Self Portraits and the Inner Critic

One of my favorite thing to do has turned out to be self portraits. My inner critic, who I am sure is really ugly and pointy and skinny and clearly mean, keeps whispering, "Aren't you sick of yourself yet?" and "My, my, aren't we self-abosrbed!" Maybe it just helps clean out the inner demons and keep me semi-sane.

These are two shots of one of my favorite pieces; it looks entirely different viewed from the left than it does from the right. They are all self-portraits, based on photos taken at different ages: kindergarten, highschool, college, young career girl, and recent. The pieces are hinged together with beads and wire, and fold accordion-style, which helps them stand up.

Textile Dots

I have been really busy finishing up a lot of art projects: getting sleeves on three quilts for a fiber arts council of southern california show (no, you don't have to live in California to participate [since I live in NY!]) and trying to make a bunch of art-o-mat blocks (50 of the yellow self-portrait, to be followed by 50 of the red and black energy man) and cards off for a May exchange. whew, I'm worn out. So...I am posting a piece I did a while back.

This was inspired by the cover of a book I got a the Met on textile history. Each little circle contains an original textile design (by me...since I was a textile designer for many years I have tons of designs.) Instead of being my usual free and painterly self, I tried to be really geometric and precise, especially in the quilting. I designed it in QuarkXpress (with art scanned to photoshop) and printed it on Avery printable cotton sheets, which are kind of stiff, but have great color reproduction.

Paper and Carving

I recently made a bunch of ATCs (artist trading cards...same size as a baseball card) for an exchange with my core group of artists. I had a sheet of pastel paper-fabric I made about a year ago that I didn't know what to do with. I tore leftover pieces of recycled colored tissue paper (the stuff that comes tucked into new purchases that you don't quite know what to do with, but can't bear to throw away.) I mixed it with a half glue-half water solution on top of a piece of an old t-shirt. Next I cut it into little pieces and stitched it, but it was still kind of boring. The idea struck me that I should stamp over it, so I took one of my hand-carved stamps and, using a purple commercial stamp pad, plunked a design over the paper collage. I loved it so much I could barely part with them. So, I just finished making a bunch of postcards with a jewel toned piece of tissue collage, with a bigger stamp, done in black. I will keep one for myself this time. Very easy, and and lots of fun.