Lisa Call

Dream #48 (informed by Dream #41)
©2010 Lisa Call
2.5" x 3.5"
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
$40 + shipping

Creating

I’ve been sticking with my goal of 1 hour (or more) in my studio each evening.

I’m working on piecing Structures #112 and adding more surface texture with quilting Dream #40.

While I’m not up to my old levels of 20 hours of studio time a week, I’m excited about being back and motivated to keep creating.

Writing

I’m also keeping up with my writing. In addition to my daily blog post here, yesterday I wrote and emailed my June Studio newsletter. I missed April and May so it was a wonderful accomplishment to succeed with June.

If you aren’t a subscriber, you can read the newsletter online here: Lisa Call’s June Studio Newsletter.

I’ve written in more detail about lowering my prices, showed Dream #41 after it’s makeover, have 6 new mini textile paintings available (like the one above), introduce the artwork of Nemo and you won’t want to miss the photo of me upside down doing yoga 7 months pregnant taken in 1992.

 
I also wrote a blog post on makebigart (empowering artists think big about their art, their marketing, and their lives), the article first in quite a while.

It’s about making artistic masterpieces. You can check it out here: Creating Artistic Masterpieces.

Being Inspired

To help keep me inspired, I’ve started a new online adventure: Lisa Call: Inspiration.

It’s an “inspiration journal”. The idea is to recognize something daily, or at least several times a week, that inspires me, and to share it with the world.

By focusing on what I find inspirational, I am sure that means more things that I love will come my way.

Same idea as behind a gratitude journal, but here the focus is inspiration.

What inspires you?

[Technical note - I'm using posterous for this adventure because it is super easy to update - an email or a text message works great. And setting it up took mere minutes. I'm going to hooking up a custom URL to my posterous blog soon and I'll post that when it's ready.]

Forth of July

We’re coming up on a 3 day weekend here in the US and I am planning on taking 3 days to relax and enjoy my time off work.

I may or may not work in my studio. I’m not making a single to-do list and will just do whatever I feel like it. Maybe I’ll create. Maybe I’ll write. Or maybe I’ll just eat a lot of ice cream.

Part of staying motivated is taking a break every once in a while.

Cradle of Humankind

Today was a trip through a rhino and lion reserve to the Cradle of Humankind – one of eight World Heritage sites in South Africa.

The Cradle of Humankind Site comprises a strip of a dozen dolomitic limestone caves containing the fossilized remains of ancient forms of animals, plants and most importantly, hominids.

At least seven of the twelve sites have yielded hominid remains. In fact, together these cave sites have produced over 850 hominid fossil remains, so that to date they represent one of the world’s richest concentrations of fossil hominid bearing sites.The scientific value of this area lies in the fact that these sites provide us with a window into the past, to a time when our earliest ancestors were evolving and changing. Scientists have long accepted that all humans had their origins in Africa.

 
We received a private tour by one of the archaeologist around the above photographed dig site. Very interesting stuff for sure.

Animals

As we had to pass through a game reserve to get to the dig site we got to see some animals also the way.

Rhinos and Warthogs

Cape Town Zebras

Zebra, Sable Antelope, Ostrich and maybe something else

Landscape

I love the grass prairie in this area, which they of course do not call a prairie but something else – probably something with the word “veld” (for felt) in it. Either way the landscape is beautiful and definitely inspiration for my South African Impressions art project.

Travels

I take a lot of photos out of the bus windows as we travel down the road. Hundreds of them. When I get home and have a proper computer to work on I’ll be sorting through them all and putting all of my photos up on smugmug.

Here’s one of my favorite roadside photos from today’s journey. It’s not perfectly focused as many of these are taken at 100 km/hr but they are okay-ish.

Need a muffler?

The sign says “Mr Exhaust” and the post to the right in front of the white pickup are all the mufflers.
 

Constitution Hill

On Monday, the arts and crafts tour of South Africa started out in Johannesburg with some history. First stop was a tour of Constitution Hill and the new home for the Constitutional Court.

This site was originally a prison with a rather unpleasant past. From the official website:

Constitution Hill is the new home of the Constitutional Court, the protector of our basic rights and freedoms. Constitution Hill is also the site of Johannesburg’s notorious Old Fort Prison Complex, commonly known as Number Four, where thousands of ordinary people were brutally punished before the dawn of democracy in 1994. Many of South Africa’s leading political activists, including Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, were detained here.

It’s quite interesting that they chose this spot for the home of the Constitutional Court. They’ve reused the bricks from one of the old cell blocks for one wall of the court.

