Our Save-The-Dates!

So, I just sent these to print. I'm really excited to have this crossed off the to-do list. I also enjoyed embroidering the piece for them. I know it's just a little simple postcard, and most folks will probably throw it away once our invites come in (and they will most likely toss those invites away once they glean all necessary information), but I still like to try to do something unique to us. Plus, now Brendan and I have a token of this particular and special time in our lives to hang in our home. So, as a devout textile artist and designer, and as a couple who loves to bike ride, and who generally enjoys the simple things in life, we felt this was what represented us best. And while I embroidered everything, Brendan definitely had a hand in choosing layout, background, color choices and font treatment. And like so many things about our lives and our wedding planning, it's truly a joint effort. :)

Now to wait for them to come back from our printers, organize addresses, get postage and distribute them.

Solo Show Reception: LAMINA

Lamina 3
Originally uploaded by Elizabeth J. Smith

Some photos from my opening for LAMINA @ Barefoot off on Girard Ave. This photo was taken by my friend Kelly Burkhardt. Thanks Kelly! For more photos from this reception CLICK HERE.

Thanks!

Redwork embroidery quilt block - Finished!

Finished off my redwork quilt block last night! It's fun to see my design done in embroidery. Next up I'll be making hand-painted wallpaper with it and a few other designs.

Redwork Embroidery Quilt Project

For the Midwives Collective's upcoming members' show (June 2010), in addition to our own personal works, we're doing a collaborative group project: a redwork embroidery quilt. Each of us is going to produce a single block. Then my mom and her friend are going to piece the quilt together and finish it off for us (Thanks Mom!). The pictured red fabrics are the other fabrics that are going to be used in our collaborative quilt.
This quilt will either be auctioned or raffled off during our show. 100% of the proceeds will go to benefit Midwives For Haiti.
The design I'm using for my own block is taken from an original repeated design Sarah and I are producing for our collaborative installation for the Midwives members' show. My current designs are based on the stylized florals of Richard Hoffman.

MARCH 26th is SOLO SHOW - LAMINA

Ok, so it's really happening. It was a bit touch and go when we were figuring out dates and such but it's on for March/April. There's an opening reception on March 26th, which I'm hoping will be decently attended. Must thank fellow artist Darla Jackson for approaching me and setting this all up. :)
The deets:
Barefoot Doctor Community Acupuncture Clinic
618 E. Girard Ave Fishtown, PA 19125

March 13 - April 30,2010
RECEPTION: Friday, March 26th, 6-9pm


This is a detail of one of my new pieces for this show.

Back of postcard with info (click it for much bigger view)

The Naming of Things

Yaaaargh...sometimes, I hate naming my artwork. Sometimes I'm lucky and a title pops into my brain while I'm making the piece or shortly after, but some pieces are just too....mysterious for me to title. Thing is, I think naming things "Untitled" is a total cop-out and I really try to avoid it as much as possible. I always appreciate when someone titles their work, even if I think the title is stupid or pretentious. I appreciate their effort. Times like this though, I wish I could title things like classical composers did like a personal favorite piece of music of mine "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565, 2nd Movement, Orchestral Arrangement" (which I first saw when I was a little kid from Fantasia, shown below). Unfortunately from that title one has no idea what that would sound like or the feelings that it could possibly evoke.



Anyway, here's my latest unnamed piece, sans the full installation solution. But you get the idea:

Update: It's ON for March's show and new direction in upcoming work.

So, wedding planning and the holidays kind of took over my brain for the last several weeks. I'm finally getting my head back on straight and in that, pushing a bunch of energy into some new pieces and finishing out old ones.

Behold: close to 2 solid hours of ironing. My most prized art tool is the iron, followed closely by the sewing machine. Without them, nothing would ever get done.

Firstly, I got this show coming up in March, which is a good impetus for me to finish out some of my more ethereal cell-related pieces:

French knots (personal favorite) and tiny stitches.

Secondly, I got this sweet book called "Queer Pulp" that discusses the "golden age" of the paperback book during the 50's and 60's. During this time a lot of books were published, some of the most popular (not just among homosexuals) were ones with gay or lesbian themes. Remember, this was the era when Kinsey's findings on human sexuality totally rocked our country (and helped lead to the "free love" era of the 60's and continues to shape our perceptions of sexuality and sexual orientation today). So, publishing houses were looking for a cheap cash cow and found it in the paperback and particularly with writers that had some more sensational themes within their texts, like a forbidden love affair. And mainstream readers (aka - straight people) often felt safe reading these books because publishing houses insisted that the homosexual love affairs end tragically (thereby reinforcing the lesson that homosexuality was bad, but you the reader could safely read about it all you wanted). Anyway, these double-standards from the past (as well as the double-standards today regarding the queer population in our country) really fascinate me. I'm engaged to get married, and I'm ecstatic that I get to be with Brendan for the rest of my life and benefit from this partnership, but when I think about the "what ifs?", like if I'd found my partner in another woman or if we were two gay men or what and if our eternal bond was recognized only in a few states and everything about our lives was conditional upon how others judged our union, I'd be heartbroken.

I wonder what this illustration is trying to say???


Where the magic happens.

Also, the linens I got were off of Ebay, already worked on (like those great yellow, green and purple flowers in the photo above), probably by someone's grandma. They're from the same time period as these paperbacks were coming out and I like the combination of the domestic "women's work" of the household linens (hankies, table runners, pillow cases, a couple of aprons) and reproducing in embroidery these book cover illustrations.

"Helen" was already sewn onto this piece by the previous owner. It's incredibly tight and delicate stitching, which I'm painstakingly trying to replicate in the line work I'm doing of the illustration from "Jesse, Man of the Streets". Whoever stitched "Helen" was a master. Picture can't capture just how mind-blowing the stitching is.

Jesse and Helen meet.

Anyway, the objective is to let the previous embroidery work help dictate how the book illustrations will be rendered, thereby harmoniously synthesizing these two past worlds into something new and (hopefully) poignant or at least interesting. I know I'm interested but I could be the only one. Meh, that's good enough for me. :)

Happy 4th of July!

Yay! 4th of July! A day of great smells: sunblock, BBQ, fresh air... and best of all the crappy excuse for a drum circle is NOT playing their one and only 7-hour off-rhythm "song" in the park across the street today! Hopefully they're all at the beach with their bongos or whatevers, subjecting new victims to their very own free and unwarranted concert.

In art news: I'm going for the West Collection Prize. In a on-going quest to not only make art regularly, but to - dare I say - accrue personal confidence in said work, I'm looking for appropriate grants, shows, prizes, etc to apply for. This could totally backfire and riddle me with demons after landslides of rejections. Or I could finally grow a pair. And I've been really hoping to earn my balls sooner rather than later.

And now some photos of the work that recently came down from our MERE: Recent Works show:



Cell Mates, 2009, silk & thread


detail of Cell Mates


Potential, 2009, silk and thread


detail of Potential


Our Shared Secrets, 2009, silk and thread, paper and graphite


detail of Our Shared Secrets


Next up, I have several embroidary hoop projects I'm putting together.