two kitties

The Creation of the World and Other Business

I've been working with The PlayGround Theatre this summer. Getting to know their productions has been a slowly unfolding love story.

This costume sketch caught my eye - a work of art by itself. It was for 'Eve' in PlayGround Theatre's production of Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business. Contemporary artist Simon Pastukh did the set and costume design.

I'm so rarely impressed by work samples that it seemed worth mentioning. I actually printed it and placed it on the wall over my computer monitor.

All too often, artists tack on the documentation process as an afterthought, on a shoestring budget. Which is too bad, considering it's the only way that grant makers have the opportunity to see your work.

An Extremely Important [Un-Named] Grant Maker At The National Level told me he spends less than a minute looking at work samples. Consultants like me? I'll sit there for five minutes and give you a chance, but I've always been a sucker for artistic passions. And I can make a fire in the fireplace and watch said bad video with the two kitties.

More Heidi Rettig Art.

Here are two more from the "ghost town" series that I've been working on. These are digital photos I shot in Bannack, Montana, then printed on transparent fabric using an inkjet. The fabric is layered over antique letters mounted on reclaimed pine boards.  Each collage was altered with watercolor and, finally, sealed with encaustic wax. It's the wax that gives it that dreamy look - and it smells just like clover honey. Art that you can sniff? Good art.

I'm liking the way these media mix together - a blend of the new, new, new, digital photo and fabric printing technologies and the old, old, old, of the antique handwriting and the ancient technique of encaustic painting.

 

Surface Design Idea: Graffiti Lace

This idea from Threadbanger's "DecorItYorself" series could be used in lots of different ways. I like the idea of using fabric spray paint on t-shirts, even painting a wall or piece of furniture.

Encaustic Collage Art: Heidi Rettig

Hymns for Now II, 4" x 5", digital photo on inkjet fabric, antique letters, watercolor, and encaustic medium on reclaimed pine.

A piece from a new series I've been working on. I've printed my photos of Western ghost towns on inkjet fabric and used each as a layer within a simple collage.  The fabric gives the print a lovely, transparent quality when the wax hits it. This photo was taken at the old Methodist church in Bannack, Montana.

Cyanotype: Beach Four, Kalaloch Peninsula

Good work came out of the art studio last week, and even after Debra went home to Pittsburgh, I kept going in a fever. I collaged with books, cyanotype prints and encaustic until, finally, my wax griddle started to smoking noxious odors from within.

The image above is a photo of one of my favorite prints from the week. It is a photo of Beach Four, on Kalaloch Peninsula in Washington State, where Mike and I spent our honeymoon.

Using a computer, I reversed the image to make a negative, then printed it on Portico transparency film. (You need this special film to get the job done - don't skimp!) I put the negative over papers treated with cyanotype chemicals that I bought in a kit and mixed in the laundry room with the aid of a night light.

The negatives were exposed outside under bright sunlight, and Debra and I spent many happy minutes chatting in the grass while we waited for the paper to turn from acid green, to dark blue, to gray. We gave them a one minute wash in regular white vinegar to bring out the beautiful blue mid-tones, washed the prints in water, then dried them flat on newspaper.

It wasn't as easy as I make it sound. We experimented quite a bit with different papers and wash times, with plenty of frustration mixed in. The fancy Crane's paper that came with the kit gave me the most disappointing results. It couldn't stand up to a vinegar wash and a water rinse. At least I can use them "as a base for collage." That's a Debra-ism, and translated from her language to my sister's, it also means, "Man, those are ugly."

Some of my favorite cyanotypes are the prints we made on book pages - using photos from a winter visit to a ghost town near Dillon, Montana. Here is one cyanotype from that series:

  

Cyanotypes on Pages Torn From Books

Things have been busy here. On Saturday, Debra and I converted my laundry room into a darkroom so we could make cyanotypes.

For the first wave, we collected natural materials from the woods and used them to print on pages torn from books or cut up prints Debra made at Carnegie Mellon.

Last night, I made a series of digital negatives from photos taken during a visit to the ghost town, Bannock, Montana. As soon as the sun is strong enough, I'll be printing these on pages torn from books. Debra is making line drawings on transparencies and printing them directly onto found images.

