Your last assignment is due tomorrow...

I have been participating in a ten week workshop with Lisa Call, “Abstraction”, whose work I have admired since I first saw some on slides and  heard about her. Although we have one more week to go before the real end, we received our weekly reminder-email today with a slight difference included in the message. Usually it read “Your assignment is due tomorrow at 5 p.m. Mountain”, and this time the little word ‘last’ was included. No more assignment this coming week.

It has been an interesting experience taking this class. First of all I learned that I don’t seem to be the type to take online classes. Despite that fact that I had thought these were ‘quieter’ months in the year, thus very well suited to take a class, set aside some time for my learning benefit, I found it extremely difficult to arrange/change my schedule so that reading the three-times-a-week mails on various stages of art history concerning abstraction in art, listening to the lecture, and finding time for the almost weekly assignments would be possible. This is bad news, for me, as we live in a pretty remote area, and if I don’t do good with online classes I really have to figure out what I am going to do. It means I would have to be VERY VERY strict with myself if I do that again, to make it worth the while spending money on online classes – no matter whether I am talking about a class in the realm of quilting, or any other online/long distance class (I’d been considering various options). But I think already I am a person with a strong tendency to be rather strict with herself. And to be honest, I really don’t want to be even stricter with myself.

So I need to travel to places to take live classes with the real people really there. Which, of course, means heavy organizing at home before I go, but once I’m gone the two guys usually manage pretty well. And when I return they appreciate me being back a lot, an additional plus in the weighing of it all. Of course, add travel expenses to workshop fees, and most likely hotel costs – uuugh.

Nevertheless, what I really like about real classes with the real people there, teacher plus other students, is the interaction. With all of them. I never got completely comfortable with doing an “exchange” about homework/questions mentioned in the e-mails in a facebook group, no matter how private it might have been. But doing this with people I don’t know at all – it just did not turn me on. There was one person in the class whom I actually know personally, but she was very quiet, perhaps because of the language, as she is German.

So I learned a lot about me and taking online classes. And am a bit annoyed at myself about this, because it feels as if I am robbing myself of chances that are out there, and could be used, if only I got my act together...?

Nevertheless – I learned a lot in class about abstraction, and how to work on it, and which procedures I like, which I should look into a bit more, which exercises I should do over and over and over...

Oh, and yes, I finished this week’s last assignment, one day earlier than the deadline. Because it is one of the pieces that will be ‘doubling’ in function, I won’t show it here in full, but you can get a view of the back:

I may tell a little more about things I did in class later on.

Workshop on abstraction – getting into the swing?

I have set myself a special challenge at the beginning of this year – I signed up for an online class with Lisa Call, “Abstraction”. I’ve admired Lisa’s work since I first saw pictures in a presentation of Nancy Crow’s class. I was awed by the description Nancy gave of how Lisa structures her life and gets so many things done. Sometimes I still feel daunted when I read her blog entries, even though quite a few people have told me that they think the nearly same thing about me. Meanwhile Lisa has quit her day job and is working as a full-time artist and teacher. (Here you can see how she planned to structure her day just after quitting the day job.)

I had first considered taking a class with Lisa in the past fall when I knew that following the opening of the “Inspiration Bauhaus” exhibition in Alfeld I would be slightly less focussed on getting stuff done for a deadline, and thought I might need new input to give myself a creative boost. But the fall classes started a couple of weeks before the opening, and I am glad that I postponed until now.

The first week of the workshop has ended. And it has been difficult. The first assignments were sent out on January 4^th, but we were on vacation until the 6^th, with only limited internet access. So I could download the file onla a day later when there wasn’t really enough to start doing any of the exercises any more as we were already beginning to pack up. I had thought I would dedicated the first two days after our return fully to doing the assignments. But we returned to a house with a broken heating system and the days were busy trying to get the thing fixed – and it was cold in the house! Have you ever tried to work with concentration while you are layered with five sweaters, have cold hands, and need to drink lots and lots of hot tea to maintain a decent level of body warmth?

Thursday required some preparations for a weekend of teaching a new class in Essen, and on Friday I left early in the morning. Finally I had some leisure on the train to work on some of the sketches, catch up on the reading and setting my mind on the topic of the workshop. It is interesting to be switching back and forth between being a student myself and then teaching a workshop for two days. Does me good.

I did not fully finish my assignment, just had no time to put one of the sketches into a textile something, so during the first week I have already managed to fall behind. But I am not fretting about this. I think that doing the drawings and going through various stages of abstraction was more important for me right now than actually getting it fully transformed into any finished textile something. If I have time after finishing the assignments and exercises of week 2 I may go back and work on the first piece. 

At least I know which one of my various line drawings I would choose to do something to: 

When it is finished, of course, you should
not be able to see any more that these were bottles...

It should be possible, because the next weeks are supposed to be a bit more quiet. We will see. In any case it will be a continuous challenge for the next nine weeks to rearrange my time management and fit this in. But I am looking forward to it very much as I felt a deep desire to get new input. I will be busy, even if I am not going away anywhere in the next few weeks.

"Liebster Blog"-Award - passing it on

A few weeks ago I was honored by Kathy Loomis when she awarded me with the ‚Liebster Blog’-award.

I still haven’t managed to find out who donated this award, and when. Nor do I know who formulated or altered the conditions that come with it – basically, I know them from Kathy’ blog, and when they are mentioned on other pages by people who are recipients of the award. You can find these easily enough by googling for “Liebster Blog”.

I have already posted the logo on my entry upon receiving the award, thanked Kathy for the honor, and linked her blog onto mine.

So what remains to be fulfilled is the passing on of the award. For this I had given me a few days for consideration due to the fact that my most favorite blog is Kathy’s, and I can’t really just pass it back to her, especially since she is a double-winner already.

