I’d be lost without my lists. My brain seems to be going in so many directions most of the time. My lists are my anchors in the sea of chaos. Especially this time of year, with the holidays approaching and 3 shows to prepare for in the next 2 months, my lists will keep me on track.
I like to see other people’s lists – it gives me insight to what they’re thinking. To share more of my process of how I keep organized, juggle priorities, and get things done, I’m going to share some of my lists.
The one above is my guide for this week, and into next. I’ve got deadlines for the end of this week when my show at Gallery 360 opens, and then a lot of work to do for 2 more upcoming shows, 1 at the end of the month and our Hanna-Hooly open studio holiday show in early Dec.
My Fall Eco-Dyeing continues
This past Saturday, I spent the day in an Eco-dye workshop taught by Susan Brooks in Louisville, CO. It was a great time learning and sharing experiences – Susan is a really good teacher and had several dye baths already prepared and waiting when we students arrived. At the end of class, we each got to bring some of the prepared solar dye baths home with us, to allow our bundles to “cook” awhile longer, and to add more bundles to (hence my plan for “bundle-rama” over the next couple of days).
(Top, L to R) Onion skins, avocado pit, sunflower dye baths from the workshop. My bundles from the workshop (bottom).
We had the option of onion skin, red cabbage, and walnut dye pots to simmer our bundles in at the workshop. I’ll be waiting a couple weeks before opening these bundles to see the results.
During the next couple of days, I’ll be adding some new bundles to the solar baths above, as well as some new dye baths I’ve made (below).
My dye baths are ready and waiting.
While we are still having some reasonably warm weather days, I’m trying to get a few more silk scarves made to have a variety to offer in my online shop as well as to have some available at our holiday party.
And it will give me the satisfaction of being able to mark something as “DONE” on my list.
It’s the most ideal time of year for gathering windfall leaves and doing some eco-dyeing, but since my show at Gallery 360 in MN opens in just 2.5 weeks, I’m instead stationed at my sewing machine on nights and weekends, creating a few more small LineScape textile paintings and finishing up the rest of the holiday ornaments for the show.
And yet…
acorns and walnuts
Thanks to my friends Sandra, Claire and Bryan, I have acorns and walnuts! Dye baths are brewing and I wrapped a few nuts in cloth for a dipping. Just a wee bit of natural dyeing, enough to get my fix for now any way.
Upon opening these, I am reminded what wonderful browns are possible when dyeing with natural plants. I love the neutrals, and especially BROWN. There’s just something about Brown…. and pink.
Can’t possibly be down when you’ve got your Brown girl around. I’ve been assembling a stash of natural-dyed browns, to use in a new piece I’ve started all about my girl, Emma.
While I don’t have time right now to do as much bundling as I’d like, I have been gathering the windfall leaves and saving them (in the freezer) until I’m ready and able. As soon as I finish my work for the Gallery 360 show, I’ll be bundling up a bunch more scarves and stitching more new pieces to have ready for our 3rd annual Hanna-Hooly Holiday show on Dec 8th.
November will be packed with art-making of many sorts, getting ready for 2 more upcoming shows, as well as the much anticipated launch of my Hanna-Dyed Etsy shop. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned my Creative Venture project I’ve been working on for the past 3 months as part of the AIR Evolve 6 month program.
More to come on all of this….it’s Great to be busy with ART!
Where to begin when you don’t know what to say? I’m reminded of Pema Chodron’s words/book, “Start Where You Are”. And so I will.
It’s been 10 days now since our family suffered the unexpected loss of our dear sister/mother/daughter, ShaRae – and it still just doesn’t seem real. We miss her terribly. We are taking each new day one at a time, and slowly trying to fill in these holes in our hearts.
Everything else seems insignificant.
And the mirror looms rather large: What are you doing with your life? Are you taking care of yourself, focusing your time and energy on things that matter? Oh, the soul-searching.
And then there is the welcome distraction of the reality that we here at Hanna-Hooly Studios have 3 upcoming art shows to prepare for, the first of which – a holiday show in MN – opens just one month from now. I need to create 4 more small textile paintings and finish 30 ornaments for that show.