I painted the cyanotype solution over the book pages and left sections of text uncoated - so I'm hoping that the printing process will reveal a new story, that I can stitch together in an artist book.

How to Make a Skirt from a Pillowcase and a Beach Bag from an Old Towel...

I squeezed in some time at the thrift store this morning after running a couple of errands in town. When I saw these three lovelies, at 40 cents apiece, I thought they might look great restyled as skirts!

This project has been on my mind ever since I saw the skirt Belladia made. You can find her photos and tutorial right here. Head over to etsy.com and search for 'pillowcase skirts' and you'll be amazed by what comes up. I wonder if my Marimekko obsessed mum has any unmatched sets in her linen closet?

How about this little number? There is a pattern you'll find in Angry Chicken's book, Bend the Rules Sewing, that looks just like this! A very trendy, inexpensive gift for the toddlers in your life.

This towel is another thrift find. Past it's prime as home decor but I'm thinking it will make an excellent beach bag. We can never have too many of them around here! I'm going to use Martha's simple instructions.

 

Art On Crutches

1. by all means necessary, 2. Photocopier /Printer, 3. Best name for an art store ever, 4. Steamcleaner Punk, 5. Slide madness, 6. Figure 5.4: Tripod Specimens A and B., 7. Short circuit, 8. Book Mountain, 9. Simon Cowell

The power went out the other day while I was working in the studio. This happens more often than you might think.  We have one line running south from town and all it takes is someone to crash a car into a utility pole or a dead tree to take down a power line. 

In this particular instance, I happened to be rubbing some crayon on a photo printed from my inkjet. I was curious to see what would happen to the crayon if I blew my heat gun on it - would it give an encaustic effect?  But then I remembered I couldn't use the heat gun - no electricity.

So I busied myself with some other projects. As the minutes ticked by, I realized I wouldn't be able to iron the fusible interfacing to my fabric book. And on this rainy day it was a little bit darker in the studio than I like it. My frustrations gathered. Intensified.  I wasn't going to be able to make art on an otherwise appointment-less Saturday. It is the year 2008. And I had NO ELECTRICITY.

And then I had kind of a grand-mal moment when all my excuses stepped out of the shadows - the light switched OFF so to speak - and I could see how I was using things - materials, equipment, space -  to enable my creative insecurity. In the dark, I made a list of my crutches:

1. Scanner Crutch: "I'd like to use this image of an apple in my collage, but I want to scan it first, in case I want to use it again and develop a theme." It never gets scanned, and of course, the original is never used either.  I have mountains of images I am 'saving' in this manner. What's worse, is I have the project already sketched out in my head. So the images can't be used for new projects either. Kind of like saving seats in the school lunchroom for a friend - you send away all the other people that also want to sit next to you.


2. Photocopy Crutch: "Before I can wax this image, I need to print it using thermal toner." I must pass the UPS Store about ten times a week but never seem to make it in the door to copy the images I have set aside. Or I fret about the kind of toner and process the UPS copiers use and whether or not it will be friendly to encaustic. Even though I know it is thermal and I haven't heated up my wax in nearly six months.


3. Photo Crutch: "I would submit this piece to the show if I had slides." I used to say I didn't submit my work to gallery shows because I don't have a slide portfolio. Now everyone accepts digital images, so I use the excuse that I don't have a consistent body of work. Which matters most if you're seeking gallery representation, but even so, is a little more than lame as excuses go.


4. Sewing Machine Crutch: "I really want to do some freehand embroidery on this book before I call it finished." I bought an expensive machine to use for mixed-media and fiber art projects. Instead, I got totally high sewing stuffed sheep for, like, a year. And that's fine, I love them, and the sheep love me. But I get hung up on an art piece thinking I need a certain color thread, or wishing I had a particular fabric that it is in the closet at my other house in Oregon. 
   


5. Art Supply Crutch: "Before I finish this, I need to get some beads/pigment/astroturf/resin/thread/paper/gesso." Shopping for art supplies is not the same as making art. I'm always buying supplies and never using them. When I clean my studio I'm astounded by the interesting stuff I have in there. Quite frankly, I don't even know what I have in there.

You see where I'm going with this?

