Lisa Call

Hand Felted All Wool Pebbles
© 2009 By Chrissie
Printed With Permission from the Artist

Five More Weeks

I sat down with Jim, my general contractor, yesterday and we went over the plan for finishing up the remodel/addition. Five more weeks to go. And pretty much right on schedule even with all of the things I added into the project. Having awesome weather really helped, plus the crew is excellent.

Although I’ve moved into my studio and new bedroom those rooms aren’t yet finished. I spent many hours today washing drywall off the floors as I’ve decided I’ve had enough drywall dust in my life. I’m far from done with this task but it’s good to get started and I think by end of the week I should have it cleaned up (just in time for them to come back and finish the new drywall in the existing side of the house).

I’m also going to start painting colors in my bedroom and office tomorrow and I’ll start moving my stuff into the laundry room cabinets and organizing my kitchen cabinets. (See the latest construction photos here: Feb 4 and 5 and Feb 6).

The Plan

With all the house activity there hasn’t been a lot of art or the business of art going on at my house, which is not okay with me. So extending the discussion from last month, habits, I’ve decided to create a daily plan for the next 5 weeks to keep me on track.

From now until March 13 I will be spending most of my non day job time on the house but I’m also including the following in my daily schedule:

Studio Time:

• M-F: 1 hour – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – first thing in the morning (before turning on the computer)

Art Business Time (not to include email – but making forward progress on other goals):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – immediately after dinner
• Sat-Sun: 2 hours – late afternoon before dinner

Answer Email (I did pretty good keeping up for 1 week but am back to a long inbox):

• M-F: 1/2 hour – 9-9:30pm
• Sat-Sun: 1 hour – after dinner

While it’s tempting to skip the art while I’m in the last bits of hour stuff, I know I’ll be happier if I make time for art. Plan starts tomorrow. Goal is to make 6 out of 7 days for each of these activities and these are minimums – more time on art is always welcome if I’m so moved.

I’ll report in a blog post each sunday how I did for the previous week.

Felted Rocks

The above photo is one of my most recent new art purchases. A saw a link to these amazing felted rocks via twitter and immediately had to buy some from the makeyourpresentsfelt etsy shop. Chrissie custom makes the stones for each customer (how cool is that) and her packaging is amazing.

I collect real rocks and these felted ones are a must have for my collection. They are even better in person then they look in the photo so if you a rock collector I highly recommend them (she’ll relist them in her shop if they are sold when you check – so just check back later – it’s worth the effort).

If you aren’t a rock person check out this really cool bracelet made with felted beads – if I wore jewelry I’d buy it myself. Love the colors and the felted beads are too cool.

Ascending #1(working title)
Textile Painting
©2009
8" x 8" – To be mounted on stretched canvas
In progress

Ascending

The other day I was browsing facebook and came across a note that Martin Puryear had a fan page.

I started looking through photos of his work, which I love, and came across this piece: Ladder for Booker T Washington and it reminded me that I was going to do ladder themed art way back in 2001 but got side tracked by fences (my structures series, which currently is comprised of 111 textile paintings and still growing).

I wrote a note (ie tweet) about this on twitter. Encouraged by a friend who saw the note (thank you Joanie) I headed straight to the studio to get to work.

It’s taken a few more studio sessions to work out the kinks but Ascending #1 (still working on the title) is above. It’s not yet got the surface stitching so the texture, which will soften it a bit, is missing. I’m loving what I see so far. Much to explore in this new series.

Why Ladders?

It feels like the right transition from my Home series,which might be over, or it might not, we’ll see, right now I’ve got ladders on my mind.

This year is about expanding and growing. Ladders are all about moving up. And I’ve certainly looked at plenty the last few months during construction.

Not to mention the original inspiration behind ladders, which was my growing up in Northern New Mexico. I spent many hours at Bandelier National Monument climbing up the ladders to hang out in the caves.

We used to tell the tourists we were native Anisazi – er – make that Ancient Pueblo People – apparently Anasazi is no longer correct according to the Bandelier website:

This outdated term has a Navajo origin and can be roughly translated as "ancient enemies," thus the term is no longer used.

Hm – guess I missed that update.

