Mindful, Day 301, Remembering Mom

This is my Mom, many years ago, when all her grandkids were much younger. She would dress up like as a witch and go visit all of them on Halloween. She got the biggest kick out of it and the kids all remember her coming. It was a highlight of Halloween. She made a great costume, blacked out her teeth, did a wig, the whole nine yards. Even in the last few years of her life, she would still put on the wig and the hat.  Happy Halloween, Mom.

Mindful, Day 300, A Delight

This is the way to celebrate Day 300!  The first birthday of my great-niece, Julia. How easily delighted she was with the singing birthday cupcake. And how delighted I was with her huge smile.

MIndful, Day 298-299, Magic Number

I am getting dangerously close the magic number 300. Day 300 feels to me like I will be turning into the home stretch on writing the Mindful posts for the year. 365 is a LOT of anything. Sometimes it has come easily, sometimes it has been so hard to find that inspiration for the day, and sometimes I have bored myself (and readers). But it has also done what I intended from the start - to be that daily discipline that asks me to be observant and thoughtful and involved in the world around me.  I am already thinking about what next year's daily practice might be (though it might become a weekly practice instead!)

MIndful, Day 296-297, Hand Form

I have been getting the photos from our Utah trip sorted and just looked again at this one taken as we climbed up out of Antelope canyon. All I can see now is this hand form in white on the left side reaching down to pinch the rock! It's funny how once you see something like that it is is hard to make it go away again. And I can't even figure out what is is that is making the shape? Sky? Mineral deposit? 

Mindful, Day 295, Fall Forms

I love the way fall leaves curl, twist and turn on themselves.  So many to be picked up this time of year before they blow away!

Mindful, Day 293-294, End of the Line

Spent the past few days going back to Minneapolis to the Textile Center to see my exhibit, Still Lifes in Indigo, do a presentation, talk about a longer workshop for next year and see wonderful fall scenery on the long ride back home. Glad to be out of the car for awhile!

MIndful, Day 292, Autumn Glow

These last, lingering leaves are so translucent that the sun glows right through them.

Mindful, Day 291, Seeing Plaid

Walking past the shaded windows at the Starline with the sun coming in from the west I see a wonderful plaid pattern.  Amazing what sun and shadow can create!

Mindful, Day 290, Transformation

I looked up today coming out of the Starline and I was amazed at the myriad of colors that have transformed the ivy on the building from bottom to top!

Mindful, Day 289, Standing Tall

This beautiful old oak tree standing tall in the middle of the prairie captures the light on this Indian summer day. 

Mindful, Day 288, All the Difference

I am mindful that some things can make all the difference. We got a much longer ramp for my daughter, Rachel, to come and use to get into our house. And she came to try it out today. I think she made 5-6 trips up and down the ramp going  in and out without any heart stopping moments. We had been using a much shorter ramp and looking for solutions that weren't quite so expensive. In the end it was worth every penny to see her smile coming down the ramp.

Mindful, Day 287, Calligraphy Dance

A detail from newly created art cloth. A small collage of kimono fragments manipulated and printed large. I like the way the calligraphy flies off in all directions and becomes a whole other design dancing around!

Mindful, Day 286, More Experiments with the Monoprints

 Yesterday's post was from one variation of the dried grass monoprint. This is a detail from another one with more texture, both real and implied. Using the needle felter to "draw". I think these are going to be good when done - mindful that experiments do not always go where you think they should go but often take you somewhere even better.

MIndful, Day 285, It's Come a Long Way

 A detail from a new piece title Grass Dance, var. 7. The original was a small black and white monoprint of dried grass that had dried and curled. Printed with grays and blacks and then digitally manipulated and combined with a rubbing of the cut lines on an old cutting board.  Some stitching to emphasize the cut lines.  I like the details especially - the curves of the original grass and all the texture created by those random cut lines.  I am mindful that sometimes art can and must move a long way away from its origins to expand your framework.

Mindful, Day 284, Reminder

After 283 days, I need a reminder to self as to why I am doing this. So here I have reread this poem by Mary Oliver several times. To look, to listen, to instruct myslef in the joy found in the daily round of events. One day at a time.

