Lisa Call

Ritual

For the last month I’ve done yoga first thing in the morning for 30 minutes. I used to rush through this task only a few times a week and didn’t put much thought into it. Now I have somewhat of a ritual.

A part of this ritual is to open my blackout shades. In the past I didn’t do this to save energy and my bedroom stayed dark year round. It wasn’t a big deal since I’m never there but now I love letting in the light every morning.

I recently signed up for wind power so my home electricity usage is carbon neutral so I feel less guilty about the few dollars it costs each month because the shades are open. I love how open and light the room feels now. Tossing a lot of junk that was in there probably helped also.

Sunrise

This morning when I opened the shades it was very gray and my initial thought was it was going to be a pretty drab day. But turns out it was earlier than I thought and the sun wasn’t up yet. A few minutes into the yoga I saw a hint of pink and next thing I knew the entire sky was incredible.

Near the end I hunted down the camera and took a few pictures.

Although don’t let the pictures fool you - like all suburbanites my neighbors are not far away - I just pointed the camera up and cropped a bit. The uncropped photos are on smugmug (hurray - I processed the photos right away as I intended for this year!).

A Mess of Images

In early 2005 I bought my first ever digital camera, an SLR Nikon D-70. I love the camera and it takes amazing photos. Over the past 3 years those photos keep multiplying and they have become rather unruly and unorganized.

I’m currently in the process of decluttering my house and life and cleaning up these images is on the list of jobs to tackle. It’s a big job.

First step was to figure out what to do with them. I want to share them, I want to print them, I want to organize them. And most of all - I don’t want them to be a hassle. [note - I’m not talking about the images I have of my artwork - that’s a whole other mess - but photos of everything else].

An Effortless Solution

Instead of researching and hunting around for the perfect solution I decided to take advantage of someone else’s research (my dad’s) and I’m putting my photos on SmugMug. It’s not free but it’s only $40 a year, a small price to pay for storage of all of my images. And because there is a fee there are no ads. It’s a really nicely designed site and so far I’m quite pleased with it.

I’m doing a weekly upload to smugmug and by the end of the year I will have everything organized and sorted out. Along the way I am sharing the pictures with the folks I promised I’d share them with (sometimes years ago). Yay! As I take new photos I am uploading them in a timely manner.

After putting the images on the website I am deleting the images from my computer. SmugMug keeps 4 backup copies of the files in 3 different states. I can’t come close to that kind of redundancy without a lot of effort. I get unlimited storage/bandwidth and I can print the images from the site (as can the people I share them with).

Definitely hassle free.

I love the idea of deleting them from my computer. I’m throwing away all my negatives from my print pictures also. It’s so freeing to get rid of this stuff I will never do anything with.

I’m going to be printing some of them, family ones for albums, inspiration ones to put on my wall and be inspired by. I’ve rarely (as in maybe once) printed my digital images in the last 3 years so this is a new exciting thing for me. Okay - I admit - learning technology sometimes prevents me from doing things - printing digital pictures was hurting my head - but no more! Yes I’m a software engineer and hand code the html for my website but I don’t know how to text message on my cell phone.

SmugMug Details

You can check out my smugmug site. I’ve got some public galleries in the inspiration category (some photos from Arizona and from North Carolina) and a few images from a show out in Arizona last year.

If you want the marketing stuff about SmugMug it is here. If you want to sign up you get a $5 discount if you have a coupon from a referral - you can put in my email address or use this code ZnhmaNpn2n1mk . Not required but $5 is nice. I get $10 off on my next renewal if someone does this so that’s also nice.

Above Image

The photo at the top is a close up section of one of the pictures I have on smugmug - it’s an aloe plant damaged by frost.

I’m so happy!

 
The road to the Bend of Ivy Lodge, where I attended the Great Big Dreams Retreat last weekend, makes a slight curve to go around this old barn. I love these old barns and had to stop and take pictures on my way home. What lines and shapes! Incredible.
 
 

 
This is the front side of the same barn. What a beautiful design.
 
 

 
This barn was on the same road but I couldn’t find a safe (close) place to park my car so took pictures from the road. I suppose this could be a self portrait in the sideview mirror.
 
 

 
My apologies to those of you reading my blog posts from feedblitz. I know the images no longer show up for some people after I turned on hotlink protection. I am able to see the images fine from feedblitz using thunderbird.

Could those of you that can’t see the images leave a comment or send me email with the name of the email program you are using? Could be the web based email readers are the problem and if so I can probably do something to fix that.

 
I’ve mentioned a few times that my structures series was inspired by a picture of my dad’s fence taken back in 2000. This it that image - I was hunting through my pictures recently looking for something else and came across it.

The motif in the Structures series is an E shape based on the top prongs of this fence. The fence is about boundaries - both physical but also emotional. Fences keep us safe. They keep others out. They define us and hide us. I doubt I’ll ever get tired of exploring both their physical properties and their emotional impact.

 
I took the above pictures in Ohio in May at sunrise.

I love this barn. Lines, shapes, history, colors.

 
I’m happy to report I got my work photographed, images processed and my entry form for the juried show ready to mail as I set for my goal for today. Now I’m off to my studio for an hour. It’s been a productive but relaxed day. Very nice.

