in person-  many delicate layers of color and shape, and I feel bad I didn't get a better shot.  I spent so much time visiting at the reception that taking pictures was something of an afterthought!

This is work by Susan Szajer (the organic wall piece on the left) and Nora Bebee (the really cool tree and the bird and nest sculpture).  This is a show where you definitely need to see it in person; there is so much depth, texture, and detail in all the work.

This triptych is another one of Nora Bebee's pieces,  she seems to love layering and holes and texture as much as I do!   The two sculptures next to the triptych were done by Mary Mattimoe,  she came over from England for the opening and it was great to see her.  Her sculptures were really cool- very light and airy.  I wish (again) that I'd gotten better pictures.  And down at the very far right end are two of Joshua Willis's pieces.  He works in all kinds of media, but I loved these quilt-like pieces,  they were very much non-traditional, but had a wonderful repetitive pattern that was really cool.

This piece is one of Judith Roderick's,  she's a silk painter and quilter, and I've always loved her work.  She and I were the primary representatives of the bright-color crowd at this show (hooray Judith!),  though there were some bright pieces by other artists.

More great work from the show,  artist names are listed in each from left to right.

Betty Busby, Susan Szajer, Mary Mattimoe, and Nora Beebe

Both of these are by Joshua Willis

These are three of Nora's pieces.  Just wonderful texture.

All of the participating artists except Sabrina Zarco made it to the opening, and it was great fun to see everyone.

From left to right:  Betty Busby, me, Judith Roderick, Nora Bebee, Joshua Willis, Mary Mattimoe, and Susan Szajer

And of course my mom and me

Also super exciting, Tracy, my good friend from college, came up from Albuquerque with her daughter Elena.  I don't get to see her very often and it was super fabulous that she made the trip up to Santa Fe.

Thanks so much to Betty for organizing this and to Cynthia for hosting it.  It's really a cool show, so if you're in Santa Fe any time between now and December 14th, stop in and see it!

I'm linking up with Nina-Marie and Off the Wall Friday!

I like #82

Welcome to another week of likes!  I'm in New Mexico this week visiting my family and installing/opening our exhibition in Santa Fe.  My parents have a beautiful place, so this week is pretty flower heavy!

1.  I like indoor flowers!  My mom has a beautiful sunroom with a lap pool, so tropical plants grown wonderfully.  Her begonia has turned into a tree, and has the beautiful hanging pink blooms.  And one of her bromeliads has two giant pink blooms at the same time.  I love the bromeliads.....

2.  I like outdoor flowers!  You guys know I've been desperately growing one dahlia plant all summer, and so proud of it.  Then I get to my mom's house and she has all the flowers.  So so many flowers!  Flower beds everywhere!  Too many kinds of flowers to count, just absolutely gorgeous.  In addition to her beautiful flower beds, she has so many pretty containers, and a giant patch of hollyhocks growing in the crack in her asphalt parking lot.  These are just a few of them.

 

 

3.  I love wildflowers!  I love hiking too- we've had really great hiking this week up in the mountains and the rain they've gotten here recently has meant there's been a huge variety of wildflowers in bloom.  My parents and I usually go with the dogs every morning we can to hike in the National Forest just across the street from where they live.  

4.  I like fresh veggies!  My mom has a huge garden, I've spent a ton of time this week picking.  Lots of squash, cucumbers, bell peppers, poblano peppers, green beans, peas, jalapenos, tomatoes, and onions.  I'll pick some more this weekend (as well as apples) on Saturday to take home.

5.  I love the pups!  Of course mine came with me to NM and they've been visiting with their dog cousins, and even Sirius, the small black visiting dog who stays with my parents.   In contrast to the other five dogs who all just sort of hang around together, but Sirius mostly just stays in my parents' bed.  He tucks himself under the quilt; it's pretty hilarious.  Sometimes he'll peek out when you walk in, but other times he just stays a little lump underneath.

Thanks to Lee Anna for always keeping us going!

