Mining My Sketchbooks

A few years ago I went to an artist talk at Penland and I heard something that has stayed with me. The details are hazy, including the identity of the artist himself, but I do remember he was a photographer and he was talking about things he tells his students. He said something about "mining your sketchbook," basically looking through old sketchbooks for thoughts and ideas for new work. I have a big stack of sketchbooks and I look through them occasionally to do just this. There are so many ideas in them, ideas I will never get to, especially if I don't remind myself. I've been writing about my new work today and as I sat here I remembered a list I wrote in 2010 that includes all of my moves in the US. I found the list and will use it somehow in my new work. It's interesting to be reminded where and when I lived somewhere…and this is helpful information when making work about "home."

Now if I could just find that line about mining your sketchbooks... I know it's in one of these!

Thanks for reading. 

More Embroidery

Another embroidery I was thinking about the other day is this one, based on a drawing from my sketchbook. Here are images of both the embroidery and the sketch so you can see where the idea came from and what it became. The sketch itself was just me drawing away, repeating the same shape over and over. Then filling in the space in between so the negative space became positive space and vice~versa. The embroidery is the sketch translated into hundreds and hundreds of colonial knots, my favorite stitched knot.

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back at it

i got back from my christmas break yesterday and ran off to the studio today. i was hoping to chill out this week and not do any work but with the impending move to penland this weekend, i just knew there was no time for resting. i filled a few orders and then finished my new collection pieces. i have posted a few pictures of my sketchbooks and my many notes-to-self. i don't always do a lot of drawing but i do make many notations. it was more challenging to design and create this year - i definitely feel i'm at a crossroads with my jewelry, both my collections and my studio work. i found my usual go-to shapes and ideas to be uninteresting, limiting, and frustrating. despite that, now that they're all done, i am feeling pretty good about them.

i can feel big changes on the horizon. i am so excited for it and even more excited that i just don't know what it's all going to entail.
thanks for reading.