"Chuffed"

I am quite simply chuffed to have my advent doodle calendar kit featured on Lilla Rogers Make Art That Sells blog post today. 

"Chuffed" is a word I have learned from my British friends. It's still not a word picked up by Americans but I will be working on remedying that. Today, today I am chuffed to be noticed for 15 minutes :-) 

An Artist's Sketch

Hey ! I'm the featured artist on the "An Artist's Sketch" blog ! Check it out - and while you're at it - check out the other cool artists that Ria has featured ! Have a great day ! 

Link here: An Artist's Sketch 

"cactus love" - fartin' around on Photoshop this morning...

Golden Guernsey Goat

I am hanging a new solo show this evening at the Reuben Hoar Library Gallery in Littleton, Massachusetts which will run through December 3rd. It will feature a few pieces from the Beasts series as well as the handful of pieces I have completed so far in the emerging "Beasts II: Heritage Breeds and Heirloom Seeds" series, including this "Golden Guernsey Goat" piece. 

I will be speaking about these series as well as my unique technique of embroidering on tissue paper and its incorporation into these pieces. The talk is scheduled for November 12th at 7pm. There will be some hands-on exploration of the process and questions/answers. If you are in the Central Mass area please join me - I would love to share my work with you! 

Advent Doodle Calendar Kits are here and ready to ship to you !

This project was born from a spontaneous decision on my part on December 1st, 2014 to post a "doodle" a day from my sketchbooks on Facebook and Instagram. They were so popular that I had many requests to turn them into an advent calendar. 

Included in the kit are 24 individual cards that correspond with the 24 days of Advent. They are printed on matte satin-finish card stock from my original art.

I have also included a 5" tall wooden easel for display purposes as well as a 75" red and white cord which can be strung along a wall or over a fireplace (for example). The cards can be attached to the cord with the tiny wooden clothespins included. Be aware that the clothespins are delicate and should be kept away from small children - especially under five years of age as they are choking hazards.

Start a family tradition this year with this darling kit that can be enjoyed year after year during the Holiday season. 

Get them in my shop here on my website if you are a US resident or in my Etsy site if you live anywhere else on the globe. 

Making Stitches and progress

This autumn has been absolutely perfect here in New England ! As I drive around the hills of my central Massachusetts area I feel like a child on Christmas morning; seeing the changing colors and blue skies as gifts that change every day. I keep thinking I should stop and take photos of the trees and foliage I want to remember. But, I have found that when I take a mental photo in my mind they often seem to remain a beautiful memory much better than a photo which never seems to do it justice with out the addition of filters and digital adjustments. 

I've been drawing from the inspiration of these beautiful days and pouring that into the emerging Beasts II series while also keeping an eye on the encrouching Holiday season and what that means for my commercial work. Lots of exciting things in the works at Phygment Studio ! 

I've been trying to push the boundaries a bit of my embroidery on tissue paper techniques with this Beasts II series. I've been using loose gouache images as a base to embroider over in a sketch-like, unplanned way. I get as quiet as I can and work intuitively with the needle and thread. I do what feels right not what design rules might dictate. For example, I don't make the "seeds" in the heirloom tomato images perfectly balanced: there may be more seeds on one side of the cut tomato then the other...because it's nature and nature isn't a computer. I throw a stitched "x" in random places because I feel it visually needs some energy in that particular area. Does it make sense? Do we see man-made marks on tomatoes? No....or do we? How are our modern fruits and vegetables marked by mankind's need for "better" food which originates in a perfect form to begin with? 

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These will be placed on the Guernsey Goat piece: 

work in progress...24" square 

You can see the embroidered leaf-like shapes on the left which have been glued in place. The embroidered tomato shapes, etc... will be placed on the right. I will then go back in and paint in added color and detail. Stay tuned and watch more progress on my Instagram account! 

“I will be talking about my Beasts series as well as this emerging Beasts II series and the process of embroidering on tissue paper at the Reuben Hoar Library @ 41 Shattuck Street in Littleton, MA on November 12 @ 7pm. A collection of works from these two series will be on display from October 29th- December 3rd. ”

I have been working with a new printer closer to home (see previous post) and can not wait to launch my advent doodle kit in my shop here on my website ! Last year I spontaneously decided to post a doodle a day from my sketch books during the advent season. I had so many people ask if I would be offering them as a calendar that this kit was born. I will launch it here - so please subscribe and stay tuned!! 

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Take a little time to fill the well

I've taken a few Artist Dates (see Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) lately that I wanted to share with my friends... 

My husband and I encouraged out two teenage boys on a family field trip to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem this past weekend to see Theo Jansen's Strandbeests. I've been intrigued by these wind powered machines for some time now and I suspected that my boys would also be fascinated by them. 

Parker and Simon 

Maybe it was a menapausal blip but when I entered the exhibit I felt an emotional lump in my throat...like I was in the presence of genius. Or, maybe that these beasts were a kin to my own "Beasts" and that the crazy making of deciding to embroider on tissue paper in the wee hours of countless nights was not a solo mission. That there are other creatives out there that do things because they are driven by the engine of having to see an idea through and then release it to the world. Or, maybe I was hungry. Who knows? 

