SquidWhale is taking over my life.....

Not that I mind. I mean, I kind of do because I have a back-log of projects, both for my personal work and for SquidWhale, and each day I conjure new projects for both of my creative endeavors. I can see now that my work will never be done. I'm thankful for that though. If I were done with all I wanted to do, I'd be dreadfully bored. Then what? I'd wait around to...I dunno, die? Snoooore.

Sarah has developed these awesome plaid mice. The other pieces are elements from our 4ft. wallpaper design.These images will eventually be printed onto fabrics that will then be used for our product line. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, I don't have much to show you right now (except the above image), but my partner in crime, Sarah, is going to be updating our shared SquidWhale blog soon with details of our thrifting adventure and where our work is thus far in our first collection. The thrifting was our first one together. She's been thrifting her whole life, and I've known Sarah for, oh, about a decade, and this past weekend was the first time she got me thrifting. I think it helps to have a focus on what you're searching for. It also helps that I'm imbibed with a sense of purpose and determination at building my own business. 
Additionally, for the Midwives Members Show in June, all members are doing a quilt block for a small redwork quilt. A couple of us are doing two blocks. This is my second one:

Just a bunch of fish scales.

I'm thinking some of these will be filled in with a satin stitch.

I also have an octopus thing I'm drafting right now for an embroidery project. This project was on hold for a while to work on my dyed silk pieces for my show, LAMINA, which is up at Barefoot Clinic until May 28th. But I'm looking forward to making the octopus. I love doing the research and drawing the imagery and then building that into an embroidery. Sometimes I get frustrated at how time-consuming these things can be, but I remember that it's OK to take my time to do it right, and there will never be enough time to do all that I can think of doing, but it's good that I don't have a lack of ideas to be excited about. And hey, at least I ain't bored. ;)

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!

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. :)

Recently Unemployed

Recently I was laid off, ergo, I thought starting a blog about my "funemployment" would be a good project. I'm hoping that it acts as an impetus for my art work as well as my larger life goals. We'll see. I'm pretty good at false starts.

However, since my unemployment began (it's been less than a week) my mind's been racing at the possibilities: WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS TIME? (aside of course, looking for a job). And while the job part is very important, I can't help but entertain other possible directions and uses for this "temporary retirement" that I've suddenly been granted.

1. artist residency?
2. internship?
3. volunteer?
4. concentrate harder on my artist collective?
5. knock out a few of those prerequisites for grad school?

Well, how's about them all? So, I did some research.
I researched artist residencies, and considering I'd have to pay my own way, that fell off the list. I also already have a studio and am now on a paid vacation so what's the point? I looked into internships at the Fabric Workshop and Museum but if I did the Fall internship, it'd go through December, and God willing I'll have a job well before December.
So, I'm going to concentrate on my collective and gear up for grad school, all the while job searching (helllllooooo Upenn and Drexel!) and getting my artworks up to par as well as SOLD.

So, below are pieces I'm working on for my upcoming group show, MERGE: Recent Works at my co-op gallery in South Philly. They're strewn across my dining table.
They're silk fabric pieces, hand-dyed and patterned, then stitched.










I'm a little amazed that I'm using neon green for any of this work, considering my fears of using any neon colors. But I've happily discovered that anything, in the right proportion, works wonders. Plus I'm getting out of my comfort zone with the colors.