Anyway, back to ladders, a popular hike in Bandelier is to the ceremonial cave which requires ascending a very large number of ladders to get to it. Or at least I recall it being a large number as I was terrified of heights and of those ladders. Every time we did this hike I’d be stressed about the ladders. So part of the appeal of doing ladder motifs is about courage and doing things anyway, in face of the fear.

Ascending – expanding – courage. That’s what the ladder series will be about.

The Studio is Painted

And speaking of going up – look at my studio! The paint went up today. I’m am dancing with joy over this.

They are scheduled to finish the electrical in there this week (well maybe not lights, they aren’t here yet) and I can move in (without carpet) by the weekend! Yay!! It’ll be another month before I bring in all my studio furniture and really set up but this is the first huge exciting step.

I’m going to do a series of post about building a new studio, I think in the month of march, so I’ll talk about paint colors and all that in more detail later. Everything is white except the stairway wall, which is a pinky/purpley light brown color, which ties the studio into the rest of the house as it’s all open.

It is absolutely beautiful!

Habits in a Construction Zone

Last week I was very disciplined, got a ton of stuff done. This week I’m just going with the flow.

My post about starting the habit of walking, well, out the window that went. It’s 9 degrees here in Denver. Who am I kidding, I’m not starting a new habit in 9 degrees.

I’m still thinking about habits I want to put in place, but when your kitchen moves around your house every month or so, it’s hard to have any sort of habit.

As you can see my latest construction photos – the kitchen is now in the entry way – which used to be my son’s bedroom until 2 days ago. New front door, many walls are gone and the place looks awesome (although maybe not finished): January 27 Construction Photos.

Four Days Remaining

I have been absolutely thrilled with the positive response to my announcement that my prices are going up on February 1st. Thank you to all of you for the positive comments, thoughts and a big huge thank you to those buying my art this month.

There are only a handful of pieces left on my small artworks for sale page. Thank you – it’s so exciting to sell my artwork.

I plan on focusing my effort in the smaller works to pieces mounted on stretched canvas and am not sure I’ll be making these little ACEO’s anymore. I like the look of the little textile pieces mounted on canvas so I might phase these guys out for a consistent look in the smaller sizes.

I still have a few available if you’re interested in owning one of these. [ACEO stands for “art cards, editions and originals”. Originally known as ATC, Artist Trading Card, and are traded between artists. When sold to the public they are referred to as ACEOs. The primary rule for an ACEO or ATC is they be 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ - the size of a trading card. They are created in many different mediums and are collectible, trade able and affordable art for everyone.]

Available ACEOs [Update - they've all been sold] (I’m going for the world’s longest blog post here it feels like):

ACEO #28
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

ACEO #19
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

ACEO #21
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

ACEO #23
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

ACEO #24
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

ACEO #25
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

Lines #7
©2008
4" x 4" – Mounted on stretched canvas
Sold

Exercise and Art

Sitting in front of a sewing machine for 22 hours in 2 days (like I did 2 weekends ago) is pretty taxing on a body, or at least it is on a body that is in it’s 40s. Without exercise I couldn’t pull off marathon weekends like that.

Yoga and walking are my current favored ways of moving my body and keeping my blood flowing. Walking clears my head, adds images to my idea store for future art no matter where I walk – in town or in the mountains. There’s always something to see to be inspired.

Yoga is truly magical and by far my most favorite way to exercise. Stretching, strength, mind body connection and relaxation all in one. Perfect way to prepare for a day of making art.

Daily Habit

These days I haven’t had done much of either of these. My floor is really gritty from the construction and many days there isn’t enough floor space and when the kids are home I wake them up if I do yoga early, or the construction works arrive and the saws aren’t very conducive.

So basically I just make a bunch of excuses and have fallen out of the habit of doing yoga daily. A year ago I went 3 months without missing a single day of yoga, now I’m lucky if I get in a few minutes once a week.

I’m craving the type of life where yoga is again a part of my routine. A perfect morning to me would be to get up at 5:30 for a half hour of yoga then a shower, some journaling, time in the studio, breakfast with the kids and then work (and since we’re talking about perfect that work would not be the software job – it would be the art career). Soon – yes soon.

I know it will be easy to reestablish the yoga routine the minute the builders are out the door. The walking is a bit harder. Sometimes I walk during lunch at work (my favorite is to walk to the nearest playground and swing on the swings). Sometimes I hike on the weekends. Sometimes I walk around my neighborhood and feel a huge appreciation for being able to live exactly where I want to live.

