Winter 2017 Weather Grams

One of my favorite rituals is hanging weather grams for the new season. These celebrate the Winter Solstice- a way of bringing in the light. I love to see them all hanging on the tree and appreciate the exchange every three months. Thanks you dear friends.

 This year, my good friend, Sandy, lettered four weather grams for my tree.

 

Taos NM Travel Journal

This month, I traveled to Taos NM for a workshop on "Deepening Your Art Through Daily Practice" with Laurie Doctor. We stayed at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House for a week. What a wonderful experience combining the people, place, landscape, art, spirit, food and history. Here are pages from my travel journal.

I made a file folder journal adding Aches Text Wove paper signatures in the front and back. Before pamphlet stitching the signatures, I covered the binding end with Tyvek. I bound them together to form the book binding and covered them with a strip of fabric.

This is the first page with the left pocket and the signature.

My travel journals include a calendar-

a map-

a spread about Mabel's House-

the solarium where I stayed-

an interest where Native American Pueblo culture meets Western religion-

some of Tony Luhan's wall paintings with thanks to Amy Bogard for the ones in his room-

a spread on our workshop-

Mabel brought many artists to New Mexico including Georgia O'Keeffe-

the food-

the back cover-

Bottled Up Emotions

One day, I was reading Leslie K. Pearson's website and saw her book entitled "Bottled Up Emotions". This book resonated with me and inspired me to create my own version for my calligraphy class Spring term final project.

The back has an EKG reading-

The book contains 55 pages of negative emotions that are hard to express-

Around each word are the antonyms or positive emotions and feelings.

As someone who tends to keep her emotions bottled up, this project was very therapeutic. It's a great tool to turn a negative emotion around and feel more positive. In this crazy world, I've found it very helpful.

Wise Words

The 70,273 Project and His Majesty's Hope

Are you familiar with Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope mystery series? She sets her books in Britain and Europe during WWII. Her book, His Majesty's Hope, is set in Berlin and makes one relive the heartache of the 70,273 lives lost in 1940-1941.

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers explains on her blog, the barefoot heart, about The 70,273 Project. This worldwide collaborative project commemorates the lives of the 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people murdered by German Nazis. The white fabric represents their medical records; the two red X's represent the judgement of doctors, after they read those records, as to whether they should be executed. If the doctors marked two red X's on the medical record, the decision was made. She is collecting 70,273 double red X's and is still taking contributions.

The red X's will be made into quilts and shown all over the world. Women working together and creating a movement to enlighten the world about untold horrors which hopefully will prevent the same atrocities from occuring in the future.

More Projects Completed

Several Portland  Art Collective members created projects that those participating completed. Each person's project was entirely different. The photos below are my contributions. Suzie gave us each photos of her dog, Violet. She's going to give our portraits of Violet to an animal rescue program fundraiser.

Lorraine asked us to color a page from her coloring book.

Jennifer is making a prayer flag banner for her home. We each received a word, fabric and lace to make one flag.

We enjoyed these projects and plan to have another go around soon.

Happy Spring Equinox

Yesterday, calligraphy friends gathered to exchange Spring weather grams. Each change of season, we get together to share our lettering and writing. I hung mine in a tree in our front yard. I love to see them twirling in the wind.

 

Hearts for a Friend

A group of us from the Portland Art Collective create artwork as specified by one of the members. Here's my hearts for Lenall. I used paint, fabric and paper collage and some drawing to highlight an anatomical heart.

Painted Circles in a Square

Members of  Portland Art Collective share individual projects. Each person creates one piece with the materials and instructions given. Here's my circle in a square for Suzanne. On these icy/snowy home bound days, it was fun to get out the paints and play.