It is a kind of perfectionism, and in my case, it's a fear of finishing. Once things are finished, they will be judged. And when it comes to criticism of something I've put my heart into, I'll admit I'm weak. Even though the business side of me knows that what I see on artists' websites are the best examples of their work - not the work-in-progress, the experiments that resulted in failure, and the simply ugly that happened along the way.

My goal for summer is to finish the projects I have started. This one. This one. This one. This one. And that's just a start. It is an ever-growing mountain of unfinished art. And if I can do that, I will have enough work to photograph and submit to shows. No excuses.

The Modified Accordion Book Evolves

I'm still working on this book, little by little. I don't have a theme or a plan in mind, I work on it first thing every morning, no expectations. So far, I haven't written any text and I don't think I will. There is a kind of narrative present in each vignette.

This is what the book looked like, as I closed up the studio on Friday. First the "front", then the "back", then the book, partly folded. Its working title is, "What You Can't Tell By Looking."

 

Modified Accordion Book: Work In Progress

I know the last few weeks on the blog have been relatively art and craft free. Since we returned to Montana I've been completely absorbed by watching the cherry trees come into bloom and racing the dog down to the beach. I've baked cookies, planted my garden, and bought new bedding and chairs for our room. I've finished a great book and started an average one. I returned to my Wednesday knitting group and saw a few movies with my husband.

I've always been a big city girl, but this house is a kind of retreat for me and it is a luxury. No lunch meetings, no dry cleaning, no manicures. I check my email and then walk up the creek to my studio each morning for a few hours of art making. Four years later I'm still getting used to the idea that all this space is all mine to enjoy - I used to just make art at the kitchen table, after all.

So that's a long way of saying, sometimes it may seem slow on the blog, but lots of things are happening. I've been playing with book structures for a few weeks now, and this is one that I have been adding to each day. It is a modified accordion, that folds and opens in several different ways. The collage is just free form, whatever inspires me, and has been layered with crayon and paint. I think it's about half done. So far, I'm calling it, "What You Can't Tell By Looking."

Mark Montano's Baby Head Paperweights.

I like the way they turned out. Kind of creepy. Kind of Jeff Koons.

Mark Montano Crafts: Making Baby Head Paperweights

It's official. The rainy season in Montana is underway. I don't mind it as much as some. A decade living in Scotland taught me to enjoy life, regardless of weather.

And rain means good things to come: lots of water down our creek, carpets of wildflowers on summer hikes and (hopefully) not as much smoke from forest fires during the dry months of July and August.

Bad weather is a good time to catch up on projects around our place. Remember this one?

Baby Head Paperweights from Mark Montano's book, Big-Ass Book of Crafts. These are actually headed for the sculpture garden that I am planning around my art studio. (Well, ok, maybe this is the only project I'm "planning", but I hope there will be others.)
 

This morning, I filled seven doll heads with plaster-of-paris and added a kabob skewer - which I hope will help keep them upright in the garden.

To get that mottled, kinda drunk-fake Rococo look, I'll finish them up with black and gold spray paints, as Montano instructed.

As always, I had help from my trusty art assistant, White Kitty. He seems to know the difference between the sound of me doing laundry and the sound of me doing something really pretty weird in the
laundry room. Just one of the things I love about him.

Spokes.

Bike Wheel in Cemetery, originally uploaded by smwarnke4.

I've been working pretty steady in the art studio the last few weeks. Not exactly marathon sessions, but at least a couple of hours each day, and I'm making art, more than craft.

I've been working on two handmade books this week. I find that I am obsessed with bicycle and ferris wheels - a thread picked up from some work I did a few years ago but hadn't looked at until more recently.

Some of the structures were inspired by work I saw in Esther K. Smith's book. She does beautiful work. It's hard to keep going when I compare my work to hers.

Sometimes I wish I had a printing press, but then again, you can do many things with a piece of office paper and a color photocopier. I went to a workshop back in 2000 that was entirely about how to use the photocopier in the construction of artist books.  The two day class was taught by British artist Sue Doggett at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Many of the photocopy techniques are published in Doggett's book, along with other ideas for making artist books. (Did you know you can preview entire chapters of books on Google?)