But nothing is habit and I quickly forget and then I stop. There is nothing preventing me from establishing this routine now so starting tomorrow I’m going to make it a higher priority to get out and walk at least 20 minutes, 5 days a week.

By end of february I’ll check in and see if I’ve got a habit forming. Time to add walk to my joes goals profile.

Why Exercise?

In addition to the obvious reasons – the physical ones – I find exercising to be almost vital for my mental health. I’m significantly happier if I’ve been exercising. Yoga and walking aren’t as strenuous as what I used to do but given everything else I’m interested in, it’s enough for now.

After my divorce in 2002 one of the first things I did was lose about 15-20 pounds via the divorce diet, which is really quite miraculous although I don’t recommend it, and by working out at the gym.

Then I started running, and that I believe, is what got me through all the mental stuff of the divorce and the first relationship breakup 1 year later. The negative voices ran circles around my head as I hit the pavement every morning training.

In 2003 I ran a half marathon and around the same time I found a lot of internal peace having worked out all of the crap out there on the sidewalk.

I ran for a while after that but not long, my knees objected and I didn’t have as much time as the art career had really started taking off and the need to get the voices out of my head diminished.

I would love to find the time to start running again, on a much gentler pace, as I think it’s an incredible way to keep myself in balance and happy. It’s such an excellent way to expend any negative energy on something positive.

We’ll see if that happens after the construction is over. It’s not a super high priority but I’ve got it on my list of habits to form if I can find the time.

 
What are you exercise habits? How do you think they affect your art?

Lines #7

Today I finally rephotographed Lines #7 with my better lens. It’s just amazing to me how different the color quality is between the 2. I suppose this might be obvious to a photographer but I’ve got 0 training in that area.

A big thank you to those of you that bought art today as a great investment since my prices are going up on February 1st. I think I have the best blog readers in the world.

Lines #15
©2008
3" x 3" – Mounted on stretched canvas
Sold

Email

I get a lot of email. I think we probably all get a lot of email. I’ve tried a zillion different ways of dealing with it, none of it really working out.

I tried the David Allen method of stuffing it all away in a folder to keep inbox at 0 – yay – that was great – inbox was at zero, folder was full of unanswered email. The illusion of having things under control is pretty useless. Several months back I tossed all those unanswered emails back into my inbox, I’ve still got 20-40 of them left to deal with (like putting off an art consultant that wants a portfolio – crazy – what was/am I thinking?).

I had a huge ah-ha moment the other day realizing that my major problem with email is that I don’t really think it should take anytime at all to deal with. Pretty simple really, I needed to accept email is important and it does take time. Then the answer is obvious – just take the time to deal with it properly and stop resenting it, it’s the life line of my art business.

When I schedule my days I never build in a chunk of time to properly answer my email. I set aside time to make art and run errands and do specific art business tasks like answer interview questions or mail out work that has sold.

Well – duh – email is important – it’s mostly how I communicate with the world – I need to schedule time to answer it. Checking email is not the same as sitting down and answering it.

I know, I’ve read all about scheduling time for email but for some reason the value of doing that never really sank in until about a week ago. I think because I sit at a computer 8 hours a day for my day job I’ve always thought email isn’t something that needed this type of focus. I’ve now changed my mind. The 145 unanswered emails in my inbox, most since the beginning of this year, also convinced me that I need to do something different.

Email Habit

Time to develop much more efficient and useful emails habits. My initial plan is to first clean out the email queue and get my inbox back to 0. I figure this will take most of January. After that my plan is to set aside 30 minutes each morning before to handle art business email and another 30 minutes after work.

I’ll try that out for a few weeks and if it doesn’t work I’ll tweak it and keep trying til I find something that works. Maybe I’ll need to set aside more time a few days a week to deal with the emails with larger requests or that take more time to process.

I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

And big apologies to anyone that sent me email the last 3 or 4 weeks and I’ve not yet answered you. My plan around the beginning of the year for email was to completely ignore it. Which explains the long inbox. Sorry!

Photography

I have recently rephotographed a few of my newer textile paintings as I came to brilliant observation that my 2 lenses are quite different in quality. While the zoom lens is great for taking construction photos the colors are less than impressive. So I must remember to put the nice 50mm lens on the camera before photographing my artwork.

