Art Archives - Page 26 of 27 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Category Archives: Art

A reason to blog

Yarn and more yarn

Yes, I was pretty excited about having some newly dyed yarns, but after starting the weaving yesterday, I realized that I will need more of some of the other colors. When I first sorted the yarns that I was going to use, I just eyeballed them instead of actually weighing these leftover bits and pieces. Not a good practice! So it’s off to the dye pots today! While the yarns are doing their thing, I will be mowing, stopping only to do a little stirring. I set my time to remind me that pots need attention. I love seeing those colors coming out of the dye pots!

Record keeping is not one of my strengths. I keep really good records of the dyeing and the warp left on the loom, but not of the finished pieces. Late last year, I started putting a date in the spreadsheet I keep for finished pieces, but that means many pieces on that list are unattached to a year. Recently, I was asked for a date on a piece, so what did I do? My memory certainly was not going to help! Blogging! Did a search, and, yes, there it was!

Wheel goes ’round and ’round—not!

The continuing saga of the spinning wheel, well, continues. I read that this wheel is yarn driven or bobbin driven or something. No matter—I can’t get it to spin and really don’t have time to fool with it now. I did check with Ravelry, though. I seldom go there–did you know there’s a whole group of Country Spinner 2 spinners? Plus, about a million other groups.

The warp is on, header woven, and the loom is waiting. I dyed yarn yesterday and washed a bunch more. I am ready to weave, that is if the grass weeds will stop growing. Today I’m going through my available pieces and make sure all the hanging paraphernalia is there. I do have this little show coming up! On the other hand, I’m getting pretty excited about a possible series I’ve been thinking about. It’s been way too long being lost in the creative desert!

Recently I was reminded again about how much I like the work of Forest Bess. I mentioned him once before, but I read about an exhibit in Houston in WSJ. The caption with this painting is: The Menil Collection The 1949 painting ‘Bodies of Little Dead Children.’ That’s a little confusing since the Menil Collection and Mr. Bess’s website call this painting Dedicated to Van Gogh. Maybe I’m just not seeing right. What do you think? Which title best describes or goes with this painting?

DFW Fiber Fest 2013

So, how do you go to FiberFest and come home with a spinning wheel? You try it out and get hooked. Saturday my sister and I went to FiberFest DFW. She bought yarn
(we spent lots of time in the Madtosh booth–gorgeous yarns!) and I was feeling rather proud of myself for not buying any.The Madelaine Tosh yarns are wonderful! Creatively dyed, great fibers.

Then I tried out the Country Spinner. Even though this wheel is designed for bulky yarns, it worked just fine for finer yarns that I want to spin. And the bobbin holds over two pounds of yarn! I bought the wheel from Gritty Knits, a vendor located near Houston. Since this wheel comes in a box, I am grateful that Natasha has been willing to answer questions.

On the way home from our outing, we stopped by a new place to both of us, a Peruvian restaurant called Ñusta’s Café. Because G and I used to like to try out new places, I would put possibilities in my Evernote file, making them handy when we were out and about. The food was delicious! We’re going to go again to try other menu items.

Today I am sorting through colors of already dyed yarns so that I can make a list of what colors I need to dye for the next project. I also have to go back to Fedex because the enlargements they made for me are all the wrong size. It was written on each page what the size should be. That’s what I get for leaving them there instead of waiting for them. Such a waste of paper!

Patterns, yes, again

Salon pattern

Patterns, patterns, patterns…I love them! Today I got a haircut, and while Kate answered the phone, I looked down at whatever I was draped in—and, you got it, pattern.

Book cover

The New York Times had an article about favorite book covers for 2012. There’s a slide show of all the winners, but this one is my favorite. And I don’t even care what the book is about. And who knew, there are “stars” in the book cover design world. Makes perfect sense, just not something I had not considered before. My favorite here is designed by Peter Mendelsund. As it turns out, Mr. Mendelsund designed the covers for the first two “dragon tattoo” books. If you go to the link above, tell me what your favorite is.

CCC

Last week our local newspaper had an article about the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC is important to us still here in Texas because so many buildings, roads, dams still in use. But the members of my family have another connection–our father was in the CCC. At a very young age, he took the first trip, perhaps out of the state of Texas, and went to the “wilds” of California. When he talked about those times, he mentions how hard things were then (and believe me there are a lot of those kinds of stories) and how what a great program the CCC was. The boys were taught skills and most of the money they earned was sent home to help their families. He later returned to Texas and helped build the buildings at Bastrop State Park. In 2011, the state of Texas was besieged by wildfires. Below is a quote from the park site.

In September2011, Bastrop State Park and the surrounding pine forest were stricken by wildfire that affected 96 percent of the park. However, firefighters were able to save the historic cabins and facilities that were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The park is recovering from the fire, and most trails, campsites and facilities have reopened to the public.