Felted Hat Class: Dawn Edwards Class

I mentioned a couple of times that I took a two-day felted hat class at the Art Loft in Guthrie, OK with visiting felter Dawn Edwards.  I didn't know much at all about felting, and thought that the class would be a great chance to learn about the felting process and about how to make dimensional felted creations.  Dawn's work is beautiful,  here are just a few of the gorgeous hats she brought as examples.

She brought resists for a bunch of the different shapes of hats, and I picked two that seemed fairly complicated in an attempt to learn as many techniques as I could.  We used merino wool roving for the body of the hats, and then could add in whatever extra stuff we wanted.    I brought some hand-dyed silk to incorporate into one of my hats.  Here are a few pictures as I was laying out my first hat.

After laying out came felting,  lots and lots of rolling back and forth in towels and bubble wrap, then squishing and squeezing until it shrank up enough to fit. 

 Finally we started to sculpt it.  First Dawn put the hat on an electric steaming hat block to steam it.  She said this relaxes the fibers and helps it get a nice round shape.  Then we just shaped away.  We all had pinnable synthetic hat blocks for the class so there was something to rest the hats on for sculpting.  Here's my first hat, and me wearing it with Dawn.  I was trying to make the "tree fungus" hat like Dawn's (third picture) and mine came out ok, though not quite as ruffly as I would have liked.  In any event, it will definitely keep my head warm this winter!

I started a second hat in class but I haven't finished it yet (several months later), so I'll have to blog about it in a separate post.  It used a few different techniques so I could learn to make long dangly bits and seed pods.  More on that in the future!

The class was a really great experience.  Dawn was a good teacher, and did a good job helping everybody make their hats.  I definitely learned a ton about felting! 

Show Opening at the New Mexico State Capitol

Quick promotional call everyone!  You may remember me mentioning several times throughout the last year that I've been preparing for an invitational group show to be exhibited at the New Mexico State Capitol.   Well I'm thrilled to announce the opening is finally here!  The show was organized by Betty Busby, so shout out to her for a huge amount of hard work.  Virtually everything I've made in the last year has been for this show and I'm so excited.  The opening reception is next Friday, September 7, 2018 from 4-6PM at the Capitol Rotunda Gallery at the New Mexico State Capitol.  For anyone in Santa Fe, please come to the reception, I'm worried no one will be there!  And for anyone who might be traveling in that area, the show will hang through the middle of December.

The other artists have great work, I can't wait to see it all in person.  Most of my dimensional work is in the show, including the large sculptural flowers and all the smocked quilts I've been working on recently.  I'll share some more pictures after the opening reception!

I Like #81

Welcome to another week of things to like.

1. First up,  I got to spend the weekend in Dallas with my sister.  It was my nephew Alex's fifth birthday, and we had a blast at his backyard birthday.  It was so much fun to see him and his sister, as well as my sister and her husband.  I love visiting them, and the kids are tons of fun.  My sister always does great parties, full of fun crafts and homemade goodies and homemade piñatas.  This year's theme was Nexo Knights, a cartoon with which I am unfamiliar, but the kids at the party made a fun shield and Becky and the kids made the piñata and cake themed from the show.  Becky and I also got to do some nice hiking on the trails around Lake Grapevine, and even though it was hot and muggy, it was nice to be outside.

2. Our geranium at work is blooming again!  It's been growing very well, but hasn't been blooming very much.  I think the window it sits in must have tinting that blocks whatever kind of light it needs for flowering, so it's great to see a bloom.  I've been having trouble getting my dahlia to bloom too, and just remembered to give it some fertilizer the other day.  Maybe I can remember to bring some in for the geranium.  Eagle-eyed readers will know that the old geranium was red,  alas I accidentally let it die a few months ago, and a kind co-worker replaced it with one that is apparently pink!  Hooray!  My bromeliad is still blooming (same bloom as a couple months back), though its color is fading, and just last week my peace lily started to bloom again.  It has two flowers on it!

3.  I like swaps!  I used to do them pretty frequently, but don't participate much anymore.  One I did do this year wasn't a traditional swap, but a round robin.  I always have such fun working on small, low-stress projects.  This was my quilt, and you can see more in my post from earlier this week.

I hope you're having a good week! Thanks to Lee Anna for linking us up!