Lisa Call

Home #59
©2010 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed and painted by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
$40 + shipping
Purchase Here

Studio

Today has been a fabulous studio day, designing 2 new large textile paintings in my Structures series (these will be #113 and #114). They feel like the first step forward in this series in a while so it was very exciting.

I can’t show images of them as I might enter them into Quilt National (a big juried art quilt show) and they have a zillion rules about pre-publication of the artwork. It’s easier to just not show the artwork than to read and understand the rules.

Last week I made a few new black and white mini textile paintings with my hand stamped and painted fabric to include in my July studio newsletter. The above piece is one of them. I’ve got some wonderful ideas on where to take these black and white pieces in the future.

In fact I have a zillion ideas of directions to go, my brain is over flowing with inspiration. Making art kinda does this – it inspires more art.

Newsletter

As I mentioned, I emailed my July studio newsletter yesterday. It was a lot of fun to write and pull together.

The topic of my essay was transition – as there is a lot of that at my house these days with my son heading off to college any minute now (although please please, can he finish cleaning his room before he goes).

If you aren’t a subscriber you can view it online here: Lisa Call’s July Studio Newsletter.

If you want to subscribe go here.

Color Improvisations Catalog

The first 10 catalogs from Color Improvisations arrived from Germany this week and I’ve packaged them up and will take them to the post office on monday. I’ve sold 40 catalogs this week and of this writing there are only 10 remaining for sale.

This could be the end of them. It’s a lot of work to track the orders and pack them up. It’s been a labor of love to share this beautiful art with everyone. If there is still a huge demand after these last 10 are gone, I might reconsider. Or not – I want to make art!

Anyway, if you don’t have one yet but want one – the webpage to order is here: Color Improvisation Catalogs

A few images of the packaging event earlier today:

The catalogs. The colors of the books aren’t exactly in this photo (the orange is the most off on my screen) – but it gives you an idea. The hardcover book is 10″x10″.

 

The boxes. I spent some time investigating how best to package the books so they were 1) cheap to mail and 2) wouldn’t get ruined in the process. In the end boxes were the best option – they cost a bit more but I think the books will survive their travels through the US mail better this way. I order 50 boxes from uline and they arrived in just 2 days. With shipping I think they cost around $1 each.

 

The packaging. I’m reusing bubble wrap from my past. Good thing I’m a packrat and never through this stuff out. I am likely to run out so I will put an email in at work tomorrow and hope some coworkers have some in their basement they want to share. Plan B is the use all those plastic grocery bags in my closet. They make for good cheap packaging all crinkled up.

Home #55
©2010 Lisa Call
6″ x 6″
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
Mounted on stretched canvas
$190 + shipping

Purchase Home #55 with a single payment:

Purchase Home #55 with 3 monthly payments of $64 each

New Art

I’m excited about Home #55 above, as in addition to sporting my newly rediscovered old hand painted fabrics, I did some free motion quilting on the textile painting. Something I haven’t done in years.

The free motion quilting I’ve done is called stipple quilting. You can’t see it in the photo above as it’s black thread on black (in the background) and the light in my studio isn’t very good in the evening for photos – so I’ll add a detail shot to my blog tomorrow when I have better light.

Stipple quilting is an organic line that meanders about the space, never crossing itself. I felt the organic quilt line in the back ground would compliment the print in the fabric nicely and it does look great.

What fun to revisit old techniques I haven’t used in years.

And chartreuse with black and white. What could be better than that?

I just finished this little piece and I also just finished quilting Dream #40 (photo of completed textile painting coming soon) so now it’s back to Structures #112 in the studio tomorrow.

Landscaping

Today I met with the landscape architect and we talk about a final revision I want in the plan. With this change (well – depending on what he does to the drawing) I think it will finally feel right.

I’m looking forward to moving on to phase 2 of this project – ie actually doing the work. Can you imagine? Getting to go outside of your house and sit down and enjoy the outdoors.

I’ve felt fairly trapped in my house because I have no landscaping. It’s not bad in the winter but during the summer it drives me a bit mad.

