28 July, 2016

When art won’t let you go, you write a book.

2016-07-28T10:43:45-05:00An Artist's Life|Comments Off on When art won’t let you go, you write a book.

Sometimes when I finish a piece of art, I’m not finished. The ideas or inspiration or designs are still in my head and they still have something to say. I think this is why many artists do things in a series, like Monet’s variations on haystacks. The piece itself might be done, but the art is still trying to say something.

This doesn’t happen to me often. Usually, I am done and ready to move on. But the art for the recent public art/utility box project that I did is one of those that stuck around and wouldn’t let me go. Before I had even finished up the final technical details of getting those pieces ready to be installed, I decided that I wanted to write a book.

The beautiful thing about making a book from this project was that most of the hard work was done. Because I was already making print ready files for sticky vinyl coverings, I already had high res files that were perfect for printing. And I had a lot of “leftover” photos. When I started the project for Prospect Park, I took about 500 photos so that I had options to work from. I wasn’t sure what I would need and I knew I didn’t want snowy winter pictures, so I shot a lot last fall.

Screen Shot 2016-07-28 at 9.42.17 AMThe story for the book I wrote at about 2 am one morning and it started with pictures of feet. The book has a very simple story; basically it’s about taking a walk with an artist and looking around you for art. Exactly what I did when I took the photos to make the collages. I realized that I had several photos that had my feet in them, because whatever I was photographing was on the ground. I was planning to just crop out my feet if I used those photos, but what better way to illustrate a walk and bring me into the story a little bit?

It’s a “kids book”, because I think there is a lot in it that kids would enjoy. Did you know that I snuck in a few pictures just for me? My dog, Leo, appears on one page. (I’ll give you a hint: it’s just his fur, and he’s wet.) There are lots of things to look for in the photos and I continued the I Spy game with thumbnails of things like colored pencils and faucet handles to look for in the photo collages.

IMG_3667I decided to publish this book myself. The great thing about that is that I got to be the writer and editor and marketer and designer and proofreader. The terrible thing about that is that I got to be the writer and editor and marketer and designer and proofreader. But I really think that was the best fit for this kind of a book. And I love how it turned out. I used a service called Blurb to print the books. It is a print-on-demand company, which means I can get as many or as few printed as I want to. They had a template set up for InDesign, which I use all the time, so the setup was really easy. And thanks to my sister Beth, who is my best second pair of eyes. She always sees the stuff I missed and doesn’t hesitate to tell me when something looks dumb.

Of course, I would like to sell a few, but more importantly for me, I want people to know the story. How many times have you run into art out in the world that was without context? Sculptures in parks, murals, mosaics. There is rarely an artist’s name and there is almost never a story. And don’t you always have things that you wonder? Why are there whales painted on the wall under the bridge? What’s the story? There is something fun about making up your own story, but I am curious. I want to know the artist’s story. I want to know the connections and I want to make my own connections beyond just thinking “I like those whales.”

So this book has several different stories. It’s about the art that’s in the book. But I also included a page about the art that I made first, the art that’s on the boxes. If the world is kind to them, the installers tell me that those wraps can last for several years. And I hope people wonder about them and have questions. I wasn’t allowed to put my website on the boxes (lest it look like advertising) but maybe through the magic of Google, someone will be curious and find the story.

And don’t think I am forgetting about fabric in all of this. I collected lots of photos of circles, thinking I would use those for making some part of the designs. They didn’t make the final cut for the boxes, but I used them for the cover of the book and to design this fabric:

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I made a dress from it to wear to the walking tour the neighborhood association did for the boxes. You can see a little bit of that here in the article that the local paper wrote about the project and it’s available at Spoonflower.