Chairs #16: Canyon Layers - Tonto Platform
©2003    6.5" x 6.5"
Private Collection

Chairs #17: Canyon Layers - Red Wall
©2003    6.5" x 6.5"
Private Collection

 
The last 2 evenings have been a bit frustrating for me as I’ve worked long hours trying to write my first studio newsletter. I can sit down and write out a blog post in just a few minutes but for some reason the text for the newsletter isn’t flowing as easily. I’ve clearly psyched myself out thinking it needs to be different or perfect.

Instead of writing the text I’ve been tweaking the formatting. Email applications like outlook, eudora and thunderbird aren’t browsers but they have to act as one when an html formated email arrives. Then there are the browser based email applications such as gmail and yahoo. They strip out all of the header information in such emails. All styles have to be inline and css positioning doesn’t work well, so lots of nested tables and repeated style tags making the source file hard to read.

Basically it’s a bit of a pain to get things to look good in an email and one can spend hours and hours perfecting the layout so it works in all browsers, email programs, etc. Normal people would use a template or software program and not worry about this, being a software engineer I hand code all of my html and css, which clearly at times is a very big liability.

While that was maybe a bit technical the point is I’m wasting my time and getting sidetracked by technology (something I find very easy) instead of concentrating on the content of my newsletter.

Solution - tonight I’m going to just work in my studio and forget the newsletter. After a day or 2 break I’m hoping I’ll find the right focus again.

 
I realized when I posted the series of Grand Canyon quilts last month I forgot the 2 small studies that I made during that period. The two pieces above could easily be in my Structures series but back in 2003 they ended up falling into my Chairs series, which I will post more about someday.

Chairs #16 is in a private collection, traded for a wonderful piece by another textile artist, but Chairs #17: Canyon Layers - Red Wall is available for purchase for $75.00. is sold.

These two pieces were some of my very first pieces working with thin lines. The start of something I still haven’t tired of 4 years later.

Structures #23    © 2003    34″ x 28″

 
This is the last of the five Structures quilts in my Grand Canyon grouping. More of my brick shapes from this period in the Grand Canyon colors I dyed. This time outlined in black for the lowest layer of the canyon, the vishnu complex made of schist, gneiss, and granite.

The last morning in the canyon I woke up very early and hiked out to an overlook on the tonto platform to watch the sunset. The weather didn’t cooperate so I didn’t get to watch the colors return to the canyon in a glorious blaze. In fact as I recall it was amazingly window and a bit unpleasant, but in my mind this quilt reminds me of that morning. I’m not really sure why.

Structures #22    © 2003    32" x 50"

 
Watching the sun set across the Grand Canyon is wonderful. As the sun moves across the canyon the colors and shadows change on the rock walls.

I could sit and watch every day as each one is different.

Structures #17    © 2003    31" x 77"

 
Another Grand Canyon inspired piece. This is the most personal of the quilts. In the background are the Grand Canyon layers and colors. In the foreground the dark and light figures - the dichotomy of good and evil. While the trip was the most amazing experience it was also a challenging personal experience with some unpleasant interactions with the men in the group. I can’t remember many details of the stress but I well remember the magic of the canyon. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive.

I haven’t spent time hiking in the past couple of years and I think I’m really missing it. I need to resolve to get back into shape and get back in the mountains and canyons.

 
As I’m looking at these older pieces I’m reminded how much I really enjoyed making these brick wall type shapes. Each piece was cut by hand and sewn together so it’s a rather time consuming process but I love the results. I have thought recently of doing some work similar to these but every time I face an empty design wall my thin lines appear instead. Maybe in time I’ll circle back, or maybe not and I’ll just keep moving forward. Either way I don’t ever seem to run out of ideas I want to try.

Structures #16    © 2003    48" x 35"

Another piece informed by my backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. Although the title of this piece is the usual Structures #something I always think of this quilt as simply "layers".

One of the things people that visit the Grand Canyon like to discuss and study are the types and ages of the different rock layers that make up the canyon. The hike down into the canyon is a trip through history through some very ancient stones. Each layer has distinct properties and how these layers shift throughout the canyon is interesting geology.

This website has a brief introduction into the different layers of the canyon. This page shows the layers in order. The guys on my backpacking trip spent a lot of time determining who knew the most about these rocks.

Coconino Sandstone, the Kaibab, Vishnu Schist, the Tonto Platform: these are all terms I heard over and over again.

When I came home I dyed a batch of new fabric in the colors my mind remembered the canyon and made a group of pieces to capture my experience.

The above quilt is all about these layers, and it apparently bears no resemblance to reality. I showed this completed quilt to one of the guys that went on the trip with me and he pointed out I got the layers not only in the wrong order, the wrong size but even the wrong colors. When I tried to explain that it was the concept of the layers that I was looking to capture and not the real layers he was not impressed. Abstraction is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

I realize yesterday’s and tonight’s post are quite a departure from my recent pondering about the direction I want to take my art career. Selling, markets, goals, etc.

I have a zillion ideas swimming around in my head. All of your comments were incredibly helpful, so thank you all. There were some specific comments and questions that I want to respond to but I need some more time to think. So I’m taking a breather and posting what I call my "grand canyon quilts" this week while I try to clarify my thoughts further.