Right from the very beginning?  I hope so, 'cuz you're gonna! ;)

This is for the Mermaid piece and the first thing I needed to do was RESEARCH.  The piece I've been asked to create is for a show about Mermen and Merwomen of Africa, and I knew nothing about them.


I both printed off a lot of information from the internet and read a lot on the internet. Once I had an overview,I had to decide what I wanted to focus on.  Mami Wata of West, Central and Southern Africa?


The Orisha Yemoja of the Yoruba tradition?


Her daugher, the "most beautiful woman in the world" or one of her sisters, each of whom have their own traditions and tales?

Or perhaps a nameless fresh water mermaid that lives in a desert in South Africa?

I'm working this time on lightweight canvas, which has been gessoed, dried for 24 hours and now has white acrylic paint on it which is currently curing.

I've made my decision and am doing preliminary sketching tomorrow night.  I may even start to do some blocking on Tuesday.  Let's see how far I get by Wednesday - see you then?

On Wednesday, I had a request to exhibit Fractured at the Union Art Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a show called Throw: Great Innovations in Modern Quilt Design which will begin on September 21, 2012 and run through October 13, 2012. 


And on Thursday, I had a request to create a piece for a show entitled "Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore" for the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C. to be exhibited from August 28th through October 28th, 2012.




I've accepted both invitations and begin work on the mermaid piece as soon as I'm done this post!


In my 2011 Year In Review post, I said that one of my goals for this year was to start exhibiting, which is why my BSP got me that celebratory cupcake.  I didn't know it would get off to such a bang - I haven't even applied for entry to anything yet!


I feel like I have a pocket full of starlight.  

The next piece in the Whitewashed series is done, hurray! :)

I say that only because I have so many ideas for this series that I am panting at the bit to get to the next one before the most recent one is done!

This particular one got put on the backburner so many times during the past two months that I kind of lost focus.



For instance, it languished in my studio in this format for quite some time. I knew it wasn't working, and knew it was about the target begin the wrong proportion, but didn't want to have it centred and/or bigger when the opaque fabric would cover so much of the map.


And guess what I made the target out of?  I auditioned several fabrics, most of them "tulle" or "mesh" types - but I ended up using window screen - as having the right weight and translucence.




And of course, I hand cut all the letters again...(which are a lot of letters is you're hand-cutting and hand sewing them down!) But, if I do "graffiti" in a piece again, I'm going to paint it I think rather than sewing or embroidering them.


(Love that quote by Patricia J. Williams - actually, her whole article was great.)



But as you can see from the original finished piece, that difference wasn't only about making the target bigger and yet more see-through, but also about adding balancing elements like the gun.


And hey, if you live in Indiana, the first piece in this series "America Now - Walking While Black" (the Trayvon Martin piece) debuts at the InSea/USSEA Regional Conference United States Society for Education Through Art in Indianapolis, IN., this weekend. 

If you're in the area, please check it out!

Have a great weekend everyone - I'm excited to work on my next piece - something nice and light. :) *phew*

So did any of you know about The Southern Poverty :Law Center? It's a non-profit civil rights organization, which was founded in 1971 "to ensure that the promises of the civil rights movement become a reality for all."  (It's kind of sad that it sill needs to be around 40 years later, no?)


One of the pages on their site has this thing called "The Hate Map" showing, state by state,how many active Hate groups there are in each.

Some of the states statistics were unsurprising to me - either because of what I had seen/read/heard ( like that fact that Florida has 55 active hate groups, Georgia  65, Alabama has 35) or from personal experience - (Michigan 26, Mississippi 41, Texas 45).

But what WAS shocking, is that free-wheeling California has EIGHTY-FIVE (Proposition 8 may not only have failed because of its counter-intuitive wording "vote no for yes" which I always thought was the case), that New Jersey has 47 active hate groups (why so much hate for others, New Jersey?) and that Oklahoma "only" has 13.

Little Rhode Island and huge Alaska have 1 each, and some big states like Maine (6) Iowa (4) and Wyoming (2) have surprisingly low activity.  (Maybe all that space means that people can live and let live.)

And did you know about this? One example of how hate works...

Finished piece on Friday and then something "light\' next week.  *phew*

Duck....



Goose!


Oh, and I also got a bit of work done on the next piece in the "Whitewashed" series...



And Tyler says "Hi!"


See you on Wednesday!

When the little blue clock in the middle of his work
Sings a song to the moon up above
It is nature that's all
Simply telling us to fall in love....


And that's why birds do it,
bees do it,
even educated fleas do it,
Let's do it, let's fall in love!


When I was making this piece, for some reason, this Cole Porter lyric kept running through my head - so even though I was initially just making all those squiggly squares and circles,eventually I found myself making some flowers and leaves and insects, despite myself.


Although I had suggested  in my last post that it probably would have made more sense to paint the stablizer/lutradur first and then cut it out, some of my little lines had gotten filled in with paint, and when I tried to re-cut them out with the heat tool, it worked, but...


all the paint got sticky and glommed up the tool - so... pick your evil. My preference would be to paint after. "Bees Do It" is 42" x 24, the bacground is scraps of black satin, wool, silk velvet, cotton and then quilted.


So, I'm done experimenting with the lutradur now, and will start actually working with it.... I actually have a piece done that I'm really excited to show you, but I can't until a MONTH from now (lol) so I'll have to maybe do some more thread work in the meantime, or start a new piece I have in mind about Angelique or another one I have in mind for a call for entry due in August.


Hmmmm...


Guess we'll all see on Monday! Have a great weekend, everyone!