"snowflake" ornaments (in progress)
Creativity is a good distraction, escape, even meditation – I’m in a contemplative fog. There is some healing in the making of things.
A couple mornings ago, still numb and mindlessly web surfing, I came upon this video of 4-year-old Malcolm on his first big mountain bike ride. His pure exuberant joy re-awakened that 4-year-old life force energy within me. (It even scared me a little bit too – my palms were sweating by the end of the video.)
Remember what it was like to be 4? I do. My first bike without training wheels was a gold schwinn stingray, with a big banana seat and a tall sissy bar on the back. We got it cheap at a garage sale – it was bad and I loved it. I used clothespins to attach playing cards to the spokes and tore around the neighborhood with the rest of the kids, usually without a shirt (I didn’t like wearing clothes too much as a kid…I think it was because getting dressed slowed me down – I had a lot to do!). I was sooooo FREE, so unencumbered back then.
me at age 4, and a similar looking bike to the one i had then
What can we learn from children and what blessings can come from our loss?
None of us can ever know what the future holds. I’m trying to stay present in the moment, awake with life force and enjoying all that life has to offer, unencumbered (like my 4-year-old self) by those adult things that just don’t matter. And cherishing the memories of our sweet sister ShaRae.
Umm ya, that’s right – it’s Sept. 26 and time to rev up the holiday artwork engine.
This year, not only will I be making work for our 3rd ever annual Hanna-Hooly Holiday Open Studio Party & Art Show, but I’ll also be participating in a group holiday art show at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis which opens on Nov. 10th (that’s like 44 days from today – yikes!)
I’m going have some of my new LineScape Series of works in the exhibit. Participating artists are also making some small holiday items/ornaments, so I’m making some holiday “tree” ornaments for the show as well.
While I’ll be exhibiting in the group show at Gallery 360, my partner Barbara Gilhooly will be having a solo show of her new work in the large gallery space there. Her new work includes carved paintings of cityscapes and bridges, as well as some “city cutouts” – painted and cutout forms which will “stand” all around the perimeter of the gallery floor:
I know I’m a bit biased, but, hey these are really fantastic pieces! She plans to have about 100 of these “cutouts” ready for the show. You should see our living room – looks like a world city has emerged through the floor. Imagine the gallery space with paintings lining the walls and this cutout city lining the perimeter of the gallery floor!
If you’re in or near Minneapolis/St. Paul, you can see the show in person – it will be up Nov 10 through Jan 18. And we’ll be there for the opening on Nov 10, so I’m looking forward to seeing all our friends in the MN area then!
Over the past couple of weeks, the last hurrahs of summer and the start of the fall semester have brought visits from friends and some new energy in the studio.
First, a visit from Marvelous Marg and Jay (aka Mr. Higgins) and a few days off from my day job, gave Marg and I a chance to play together in my studio whilst learning how to use the computer-aided functions of my long arm quilting machine to quilt the wonderful king-size bed quilt that Marg made for me.
Marvelous Marg wearing her new "Hanna-dyed" scarf, standing next to "Lucky" (the king-size bed quilt she made for me) loaded up on the long-arm for quilting.
I love to use this machine as a giant (free hand) drawing tool when stitching on my smaller textile paintings, but that’s akin to driving it around the block at 5 mph. Thanks to my friend Kelly, our local Gammill Dealer and long-arm quilting goddess, we learned how to take this machine out for a ride on the highway and saw a little of what it can really do.
Next came a quick visit with artist friends Sandra and Claire from Minnesota. After their short stay with us, they were headed up to Estes Park where Claire had plans to do a high altitude hike which she had been training for by hiking around a large park in Minneapolis with several copies of Dwell magazine in her backpack!
Here's Sandra modeling her new "Hanna-dyed" scarf.
In the studio, my focus is 2 fold: (1.) Getting textile paintings and some holiday items created for my upcoming holiday group show at Gallery 360 in Minneapolis, MN. (2.) Making some more scarves to have available at our Hanna-Hooly Holiday open house as well as to add to my online store.
deconstructed screen print on cotton fabric (detail)
And with the start of fall semester, here at Hanna-Hooly studios we are so happy to welcome our first ever CSU student intern – Christiana Lambert!