Members of the Prospect Park Association take a tour of utility boxes in the area that have been wrapped in art by local artists. The project was completed in an effort to stop graffiti and bring beauty to the neighborhood. - photo courtesy MN Daily

Members of the Prospect Park Association take a tour of utility boxes in the area that have been wrapped in art by local artists. The project was completed in an effort to stop graffiti and bring beauty to the neighborhood. – photo courtesy MN Daily

Screen Shot 2016-07-05 at 4.33.35 PMIf you’d like to get a copy of the book, you can get them at:

29 June, 2016

A teacher’s life: My week at Arrowmont School

2016-06-29T09:31:45-05:00An Artist's Life, Classes & Teaching, Gallery Exhibitions, Spoonflower & Fabric Design|Comments Off on A teacher’s life: My week at Arrowmont School

IMG_3597I just got back from teaching a week-long workshop at the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg TN. Arrowmont is like summer art camp for grownups in all the best and worst ways. Each class is an intensive week. Studios are open 7:30 am – 1:00 am nearly every day. Students and teachers stay in no-frills dorm-like rooms; meals are provided at the dining hall. There are evening slide talks and open studios. Above is a view of the main building as I am walking down from my cabin.

IMG_3530There was a little snafu with a late shuttle and some very bad communication when I first arrived, so my week started off a little rocky, but things smoothed out as the week went on. I was teaching in the textiles studio, which is set up like the most amazing dye lab you can imagine. Only we weren’t doing anything with dyes, because I was teaching a whole week about digital fabric design with Spoonflower. Having this lab full of computers and scanners is not exactly the norm for Arrowmont, but it worked out just fine. We got to try some things in class which I almost never have time to do, so it was fun for me to be able to teach the students some more complex techniques.

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Class started right away on Sunday evening and continued through Friday afternoon. There were 9 classes running during the week I was there. I had 6 amazing students in class; class sizes ranged between 3-15 people. Running parallel to us were classes in woodworking, paper, ceramics, mold-making, wire sculpture and mixed media jewelry. We had 37 hours of class time and we packed it full. We talked about color, patterns, making things seamless, effective repeats, scale, texture…

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One afternoon we went for a photo walk around campus to collect photos of textures to use in our designs. We focused on work with Photoshop, but also explored a variety of other programs and tools that are really suited to fabric design. We made organic photographic patterns; we made geometric patterns from cut paper; we made faux batiks and digitally painted designs. Spoonflower worked with us to get fabrics shipped out lightning fast, so that we could create some designs on Monday and have the fabrics in our hands on Friday afternoon.

The gallery which was just outside of our classroom featured an exhibition of work by this year’s Arrowmont instructors. You can see my piece (my Wallflower dress) along the wall on the right. Arrowmont’s awesome gallery director came and filmed a little clip of me teaching to add to the interactive (QRcode) part of the gallery exhibition. I will post a little clip of that sometime soon.

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Our class worked really well together and I think everyone left totally fired up about designing some of their own fabrics. Below is a few of them goofing around with their freshly printed fat quarters on Friday afternoon. I was so proud of what they accomplished. And they blew me away with how much they learned. One student had me sit down on Friday with her and she talked through a step-by-step plan she had made for how to finish her “final project” design when she got home. She had come up with about 18 steps and knew exactly what to do at each step. SO proud!

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If you have ever wondered what this kind of workshop experience is like: intense, exhausting, focused. Part of the appeal is that you can come and have hours to use specialized equipment and facilities. With a digital class though, I had to be a little more on the ball. There were no special tools or equipment we needed to use; we all brought our own laptops. So the special and intense part of this class was having the one-on-one help and hands-on practice with the tools, with me to look over and remind you to check the checkmark or unlock the layer when suddenly something seemed to stop working.

One of the funniest things about Arrowmont is that just a 5 minute walk away is the tourist trap town of Gatlinburg, which is full of t-shirt shops, ice cream, deep fried food and old time photos. (There’s also a Starbucks and a Walgreens, which I found the first night I was there.) Arrowmont feels like a magic bubble in the woods; they really are odd neighbors. There is a really nice aquarium in town, which I visited on Sunday morning since I didn’t have much classroom setup to do. I took a selfie with a shark.