The red in Lines #15 above is much better (although still not 100% accurate – it’s really a bit more towards candy apple red than this version of slightly more orange red). I’ve decided to do the cropping, etc of these little pieces one at a time over the next few days, which conveniently gives me some images for my posts the next few days.

Upcoming Week

If things go as I believe they will, this weekend will be the last of my concentrated studio time for my bedroom studio. I think they are going to rip down the plastic walls and studs that currently comprise my son’s bedroom next week. Which means he will get to move into my bedroom, which will really be his bedroom when we are all done with this process.

That will leave me a bit homeless but not for too long. They are also going to tile my bathroom next week and as long as they put some doors on the house I might move down to my bedroom, even though it still needs trim and carpet and paint.

Or maybe none of this will happen and they will build me a porch instead. Who knows. I try not to worry about it too much.

A Weekend of Art

Although just in case this is my last chance for some serious studio time these are my goals for the weekend:

Saturday
1) 12 hours in studio
2) blog
3) journal
4) yoga
5) walk
6) to bed by 9:30

Sunday
1) 10 hours in studio
2) massage appointment at 3pm
3) blog
4) journal
5) yoga
6) walk
7) to bed by 9:30

A Habit?

This was a week of making decisions from trim to cabinets to roof to lights to tile to countertops to stairrails. Above are some of my choices: the paint chip circled is the color I will paint the outside of my house – with the corresponding roof color. On the right my cabinet colors (cranberry stain on maple wood) and counter tops (a gray formica). These will be in kitchen and bathroom. The tile board is for the tiles for my master bathroom that were ordered today.

It was a busy shopping week so most of my plans for studio time didn’t quite work out.

As this month is devoted to habits, my initial thought about the next few months was that I didn’t want to make a habit of any of this stuff. While its fun and really exciting to build a house and pick out all the colors it’s not something to repeat any time soon. At least for me.

But there is a habit here I want to keep, and that is of being a-okay with the present moment.

There was a morning this week where we had no hot water. I just though "oh well, pilot light blew out again" and went on. Didn’t phase me at all. The builder figured I’d be upset. Well, no, I chose to live in a construction zone, how crazy would it be to be upset that it’s actually a construction site?

Stuff happens. No reason to take it personally.

Aspens #1
Textile Painting with hand stitched texture
©2002
16" x 13"
Private Collection

Sleep

Probably the most important habit I try to keep is sleeping 8 hours a night. I know that when I start slacking off and thinking I can get by with less sleep I really start to feel it. Generally I skip sleep because I think I can get more done if I stay up late. The reality is that the opposite generally results.

When I’m tired my brain stops working as well and I can’t focus on tasks as easily. The result is I am significantly less productive, which for me generally means surfing the internet reading art blogs and playing around on twitter and facebook.

Like right now, I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. Just now I thought, hey I should link to my twitter profile in that sentence. So I opened twitter and had to write a tweet about my son’s musical taste (he’s listening to the Beach Boys of all things) and then I thought I should add twitter to my sidebar so opened my dashboard for wordpress and saw they were doing a survey for features for 2.8. I started doing that when I realized. Wait – I’m writing a blog post.

I can go on like that for hours if I get tired enough. Clearly skipping sleep does not make me more productive nor does it give me more time to get things done. It just give me time to waste doing useless things.

Because I always seem to wake up at 5 or 5:30 and am a morning person, it is really important for me to be in bed by 9:30. So this is the first habit I’m going to concentrate on for 2009. I haven’t sleep super good the last 3 or 3 months and I need to get back into that habit. I think tackling everything else will be a lot easier if I’m well rested.

[hm got sidetracked again, but did get twitter and facebook in my sidebar, and updated my status on facebook while I was at it.]

The Hand Stitch

People have been commenting positively on my posts with the hand stitched work so here’s another one. I wrote a post about Aspens #1 a few years back that includes more information about what inspired the textile painting (a backpacking trip) and it includes a detail shot of the stitching. In this instance I didn’t add a second design over the top of the Aspens but instead echoed the shapes with my stitching.

I love doing hand stitching but it is hard on my hands so can’t do as much as I used to. I haven’t given it up but I haven’t done any in maybe a year. In the past I haven’t devoted much time to it but I really want to get back to it more. I have the idea to do a couple hand stitched Home pieces in the next month as I’m going to get kicked out of my studio soon so construction can progress.

