I finally started my piece today after letting things stew in my head for months. The final piece is due the beginning of May so I have to get a move on!

I choose a bag full of reds, magentas, black, and burgundy. Not my usual colours, besides the magenta, but I guess it drew me in that day. Later I decided I would throw in this painted warp I did last summer as an intern at Fiberwood...I love dramatic and unexpected colours together. Cross your fingers that this works!



( Stark weaving mad... )

I found another beautiful skein of the recycled silk at Fiberwood Studio on Saturday and had enough warp left on the loom to do one more runner. This one is my favourite so far...





( colour! )

I know I haven't posted in a long while...graduating, job hunting, and now my job got in the way! But I recently got my very own loom (recently = November 2008) and finally finished the first project on it. I still can't believe I have my own loom, lol.





( recycled sari silk runners )






( Sea Green Scarf )

This is a collage assignment for my Photoshop/Illustrator class...it sorta turned into a poster for my fictional yoga studio, Tria. I scanned the branches (I love how parts are in focus and not) and then combined them with photos of the woman and the city lights and recoloured them. This assignment was for practice using quick masks, layer masks, and the extraction tool.




( big versions )

I took a class this summer - on-loom weaving - and thought I'd share the process of one of my final projects with you. Once I knew I was taking the class I figured I'd squeeze a rag rug in somehow...I've been wanting to make one ever since I learned to use a loom (about a year and a half ago). I picked up some white cotton and white linen remnants on one of the many trips to Jo-Ann's last semester, lol, with the rag rug in mind. A pregnant friend and I were going to dye white onesies for her baby, so I figured I'd go all the way and dye my own fabric for the rug at the same time.

( purple! )

I know you've all been dying to see these, lol.

( Graphic Start )

Got some good news after work this afternoon...my two soy ribbon scarves and the Twilight Tree Pose Quilt made it into the Honors Show this week. The Quilt is also going forward to be juried for the Lakefront Festival of the Arts, which is a big deal in Milwaukee. They only accept 30 student works from 16 schools in the area, so it's an awesome honor to be chosen. Mount Mary College usually has a high number of pieces chosen for our size. I doubt I'll make it in, but it's cool to know the professors at school thought it was good enough to send.

EDIT: My Twilight Tree Pose Quilt DID make it in to the Lakefront Festival of Arts Student Tent!!!!! Couldn't believe it, lol. My friend Jess also got a piece accepted so we are quite excited! If you are in the area come see:
Friday, June 20th, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 21st, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 22nd, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(At the Milwaukee Art Museum grounds on the Lake Michigan shoreline.)

Watched Touch The Sound tonight. The way Evelyn Glennie speaks about hearing sound in the body reminded me of the way we feel energy and breath move through the body in yoga and images in process painting (or that's the ideal anyway, lol). Go watch it :)

Alright. I'm not really in the mood to write about the Symposium yesterday but if I don't do it now it won't get done. This coming week will be completely busy with the Graphic Start Show on Friday. So, here are my brief thoughts and feelings about the day...

-this year's Symposium was entitled Art Therapy and Social Justice: Advocacy, Activism, and Altruism.

-Cathy Malchiodi was the Keynote speaker. Not as charismatic as Shaun McNiff last year, but a wonderful presence. She was calm and charming and seemed very strong. She's not afraid to try new things. She showed us a film she created on iMovie and it was extremely moving and illustrates just why Art Therapy is where it's at! You can see the short film on her website...just scroll down a little: Be the change you want to see in the world.

-Process Painting with Karen McCormick for the first session. It was a delight to walk into the classroom and see beautiful big pieces of white paper, a set of watercolour paints, a small cup of water, and a piece of Hershey's dark chocolate at each place, lol. Process Painting feels sooo right...even though I don't know how to do it properly yet. I have faith that I will be able to relax and paint without being self conscious. I am going to Karen's studio in June with a friend (Kelly, I missed you at the Symposium!), so I will get more practice. It's just so thrilling to be at the beginning of learning this new thing...painting and energy awareness all in one.

-Karen talked about ego and gave us questions to ask ourselves about our paintings. I got stuck and wondered how I would ever be able to do this professionally, help other people, if I couldn't even ask myself the right questions to get unstuck. There's so much to learn.


-second session after lunch was called Healing the Bleeding Heart. It was about Self Injury, which I must confess, I don't understand at all. I don't comprehend the impulse to cut. But the woman presenting showed a beautiful video with music that was intended to dispel myths and stigmas about people who cut. I still don't understand, but that's okay.

-third session was a great performance by Bruce Moon, the most energetic man I've ever met, lol. He read a poem/song about an adolescent boy he helped and was helped by.

-fourth session was a panel of grad students explaining their experiences and different programs at school. Helpful. Scary, lol. Someday, someday. I kept wanting them to talk about how they knew they could do it, get through the program and be an art therapist at the end. But you never get to know that, do you? You just have to jump in and do your best.

And that's the end. I didn't stay for the evening graduate student performances because I was so beat. I had a great day, though, and just like last year it was perfect to find myself in the company of kindred souls :)

I'm so close to my final Tria logo!!!! I think this new version is cleaner and less messy than the first logo with the three upside down figures. Here are the three that I will use...a different colour combo for each one of the three parts of the Studio: yoga, art/process painting, and cafe/food. The tag line is different on the third one, though, because I kinda like the 'o' in yoga to match one of the colours in the logo, sort of like it's connecting the three parts of the logo. But is it even visible? Is it better to just keep the clean black type? Have an opinion? Speak up!




And here's some logo fun, lol. All the teeny logos are so cute :)

Wasn't really feelin' the Intention or Witness today. But I had fun cutting my quilt apart and then stitching it back together with this super soft black yarn I have. I really like the 'destructive' acts of creating an art work...like cutting things or letting loose the dye on clean fabric. I'm trying to resist analyzing what is going on in this quilt...analysis is not necessary! The chapter we discussed today (my second favourite after the Buddhist chapter) spoke about letting the Mystery just Be and that it is another important way of knowing. So, for now, I guess it's okay I don't know what this is or where it came from. I do hope I can put something coherent together for the presentation at the end of the semester. Maybe we don't need to add or embellish our process, though. Maybe everyone will get what they need seeing the bare (and not quite crystallized) bones. I'll let you know, lol.




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