It’s help that this year I’m running – so I’m outside more. But I do need to get out and hike to enjoy more of the glorious Colorado summer. Maybe this weekend.

Home #54
©2010 Lisa Call
8″ x 8″
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
Mounted on stretched canvas
Purchase Here

Hand Painted Fabrics

In 1998 I took a class from Natasha Kempers-Cullen to learn her techniques for painting and printing with Profab textile paints.

For a few years after the class, I spent hours and hours painting, stamping and eventually screen printing fabric with these textile paints. It was incredibly fun and the paints are non-toxic so I enjoyed this activity with my kids.

Our process evolved from that which Natasha taught, mostly in the direction of being very messy as I had a 4 year old helping out.

It was great fun.

It is also a very slow process, so I never did produce very much fabric. I eventually turned to dyeing vs. painting and this era of my surface design came to an end.

Black and White

Last night I was perusing the internet looking at art on blogs and came across some black and white artwork.

I thought now that I’ve completed my purple and orange exercise, it was time to make a black and white Home textile painting.

Solid black and white wasn’t calling to me so in the back of my mind I recalled I might have painted some black and white fabrics. And sure enough – I did:

It’s not much, probably about 1/2 yard total at most, but enough to make a few small textile paintings.

Home #54

So off to my studio I went. Last night and this morning I created the above quilt.

It was fun to use heavily patterned fabrics in my artwork and definitely new, as I’ve used exclusively solids for nearly 10 years now.

The pattern inside the house is from a rubber stamp I made. I never did know what I’d do with it but it makes for a lovely house.

I’m looking forward to make a few more of these before the fabric runs out.

Checking In

I haven’t written lately about how things are going as I move passed the depression I was dealing with a few months back.

I’m still going to acupuncture once a week. This week I didn’t have the familiar “glad I’m here as it’s time” feelings, which I consider big progress. I think I have definitely turned a corner the last few weeks and probably will start cutting down on the acuputure.

Not that I don’t’ love it but I still am not best friends with the needles.

I had a cold 4 weeks ago and just today I finally stopped coughing enough that I felt I could get back to running.

I had just reached a point in June, after 2 really good weeks of running, that I wasn’t struggling with the idea of booting myself out the door to run.

I figure the cold was just the universe’s way to test me – did I really want to do this? The answer is yes. The physical exertion is good for me. So I tied on my shoes this morning and hit the pavement.

Feels great to feel like me again.

Home #53
©2010 Lisa Call
6″ x 6″
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
Mounted on stretched canvas
Purchase Here

Completion Quest

I’ve decided I have too many incomplete projects. Time to clear some up. So I’m on a completion quest – which you can read about in my new post over on my other blog makebigart .

The article is here: A Quest for Completion.

What to join me?

New Art

Above is some brand new art, hot off the iron/sewing machine/cutting table today.

I mentioned in my last studio newsletter that I was going to making some 8″, 6″ and 4″ Home textile paintings. This is the first.

A few days ago on twitter Nemo (I featured his art in my last newsletter – see the above link for more details) asked for someone to name 3 colors.

I suggested purple, lavender and yellowish-orange. He went with green.

So I went to my studio and made Home #53 with those colors.

Speaking of completion, clearly I’m not done making artwork in the Home series – I’m still very much enjoying the process. I’m still thinking about my home, especially with the landscape project in progress.

The outside of the house weighs into the same questions about What makes a house a home?

Misc Notes

My inspiration journal is going well and I have a custom URL for it: inspiration.lisacall.com . You can subscribe in an rss reader if you use one, or you can “like” my facebook art page as the images appear there also.

The first photos from Color Improvisations, which opened last weekend in Germany, are posted. Check them out here. The show looks fabulous and I feel like I’m about the only artist participating that didn’t show up for the opening. Bummer. Looks like a great party. Next time!

Details are still being worked out on how one can purchase a catalog from the show. I hear it is amazing – can’t wait to get mine.

A Blank Canvas

Now that the studio is finished I got to spend today creating art. Although before I could begin I had much preparation to do.

