Tuesday, April 10, 2018

(Art) spring cleaning

My piece, "pink parrot" among many
excellent pieces at
LABspace in Hillsdale, NY
A busy week in Artlandia!  Lots of logistical goings on this week - deinstalling the show at Albany Center Gallery and delivering an artwork and attending the opening of True North at LABspace in Hillsdale, NY. 
Getting ready for an upcoming exhibition, I also went through my work to select pieces and felt like I had every piece in Artlanndia out for review, haha.  Many of the pieces have never been exhibited, so now I'm in process checking each one, making sure it's stable and ready to frame, and making any necessary repairs/ changes. I ordered and received the frames. 
One piece that got some additional work was the life-scale unicorn, which was a major undertaking for my last solo show at The Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in June 2016.  I added additional sewing of the mesh to the paper and eased the appearance of the transitions between the parts with colored pencil.  It's nice to see it out and getting ready to be enjoyed. 


Another piece that has never been exhibited is Self-portrait as Lady Sleep from 2015. Unfortunately, it's one of Mini's favorites...she chewed some of the edges off.  However, the piece was already built with an internal border, so I think I'll be able to add a decorative layer over the damage that will be a meaningful addition. I carved a new border block inspired by Gothic stained glass and manuscript borders and re-printed some of the older small blocks for this purpose.
New border block

Mini, leaving her mark
This part of the work can be discouraging because it's time consuming but doesn't make the work look much different; however, I think it's important for the long term and will be rewarding to see it all finished.
























In para-art news, even though it continues to snow (doh.) it is technically spring, so Honey and I have resumed our weekly hikes.  She is not the least bit intimidated by wind or cold (it's definitely more the human in our pair who's the weather wimp :) ). This week marks the two year anniversary of the day I adopted Honey.  She's grown so much, but still the same shining eyes and beautiful smile - can't imagine life without her! 







































Mini continues to be a big helper - she loves it when her human works with thread in the studio and here she is helping me read the art section of the newspaper.

And, last but definitely not least in exciting creature news...meet our future Feline Assistant, Jr.! Still thinking about his name, he's only 4 weeks old, so he'll be with his feline mom, litter mates, and human Foster Mom for some weeks yet, but I am so excited to be his human! I love seeing pictures and watching him grow and learn, and it won't be long before he joins our creature family.  So tiny and already so much personality! 
Look at that little face! 

In closing, a particularly beautiful batch of chocolate chip cookies for a friend's birthday and some good landscape of the week shots - a no-filter sunset and a sign on the path to nowhere.