My time of consideration was severely lengthened due to my temporary loss of the computer when it went for repairs. Which also made it impossible to do a bit more intensive reading of the blogs I have bookmarked, trying to make up my mind...

My second-favorite blog – and I am even a registered reader of this one, whereas most of those blogs which get the honor of my attention are simply bookmarked in my browser – is

„Not allthose who wander are lost“  by India Flint. But she has more than 800 registered readers and is aiming for the mark of 900, so she is not qualified as a small blog. Other blogs I like looking at and find very useful and interesting are those by Terry Jarard-Dimond (who is also a previous bearer of the award), and LisaCall (who does not post a number of her followers on her page). Susanne Muus and Bärbel Lehrke always have interesting things for people who like dyeing. But I settled on Magaret Ramsay as the recipient of my passing on the Liebster-Blog award.

I don’t know Mags personally (yet), but I’ve been following her blog since we both appeared in the same issue of Patchwork Professional last July.

Featured artist:
Margaret Ramsay,
with her work on the cover
of "Patchwork Professional" last year July.

I like the way she combines her own pictures/paintings with her textile work. And although I haven’t ever heard her voice yet the ‘sound’ of her writing is just very pleasant to hear. I’m sure there are a number of other people out there who might like to read her entries. Though judging from her world map of clicks onto her blog it seems that she has quite a few more readers than are registered. Well done, Margaret – looking forward to reading more!

Back in focus

I sold a quilt two days ago, the personal delivery of which was the reason for that drive-by-shot at finding the statue by Marg Moll which I wrote about here. I was jubilant and very happy, and treated myself to that art search and a little stop at Lake Wörthsee south of Munich, with a gorgeously sunny day glittering on the ice that still covered the lake.

Lake Wörthsee, south of Munich, still covered by ice

This is the quilt I sold, it is also featured on the ‚November’ page of my eternal calendar:

Play of Lines XIV (2009)

The next day, I received a rejection of the second quilt I had entered for the German Patchwork Guild’s travelling exhibition „Tradition bis Moderne“, which I had written about in my German blog. 

The jury had only invited one of my two entries to be sent in for closer inspection by the jury to begin with, but I had thought this one might have a good chance. The judges’ commentaries regarding the criteria according to which the quilts were judged to me clearly prove that my points of criticism mentioned earlier apply indeed. The quilt was entered in the category ‚innovative’ and it seems this category was judged according to exactly the same criteria that applied to categories ‚traditional’ or ‚contemporary’. So why set up a division into those three categories at all, if these categories are not judged under a different set of criteria each?

The initial disappointment has already disappeared, and I may consider entering the quilt for another call of entry, which is why I don’t want to publish a picture here at this point of time.

However, it shows that success and disappointment can be so close together that they almost overlap. Would it have made a difference if they had appeared in reverse order, first the disappointment and then the success? I don’t know.

In any case, it has resulted in a radical boost of focus.

During the first weeks of the year I have done a little bit of sewing only, spending quite a bit of time launching (and completely outselling!) the first collection of the first year of my fabric club, and starting preparations for a textile market that I will be attending in early April, hoping to acquire a few more subscribers to the fabric club. Here is a picture of the color selection of my first collection:

January 2011 collection of fabric club

And here is a picture of the stack of colours which I have dyed so far in preparation for the market (more in the making in the next couple of weeks):

Colour circle with dilutions (appr. one third of total),
prepared for textile market in April

I was focussed indeed - on the business of the fabric-club. 

This immediate succession of success and disappointment regarding my quilting, however, has resulted in an sudden release of ideas that have been brooding and that will give me plenty to do working on the sewing machine in the next couple of months. I have drawn up two ideas for entering at Ste Marie, and I am thinking about submitting quilts for the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham, which I had already written off, and there are several other ideas pretty far developed which only need to be realized.

The interesting thing is that I had started to write a post on ‚focussing’ around the third week of January, as I had read several posts by other bloggers touching on exactly that same topic. These include Deidre Adams on Dec 18, Teri Jarrard-Dimond on January 15, and focussing is also a topic which appears repeatedly with Lisa Call. That post did not get finished, and I am not going to try and update it right now. But I do want to include my personal reply to Deidre, which had initiated my attempt at writing on ‚focussing’:

In a recent post in December Deidre Adams mentioned a state of mind (or should we call it ‚modus of mind working’?) when she is not working under the pressure of some deadline. I am quoting her a little longer than that single sentence I refer to here, which I have marked in bold:

Even with a rather full plate of graphic design work in the 

past couple of weeks, I’ve been very focused on getting some 

paintings done. I’ve settled into a routine: Wake up, go 

into the studio and contemplate what I did the day before, 

then put on some more layers. Then, while those are drying, 

go downstairs, get my coffee & cereal, and do design work 

for a few hours. Then maybe exercise on those days I’m not

 successful in talking myself out of it, and then after lunch, 

reward myself with studio time. The paradox for me is that 

the busier I am, the more I’m able to concentrate in the 

studio. If I have nothing much else going on, I tend to 

procrastinate and waste time on the computer instead of 

staying focussed.

Staying focussed on your work in general, i.e. not taking too many detours trying to avoid having to face yourself and your work in the studio is certainly an important issue in any artist’s life. But is it really necessary to put so much pressure on oneself all the time? And: times without immediate pressure may actually turn out to be gestation periods for new ideas. For me, it seems right now that the past few weeks, during which I have not been trying to force myself into constant production at the sewing machine, but was occupied with other things, have given my mind enough time to slowly cook up a number of things of which I wasn’t even really aware that they were ‚simmering’. It may be useful not only to step back from one’s work and take a look from a little distance, but to even turn your back and walk away from it for just a little while.