ta-da

I have been waiting a while to say this: So I was down in the studio tonight . . . and I pulled out the Moby Dick box and unearthed a panel I started ages ago and -- made some progress. Hurrah for me.

Chapters 26 & 27: Knights and Squires 

The studio will evolve for a while At the moment, my enticing wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling closet is the holdall for stuff that lives in the living room. There was termite damage there as well, so I'm shifting things room by room and having the floors repaired. Nevertheless, it was possible to Do Something in The Studio.

^I did set up the Bernina that I bought -- also ages ago -- and have been afraid to use. But then I couldn't find the manual, so I took it down again and set out my stalwart little Janome.

^The big rack o'fabric will eventually be relocated in the b-i-g new closet.

^Temporary cutting table to see how it works it in that spot. It's kind of a small room, so getting things placed efficiently is going to take some experimenting.

 ^Pressing matters. I think I want to get a buffet/cabinet kind of thing with drawers and convert it to a cutting/pressing station. Helloooo, Ikea. Meanwhile, this will do.

^The b-i-g closet. Usually, it's the little things that make me this happy.

And -- a note to fans of Stella. She's been spending more time in the house now that it's getting chilly, so I expect projects will soon be underway. Her summer schedule of three days out, snack and overnight at home, then three days out again didn't allow for much in-house productivity. Or conversation.

The artist with her 2010 piece, Nip Socks in Pantry (I)
[temporary installation]

thar she blows II

I seem to have gone public. On page 84.
As always, my photography leaves much to be desired (and my scanner is down for the count), but here's the general idea:

I'd say "at a newsstand near you" but there seems to be some difficulty locating newsstands with copies of this, the second issue of Art Quilting Studio. But the magazine is out, and opportunities to contribute abound, so if you can't track down the magazine, check out Somerset's website.

January Moby

For Chapter 133: The Chase – First Day
“There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!”

12 inches x 12 inches
(33 cm x 33 cm)

commercial printed cotton, watercolor and acrylic paint,
metallic and cotton threads, polyester batting

I haven't been keeping the first 132 panels from you for my own selfish reasons. Since I promised myself to make one panel a month for the foreseeable future, and since I realized I was running out of January, I picked up the book again over the long weekend and started reading near the end.

This one is more literal/figurative than the other panels, but I offer as pardon the fact that the book also mixes styles and careens wildly between the abstract and concrete. I'll see how it fits as the series grows. This is the ninth panel in order of creation, 133rd in order of ambition. (One for each chapter, and there are 136 chapters. I won't lack for something to do for quite a long time.)

(note: the brownish bits in the top corners are not the panel but a cardboard under it and my crazy camera 'skills')

ahoy

I was at a family gathering this weekend -- a bittersweet (but mostly the sweet bit) thing. Started home yesterday (Saturday) in the late afternoon, blew a tire on the highway, and because my spare is one of those balloonlike temporary tires and because home was three times further away than is recommended that you travel on one of those things, I spent the night at a Holiday Inn near Trenton.

In the morning, whilst waiting for New Jersey to open -- or at least for a fix-a-flat place near Trenton to open, I pulled out my trusty Penguin edition of Moby Dick and made some new sketches. Whenever I mention this series, people ask "Are you going to do a panel for each chapter?" And I mention that "there are 136 chapters" and that's usually the end of that. But I've been in the "why not?" mode for a while, so I thought: why not 136 (or so) images? what's the problem? You're only a month behind on your self-imposed one-a-day project... So I'll see. I thought I'd continue reading and noting and see what I see.

Meanwhile, here's the first batch, with the panel title, the source chapter, and a quotation from the text set after the image. These are all 12 inches square. The BW2R is part of the series (for the last chapter: Epilogue) and is approximately 30 in. x 60 in.
(photos by Dana Buckley)
Ahab
from Chapter 28, Ahab
Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. (page 134)

Baleen
from Chapter 75, The Right Whale's Head
In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous “whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth; another, “hog’s bristles;” a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: “There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.” (page 365-66)

Duodecimo
from Chapter 32, Cetology
First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all, both large and small. (page 148)

Sharks
from Chapter 67, Cutting In
You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods. (page 130)

The Pequod
from Chapter 16, The Ship
All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins. To fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. (page 78)

SAQA trunk show

I've been working on a series of 12- x 12-inch pieces informed by Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. This one is for chapter 99 The Doubloon, and I thought I'd send it along for the SAQA trunk show.

One day I'll learn to use my camera so I can get a clearer range of contrast in the images.