Wednesday, January 7, 2009

2009 Calendar Underway!

It hasn't quite hit me that we have started the year 2009, yet, I seem to be doing a good job of filling my calendar of events and keeping myself very busy as usual!

The new year has brought me a new commission which I have begun work on; a portrait of "Skipper" a terrier mix. The drawing is near completion and once the client has approved it and decided on a size, work will begin creating the canvas and subsequent painting. Watch for images as they come available.

Soon I will be taking on some R & D with some wool jersey fabric that I received. It is fabric that was originally destined to be made into cycling jerseys, however with the synthetics on the market these days, popularity for wool in a cycling jersey has declined. I am really into the idea of making a new use for old things so I am going to play with creating paintings on a "cycling" theme and see where it leads me. It's always so much fun to try new things, but it also leaves me with a feeling of being spread a bit thin at times.

During the Bermuda Fibre Festival I happened to act as tour guide for our US teachers and visited the Crafts Center at Dockyard. While there I was inspired by some art that I saw which gave me a new idea for framing my paintings. First, for those who are not aware of it, my work was originally inspired by studying Sumi-e, Asian ink painting. Often Sumi-e is framed in the traditional scroll style so when I saw some work that was hung using bamboo rods, I was very excited about the prospect of trying this method for my work! There is a stand of bamboo near where I live so access to materials will be easy! Now I just have to squeeze the experimentation into my schedule. If this works out, it will be a wonderful solution to framing my work for showing in Bermuda. I have not been keen on framing work here not only because of the expense, but it then makes it impossible to transport work from here to the US. A fact I learned the hard way after having a bunch of work framed in the US and not able to bring it back to Bermuda for some upcoming shows!

Oh so much to report!

The success of the second Fibre Festival in Bermuda keeps me working! As I wind down the reporting and record keeping for this year's event, I have to get my sights on the 2009 planning and get that underway which brings me to the next adventure!

This week I began teaching Fibre Arts classes at Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation to 5&6 year olds and 7&8 year olds. I am so excited about this! The Fiber Festival here has inspired me to share my passion for fibre arts with the children and this is a great opportunity. This week we are creating Felt beads and making bracelets that are braided with the beads strung to them. The younger class, though needing some assistance with the braiding and stringing, did a great job and I look forward to the older group later today! I will get some photos of the finished work and post them later. This is a ten week program so look for more details on the classes and their outcome!

Ok so I have digressed a bit from my original intention with passing on my 2009 schedule. Easy for me to do! So check the side bar for my 2009 schedule so far. And in case I forgot to say it, Happy New Year to you all!

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