With a “those that forget their past are doomed to repeat it” theme. I think it’s really quite brilliant and the architecture ingeniously ties the past to the new future for South Africa.

The tour resulted were some excellent opportunities for photos of walls, the inspiration behind my Structures Series. Looking forward to using these photos in my new African Impressions Project.

Old Prison Wall

Court room wall rebuilt from old bricks as a reminder of what the past held. The opposite side of the room symbolizes the future.

Wall in the courtyard in Number 4.

Newtown Cultural Project

Next stop was an artist’s proof studio in a revitalized area in downtown Joburg called the Newtown Cultural Project.

They relocated to this new location after a fire. Very cool how they’ve used the plates salvaaged from that fire in the stairwell.

Soweto

We spent the afternoon on a bus tour through Soweto, a collection of African townships south west of Johannesburg.

High lights were a traditional African lunch (salad and rice for this vegetarian – they eat a lot of meat in South Africa), a tour of Nelson Mandela’s house, a stop by the Hector Pieterson Memorial and a lengthy drive around the area.

It doesn’t all look like photo above, in fact, most of Soweta is not like this, but I wasn’t taking photos and instead enjoying the experience. Now I want to go back and photograph because the houses were mostly simple but the colors were amazing.

The Bushveld Animals

On Saturday Laetitia and her husband took me to the Bushveld, a sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa, an area with well-grassed plains (ie the Veld or “Felt”) dotted by dense clusters of trees and tall shrubs.

The Bushveld is one of the most mineral-rich regions of the world, which is very cool, and even better (at least for what I wanted to see) this area had a lot of animals also.

We went to Dikhololo, a private resort and game reserve where they have removed the Big Five, ie the animals that might want to eat me – the lion, the African elephant, the Cape Buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros.

Although technically these are the animals that are the hardest to hunt (I suppose they are more likely to trample not munch). Not that one wants to have a pack of wildebeest chasing after them but at least it seems safer as they are smaller.

Either way the point was we could get out of our car and walk around and get close to the animals without a fence between us, which was pretty cool.

We saw around 10 species of animals and I have photos of them all but will only process a few while on my trip.

We saw a group/herd/gathering of 10 giraffes. Really beautiful graceful animals.
 
 

A sable antelope – beautiful creature.

And of course lots of zebras – love love the stripes.

I can’t recall the name of these antelope but they were putting on a demonstration of head butting. It looked rather painful but they were pretty entertaining.

The Bushveld Landscape

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Hartbeespoort Dam

After the animals we checked out the Hartbeespoort Dam area. Beautiful also and also some nice art galleries.

The Weather

It’s winter in Africa at the moment so it’s not hot and humid. On the day we went to this game reserve they were having an unusual cold snap and it was exactly that – cold. Brrr.

But we were very fortunate because it rained much of the day but only when we were in the car. When it was time to get out and walk around it would stop raining.

So I had nice overcast skies for photography but didn’t end up getting wet. Excellent timing for us.

Right as we got home we had some beautiful hail – very very unusually for this part of Africa in winter:

Sunday

Sunday was a relaxing day with Laetitia and then a drive to Johannesburg for the start of the tour. I met up with the group Sunday evening and we are in full group tour mode. I can tell I’m going to have to get a lot of sleep as we have a full itinerary every day.

The History

I’ve taken several art workshops with Nancy Crow so I’ve known about her South African arts and crafts tours for years and have always wanted to go on one. I love the colors of the African landscape (at least in photos) and I love arts and crafts, so this is pretty much the dream tour.

In the fall of 2005 I was at a workshop with Nancy and I told her I wasn’t going to do anymore workshops with her and instead I was going to save up and attend her next African adventure. I had no idea where the money was going to come from but I knew I wanted to do this.

She only does the tours every 3-5 years so I figured I had some time to save up, so I did a bit of calculating and realized that putting back money each month for the trip wouldn’t get me there anytime soon. I still dreamed about going on this trip but saved no money for it.

When I took yet another artist workshop with Nancy in 2007 (never say never) I told her again that I was going to go on the next South African tour and to let me know as soon as she started taking sign ups as the trip sells out in a week.

At that time I had $0 saved up for the vacation with no idea where the money might come from but I didn’t let that bother me, instead I just thought about how awesome it would be to go on the trip.

Making it a Reality

So along comes June of 2008 and I got an email that the sign up page for the African tour had just gone live and did I still want to go? My answer was a resounding positive YES! And, not surprisingly, because I always seem to manifest what I want, I actually had the money to go.

