an installation and other stuffs

i'm a bit tired of being sick. i'm battling illness number 5 this winter. more accurately WE'RE battling illness number 5 as the little has been super ill. this one was kind of a doosy - i won't go into details - but let's just say that some things make you realize that there is no place like home - even if there are piles of laundry and taxes to do. [never in a million years would i have guessed i'd be happy to see tax paperwork]



so... last year this 7' drawing was on exhibition at a gallery. this year i've taken this drawing and added some more wall elements to create an installation for a show opening this Saturday - the 27th - at the fine arts gallery at San Francisco State University.

the opening is from 1-3 and i'll be there ! come say hi - if you are around. the other artists in the show are really great : Julie Chang, Victor De La Rosa, Jennifer Ferré, Dustin Fosnot, Taraneh Hemami, Andrea Higgins, Ernest Jolly, Katie Lewis, Mung Lar Lam, Victoria May, Ali Naschke-Messing, Francesca Pastine, Anthony Ryan, Jeremy Chase Sanders, and Jina Valentine. [you'll notice some cross pollination with the by a thread show at the ICA in San Jose]

this is the drawing that was all about me being pregnant - here's the skinny on it.

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this is just because it's too cute not to share....




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this is the outfit that i wore to the ICA talk on feb. 11th. gwen said she wanted to see it. so here it is. vintage dress....

and i also have to thank gwen as she sent a fantastic box [she always sends lovely packages].



in it was a valentine robot for the little. who immediately said ooh ooh and hugged it.... how cute is that?? gwen was kind enough to post a tutorial on how she made it so you can make one too. nothing like robot love . i'm happy that even though it's not mine, i get to hug it too !

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and one more thing to note: on saturday i start a month long stint over at habit .

if you have yet to see habit then you really should take a gander. the brain child of emily and molly it's a lovely place to stop and behold.

i'm so honored to be asked and be amongst such amazing company

i have to dust off my camera and try to take some good pictures. nothing like a bit of pressure, no?

see you soon.

art crushes and a poem [not by me]

so... the by a thread art talk?? well.... i got to sit in between two art crushes of mine -



lauren dicioccio

i really love all her work, but these hand embroidered organza "plastic bags" are just SO delightful.

AND



victoria may

none of the images on her site do her work justice. i particularly love the concrete and thread/organza pieces - like this one .

it's always a treat to meet artists that you have admired and have them be as wonderful as their work. it doesn't ALWAYS work that way - so when it does - well - it's icing on the cake.

a lot of familiar words were batted around: fragility, domestic, mundane, mending, nostalgia, lineage, notion... we all answered why we use thread in our work. i was next to last and really had very little to add on the topic after so many thoughtful responses [which were all interesting to hear]. the dreaded "c" word came up - yet again. i'm talking of CRAFT, of course. i'm not going to extensively rant about this here as i think this topic has been covered numerous times by folks far more intelligent than me, but... here's the short version of what i think....

i'm always disheartened when people continue to want to push a hierarchical divide between art + craft. one artist in particular was speaking about it's all about intention. in essence i can agree to that since ever since duchamp pointed his magic art wand and declared things art - you can "intend" almost anything into art. but i also feel that art can be born even where it WASN'T intended - in some ways it's art even if someone else intends it. this artist also spoke about how they felt that you discover "truth" and "something about yourself" while making something as an artist that you don't while making "craft" [i'm really generalizing here but you get the idea]. honestly - i think that's a load of bull. i think there is "art" that is fantastic/horrid and "craft" that is fantastic/horrid and that you can have an "art moment" [aka epiphany] in front of anything that you please - be it art/craft/utilitarian item. trying to separate them into these meaningful and ultimately elitist categories seems so 20th century [i'm being facetious here - kind of]. i always want my art to be well crafted and my craft to be artful. to me it's not about if macaroni art is "art" or gees bend quilts are "craft" - it's about what moves you in some way in any given moment [and that movement doesn't need to be like or love either]. enough said.

but speaking of said... lindsay sent me a poem that she said was inspired by my work. she writes a poem a day as an exercise [ah how i love daily rituals] and she sent it to me....


She ties the tightest knots,
practices first with her sister
who calls it cat's cradle,
but it's too easy diving her fingers in, out and through,
so she moves on to the living room,
tying the arm of a chair to its leg,
then a chair to another chair,
then a loveseat, a table, a lamp, a book shelf,
the thread like spider silk
that threatens to tangle in ankles
and the cuffs of unlooking pants.

Eventually,
she slips a needle through the patterned wallpaper,
and ties the chairs to the walls,
holding the room to itself.

i loved cat's cradle when i was a child - although i didn't have a sister to play with... how much do i love that last thought... holding the room to itself? so much. thank you thank you lindsay.

her website
her blog

i will blab + a wee bit of spring

this piece is in an exhibition called by a thread which opened friday at the san jose institute for contemporary art .

there is an artist talk on thursday night and i will be there. first standing by my piece to answer any questions about it [they mandate this!] and then as part of a panel talking about the exhibition. if anyone is in the south bay and wants to see me wiggle and squirm in front of my piece - i'll be there!

this is an older piece of mine. they are all self-portraits - the images of me i collected when i went to visit my parents. they were all wallet sized photos - and thus the title of the piece is "wallet sized me". i'm showing the wrong side [back] of the embroidery. the side you don't see is actually neatly stitched. there are a couple reasons for this - one of which is just to reveal what is normally hidden.



this was my passport photo when i was 2.



and some press :: i'm the blog beautiful feature in uppercase magazine issue 4 - thanks martha . uppercase is really really really a beautiful publication. they do a bang up job.



and just because :: the plum trees are blossoming all over the place. i brought a few branches in to make it feel like spring.

i took this photo using my iphone and the hipstamatic app . man is that a fun app to play with.

hope everyone is having a good week. today there were blue skies and big fluffy clouds. fluffy clouds always make me happy.

enormous tiny art

as a lover of all things mini it is my honor and pleasure to be a part of the 7th Enormous Tiny Art Show happening at Nachotta Gallery .

i made 10 new domestic scene pieces for the show.



this is the one i sneak peeked a few posts back. i started this pulling the thread along the outer edges of my work in the pigmentary portraits series.

i'm really fascinated by this process. formally and technically and well... i just am. part of me really wants to get all joseph albers or agnes martin and JUST explore the use of thread in a colorway and structured pattern. get all minimalist. part of me likes the fusing of this process with what i'm already doing. i wonder if i have the guts to drop everything and just rely on the thread to do its magic. i should really just force myself to try it...



the other think i'm trying to do is add even MORE of a 3D element to the work. so i crocheted this doily from a single strand of thread and have pinned it on top of a hand drawn version of the doily...



i'm also pinning felt shapes to things.



from head on it's hard to tell that one chair actually juts out into space.



this whole series is me thinking about our new family dynamic. for example the pattern in the piece above is from slovakian wallpaper - my husband's heritage is part slovakian... there are pieces with japanese elements too.



you can see the whole set of them on my flickr site [where you can enlarge them if you are contact of mine too].

you can also see them - and all the AMAZING WORK by the tremendous list of artists at the ETA website. you can also purchase artwork directly from the site if you are so inclined.

now it's time to go back into the studio to make the next group of work for the next show. big breath. and we begin again.

hope everyone is well!