Mindful –

Every Day I see and hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It is what I was born for – to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant- but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these- the untrimmable light of the world, the oceans shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?
Mary Oliver

MIndful, Day 283, Work on a Wet Day

Spent the day at the studio doing all those fun thing you get to do - sweeping up lots of dead flies (who knows where they came from) tracking down the drip I can hear above me in the attic, cleaning out the drain in the sink, mopping up the spilled dye, cursing the rubber gloves that are SUPPOSED to keep my hands dye free. But then I get to photograph new work and see it with new eyes so all is well. Line Dance, Tree Bark Fragments detail.

Mindful, Day 282, Tucked Away

The Starline, where I have my studio, is a building covered in vines. Now violet grapes that were tucked away under all the overlapping leaves are being revealed. Another late season treat. I also like all the intricate twists and turns of the branches adding more texture to the brick wall.

Mindful, Day 281, The Last Rose of Summer

It's that time. The roses are having their last hurrah out in the garden. The colors look even more intense against all the fading leaves and grasses. One last bouquet for the screen porch and maybe even a chance to sit out there a few more times (with blankets!) 

Mindful, Day 280, Right Place at the Right Time

 Sometimes the light hits the west window just right and throws this pattern across the north wall and windows and this wonderful layering occurs. I have to be at the right place at the right time to see it. It just glows.

Mindful, Day 279, The Ugly Duckling

My ugly ducking pumpkin makes me smile each time I walk past it! AND I don't have to carve it! Which makes me happy too!

Mindful, Day 278, Love the Questions

I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

 Rainer Maria Rilke  

I need to keep this uppermost right now.

Mindful, Day 277, Sitching the Digital Print Class

https://textilecentermn.org/product/stitching-the-digital-print-the-making-of-still-lifes-in-indigo-%E2%80%A2-102417/

Stitching the Digital Print: The Making of Still Lifes in Indigo • 10/24/17 textilecentermn.org Tuesday, October 24, 1-3 pm Barbara Schneider Join us in welcoming Barbara Schneider, the artist behind Still Lifes in Indigo, currently on exhibit in our Community Gallery! Discover how these richly embellished images were conceived and made during this special demo-lecture. Barbara’s presentation will cover photo set-up, digital image manipulation, making an ink-jet print on a home printer, backing, and finishing. A detailed demo of her machine stitching process and conversation about building composition through stitched surface design cap off this terrific opportunity to learn from a master of the medium.

 I am excited to teach this short demo on Tuesday, October 24 at the Textile Center in Minneapolis. My solo exhibit will be coming down but it is ending with this fun opportunity. If you are in the area please come!

Mindful, Day 275-276, Going in Circles

It seems like in the few short days we have been home from our trip that I am going in circles. Trying to catch up on all fronts, dealing with medical issues for my husband and daughter, looking at over packed calendar, picking up and dropping off artwork, trying to find time to even think about new work! Sometimes you have to slog through and let your brain do the work instead of your hands but those hands are itching to get creative again.

Mindful, Day 274, Looking Back, Looking Out

Looking back at photos I shot on our trip last week I am liking these taken at Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River just outside of the Glen Canyon area in Arizona.  I am intrigued by the interplay of the structural remains with the cliffs behind.  The empty window draws me in and focuses my eye.
I think I am going to work with these for awhile.

Mindful, Day 272-273, Sky on Fire

We got home last night and spent today dealing with a lot of "stuff". My tired body and brain lit up at the end of the day when I looked at the sky on fire as the sun set.  

MIndful, Day 271, Kayaking the Canyon

Part 2 of our Antelope Canyon adventure was kayaking 5 miles on Lake Powell and up to the end of Antelope Canyon. How peaceful and beautiful and timeless it was. Just rock, water, sunlight, and shadow. The canyon narrowing more and more until you literally could go no further. The patterns on the water - it was a choice - photograph the water and lose momentum or keep paddling to get there and back!

Mindful, Day 269-270, Color, Form and Adventure

We had the best time in Page AZ at the Lake Powell National Recreation Area. We toured Lower Antelope Canyon, amazed by the beauty of this underground world. So many beautiful shapes and colors formed by water and sand.  And then we explored Antelope Canyon from the water side, kayaking further and further back between the high walls of the narrowing canyon until you could not go any further.  And that was simply beautiful in another way - the shapes of the canyon reflected in the water, the quiet and movement of the water.  More of those photos tomorrow!