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In our discussion about colorways, my class and I decided if you were going to walk down the street and then design a Gatlinburg fabric it would need to include these colors:

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(And if you are designing fabric for anyone under the age of 8, throw in some neon green.) I met some fascinating teachers, I had fantastic students to work with and I had some great conversations with the work-study students that were busy all over campus. Thanks to Arrowmont for a one-of-a-kind experience.

15 March, 2016

A Post Revisited: 10 Things They Don’t Tell You about Being an Artist

2016-03-15T13:34:39-05:00An Artist's Life|Comments Off on A Post Revisited: 10 Things They Don’t Tell You about Being an Artist

I originally wrote this post about a year ago after I had just finished with a giant art show and 36 hours on my feet.  As that same art show is rolling around in just a few short weeks, I thought of that post and thought I would look back and see what I should remember.  I have added a few more points to the list based on some great comments from my fellow artists.IMG_2151.JPG


I just finished 28 hours of an art show.  That’s probably really 36 hours in “art show hours” on my feet on a hard concrete floor once we have finished set up and tear down.  The experience was amazing and I wouldn’t trade any of those minutes for anything, but chatting with my fellow artists all weekend brought out some things that we agreed they never tell you are part of the job description.

1.  Describe your art in 10 words.

When you meet anyone at an art fair there are about 100 things competing for their attention.  You need to be able to talk about what you do in 10 words or less if you want to start a conversation with someone and talking about your art is why both of you are there, usually.  My phrase for this event was “Let me know if you have questions.  These are all digitally printed fabrics from manipulated photographs.”   Most people would pause for a second (as they made sense of all of those technical sounding words that I just said) and then I would get a big smile and they would say “Oh, that’s really cool!” or “Wow, I’ve never heard of that.”  I had a lot of really great conversations that started just that way.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 5.37.48 PM2.  Cute outfits always include comfortable shoes.

There is just nothing like the 10th hour on your feet in inappropriate shoes.  Danskos will save your life.  Cute dress, tights, danskos, cardigan sweater.  That’s my uniform.  Pockets are also really necessary.  Also, dress in layers.  If it’s crowded in the venue, it can get steamy.  Or they will crank up the AC to combat the steaminess and you will be freezing.  Or you’ll end up by the door where there is a draft.

3.  Eat lunch in 2 dozen 2 bite segments.

Almonds, cheese and apple slices are my very favorite show lunch.  You can eat two bites between conversations, and your fingers don’t get messy.  Sometimes you are lucky and you can step away for a few minutes and sometimes you just can’t.

4.  You will get sick the week after it is done.

I shook about eleventy-thousand hands and I was already stressed and a little sleep deprived from getting everything ready.  It was inevitable.  I should remember to schedule nothing the week after because that’s exactly what is going to get done:  nothing.

5.  You will have another deadline.

The week I was getting ready for this show (the biggest one I have ever done!) was also the week that the final edit of the manuscript for my book was due.  Yup.  Two deadlines right on top of each other and by the time I realized that they were all going to happen on the same week there was nothing I could do but hang on for the ride.  The universe will sense all of that great creative energy and will throw things at you like crazy.  The best strategy is to just admit that you are insane and not let the stress get to you.  I let some things go, I wrote some emails and apologized for having to delay a few others and I tried to enjoy what I could – these were really GOOD things happening that were making me stressed.

Screen shot 2011-05-10 at 4.57.39 PM6.  Make sure everything has wheels.

A friend reminded me of this one.  You always have to move things and walk farther than you expect.  Rolling suitcases are the greatest invention ever.

7.  Keep smiling.

To quote my friend Donna: Even when your feet hurt and you need to pee, find a genuine smile and share it with everyone — especially your fellow exhibitors. Repeat to yourself silently, “I’m so happy to be here!” That mantra can charge the atmosphere around you with positive energy.

