everybody's a critic

I joined my somewhat local quilt guild in December. ("Somewhat local" means only a 35- to 40-minute drive.) There was a challenge afoot to make a 12-inch-square panel on the theme "music that inspires me." Thanks to the tons of snow that fell in January, the deadline was extended to February and I was able to put together something inspired by Leonard Cohen's song "Suzanne." Stella was underwhelmed.



Stella, with my piece: Her Place by the River ('Suzanne').

To be fair, she had been Working Very Hard All Day on something of her own and earned a nap. 

Cabin Fever by Stella

It's too late in the day to do any hoovering, but tomorrow I may introduce her to a little something I call "a broom."

wordless wednesday . . .

. . .on Thursday.

wordless wednesday

Nulla Dies Sine Linea*

*"Not a day without a line drawn."
--attributed to Apelles by Pliny

Not to be outdone by the cat, who sets a high standard, I've given myself the assignment of doodling. I'm trying for Every Day. Since I did manage to make it completely through January, I thought I'd crow by posting. At which point I was confounded by technology. About halfway through, my scanner stopped scanning. Trust me, I have a doodle a day for all 31 days. If I can conquer the scanner, I'll show you the rest. In the meantime, they're all Prismacolor pencils on postcard-size (4 inches x 6 inches) paper, and scanned three-in-a-row to be, as I imagined, efficient.

^Yellow is cheery in deep winter. Yellow is also a tricky color (it's suddenly not at all yellow) and I may give myself the challenge of an all-yellow month.

^There's more a little more on the leftmost edge of the leftmost doodle. I like these, all the white space, I think there may be something in them for later.

^Have I mentioned that my grandfather built the Behemoth from scraps of things and that my mother made the house into a sacred object that Never Could Be Altered? I think I may have . . . One of the dormer walls is pieced bits of something like Masonite. Over the years the seams have been encrusted with decades of paint and the piece in the middle is a rendering of the seam lines. It made me think of some works by Richard Diebenkorn -- not the usual association I have with either my mother or, especially, my grandfather -- and I think I may work with it a bit more.

^Seed forms.

^Letter forms. The bit in the center was inspired by a trip to the Morgan Library and an exhibition of cylinder seals with cuneiform writing and other images.

^Round things.

I was going to devote February to letter forms (26 letters would nicely account for most of the month), but the Sketchbook challenge for February is "Opposites" so I may hunt up my book on notan and see what that provokes. The ideas are not mutually exclusive (notan and letter forms) but there may be something more interesting in wandering rather than deciding.

In which Stella learns the value of "Just One Cow"

[wail from the other room]

M: What's the matter, little cat?

S: I'm ssoooo boooooorrrrrrrrrrrreeeddddddddd.

M: I see. People were asking about you at the meeting this month.

S: Me? Really? What'd they say?

M: They were wondering when you'd get off your duff and post something again.
S: I'm not inspired.

M: Sometimes you just have to do something, any little thing, without worrying about it to get going.
S: Oh all right. Let me get up.

S: What's that?
M: Last week's grocery store flyer.
S: You're not going to throw that out, are you?
M: Last week's flyer.
S: Vintage paper. 

S: I could Do Something with this.
M: That's the spirit, little cat. 

S: Come look.
M: So soon? ooh. What do you call it?
S: "Tuna Dreaming: Deep Water, Deep Winter"

M: Ah. Conceptual.
S: All art is conceptual.
M: Very wise, pretty girl. And you didn't even have to get out of the bed.
S: I'm back. Alert the media.



progress

Making progress on the Prayers on the River triptych. The yo-yos need to be stitched down so they're flatter and I think this is going to want a shower of seed beads, so I'm going to be spending quite a lot of time with my needle.

And I think a curved border. The batting is a piece of wool suiting and I want that to show. I like having the structure show.

you say you want a resolution?

Well, you know. . .

I don't usually go in for this sort of thing but this year one kinda crept up on me:

Remember your value.

It came to me in a dream.

Really.

I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it has a nice, ringing air of the resolute about it. So I'll give it a go and see what evolves.

Wishing you laughter, prosperity, imagination, health, and wonder.
Not necessarily in that order.