Submission Sent

Nicki commented on yesterday's litany. She said take that photo into Elements and it will be beautiful in no time. So I did.

Actually, I have an older version of CS2 on my daughter's old laptop. I cropped the photos a little, and adjusted the contrast and color balance. I improved them a little, and they looked better on the laptop monitor.

I put together the submission, sent it, and will hope for the best.

Next project: major clean out of my studio.

photograph day 2

Well what was I thinking anyway?

I've seen Paul's light set up in the studio, it's two large banks of lights. I know an artist who replicated Paul's set up when he lost his lease last year. She spent $2000 on lights and equipment. So what was I thinking with my two $5 tungsten light bulbs and $13 clamp-on fixtures - that don't even have switches - from Home Depot?

This morning I took a series of photos with the camera on different settings to see what I could learn. I learned that I'm moving it all to the back porch today.

Un professional photography

Adventures in photography. I have taken a few seminars in photographing your own work. I decided to take the plunge this week, and photograph the headpiece to submit to a fiber show who's deadline is this Friday, the 20th.

Maybe I could have taken the piece in to my photographer, Paul, yesterday and gotten the images back today so I could get the submission in the mail this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. Probably what I should have done.

Yesterday I went to Canoga Camera. I got some backdrop paper to create a sweep in my dining room. I got some tungsten lights and clamp-on fixtures.

That makes it sound so simple, it was quite a more complicated matter:

first I had to clear off the small table to the side of the dining room. I cleared my clutter to the big dining room table, which it covers. (I need to do a major studio clean up. Stay tuned, that's next on my agenda.)

The small table is one of those old jobs from the 1950's that unfolds and expands to seat 10. It has something like four leaves in the closet. It belonged to my in-laws when they were first married. When I went to pull the legs out and unfold the top, I noticed that the leg I fixed back in the old house (18 years ago) was loose again. So I went out to the garage to get the wood glue and pipe clamps. The hack saw fell off the shelf, the blade came out, and the saw frame split in two. So I picked up the saw and put it back together and put it back on the shelf; this only took a minute or two.

This photo has nothing to do with anything. I put it here to give you something to look at in the middle of the story.

I put newspaper under the little table, which was now upside down on the dining room floor. The cap of the wood glue was clogged with dried glue because someone left it open the last time they used it. Hmm, who might that have been?? It took a half hour to dig all the dried glue out of the cap. Then I glued and clamped the table.

So while the glue on the small table needed to dry, I moved my 24" table loom off the card table and moved that to the dining room for my photography set up.

But I still needed to get the light fixtures. Canoga Camera had some for $30 each, but I thought I could get them cheaper at Home Depot. The Home Depot at Fallbrook didn't have any fixtures that could take the high wattage lights. I went to Lowes. They had the right fixtures, but only one was undamaged. The aluminum reflectors were all dented. So I bought one light and headed to OSH. They didn't have the right fixtures.

I went to the other Home Depot on Valerio. They had the right fixtures and they were all dented. There was an employee helping me. He was kind of asking "why do they have to be undented?" I said I just didn't want to buy something that was already damaged when I bought it. I took the least dented one and started to head for the register, intending to ask for a discount. So the Home Depot guy says, "I'll just give you this." He was the manager, and he comped me the light. Pretty cool

By this time, it was almost 4:00. I stopped at Jim's Fallbrook Market to get something to make for dinner. I had left the house at about 2:00 to get the fixtures. If I had just paid for the fixtures at Canoga Camera on Monday morning, I'm thinking by now, I would already have my photos done. How much time had it cost me trying to save $30?

Since the wood glue had so much time to set, I put the card table back in the living room, and made my set up on the small expandable table.














I'd like to say something about Paul, my photographer. I love Paul. He does a fabulous job. His photos are freaking fantastic. I really started getting into juried shows when he started doing my photos. I just want to be able to take my own photos for times when I need a very quick turn around. Like this week when I have a submission that needs to be in Camarillo by Friday. Camarillo is like a 20 minute drive. I coulda taken the piece in on Monday, and paid for four views.

Ok, so I got my backdrop set up, I got the cheap fixtures. And boy, are these fixtures cheap - downright flimsy. They don't even have switches; you plug them in to turn them on. As I was setting things up on the backs of a ladder and a chair, I was thinking, this is why I pay Paul.

But, I got it all set up, I cleaned my cameral lens with my brand new lense cleaning kit, I screwed the camera onto the tripod, I covered my head form to hold the headpiece, I adjusted the camera, and shot my images.

And, well, this is why I pay Paul.
MY PHOTO

PAUL'S PHOTO

I guess tomorrow I'll be on the back porch in the morning. Maybe I'll get the submission in the mail by the afternoon. If not, Camarillo is still just a 20 minute drive.

Touching Sample

I'm finally officially done with the headpiece. I decided to make a sample for touching, and I decided to do it before I put away all the yarns.

Now I can clean my studio and move on to new work.

The first thing I plan to do tomorrow is to apply the things I learned in Daryl Lancaster's Photographing Your Own Work seminar at the ASCH conference last weekend. I'll photograph the headpiece.