Etsy's Alchemy Project: Handcarved Rubber Stamps

I've been spending down my PayPal account this week over on etsy.

Did you know about Etsy's Alchemy project? It links buyers with artists interested in making custom work.

Think of something, anything, you want made. Then post a request on Alchemy and wait for the bids to roll in.

Inspired by Oldschoolacres, I posted a request for a hand carved rubber stamp of the two kitties.

I received about five bids but made a deal with Tresijas because I like the way her stamps look.

This is one of Tresija's helicopters - can't wait to see the kitties!

Art Studio: Reuse and Recycle

Happy Earth Day!

I've been thinking about my garbage today. In fact, we think about our garbage every day. You would too if you had to drive your bags five miles to the dumpster each week! 

And, Montana doesn't have recycling. Not even cans. Everything goes in the bin.  So I've learned to reuse things in all kinds of ways.

Up in the art studio:

• I use old plastic containers and lids to store little things, or for messy tasks like mixing dye, paint or glue. And since my studio doesn't have running water in winter, I find you can never have too many on hand filled with water for cleaning brushes or hand washing.
• Smaller plastic packages in interesting shapes make great forms for casting resin.
• Cardboard from food packages can be used as book boards covers. I also use cardboard to scrape paint on a canvas or clear up messes.
• Styrofoam meat trays make excellent paint palettes.
• Interesting cardboard boxes are saved for "shrines."
• I use old magazines to test-fold hand-made books and pop-up elements, protect my work table from glue, and of course, collage.
• Paper from the shredder and dryer lint can be used to make pulp for handmade paper.

Down at the house:

• I make what I call "deer salad." Any vegetable that is past its prime goes into a bowl and is thrown into the far end of the orchard for animal munching. You can't call it compost because the food is never there the next day. Except for celery. Deer won't eat celery. And that's the only thing in the world a deer won't eat.
• I cut fruit in half and put it on a tree stump for our favorite squirrel, "Roy."
• Food that is still good can be thrown into soup and frozen for our lunches. We eat lots of soup since we both work from home.
• Instead of paper towels, I have a liberal supply of yellow Costco brand microfiber cloths on hand. People make fun of me because I have so many of these yellow things, but they clean so well with hot water, you don't always need chemical cleaning products.
• Incoming cardboard boxes are cut flat and Styrofoam peanuts go in a big trash can in our garage for future mailings.
• Jars are saved and sterilized to pack cherries at the end of the summer. The summer 8,000 pounds of our cherries went unsold was the summer I learned to can.

I wondered today what more I could learn from other artists who reuse materials in their studios. I've still got plenty of things going in the garbage that could be recycled....   

3-D Pop-Up Cards: A Flock of Seagulls

Spring in Montana is beautiful and amazing. 

Today I opened up the studio doors and let in the fresh air. It was the first time I'd been in there since November. I had trouble concentrating - I found that I don't like to mess up my pretty new floors. A first.

I fooled around with wood cut for awhile and then made a few pop-up cards. Its almost like the seagulls were plucked out of this sky and glued to paper.   

Jeanne Williamson: The Uncommon Quilter

And while we're on the topic of surface design techniques, how about this?

Jeanne Williamson stitches a quilt sandwich, then paints the BACK SIDE with fabric paint.

The paint seeps through the stitch lines in a deep and meaningful way.

I'd like to try it with the sewing machine embroidery techniques demonstrated in this Threadbanger video.   

Jeanne Williamson: Uncommon Surface Design Techniques

   This summer, I'm going to be ALL ABOUT the surface design techniques laid out in Jeanne Williamson's Uncommon Quilter.

I'm so excited about this technique, I'm verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic:

The Women's Liberation Movement did not result in either liberation or movement. Discuss.

Ok. What we are looking at here are wax crayon rubbings of pea pods on fabric. The wax is melted into to the cloth with a warm iron.   Williamson has appliqued the rubbings on to a DRYER LINT quilt sandwich.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this idea, but I absolutely can't wait to try it. Buy the book - it's amazing.

Bad Martha: Projects That Don't Work (for me.)

Why is is that some Martha projects produce wonderful results at home and others are simply impossible to replicate?

