But what about your blog? Part One

    I have really been neglecting my blog this year, and that is not good for two reasons. One reason is that this is the closest thing I have to a website for showing my work to the public. It is an important part of my business. The other reason is the essential reason that I started blogging in the first place...so that I can remember what I have been doing. I did not realize how helpful it was until I went to do my taxes and could look and see where I had gone to teach in the year, or pieces that I have sold. I try to keep records, and notes but the thing about memory aids is that you have to remember to use them...and how to use them. One of the medications that I am on for my Bipolar disorder causes problems with cognitive functioning. This side effect is now the thing that troubles me the most in my life. It is not just memory that is affected, but also things like sequential thinking. I often feel like the stereotypical dumb blonde but with the worst case of ADD ever. It has made trying to run a business so much harder. I think part of the reason I find writing my blog so hard is that writing in general is much harder than it was. I have trouble with word retrieval and mixing up words in a way that I never have before. Now, maybe this is all just age related, but on the chance that it is all due to the medicine I have decided I want to stop taking that one. I see my Dr. soon and hope that he will go along with that decision. If it does not help, it will at least be easier to accept that this is just how my mind works ;or rather does not work, now. In that case maybe I will just change the color of my hair to match the character Loretta Tortelli from Cheers.
    So for this post I will try once again to catch things up and hopefully not let so much time lapse before the next post. Luckily I have photos and my calendar (that I have been remembering to use most of the time) to help me remember most of what I have done with my artwork and related activities. Many of these things really deserved a full post of their own but oh well...ce la vie...for now anyway.
    After the Midwest Symposium I went to my favorite felting event ever...the Felt In Nature invitational gathering organized by Sharon Costello. I always feel so honored to be a part of the talented group of felters who are lucky enough to be part of this event. It has had a profound affect on me and my artwork. This year was no different. The group this year consisted of Sharon, Linda Van Alstyne, Carol Ingram, Kristi Sandoy, Lynn Ocone, Robin Blakney-Carlson, Beth Harwood, Joei Bassett, and Renata Maile-Moskowitz. Being with this group of women, sharing a week living together, sharing ideas, food and drink, thoughts and feelings, all while in a beautiful natural surrounding is unlike anything I have ever had in my life and is impossible to fully express in words. So here are just a few of the photos I took that week.

On arrival Joei and I took a short walk through the town of Rensselaerville NY where the Huyck Preserve is located. We enjoyed looking at the old gravestones at the Trinity Episcopal Church.

Here are some of the photos I took of the preserve.

One of the things we did again this year was to make prefelts and then cut them to share. Each of us then used the prefelts to create a new piece. The one I did was inspired by this view.

 

 

 Here are the pieces I recieved.

These shots show how I puzzled out how to put them together....

 

To create this scene.

Sharon had brought some wool yarns to share. I wanted to try to see if I could layout little bits of the different shades to create the illusion of shading. This image was inspired by this Purple Flowering Raspberry.

I was so intent on my placement of the wool yarns that I did not pay any attention to composition of the image. I think I improved it with some painting and stitching on the felt. Here is is as finished.

Sharon had also brought some fabric samples that were from an interior decorator. There was some really funky stuff. I love using odd fabrics to see what kind of textures I can get. I can't help but chuckle when I hear people say you can not felt with anything but silk, or really light weight fabrics. Here is part of my collection of samples of how my fabrics will look felted with short fiber merino. Of course different wools would give different results.

Sometimes I sample several different fabrics in one felt. 

Of course I can't help trying to make it look like a scene. This is part of what I will be teaching at the Felter's Rendezvous. Though we will be exploring more about how to render landscapes or other pictures with nunofelted fabric collage, much like these:

Here are the samples I made of Sharon's decorator fabrics. One was inspired by the pattern in the lake water.

 

There are the other pieces I made during my time at the Huyck.

This next one I worked more when I got home adding stitching and painting.

Here it is as finished.

I also did a couple of three dimensional experiments that you can see in the far left of this photo.

Time to move on to part two...