The art I’m going to be creating over the next 7 weeks is for a solo show in Boulder that opens in mid February. I’ve shown in this space twice before so I know it well and know exactly the work I will make for the exhibit.

Usually when I create the artwork tells me what size it needs to be. This is a lovely feature of not working with a canvas. But it can also be a liability when I am facing a deadline as I like to work BIG and I don’t have time to complete a lot of huge quilts.

Being aware that 7 weeks isn’t much time to create an entire exhibits worth of art, this time around I’ve prederminded the sizes I will make so they fit the gallery and my time budget.

Since I have huge white walls the first step in preparation is to mark off the sizes I am working with. My plan is 9 larger pieces, the first 5 fit on my design walls and are marked off below.

[They might be a bit hard to see and if so - apologies for the big white photos. But in each of these there is some very light colored yarn marking off the spaces to fill.]

The largest – 3′x8′ (this is on the design wall I just put up – woohoo!):

Two 4′x4′ square:

Two 3′x3′ square:

Once these 5 are completed I’ll design the remaining four 3′x4′ pieces.

Equipment Prep

Next up I needed to get the sewing machine ready. I wound a bunch of bobbins (the thread that goes in the bottom of the sewing machine).

And cleaned and oiled the bobbin case and put in a new needle. Now it’s all ready to go.

Home #10

And here is the start – Home #10 will be the 3′x8′ piece. This is likely all you will see of it before my show opens so the work is all brand new. Or maybe I’ll post a few in progress photos. We’ll see…

It’s yellow, purple and brown and turning out way cool (it’s much further along now). I’m most pleased.

The Plan

I have about 260ish hours of studio time needed to complete the work for the show (more show details later). I have 7 weeks in which to do this. So, well, I’m going to be busy over the next few weeks as I think I’ve got to continue on with the day job also.

I’ll post updates 2-3 times a week so stay tuned. And coming up soon will be my year in review and my work fro 2010 and the coming decade. I love writing those posts.

And while I’ve said my studio is complete I still need to fix this one small detail. The builder had to redo some texture – back in April or May and the wall has looked like this ever since. I need to hunt through my 20 paint colors and get this fixed cause I’m really tired of looking at it this way! Maybe I’ll go do that right now…

Home #2
©2008 Lisa Call
10" x 9"
Textile Painting – Fabric handdyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread
Private Collection

The Title and Theme

I announced a few months back that I have another solo show coming up at the Macky in Boulder on the University Campus. I’ve been contemplating what the theme for this show might be and this morning it was obvious that it is to be based on my Home series.

So much of my life this year has been around houses and homes and transformations and it all just fell into place as I transitioned from sleep to wakefullness this morning.

• My recent move and house remodel
• My trip to South Africa and experiencing their houses and homes
• My mom’s upcoming transition in her living situation
• My friends’ stories of their view of house and home

.. all this and more will inform the exhibit.

The title will be What Makes a House a Home?

Action

It feels great to have settle on the theme, next up is to work out how much artwork I need to produce. The sizes, numbers, etc. And then the simple task to make an entire exhibits’ worth of work over the next 4 months.

But first I’ll complete my South African Impressions work. I have papers full of designs (a rare thing for me but I found myself a bit stuck and needed to sketch out my ideas before picking up fabric and scissors) and next weekend I’ll get to work with the fabric.

For the next week I have house guests (and so my daughter is living in my studio – and loving it just a bit too much) and early next week I will be traveling to Kansas to bring my mom back to live near me. Another decision reached.

I’m excited to have her close by and to help her adjust to her new life in Denver, it’s going to be a fabulous time for all of us.

Housing in Soweto

Yesterday I mentioned we went through Soweto and the only photo I took was of the shantytown. While a large population does live in these conditions the majority of that area is houses. Most are smaller houses with 4 rooms but there are also very wealthy areas with homes costing over a million Rand.

There are also some smaller multi family homes called elephant houses that were very interesting and usually quite beautiful. On each end was a 2 room living space and in the center is a 3 room apartment. Most often each of the 3 families painted their section of the house a different color, resulting in some beautiful homes. I haven’t seen these anywhere except in Soweto so far. (Here’s someone else’s photo)

There are also buildings that look very much like condos in the US (although much more interesting colors) and single gender hostels (long desolate buildings with single rooms that aren’t as inviting and often without electricity – a photo).