What I can say for sure is that viewing Jansen's "Streandbeests" pushed me to shove my own work further, to make it better, to try even harder. 

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“One reason that people have artist’s block is that they do not respect the law of dormancy in nature. Trees don’t produce fruit all year long, constantly. They have a point where they go dormant. And when you are in a dormant period creatively, if you can arrange your life to do the technical tasks that don’t take creativity, you are essentially preparing for the spring when it will blossom again.”

— Marshall Vandruff

Earlier this week I took a trip  a few hours west to Northampton, MA to get some print work done. Believe it or not, I haven't found a printer closer to me that seems to know how to work with artists to get prints and products just right. I don't mind the drive through the country, especially this time of year, and NoHo is one of my very favorite places on the planet. While the printing was being completed I decide to walk to the art store, buy some supplies and head to the Botanical Gardens at Smith College.  

The hot house was completely empty for the hour I was there sketching ! Pure bliss

A day well spent...the well is full...until next time.

How to know you're an artist

You work hard - not because anyone is watching when you are not showering or sleeping in order to get it done but because it's what you need to do. 

You don't care how long it took you to paint a piece

You fix details that perhaps no one else would have noticed. The Universe is watching and you want It to know you are showing up in the most authentic way possible.

You don't mind if someone who claims to know "the business" says you are "wound too tightly" . You know what it takes to get your work out there and if today is not the day you can wait. 

You don't compromise your ethics, values or spirit to make someone else comfortable. 

You show up everyday even if the Muse is taking her sweet time to show up or your demons are not using their "quiet voices". 

You laugh at people who think you are not being responsible with your life's purpose because actually you know, more than anyone, that being responsible for your life's purpose is exactly what you are doing. And damn! It's fun. 

You cheer on your fellow artists and say a prayer that their work, just as much as your own, will be seen for what it is: a soul and a voice displayed in public not to be lauded but to be respected.

- a favorite quote to live by by Nora Ephron

Beasts II coming out of the barn !

I have had a busy summer! If I listed all the things I have been up to this summer I might run the risk of having my audience fear for my lack of sleep and sanity...so, let me just report on my comings and goings one small bite at a time. 

Today let's start with the emerging Beasts II series. This series will feature Heritage Breeds and Heirloom Seeds. A Heritage Breed is one that was originally brought to this country (United States), usually from Europe or Britain to work on farms in the new land. Those original breeds were largely inbred over and over and manipulated to give more meat with less illness (put simply). The result has been breeds of animals like cows, chickens, goats and horses that no longer resemble their ancestors that came over on the boat. There is an exciting movement to bring back these breeds to populations that can resist extinction. The Heirloom seeds have a similar history and fate and are being grown by professional farmers as well as back yard gardeners in an effort to bring back our ancestor's plants from nearing extinction. 

In this new series I hope to adopt a looser, more joyful and intuitive way of working. I will continue to incorporate hand embroidery on layers of tissue paper as I did in the Beasts series. I hope to push the boundaries of my typical way of working with the embroidery needle as well. The pieces will be smaller and most likely just one panel per piece rather than the multi panel pieces in the Beasts series. I want to adopt a simpler, more straight forward way of working to mimic the spirit of our ancestors. Keeping it simple and straight forward will be my mantra as I work on this series. 

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"Lipizzan" 16" x 16" Acrylic, oil stick, gouache, tissue paper, ink on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"Guernsey Goat" 10" x 10" Acrylic, gouache, ink and graphite on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"American Cream Draft" 10" x 10" Acrylic, ink, gouache, tissue paper and graphite on wood panel. All Rights Reserved

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"Arapaho Goat" 24" x 24" Acrylic, gouache, ink, graphite, tissue paper and hand embroidery on tissue paper on wood panel

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Detail: "Arapaho Goat" - hand embroidery on wood board 

thank you Nantucket Historical Association !

I want to send a big "thank you!" out to Jacob Horton for being my host with the most for my visit to the Nantucket Whaling Museum! It was so much fun to share my work with the Nantucket Community that helped shape the artist I am today. The talk was not video taped (and I think I'm sorta thankful for that ;-) ). I talked about the Beasts series and the process of embroidering on tissue paper. I brought along the first piece in the Beasts II series (Heritage breeds and Heirloom seeds). My favorite part was the questions from the audience portion where I could meet some of the audience members and let my hair down a bit. Thanks again for everyone who came out and to the museum staff for being so gracious and accommodating. They even put me up for two nights in a beautiful historical home right on Main Street ! 

Talk at the Nantucket Whaling Museum

I will be speaking about the Beasts series at the Nantucket Whaling Museum on June 29th @ 6pm. I will discuss the conservation message behind the series as well as the technique I have developed of embroidering on tissue paper and it's use in this series. I will also be introducing the emerging Beasts II series: Heritage Breed Conservation.