The next thing for this coming week (after sending in my submission for Focus on Fiber II at Studio Channel Islands Art Center) is to start a plan for re-landscaping our front yard. I'll post some 'before' pictures this week. It's pretty ratty looking, and we want to put in draught tolerant and native plants. I want to put in California native grass, which doesn't need mowing and requires very little water.

Here is my work table in my studio that I need to clean this week. The whole rest of the room looks pretty much like this.

I was going to post a picture of more of it, but I decided to forget it, its too embarrassing.

Well, more later. . .

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted an update! It's Monday, the day after Color Connects, the Association of Southern California Handweavers (ASCH) conference in Riverside, CA. It's the first day in a very long time that I haven't had a major deadline, or two or three, hanging over me.

And so I can blog.

Since my last post, I had a solo exhibition in Florida in November.

This is the auditorium & exibition space at Brooker Creek Preserve Environmental Education Center, with some of the new work I did in 2008 for this show.

After coming back from Florida and a bout of kidney stones, we were into the holidays. Sammy came home for her semester break and we had our usual two holiday parties.

I turned 50 in January. But I had projects I needed to get done early in the new year.

One of them was my submission for the Surface Design Association Members show for the upcoming conference in Kansas City at the end of May.

Another was my annual project for Designing Weavers, a headpiece I was making to go with a chief's mantle blanket that my friend, Regina Vorgang was making. By the end of January, Regina had already finished.

In the meantime, I was still the chair of an EcoArt group, there was an RFQ for artwork for a library project I wanted to submit for, I was leading a workshop on February 14 & 15, and Regina, Trish Lange, and I were the organizing committee for Celebrate Color, the fashion show at Color Connects.

So I was working on the headpiece, but I put it aside to prepare for my workshop. I worked on it some more, then I put it aside to get the library art submission done; then I needed to get the SDA piece in the mail by March 1st. By last Monday, I was almost done. I was going to Riverside on Thursday.

On Tuesday I finished the construction of the headpiece, and began adding beads and crystals. I continued beading on Wednesday, and I lost my thimble.

Thursday I packed my car and left home at 3:15, I had wanted to leave at 2:00. I pulled into the driveway of the Riverside Marriott at 6:00 pm to find the Designing Weavers heading out for the Dream Weavers exhibition at Riverside Communittee College. After I checked in and changed, I found Brecia Kralovic-Logan walking up the driveway. We headed down to the college, and it is a great show. We were glad we made the trip. Then we came back to downtown Riverside, parked at the convention center, and walked over to the Riverside Art Museum to see the Designing Weavers exhibition. We began running into people we know, and people started congratulating me.

Brecia and I walked back to the convention center to see the Spectrum exhibition, and more people made comments about how happy I must be. And as it turns out, I was. I won first place in the basketry, non-traditional material category for my Footed Cottonelle Jar. I won first place and the Juror's Award for my Desigining Weavers annual project from last year, Behind the Cotton Candy.

This is very thrilling. For a long time I thought of myself as the person who never won the awards. Now I guess I have to think something new. I feel very honored to be recognized this way, especially when you realize how excellent all the work in these shows is.

Brecia and I had caught up with the rest of the Designing Weavers at the convention center, and we all vacated to the bar at the Marriott. Friday was set up day for the Fashion Show. We unpacked our cars and hauled garment racks, dress forms, and mirrors into the meeting room that was to be our back stage dressing area.

I got set up for garment check-in, and everybody who said they were going to help began showing up. I parked myself at a table and took up the beading of the headpiece again, without a thimble. Trish had made fabulous corsages for all the Fashion Show entrants, and they each picked one after checking in their garments. I kept working on the headpiece until it was time to go change for the evening and the keynote speech. After the speech, they gave out doorprizes, and I recieved a $25 gift certificate from one of the vendors. Several people said I should buy a lottery ticket.

On Saturday I attended Daryl Lancaster's workshop on photographing your own work, or as I called it, the finishing the headpiece workshop. I finally finished adding the last bead sometime after 3:00, and started sewing the crown to the hat frame. At 4:00 everyone assembled in the Raincross Ballroom for Fashion Show rehersal. It was exciting, everyone was really into their jobs, and was having fun. I took my place in the dressing room and continued sewing. I finally finished the headpiece, with some very sore fingers, sometime after 5:00. Trish let everyone go to dinner at 5:45, and we reassembled at 7:30 for makeup.

And the show was great. Two years of planning, meetings, lots and lots of work all paid off. Everyone loved it. Trish and Regina, as the co-chairs did the lion's share of the work. I did the smaller share of the job.

I had Jackie Abrams's basket making workshop on Sunday, leaving early for garment check-out. We broke down, repacked the cars, and got out by 5:00. It was a great conference. I look forward to 2011 when we aren't doing the planning.

This was a great weekend. I so love hanging out with this group of people. Being part of Designing Weavers, Southern California Handweavers Guild, and this whole network of fiber artists is one of the greatest joys of my life.