I also have a heavily hand beaded piece that is a few hours away from completion. I’d love to get that done and show it to you all in the next couple of weeks.

But first – it’s time to catch up on some sleep! I’ll catch up on comments tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the positive responses the last couple days.

Joy

I dedicated the month of December to Joy. After the end of my relationship with Jim and the upcoming holidays and the frenzy that can entail I felt it was a good way to keep things in focus and enjoy the festivities instead of feeling overwhelmed by it all.

At the start of the month I posted daily and truly had some joyous things to share. Intentially focusing on and looking for things to be joyful about was a big help in keeping things in perspective. I went through some rough parts towards the center of the month and by focusing on joy and gratitude I was able to move through it.

Towards the end of the month I no longer felt a need to purposely look for the joy as it had returned to my life as a daily fact and had a wonderful Christmas with my kids.

I even managed to write 22 blog posts in 30 days – definitely a record for me. I won’t be looking to keep up this pace of blogging but it was a great way to feel connected this month.

As the year comes to a close I want to again thank all of you for the joy your support and comments bring me. I really appreciate it when you take the time to share your thoughts and just knowing you are there is excellent.

Selvages

What is that wad of stuff on my floor in the photo you might be wondering? Those are the selvages, the edge of the fabric, from 20 yards of fabric that are going into my newest large textile painting. They are are usually a bit funky (tightly woven or fuzzy or full of holes) so best that they go away and I start with a clean cut.

Most of those that work with textiles just pitch these things in the trash. Not me. I keep them and I roll them into tight balls. I’ve got a pile of them somewhere, probably in storage awaiting the studio completion, and I’m thinking some day I will offer the balls for sale – cause they are pretty cool. I love to keep a few in bowls around my house. When I locate them again I’ll take some photos.

Welcoming 2009

In just 2 days we have a new year – wow – I’m so excited! Before I jump ahead too quickly I’m going to devote my post tomorrow to a review of my accomplishments for 2008. I’ve had an amazing year so I expect the list to be long and very joyous.

On January 1, I’ll share a post about my intentions for 2009, I’ve selected my words for the year to help guide me through my daily actions and will share those in that post. Yep, words, after weeks of pondering I was unable to select just a single word and have picked two. Yay! For those of you following me twitter you have a sneak peek as to what they will be.

On January 2, I’ll post some specific goals I’ve set for 2009 and will follow up through out January reviewing some work habits I’m developing to help me stay on task. I’m really looking forward to starting the year as I’ve got some awesome plans.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Recently someone mentioned that they had a theory that when you clean stuff out of your life it creates a vacuum which will then suck stuff back in to fill the empty space.

I think it’s an interesting question as to what happens in our lives when we make some space. Be it time or physical stuff or even emotional crap. Do we just junk up the new space with the same old crap?

It’s certainly our nature to keep doing the same thing we’ve always done. I think if we live unconsciously within a short matter of time we just go back to old patterns and fill up our lives and homes and space with the same stuff.

Changing Habits

In the past 9 months I’ve gotten rid of close to 1/2 of my possessions and I’ve said no to a huge number of things – including some relationships that were not positive for me. I can see the tendency to just do the same thing as before – it’s easy – it’s well known – these are my habits.

I’ve been putting a lot of intention into not doing that. It’s uncomfortable at first – to have all that space – shelves and rooms that aren’t cluttered – spending only quality time with friends that support me – slowing down – cherishing the space.

It’s a big question – what do we do when we decide not to do the habitual thing?

There’s a lot of things that can rattle around in all that space. I’ve found that by just sitting with it and letting it be that I learn to grow comfortable with it. It was a challenge at first and I’m getting better at it each day.

I love my open uncluttered house, life and all the extra time I have. So I’m doing everything I can to stay aware of how wonderful it is so I don’t clutter it up again.

Home Repair Report

My hardwood floors are done. Now I’m having my house painted, inside and out. Moving things off the hardwood floor was a lot of work. Moving everything away from every wall so it can be painted. That’s really big work.

The result is there will unlikely be pictures on my blog over the next few weeks as I’m in the home stretch for getting the house on the market. My goal – June 3rd.