That same week I sold my house and as long time readers might recall, I sold my house for more than I had asked for, a lot more. More than enough to cover a month long trip to Africa. So here I am – just 2 days away from being on a plane to Africa.

Speaking of planes, I hadn’t thought much about the expense of the plane ticket and it turns out I had enough frequent flyer miles to get there for free. Pretty convenient as it turns out tickets to Africa aren’t on the cheap side.

[The story of my amazing house selling experience here: Achieving Success - it's another way cool story about things working out exactly like I wanted them to.]

My Plans

I’ve never been on a group tour before. When I went to New Zealand in 2000 it was with my family and we rented a car and did whatever we wanted on our own schedule, so this will be a new experience for me.

I had originally intended to do a bunch of planning and figure out what I could see and do in the areas where we were going and be “in the know”. I then did a huge home remodel and those plans went out the window.

I’m now on the “don’t worry about it” plan.

I only read the itinerary a few weeks ago and only because I was sitting with the nurse trying to figure out where I was going and what shots I would need. She thought that was pretty funny. I figure the right stuff will happen as it needs to.

I’m flying out a few days before the trip starts and a quilter I met online has offered for me to stay with her family, which is just about as awesome as it could be. The internet is a fabulous place.

I have bought a Dell Netbook so I will be able to send updates and stay in touch (don’t tell the folks at the day job this). I’m not sure how much internet access there will be so I’m not going to try to make plans as to how much blogging I’ll be doing. We’ll just have to wait and see.

My Art

I have no doubt this trip will have a wonderful influence on my artwork. I have a new moelskine sketch book and intend on using it and my camera often to record my adventures.

Most of my planning has been on the art project that will ensue after I return home.

I’ve outlined a new South African art project, which I unveiled in my studio newsletter earlier today. It’s a chance to prepurchase artwork from this project at a fairly significant discount by paying 1/2 up front.

An ACEO is $14 now and $14 in October(ish) when the work is complete. Several folks have already reserved their South African Impressions artwork.

You can read about the details here: South African Impressions

The Photos

I’ve been including photos in my blog post, newsletter and art project page that my dad took in 2006 in Botswana and Zambia. This trip was his final big adventure as he was diagnosed with cancer a few months after his return and passed away the following year.

I love the connection to my dad that I feel in making this journey.

One of the Most Beautiful Spots on Earth

These photos were taken on the road up to Los Alamos, New Mexico on Sunday. Beautiful. I am still so thankful to have grown up in such an enchanted location.

Studio Update

With my upcoming trip to Africa (I leave next wednesday), things are all about packing and preparing at my house these days. I’m getting more excited by the hour – it’s going to be fabulous!

I’m also working on getting my July studio newsletter out the door so look for that in your inbox in the next few days if you are a subscriber. If you aren’t, subscribe here.

I’m also fitting in a bit of time to work on my website after the quarantine of last week. I’ve put most of the functionality back into the sidebar, although the archives are now on a separate page, which you can find in the new sidebar.

I have a ton of stuff to prepare at the day job to be gone for a month so I’ve been putting in long hours there this week also.

I have no idea how long the flight is to Africa, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know, but I’m pretty sure sleep is the activity I have in mind for most that event to recover from all this prep work needed before I go.

Studio Sale Update

News from artfulhome.com – they have decided to put an end to the year round studio sale so at the end of July (July 27th for me) all studio sale work will be coming down.

If there is something you have your eye on in my studio sale page you need to act fast. The next studio sale won’t come around again until december/january.

My View

This is the view out my back window in my studio. I love love my neighbors yard with all the trees. It feels very cottage-y and forest-y and I keep expecting to see Hansel and Gretal or something else fairy tale like.

Yesterday we had really dark storm clouds on the east and the sun was shining from the west creating amazing gorgeous bright lime green leaves against the powerful dark gray.

This is where inspiration comes from – everywhere – including right out the back window.

 
I turned back around to work in the studio and I saw my latest ACEO hanging on the wall waiting to be photographed. The same lime greens and grays.

I love it when life imitates art.
 

ACEO #39
©2009 Lisa Call
3.5" x 2.5"
ACEO – textile painting (hand dyed fabric, batting, thread)
Purchase Here Sold

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

Preparing for the New Year

I’m not sure how it got here so quickly, but it’s December. I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to approach this month for a while and have decided to dedicate it to Joy. Absolute wonderful peace and delight in things that make me happy.

A snippet from my journal this morning:

Hello December, I’m happy to see you. This month is all about joy, peace, happiness. I’m going to have 31 days of delight. Each day my intent and focus will be to appreciate and do joyful things, have joyful thoughts and experiences and be a joyful person.

