On Monday, June 2nd at 6:00 at the Creative Access Arts Center at 500 S. 8th in Boise I will be sitting on a panel discussion about Art Journaling with four other artists, Pam McKnight, Lisa Cheney, Beau Van Greener and Jeanette Ross.
Kathleen Keys will be leading the discussion. If you are in town you should come on down, and bring your own art journal to “show and tell” with the other artists after the panel speaks. That’s when it should get really interesting!
Here’s a preview of one of my art journals, “Text Book,” which is a Travel & Leisure magazine I folded and then drew patterns all over using Sharpies.
Tomorrow I’ll preview a completely different kind of art journal which I keep with ideas for painted rugs. Prepare to be floored.
Being fond of patterns, it’s pretty clear I have one where my Four Favorite Book posts are concerned. First, I am always surprised by how quickly the month has passed. Wouldn’t you know — it’s almost June!
Second, I have been, yet again, too busy to read anything longer than other people’s blog posts. So, I don’t have a work of fiction to share with you this month. Lucky for you though, my third pattern is I truly love books, look to them constantly for inspiration, and have every intention of sharing my favorites with you each month. So, here goes.
Instead of reading novels, Mike and I have been spending lots of time in our backyard.
We have plans to transform it into our perfect summer “staycation destination” and one of the books which I have found inspiring is Inside OUT, Relating Garden to House by Page Dickey, Photographs by Richard Felber, Published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2000.
The book features 13 distinct gardens attached to homes in diverse settings — including an arroyo in Phoenix, a rooftop in Manhattan, a suburban hacienda in Austin, Texas, and a backyard prairie in Lake Forest, Illinois:
That prairie almost makes me feel like we know what we’re doing with our backyard.
(Not even close!)
We love summer, fall, and early winter in Boise. We are however, considerably less fond of full-on winter, and the inversion — endless days of cold, flat grey skies and dry brown vistas. We are also tired of the doldrums that set in with the inevitable cabin fever we suffer as we wait for spring to arrive fully, sometime around the beginning of May.
Because we have felt this way for a while now, and because we find ourselves in a position of more freedom now that Logan has moved out and we only have our wee pack o’mutts to care for, Mike and I are thinking of spending our winters elsewhere.
Which brings me to my favorite book of Interior Design for this month: New Orleans, Elegance and Decadence, Narrative by Randolph Delehanty, Photographs by Richard Sexton, Published by Chronicle Books, 1993.
Truth be told, this is much more than a book of interiors. It covers New Orleans’ history, explains the roots of her unique ethnic melange, and entrenched social strata, gives some insight to her celebrations, and to her melancholy. New Orleans is not a place for people who do not like to feel their feelings. New Orleans is as messy and as sticky-sweet as your beating heart would be if you were to wear it, literally, on your sleeve.
If things work out they way we’re planning, our next winter may be a lot less grey, and a lot more, shall we say, sanguine?
For my favorite cookbook I have a real oldie but goodie for you…Mmmmm A Feastiary by Ruth Reichl, Published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
I was reminded of this book earlier this month when Pat Oleszko turned 67. She is featured throughout in her wonderful, crazy ensembles — highly unusual artwork for a cookbook I’d guess, even in the early ’70’s.
To be honest, I don’t really cook out of this book but it makes for very entertaining reading. Ruth Reichel grew up to be a pretty good writer (Tender at the Bone; Comfort Me with Apples; and Garlic and Sapphires) and editor (Gourmet magazine) and it’s fun to read about her early days and see pictures of her real family and friends back in the 60’s. Kind of gives you that mellow, home-grown feeling, like a nice batch of fresh brownies.
Finally, my art book for this month is 1000 Artist Journal Pages, Personal Pages and Inspirations, edited by Dawn DeVries Sokol, Published by Quarry Books, 2008.
This book is just what it says it is — photographs of 1000 art journal pages (spread over 299 pages in the book) showing all sorts of artists’ personal thoughts, inspirations, methods of visually remembering really important people, places and things or, the slightest of ephemeral snippets of time.
One of the spreads features some pages by local artist Lisa Cheney. Lisa teaches people how to create their own art journals. She will be giving a workshop for TVAA which should be awesome, so you might want to hurry and sign up for it!
Lisa will also be on a panel of artists talking about creating and keeping art journals on Monday, June 2nd at 6:00 at the Creative Access Arts Center (500 S. 8th St. in Boise), along with fellow artists Beau Van Greener, Pam McKnight, Jeanette Ross, and drumroll please…..little ol’ me.
And now, it’s time to go enjoy my backyard — while it vaguely resembles a prairie, and the poppies are still taller than the crab grass!
This week has gone to the dogs. Well, to my dogs anyway: Sirius, Snug, and Lula. You hear about Lula all the time because she is basically a miracle disguised as a hiccup. But before Lula, there were Sirius and Snug.
Sirius is pretty much a dog’s dog and other than having serious separation anxiety, which I will not embarrass him by discussing here, spends his time doing ordinary doggy things. He doesn’t have a lot of time for hanging around art projects and posing for pictures, though I do have this one of him with Snug — before Snug got his hair cut.
Snug, on the other hand, is a total ham and would gladly photo-bomb every shot I take of Lula if he could. He LOVES Lula and alternates between licking her sweetly, or stepping on her head and sitting on her chest. He weighs 15 lbs. which is close to 3 times as much as Lula, so she doesn’t put up with that for long!
Anyway, everyday this week has had a doggy demand — vaccinations, grooming, tryouts at Camp Bow Wow. It’s exhausting. I’ve barely had any time for art. So instead I’m sharing 2 of my 3 favorite reasons for putting the projects off until tomorrow….
By the way, that quilt they are playing on is the one I’m Kantha stitching for Lula to hula on. So see! I am trying to get work done. It just doesn’t look like I am.
Three day weekends are always good for a little change of perspective. This one just past gave Mike and me the chance to think through some dreams we’d put on hold until the time seemed right to put things into motion which will turn those dreams into reality. Seems like that time might be sooner than we thought.
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
I’ve been so busy stitchin’ I forgot to do my daily “at least one photo” post for the past couple of days. So, to make up for it, here are six photos of the item I’ve been stitchin’ — the sash for my collaborative piece with Barbara Bolling — “The Abdication of the Sylvan Beauty Queen on the Occasion of Her Epiphany.”