8. Someone will say something insulting.

I like to be positive and try to think that people aren’t trying to say something negative about my work on purpose or with a mean spirit, but there is always someone that says something that makes your heart sink and sometimes your mouth hang open.  The most common comment is “They want how much?  I could make that for way cheaper.” Those are pretty easy to ignore.  I have been guilty of thinking that one too. But sometimes, they are over the top.  For example, at one event I had someone tell me how gorgeous a piece of mine was and then when I explained the process, she told me it was cheating that I printed it digitally and it wasn’t real art like dyers do.  (Yes, she said this to my face.)  I have decided that the best way to handle these is to take a breath and change the subject.  “There are a lot of new technologies out there for making art.  Have you seen the laser cut wood down the way?  I love what he is doing with…”  or “Oh, do you like dyed pieces? There is an artist doing that over that way…”

photo 59.  Bring hot tea.  Bring Advil.

After standing and chatting with people all day long, my throat is always scratchy and my voice gravelly.  I have a thermos that will keep tea hot for hours and it is like a magic elixir after Hour 7 of small talk.

10.  Make friends with your neighbors.

You are going to be in each other’s way all day. Space is usually at a premium at these events, which means you are 2 inches from someone else’s art and you are both trying to hide your water bottle in the dark corner between your booths.  At one show I didn’t have room for a mirror due to some shared space logistics and the across-the-aisle artist noticed and moved hers so that people could turn around in my space and look at the mirror in hers.  It was incredibly generous of her and made my day 100 times better.  I’ve shared shopping bags, change, and sharpies; held tired babies; made group coffee runs; and learned some really cool stuff from other artists listening to them talk about their work.

20 January, 2016

Just announced: Etsy Seller Advisory Board Includes… me!

2016-01-19T21:31:38-06:00An Artist's Life|2 Comments

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From Etsy’s website Tuesday:

In October, we launched a variety of new community initiatives to build upon the existing channels that foster conversation between Etsy and our global community. At that time, we also began accepting applications for the Seller Advisory Board with the goal of bringing together a group of sellers to provide input about the challenges you face as small business owners and play a key role in shaping the way future decisions are made.

Since then, we received more than 600 thoughtful and inspiring applications, which a team of Etsy Admin reviewed over the course of several weeks. Now, we are excited to report that we have selected 15 sellers to be a part of the 2016 Seller Advisory Board. We selected these sellers based on their commitment to the Etsy community as a whole and the valuable perspectives they provide as small business owners. They will work closely with us throughout the year to gather feedback from the community and provide insight on how we can help sellers succeed. They will also work to gather feedback from more than 200 sellers who were invited to join subcommittees of the Seller Advisory Board.  Read more…

I am thrilled to pieces to be a part of this board and I am so excited that I will be traveling to NYC for a board meeting very soon.  I only know a tiny bit about the rest of the board members; we have been connecting with each other on Instagram and Twitter all day.  I am the “oldest” seller in the group, I think; not age-wise (although that is possible too) but in that I have had my shop since 2005.  I was really passionate in my application about the fact that I don’t want to be a wholesaler/manufacturer and “quit my day job” but that I consider my Etsy shop to be one of the components of my artistic livelihood and that I like having a small niche shop.

 

10 December, 2015

I might be coming to a city near you.

2015-12-09T18:50:03-06:00An Artist's Life, UpcomingClasses|1 Comment

RahnBatikProcessBIG News.

I have been invited to teach at some pretty awesome new places in 2016.  I am so excited about these. If you know anyone who is close to these places and might be interested in the classes, please share this with them!
April
I am teaching at 3-day Master Class at Spoonflower in Durham, NC.  A crash course in Adobe Illustrator and more.

May
I am the keynote speaker at the University Days event at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts in Cedarberg, WI.

June
I will be at Arrowmont in Gatlinberg, TN teaching a 5 day class in digital fabric design.

July
I am teaching five seminars & workshops for the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence conference in Milwaukee, WI.

 

I am also working on a possibility of being in Atlanta later in the year.  How cool is that?

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