As I was writing my cat came over and silently sat next to me, her sign for "pick me up and put me in your lap so I can purr". My first moment of joy after declaring my intention for the month.

I will share my experiences with intending joy each day in our typically busy holiday season throughout this month of blogging and hope to hear from my readers about their joyful days also.

Pencil Holders

Driving home watching the beautiful sunset I was excited to see a package by my front door upon my return home. Aha – total delight – my pencil holders from Paula have arrived. I love them – look at the 9 new holders all in a row in the photo. I love it. I love repetition.

Paula – thanks for sharing your art and spreading happiness to this corner of the planet.

Thank You

And next a huge thank you to all of my readers as the pageviews for my blog topped 100,000 for the month for the first time ever. I’d been holding pretty steady around 75K-80K for a while and finally something pushed it over the top. Maybe spammers. Who knows, even if I cut that number in half to account for the noise, I have a lot of readers. Unique visitors are over 22,000 per month and average around 1300-1500 per day. Thanks everyone!

Thank you all for reading and commenting. I love what I learn about myself and my art when writing my blog and then I get more from all of your comments, rethinking my ideas. I fall behind occasionally on comments and I suspect there are questions I said I would answer that I forget about. Sorry about that – if it’s important, just ask again. Just wanted to let you all know every comment is greatly appreciated and my goal is to respond to them all.

New Beginnings

So what’s behind all the joy crap? Well a couple of things. The first is I have signed up for a year of coaching with Christine Kane and I suspect she might have been a baker in a previous life because most of us are are really getting a bonus 13 months, which means it started today.

I plan to get the most out of the upcoming year and I know that change comes from within, not from Christine, she’s just really good at holding me to the things I said I would do and calling out my bullshit. It felt right to dedicate the first month of the coaching to shear delight.

The other motivator is that my relationship with Jim has come to an end. It was time and while I’m sad I’m not surprised. I’ve gotten very clear about what I need and want over the last year and things weren’t working out for either of us. I wish Jim well and trust he will have a joyful life moving forward.

Clearing Out

Over the past few days, inspired by Colin’s rss cleanout, I’ve removed a large number of blogs from my feed reader. I think I was up to 150 or something around there. I was always behind and reading blogs wasn’t an activity it was a diversion.

I’ve got the list down to less than 70 and will probably weed out more as I find the ones I don’t really read. Now reading blogs is an activity – 10-15 minutes a day and I should be caught up. Feels great – it’s decluttering! I’m hoping this leaves me more time to respond to blog comments and look over the blogs my readers are writing.

It felt great to dump all the "you should read this if you are a real artist" type of blogs, like Tyler Green. I tried really really hard to care. I just couldn’t. It always just sounded like gossip and complaining, or it was just boring. Reminder – I am defining my art career, the only MUST DO things are the things I define.

I dumped most of the inspiration type blogs and the marketing type blogs as they started to sound repetitive. I’m really tired of blog posts with lists: 7 ways to have more energy, less hair, more clothes, less time, etc. That format has lost it’s charm on me.

Also, anyone that didn’t publish a full blog post in their feed got removed. Okay – 2 exceptions – but I still prefer you publish full posts. Katherine and I already had this conversation and agreed to disagree, darn. Colin, please, give us the full feed – save us from carpal tunnel having to click to read your thoughts.

Sea Foam Green

Two of the new pieces of art I made over the weekend were sea foam green in nature. Looking at Paula’s pencil holders I can see what inspired me. Not to mention the same color on the mugs I bought from Cynthia. Hm.

Here’s my green:

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

Lines #7 – On Canvas

ACEO #29
©2008
2.5" x 3.5"
Sold

Available for purchase here, along with art that is not green in case that isn’t your thing. I think I had those old pink and green bathroom in my mind when I made these. Or maybe there was never a time when people had pink and green bathrooms. But it sounds good.

My daughter wants a neon orange bathtub. Do they make those?

 
Happy Monday everyone!

Went for a hike in the Mt Evans Wilderness this weekend through a huge grove of Aspen trees. It was magical. I was completely in awe of these amazing trees.

I hope the colors looks okay in these – just calibrated my monitor and I’m thinking I’ll redo it in the morning cause it’s looking a bit weird.

That said – the golden light from the leaves of the aspen trees incredible. Photoshop isn’t believing the sky was as blue as it was and leaves as gold as they were. High on the list of todos for post host remodel – learn to use my camera and photoshop correctly.