Lisa Call

Lines #4    ©2008    8.5" x 11"

A New Project

The above drawing was made during my day job [looks better if you click the image for a larger view]. Each time we start a new project at work my job description is "Go To Meetings". Lots of talk about what the project is about, how are we going to organize and then all the technical blah blah blah. I listen, take notes, think brilliant thoughts, etc.

And I draw. Mostly lines. I’m really good at drawing lines. I used to draw things but I’m not as good at that and I can’t do that and pay attention at the same time. Drawing lines helps me pay attention, because it ensures I’m awake, which is a key feature of paying attention.

Are You Social?

The current work project is interesting. We are looking at social networking. Hence me finally caving in and going to twitter. We are encouraged to have a social networking presence to understand the space. I think they intend for it to be work related. I have, well, zero interest in that. So facebook and twitter and all that - for me it’s mostly art related.

Twitter has been interesting. Kinda fun. It’s a disjointed conversation but more entertaining than I expected. At some point I’ll figure out how to put my tweets in the sidebar (see that Pam - I said tweets). And more importantly I’ll figure out what the true value of the thing might be.

Be My Friend

Here are a few of my social networking profiles. You are welcome to friend me or follow me or whatever the phrase might be.

Lisa Call on Facebook

Lisa Call on Twitter

Lisa Call on Linkedin

All Over the Place

I have a myspace account but completely ignore it as I’m not a musician nor am I 12 years old. I have some accounts on some ning communities but they haven’t taken off yet either and I don’t really have time for them so we’ll see how that goes.

I have a squidoo lens on art quilts with ideas for a more and now we have google knols (I have the outline for one on textile paintings with no content yet).

One of the things on my todo list (ie I have a user story for it) is to get a handle on my web presence and bring some kind of structure and understanding as to the value of each piece and the effort needed to maintain or enhance that value.

What’s your online presence like? Which pieces bring you the most value?

Markings #14    ©2007    35"x37"

Two weeks ago I posted a list of projects I needed to complete by the Nov 25. My progress to date:

• Complete 6-9 small pieces for the Arvada Center Holiday Art show. Completed!
• Deal with paperwork for several upcoming shows, including preparing some images for catalogs. Completed!
• Buy christmas presents. We had a wonderful Christmas last week.
• Write and review requirement documents for 3 projects. Completed!
• Attend another memorial service for my father next weekend. It was a warm and comforting service with family and friends that knew him growing up.
• Sleep I slept lots over turkey day weekend - what a treat to have 4 days in a row to sleep late, which is making this week particularly brutal when the alarm goes off at 5:30am.

The 2 things I didn’t have to get done got pushed back but now the pressure is on to get these finished.

• Start a blog for the group show I’m curating next spring.I’m about half way done on the initial setup, although no rush since the show isn’t until next April we want to get our group blog up and running fairly soon.
• Make 10 quillows and help my daughter make 10+ pillows. This is painful, my daughter has little interest in this project and we need to have this done by thursday if possible. I’ve got 5 quillows nearly completed. Many many more hours to go.

So my goals for the next few weeks are to complete the above in addition to the following:

• Get back to putting in 20 hours a week in the studio - including this week. This will be a stretch but I’m tired of my life being so out of balance. Time in the studio with out time pressures and deadlines is where I recenter and it is much missed.
• Update my guild.com webpage. I’d like to submit new work as I’ve not had any luck selling the work on there yet. Time to add some new pieces.
• Ship some new small work to Lux Art Center. They shipped back my work I sent a while back, time to send some new pieces that they display in their fiber art classroom.
• Update my website. I have ideas for what to do but have not yet found the time to make it happen.
• Work no more than 40 hours a week at they day job. I put in enough overtime in November to buy me brownie points for a long time to come.

My plan is to wrap all of this up by Dec 11th as that day marks the beginning of a 3 month period that I plan to really focus on my art and my art business and get them into top shape. My kids are going to London and Spain with their dad for 3 months, leaving me with an empty nest. I’m excited for this opportunity for them but I will miss them a great deal, so I will focus on the art to make the experience as positive for me as possible.