Housing Shortage

Our local tour guide gave an interesting talk about the housing situation in South Africa and the gist of the situation is they cannot build them fast enough. They have programs to give government homes to those that have no income and prorated mortgages for others. There are just not enough houses as of yet.

Since the first democratic election in 1994 the government has build over 2 million homes but they estimate an addition 5 – 7 million backlog. They have large numbers of immigrants from neighboring countries that adds to the housing crisis.

Houses

I find the 4 room houses interesting. I love the simple lines and have taken a zillion photos of them – mostly from the bus as it goes down the highway so they aren’t the best quality.

I suspect I’ll be taking many more house photos as the weeks go by and occasionally I’ll post a group of photos of them.

Page From My Sketchbook Used to Track Studio Time (click to see larger image)

Tracking Studio Time

I wasn’t planning on writing tonight but I want to write this down while I still remember the thoughts I had today thinking about the post I wrote last night and some of the comments that were left.

I mentioned several times on my blog that I track my studio time. The posts I wrote early in 2008 ( This One and Another One ) are very interesting reads.

These posts indicate a change I made in tracking studio time. I went from being very systematic about it, to taking a more laid back approach. It was all part of the search for who I wanted to be.

I’ve since decided that is a bunch of crap-ola. Yep – I’m going back to a definite plan for how much work I want to get down in my studio.

It Didn’t Work

I discovered that trying to take the "Oh, It doesn’t matter, I’m more floaty and creative if I don’t put rules around it" approach to studio time resulted in my getting significantly less done.

In Jan-Mar of 2008, right after I devised that crazy scheme, I did basically nothing in my studio. My kids were in Europe – I was home alone – there were no excuses or distractions. It was simply me being less systematic. As a result I would often say "I’m tired" or "I don’t feel like it" and stuff like "I’ll do it tomorrow".

None of that stuff really results in things getting done. Instead it’s a good way to get nothing done but have a lot of lofty reasons for why I didn’t.

Like "self care is just so much more important than making art". Hm – NOT! Making art is the #1 thing I say I want to spend my time doing. Not avoid doing.

Why Does A System Work?

So I’ve thought a lot about why my old way of doing things, with rules and precise tracking, worked and I think the answer is it is basically the same thing as setting a timer.

There has been tons written about boosting productivity by using a timers (check out these google results). I think my old plan was essentially that. I timed myself.

When I walked into the studio I trained myself to look and the clock. That was it – timer was running. I didn’t stop working until the time was a even increment of 15 minutes. And then I wrote it down.

Because the timer was running I wasn’t tempted to run off and do other stuff, like check email or do my laundry.

When I left my studio the timer was off – I wasn’t racking up minutes. So I’d hurry back to get the timer going again.

I know this sounds kinda crazy but after seeing it in action and reading all the timer and productivity stuff (my favorite person that write about this is Christine Kane) I’m convinced – it really works. And not just for studio stuff. I now use a timer for my writing and planning art business stuff now also.

I have been spending 15 minutes each morning entering addresses into my snail mail mailing list. Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot but over time it adds up and with no big drama effort, I’m going to have the last 18 months of avoiding this task whipped into shape.

Going with No Goals

In my attempt to be more floaty I also gave up setting goals for how many hours I would spend in my studio each week. I decided to just let it happen. As I mentioned – it didn’t.

What happened is the emotional side of me got all excited and it had a field day. Woohoo – we get to run the show and stop her from doing what she wants.

I only made art when I felt like it. Or when I magically had time.

Okay – really – I work full time as a software engineer. I’m a single mom every other week with 2 teenagers constantly wanting stuff. I own my home, have to pay the bills and do all those house things that need done. There is the yard (okay there was the yard – it’s now dirt). Family, friends, quack quack quack.

I don’t have time to put in 20 hours a week in my studio so of course if I give myself an out I’m going to take it. There weren’t any goals so it didn’t matter. No disappointment so why bother doing it.