I was so disappointed in the results of these vegetable prints. I had high hopes but the results  just weren't worth the time.

And these old photos framed with pine cone petals? I loved the idea and still do, but it took me nearly three months to do just fifteen of them for my Christmas tree.

It is harder than a son-of-a-gun to take apart a pine cone. It is harder still to keep them in place until the glue sets.

For that project I rigged an elaborate set-up on my work table that included my husband's fly-tying vise and three different kinds of glue. I could envision the Martha workshop: hundreds of workers with bloody, sap-sticky hands on a deadline for the photo shoot. Good times.

Embroidery with a Regular Sewing Machine

This post from Threadbanger inspired me. GirlPopcorn gives a "how to" lesson on embroidery using line drawings and a regular old sewing machine. The possibilities for art and clothing are endless.

I'm guessing that GirlPopcorn makes this look easy because she's done it so many times. When I do this project, I'll probably just do a simple line drawing so that I can master the process.

I might start with a freehand drawing using a disappearing ink pen or an iron-on transfer pencil. I'd also like to try using embroidery transfer paper to copy a drawing from an old book.

Paint by Numbers From Your Own Photos

This painting of Buddy the dog is actually a paint-by-numbers kit ordered from www.easy123art.com. The site creates custom kits from your favorite digital photos.

Now stand up and back away from the computer monitor. That's the best way to really see it. It's kind of impressionistic, if you know what I mean. I love the way the way the vertical folds of his neck chub emerge as you walk away.    

I'm happy with it, but honestly, it was much harder to paint than I ever imagined it would be. I feel silly even writing that but it's absolutely true. The computer program can pick up very subtle variations from the original photo, making some of the numbers and spaces on the canvas pretty darn tiny. I found that toward the end, I could only work on it in very short spurts.

Part of me wishes I had bumped up the contrast or made my original photo black and white (by cranking up the "contrast" or dialing down the "saturation" using a photo editing software program.) It would have made this photo so Gerhard Richter-y.

Cynthia Treen's Felted Rocks

Mike and I drove down to Prineville on Saturday so that I could check out the High Desert Wool Growers annual Fiber Market.

I felt lucky to find some beautiful hand-dyed wool roving at $2 a bat.

At last, I can do this felted rock project from Cynthia Treen's Last-Minute Fabric Gifts.

(Photo credit: Karen Phillipi)

Felted Wool Projects: Betsy Chutchian's Wool Throw

I made a quick pitstop at The Quilt Gallery on my trip to Montana and found a great book by Betsy Chutchian and Betty Edgell.

Cotton & Ewe: Quilts Pincushiuons, Pillows and Wallhangings looks like a quilting book from the outside, but on the inside, there are countless project ideas for people who love felted wool.

This wool throw is made from recycled wool sportcoats and skirts. It's very simple to make and masculine enough to give a guy as a gift.

If you'd like to work with recycled suits but need a smaller project, you might try making an acorn pincushion.

Simple instructions with photos are available online at Old School Acres' Acorn Tutorial. Have fun!

Handmade Slippers with Felted Sweater Soles!

 

  I bought a copy of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion magazine to put inside a crafty care-package for my friend Helena in Scotland.

I'd never really looked at it before, figuring the magazine was more for mom-crafters than aging, childless types like me.

But you know? Some of the stuff in there is pretty awesome. Check out Men in Hats.

I found this great slipper project by Heather Ross in the February/March 2008 issue. The slippers are made with Heather Ross fabric and soles of felted wool. I've got felted wool. I've got fabric. I've got vintage ric-rac. Lots.

All beautiful dresses start with...

   A puddle of silk and a little interference.

This brocade will become an Easter coat for Lucy.

The Still Life Project

I was driving Talia somewhere when she asked me, "How come you have BARK in your car?" [insert look of disgust]

"How come you don't?"

That was the only quick thing I could come up with. And, anyway, if I'm not nice to one of the only two teenagers in my life, she'll quit helping me with my iPod.

But anyway, I'm always collecting things like rocks, shells, feathers, and driftwood on my walks.

Seedpod is creating a new still life every day in February, speaking of thirty day projects, and her photographs have given me some new ideas.