 
The above piece I included in a post earlier this month about my Markings series and the image was terrible. I play around with the raw camera image in photoshop for a few minutes and figured out how to fix it . Hurray! Thanks to the commenter that left some tips on things to try to fix things.

Ransom ©1999

Yesterday my plan for posting 1 new piece a day came to an end. Not a very long streak - just 3 pieces finished. After working all day I spent the evening at school with my kids learning what the high school kids had learned about HIV/AIDS and listened to them debate proposals for US foreign policy for aid to Sub Saharan Africa for the AIDS pandemic. Very interesting and it didn’t leave any time for the studio.

This evening I spent shopping for the kids’ christmas presents. I even braved the mall, a very rare event, for some overpriced bubble bath. I think I better test it out before gifting it to my daughter (the sacrifices we make for our kids). Maybe after that I’ll head to the studio for a bit.

 
In the mean time I thought I’d give a shameless plug for my cafepress shop as black friday quickly approaches, although technically I should probably wait until cyber monday to post this but I needed filler given my failure to meet my 1 piece a day goal.

I only have 1 design available for sale on cafepress, the above piece, which is aimed at the quilt maker crowd. Quilters are notorious for they love of their fabric, and chocolate. Magnets, notecards, tshirts, etc are available.

I made this Ransom piece during a workshop years ago. We were doing some design exercises cutting up magazines and I finished early and got a little silly, so when it came time to work with the fabric we painted this seemed the obvious choice. The instructor did shrine type work, this is mine.

 
Goal tomorrow - post 2 new pieces and rephotograph the ones taken with a flash. We should be getting off work early tomorrow and since I plan on working from home I’ll be set to jump right to the studio when the email arrives.

Structures #82    ©2007    12"x12"

 
This is one of nine pieces I’m making for the Arvada Center Holiday Art Market. I have 2 pieces completed but most have a least somewhat of a start. I ended up working late every night this week for the day job and I’m still the bottleneck according to my manager. Hm. Bummer for that. I did everything I could, now I need to focus on my life and let work fall apart (as if working hard 40 hours a week is bad). Last night the server crashed again and I wasted an hour waiting for it to come back up. Just how stupid of a waste of time is that? I wonder why I get so caught up in this craziness.

Repeat after me…. Work is not more important than my life!

 
Back to art.

These pieces are due at the Arvada Center on the 26th, my plan is to post 1 image a day until they are finished to keep motivated on this project. I’ll be out of town this weekend for another memorial service for my dad but this evening my goal is to finish the third and put up postings for saturday and sunday so I make my goal of one image a day.

Each piece will be 12" square and my goal is that they look somewhat reasonable together. I’m not happy with a few of the designs so I might toss them out and start fresh on them.

Making these very simple geometric compositions is a lot harder than I thought it might be. I spend a lot of time cutting and recutting as the small size really emphasizes the mistakes in proportions. It’s all to easy to make something that is just down right boring. Happily I have one that I just love. It’s awesome when that magic happens.

Structures #51    ©2006    60"x54"

 
I have work in 2 shows that open Saturday. The first is in a new gallery in San Diego devoted to Art Quilts - Quilt Visions. The show is their first juried exhibit for members - titled Fabric of the Imagination: Art by Quilt Visions Members. The above piece, Structures #51 will be in that exhibit.

In addition the Pittsburgh portion of The Blogger Show opens this weekend. My piece, Structures #48, will appear in that exhibit.

Thanks to everyone for the supportive comments about my work situation in the last post. I was going to comment on them but this week has gotten a little ridiculous. I was at work until midnight on wednesday evening (after working until 1 the previous monday). Yesterday the computer that stores all my work crashed. Taking with it all my work for the last 2 days. What a week.

I’m so glad it’s friday.

 
Detail of Structures #51

Show Details:

Fabric of The Imagination
Visions Art Quilt Gallery
2825 Dewey Road, Suite 100
San Diego, Ca 92106
Phone: 619-546-4872

Gallery Hours:
Tues.- Sun. 10-4
Closed Monday and all major holidays

 
The Blogger Show
Digging Pitt Gallery
4417 Butler St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
p 412.605.0450

Gallery Hours
TH 12 - 8, FR 12 - 7, SA 11 - 7, SU 11 - 7