I do understand that other places deal with fires even worse than the fires of 2011, but it was a new experience for us here in Texas. I became so obsessed that I carried certain keepsakes in the car, just in case I needed to evacuate. And in case you’re wondering about the piece at the top, it was part of my obsession. And if you have time, read the newspaper article about the anniversary of the CCC. There are some good pictures of some of the projects they built and black and white photos taken on the various locations in the 30s.

Mostly pictures

Viewers in gallery

Stormies’s bottles

First the pop-up gallery–on the left is a shot of the viewers, a surprisingly nice crowd for a gloomy, cold afternoon. And this space cleaned up well, only needs better lighting. The rabbit in this shot is Stormie Parker’s, as are the bottles below.

another section

Here’s another shot of the space. It cleaned up really well–the space I mean.

stolen garden sign

Now for some good stuff. This neighborhood is being “re-gentrified” and they have built community garden beds.Notice the cute entrance of branches painted blue. You might also notice the sign. The gardens are called Riverside Stolen Garden because the first beds were stolen. They’ve been redone, obviously. The fence to the right of the gate is made with wooden pallets.

Birdhouses

These birdhouses adorn the fence. They are all constructed alike, but the painting is different, as are the garden beds themselves.

Garden beds

wall art trailer

And there is the portable pop-up. I want one of those!

Gallery 108 and other doings

Evidently pop-up galleries are all the rage in London. I don’t remember where I read that but…We’ve got a pop-up gallery right here in Fort Worth, Texas! You don’t need to travel to London.

A group of 12 artists are participating in this gallery for Gallery Night. Our little pop-up gallery was written about, and you can see it here.

There’s big doings in town at the CAC. They’re celebrating 10 years of being open and have asked the greatest artists of this period to contribute a piece to be exhibited during the month of March. Then there’s the big after hours party and the swag available here. Maybe I’ll have to get some more reusable shopping bags.

Brandywine and warping-But not together

In my ongoing love affair with process and the artist’s final result, there’s an exhibit that should be interesting at the Brandywine River Museum. I wrote about this museum a few years ago after a trip to Philadelphia. We absolutely loved our visit, even though Jamie Wyeth’s art was not my favorite. The “docent” leading our group was one of the Wyeth grandchildren, a very vivacious and entertaining young woman who included family bits in her presentation.

Warping

warping spreadsheet

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down with my calculator, pencil, and paper to figure out how long a warp I can put on with the fewest possible number of tubes of warp. Literally dozens, I’m sure. I did it again on Tuesday, even though I just bought this yarn and know I figured this all out before I ordered. Well, in my geeky way (or maybe it’s procrastination??), I have made a spreadsheet so that maybe I won’t have to do this again. I already keep a spreadsheet of how much I weave off, so I added this one to the sheets. That way I’m hoping I can remember where I put it!

The postman cometh

Lone Star Loom Room

Although I suspected it would arrive soon, after all, the charge did magically appear on my credit card, it was still a surprise when the postman rang. These are the Swedish cotton warp yarns and a wool experimental yarn from Lone Star Room. The wool is an 8/2 and may be too fine for my needs. It also seems to be very tightly spun, just from touching it.

Maryann Didricksen, Red Petals

Another really exciting package arrived at the same time in a really well wrapped and protected package. Inside was a letter explaining about protecting pastel paintings, so I took a brief look and closed it up again. Framing will come later. This is by Maryann Didricksen, titled Red Petals. She has other paintings posted on her Facebook page and her website.

And thinking of pastels makes me remember this photo of Georgia O’Keeffe’s pastels. They say that she made them herself. Even though they are very old, and I have no idea how to use them, I save my grandmother’s pastels. Pastels seem like they would be such a difficult medium to use, so I can’t imagine actually creating a beautiful painting with them.

The exhibit of Annie Leibovitz’s Pilgrimage photos about Georgia O’Keeffe and her work is at the Georgia O’Keeffe museum right now. New Mexico magazine also has a nice article.

In the de-cluttering that I have been doing, my goal is to only have things that make me smile, and that includes art. Do you have art that makes you smile?

This is amazing!

–to me, anyway. We all know about golden ratio, proportion, etc and we’ve seen pictures of the man with all those lines around his body. But look at this from ArtDaily. Do you find this as interesting as I do?

I took Jennifer Moore’s workshop Mathemagical, and frankly some of this stuff is mind-boggling to me. Yesterday I was reading about more places for online education and decided to read further about this one:

Geometric Folding Algorithms:Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra – Web Site –Erik Demaine, MIT

Take a look, tell me what you think when you read the list of lectures. I saved this information for later, but my head was swimming just looking.