Thumbs Up To Goals

So forget that no goals thing. I’m now setting my goal to 15 hours a week. I’m making it lower than before because I also plan on doing a lot more art business stuff than I used to.

By setting goals I have something to aim for. I may not always make that goal but by identifying it and writing it down I have a much better chance of making my goal than without writing it down.

By setting goals I am no longer giving the emotional side of me free reign to do what I want. I get scared or worried or anything about what I’m working on. Great – recognize the feelings – but I’m not going to let it stop me from pushing forward.

Eventually those feelings realize they aren’t in control and they get a little less loud.

By setting goals and being systematic I’m significantly more creative and make much more art than when I’m all new-agey. Trying to be like those non-driven people I sometimes think I should be like, who always seem more creative and spontaneous and fun, didn’t work for me at all.

I need structure and systems for my creativity to work.

My Office

Focus

The past few days I have been intently focused on getting moved into my house. Last week I tried to unpack and settle in and also do some art business stuff. The result wasn’t real productive. The old proverb that says something like “If you chase 2 rabbits both will escape” pretty much applied.

When I’d try to sit and do some writing the piles of boxes around me would start distracting me and I’d start to unpack. Then I’d feel guilty for not doing the business stuff so jump back to that. Ack – totally 0 forward progress.

So now I’m just unpacking. That’s enough along with work and kids and all the other stuff I normally do. Few more days and I should be done, which means I’ll be able to take my final ‘after’ photos of the remodel.

The house is 99% done. They have promised to finish up the punch list this week. So soon it will be time for a house warming party. My daughter said she saw that on the Sims but didn’t know people did it in real life. Guess she’s about to experience a computer game in real life.

Art

This weekend I decided it was time to get art on my walls as the furniture was all in place and I’m just about finished with that process. It’s amazing how many hours it takes to sort out an art collection and choose homes for each piece and then fill in the empty spots (admittedly most of the space as my art collection isn’t very large yet) with my own textile paintings. Hours and hours – very fun hours.

I have 2 or 3 more pieces to go up and I’ll be done, for now. One of the last pieces will be Markings #12 but first I have to fix it so I can hang it right side up. Long time readers might recall it hung upside down in my last solo show and it wasn’t until I posted the images on line I figured it out.

In the photo above you can see Markings #15 hanging in my office. Below it are my very cool pencil holders made by Paula McCullough. They are just perfect on that shelf over the desk.

I don’t have local gallery representation yet so my house gets to be my local showcase of art.

Slides

This blog post is a way to avoid the chaos currently surrounding me in my office. I’m in the process of organizing and moving in but I’ve hit the ‘it’s a huge mess in here what should I do next’ part of the process and tired.

The big white bag in the middle of the floor is a trash bag – full of 90% of my slides. Tossing them out. I am keeping 1 slide of each textile painting so I’ve only tossed out the obvious ones and later on I’ll do more sorting. Five of the notebooks on the shelf are slides and I suspect I can get that down to just 1. Then I’ll put it in my basement and not look at it again forever.

I was pretty ruthless when I moved and tossed out and gave away a ton of stuff. I’m being even more picky now and have a big mound of things I will be getting rid of over the next few weeks. One of them is my slide projector and screen. No slides, no need for a projector. Anyone want it? I have a spare bulb and a few extra carousels also.

I have to say, I really prefer this digital world. Keeping track of images and entering shows is much easier for me now. Yay for technology.

Home #9
Textile Painting
©2009
8" x 8"
NFS

The Cabin

My family spent quite a bit of time at our cabin in the mountains of New Mexico when I was growing up. It was up near the pecos wilderness area so we also did quite a bit of backpacking in the area.

I have many many fond memories of the place – no running water, no electricity, a wood burning stove – it was pretty darn cool. Nothing is better than burnt pancakes cook over a fire.

My mom asked if I could make a house textile painting that looked like our cabin with fake redwood log siding and bright green trim. Home #9 is the result of that effort and also her birthday present (sent only a month late – not too bad given the construction).

Happy Birthday mom!