The Noticing Project

(Photo credit: Nat Hansen)

My senior year of college, I took a short painting course from a professor who loved to work al fresco. We painted scenes of Georgetown in watercolor for three hours every morning and I loved every minute of it.

When you take art like a vitamin - every day Vitamin A -  you develop muscles you never knew you had. Your eyes really see what you are looking at; breaking it down into bits that the brain can translate for the hand that hopes to place it on a page.

You don't see just a house anymore, you see patterns of light and shadow on brick, sixteen different greens in the embrace of a tree. You begin to notice everything.

To this day, every time I smell bacon I am reminded of the day I worked on the roof of the art building on a painting of the monuments, looking down the Potomac. Breakfast was cooking at Mother's down below.

From my vantage point, I watched as two of DC's professional panhandlers changed shifts at 10:00, one taking over the milk crate the other had kept warm. I passed by them every day but, until then, it had never registered that they worked on shifts.

During graduation week, I walked by the two panhandlers on the opposite side of the street. I was on my way to mass and hidden in the folds of my black gown and hat. One yelled across, "Congratulations Painter Lady!"They had been watching me watch them and they could recognize the real me under all that stuff.

Today, visit The Noticing Project or 3191. Both are collaborations between artist-friends. Both make visual explorations of their every day surroundings. It is amazing, even inspirational to have someone show you what they see.

Baby Head Paperweight

Over the weekend, Talia and I started working on a new series of multiples. The idea for these baby head paperweights came from Mark Montano's book and we plan to take it to the next level.

We want to make dozens of baby heads, set posts in the neck with plaster of paris, and "grow" them in the garden behind my studio. When they are finished, you'll be the first to know.

A Fifteen Minute Challenge From Two Kitties

  Yesterday, I called my friend Shalondra while I was making cookies. She's a Los Angeles actress and I knew that whatever she had to tell me would keep me from eating a dishpan full of cookie dough.

It had been awhile since we'd talked on the phone, so we caught up by offering each other a bunch of sad excuses for why we weren't doing the things we said we really wanted to do the last time we talked. Like two lazy cats enjoying the sunshine.

Shalondra wants to publish a poem but said she needs to figure out how to go about it. I want to finish writing my novel but that's hard to do when you never open the file on the computer.

Eventually, I suggested that what was holding us back was a combination of fear and laziness. For me, I'm afraid to finish the book because I know I can finish it. I'm not afraid that it will be bad, I'm afraid that it will be good, because what if its good and no one wants it?

This is what we agreed. For the next 30 days (because it takes 30 days to form a habit), we're going to spend fifteen minutes working on our writing. Just fifteen minutes on a kitchen timer, no editing, no worrying, no looking forward or back.

And then we're going to send it to one another. No expectation to read or comment on the writing, just meeting the agreement to follow up on our commitment to one another.

I want to invite you to join us for the next thirty days. Spend fifteen minutes a day working on something you've always wanted to do. It doesn't matter what it is, just put the time in.

EDIT: I've received these ideas - Craig is learning guitar; Pamela and Jeff will be meditating; Miranda working in her garden; Michael H. is learning to edit video and play chess; JBAB is crocheting a blanket; Sheri is stretching each morning; Debra is working on a rug for her show; Caroline has started to draw again. What will you do with your 15 minutes?

Send me the update every day - or another trusted friend.  If you'd like to receive my writing, I'm happy to share.

The reward is that you're doing it - you're making tracks toward what you've always wanted to do.

Dishpan Cookies: The Best Cookie Recipe on the Planet

They may not be beautiful, but these cookies are incredibly addictive.

I got the recipe from Gay Endicott, Alison's mother, who got it from her mother, Irene Felkner.

This batch is a gift for Mike's brother and his wife, who just hosted us down in New Mexico for a week.

Dish Pan Cookies

This recipe makes umpteen dozen cookies that freeze well.

2 cups brown sugar

2 cups white sugar

2 cups butter (softened)

4 eggs

5 cups flour

2 tsp soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup minute oatmeal

2 cups coconut

4 cups cornflakes

1 cup nuts (optional)

Throw it all in a bowl, mix, then drop spoonful on to cookie sheets. Bake 10-15 minutes at 325.