Posted 7/2/09

Here are a few drawings from my mobile studio, my sketchbook.  The above drawing is my cute ipod in it’s crazy holder.

The above drawing is a belated shout out to my Dad for Father’s Day. I recently attempted to draw the contents of my parent’s closet when I was young.  It’s probably weird that I spent so much time there, but my parents had a lot of cool stuff in there. And besides, did YOUR Dad practice a brass instrument in his closet? The drawing of these memories led to more specific drawings of items in their closet. This is just a memory drawing of one of many Audubon guides my Dad always had. As a kid, I spent lots of time flipping through them and considering species of birds and plants.  I really enjoyed drawing the cool plastic texture of the cover. They were drawn with a sharpie, watercolor pencils and my cool watercolor brush.

Posted 6/17/09

I don’t know about you other creative obsessed individuals, but my skin starts to itch when I haven’t made spent some time physically creating something.  Without my studio handy, I pulled out my sketchbook and started to draw away. This sketch is drawn from a photograph my lovely sister took of my oldest niece. My niece created and sewed this “ice cream cone” herself and wanted to share it with me. I have had the photo on my bulletin board at work for a couple of years and just love it. I am enamored with the idea of an older version of Cat discovering this photographic documentation of one of her young creative endeavors. Also, I am super interested in self portraits in particular, but have never had a lot of drive to do any portraiture myself.  Lately I have been interested in working with crosshatching on drawings and a portrait seemed like a perfect exercise. It was a complete relief to do something creative, anything, NOW. Yes!

I feel less itchy now.

Posted 6/8/09

I’ve been missing in blog land because we have a contract on our house!

My normal packing style is simple. Naomi packing = efficient, quick, put things in a box with other like items, label well, pack carefully, when in doubt toss, cross the room off the list when I am done.  Very type A. I believe that this is approximately move 11 for the Adams family, so we’ve done this all before. However, I think we have a billion times the amount of stuff compared to the first time we moved. And most of it sits in my studio.

I started packing my studio first, because I need to be the one to pack it up. Instead of my usual packing style, I found myself packing “straight up Tyler style”. For anyone who hasn’t seen my other half pack, it is a truly unique (and adorable if you’re not under a time crunch) process. He thoughtfully considers all of the items he unearths and the memories and events and good times attached to those items and lovingly packs 3 boxes. Meanwhile, I have packed the kitchen. I say this in love.

I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t take the brightly colored items off the studio design wall or pack up the lovely bits of this and that which hold promise for future art.  I spent practically a whole day packing one shelf of my lovely wall racks and realized I was in big trouble.

The deed is now done, but it wasn’t pretty. Here’s to new adventures in graduate school and unpacking my studio, which is ALWAYS fun!

Posted 5/5/09

It’s up! You can see my work during the whole month of May 2009 at the Robert and Helen Griffith Library in Round Rock, TX.  Drop by and enjoy the show. The library is on Main Street in Round Rock, which has tons of good places to eat or have a cup of coffee.

The Robert G. and Helen Griffith Library, 216 E. Main Street, Round Rock, TX  78664
512-218-7000 | Circulation: 512-218-7001

Hours
9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday - Thursday
9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday - Saturday
1 to 6 p.m. Sunday

The library director, Dale Ricklefs, was kind enough to ask me to share my textile art at their new gallery space on the first floor. Thank you, fellow quilter, Dale.  Thank you to Said Horozovic at the library, Jason King, and my ever enthusiastic husband, Tyler, for helping me prepare and hang the show.  I neglected to take anything but my camera phone with me yesterday to put up the show, but I will go back and take some better photos later!

Posted 4/29/09

The Collage Mania preview is up! There are 383 collages available on May 5, 2009 for an $80 minimum donation. On May 6 and 7, 2009, they will be available for a $40 minimum donation. This is the last fundraiser for Fiberart for a Cause which benefits the American Cancer Society. Thank you, Virginia Spiegel and Karen Stiehl Osborn for all of your hard work on this project!

I donated 3 collages for the sale this year, which are located on page 15 of the Collage Mania preview. Take a look, find something lovely and donate generously.

Posted 4/12/09

This is my monthly journal quilt for April, 4/12 2009, 12″ x 12″. The way I figure it, April is almost over for me due to lots of things going on over the next 2 weeks, so I figured I better get to it!

This piece is created in the same way my small lines series is constructed. For this piece, I began with a background piece of fabric that I painted with blue/aqua paint with a handmade stamp. I then took a piece of purple fabric that I painted, cut it into strips and fused it to the background. I then sandwiched it with batting and backing and quilted it. Then, I cut it up into lots of pieces and reassembled them with a zig zag stitch. It’s a fun stripey puzzle to re-stitch together. I machine quilted over it some more and then finished it with a zig zag stitch around the edges.

This piece is for sale in my etsy shop.

Posted 3/30/09

I can’t stop looking at it. I hope to catch Adam Bateman’s work in person, as it looks phenomenal. The linear quality and textures are just so graphic!

You can peruse his website here: www.adambateman.com There is also a bit about him and an exhibit of his work at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center that you can read about here. Thanks for sharing your work, Adam. 

Posted 3/23/09

This is my monthly journal quilt for March, 3/12 2009, 12″ x 12″, mounted to stretched canvas.

This piece started with a sketch from my sketchbook last month, and then took a different road while I was making it!  I started this piece with a purple piece of my hand dyed fabric for the background. I then used a foam stamp to print circles on the background with 3 colors of purple textile paints. I then added the two flowers by fusing fabric to the background. The purple circles are from a single piece of my hand dyed fabric that had tons of color variation in it. The green stems are from a commercial batik fabric. To finish the piece, I quilted it with wavy lines with a purple variegated cotton thread. I then zig zagged the edges and went to water the lawn. Happy spring!

This piece is for sale in my etsy shop.

Posted 3/20/09

The International Fiber Collective is working on a collaborative project, Interdependence (The Tree Project). They have been collecting leaves made with fiber techniques for a tree installation.

A quote from their website: “Much like a live tree is interdependent on its leaves and roots for survival, societies are interdependent on the greater whole, family units, communities, and countries.”

Another artist noted on her blog that they will be accepting leaves past their original deadline, so I found a few minutes (i.e. got up earlier) this week to make a few leaves.

The leaf on the left was made with leftover pieces from a larger work I created last year, which involved cutting up whole quilted pieces and re-structuring them. The leaf in the middle is made from painted corrugated cardboard coffee cup sleeves that were then machine stitched. The leaf on the right was created with a leftover piece of interesting fabric that a fiber friend gave to me, which I painted and quilted. This fabric is used for disposable gowns, etc.

Thanks for the project, International Fiber Collective! I can’t wait to see the final installation photos.

Posted 3/18/09

I thought I’d post the cute pics of our house, which is now on the market. You can peek at my art on most walls. We really enjoyed making a suburban home more fun, and certainly more colorful than most! I’ll miss my zebra wall. Here they are…