This week, I’m pretty sure Christiana had some fun launching her modeling career, as she graciously wore over 20 scarves and posed for lots of photos. The photo above and below are actually the same piece of fabric, before and after wash:
deconstructed screen-printed cotton scarf
More to come in a future post about Christiana and this new art internship program which CSU is launching in collaboration with Beet Street as one component of the overall new AIR program.
I’m really glad to have been engaged from the start with the development of this AIR program. As a curriculum development committee member, it’s amazing to see the fruition of our work becoming a reality with the initial pilot launch of the program this fall.
And the best part has been all the new friends and colleagues I’ve come to know through being involved in the development of AIR.
One of my perks from my teaching gig in Telluride, CO was getting to see and wander through Kathy’s (one of my students) collection of rusty bits that she’s acquired over her many years of collecting rusty stuff.
And Kathy very generously gifted me with rusty bits from her collection, including some rusted pipes, cylinders, and springs. (Many Thanks, Kathy!)
Rusty Bits Bouquets
I’m also very fortunate to have a partner who is an “uber-organizer”, and when my eco-dyeing “meth lab” (as she so fondly refers to it) gets a little outta hand, it makes her feel so much better to arrange, sort, and organize my things in fun creative ways – such as this group of Rusty Bits Bouquets pictured above. (I appreciate it when she does things like this because it makes me feel better to have things organized too!)
Rusty Springs from my friend Kathy
Back home again, the energy pulled me toward continuing with the eco-dyeing. I’ve washed and ironed the latest batch of scarves and now need to shoot some photos of them to get them added to my new online store.
I also decided to dye a few pieces of silk and cotton cloth, using the iron rebar that Barbara brought home for me on one of her recent trips to home depot. I’ve been improving my eco-dyeing results through all the experience I’ve been getting dyeing the scarves and I want to have some pieces of cloth that I can use in my artwork as well:
2 pieces of silk, dyed with iron, eucalyptus, rose petals
Silk, copper, eucalyptus, rose petals (L), Silk, iron, eucalyptus, rose petals (R)
Silk, iron, onion skins (L), detail of same (R)
Cotton, iron, eucalyptus (L), silk, iron, eucalyptus, rose petals (R)
And here’s a teaser close up photo of a couple of my newest scarves that will be available soon on my online store:
detail of eco-dyed silk scarves with iron and eucalyptus (L), with iron, eucalyptus, sunflower petals (R)
The summer heat is beginning to fade. I’ve got some fun creative plans over the next few days including visitors arriving. Time to rock and roll and get the studio ready for play!
Ah Telluride….my students were Fantastic, the class was fun, and a good time was had by all!
Ann getting an up close view of my demo
Nancy, Kathy, and Michele printing their art cloth pieces
Ann watches as I modify the pre-printed texture on the screen; Ann's art cloth in the foreground and Michele painting in the background, with more student work on the back wall
Clockwise from L: Kathy printing; the "solarium" classroom; one of Ann's prints
Thanks to Ah Haa and my students for another great workshop this summer!
This year we’ll be using procion MX dyes and breakdown screen-printing techniques (also known as Deconstructed Screen Printing) to create pieces of art cloth. I’ve been busy making some demo pieces to show my students some examples of what’s possible using this technique.
We are gonna have 3 days of big fun playing with these techniques, which I find are a perfect blend of painting and printing, allowing both enough structure (in process) and flexibilty (in mark-making) to achieve an outcome best described as “planned serendipity”.
And even better, there is no pressure in this workshop on achieving any “completed” work, as there are so many uses for Art Cloth. The beauty of this technique is the range of possibilities of the outcomes.
The final image could become a wonderful piece of art cloth to be hung on a wall or draped somewhere “as is”, or embellished with some stitching/other fabric pieces and become a finished textile art piece, or used for other “functional” textile pieces….like maybe pillows, or wearables, etc. The possibilities are endless!
