Here's A Charm

Made in the fashion of folk magic;
A passport for the tourism of celebration.
May your quest to enjoy every moment last...
From now on

The chain is made from hand crocheted, corrugated, gold linen thread.

         

The charm is made from an appropriated gem pin, embellished with three feather charms that came from the flea market held at the Florida fair grounds. The necklace is a birthday present.

I Made a Ritual for You

So You Won't Have to Think About What To Do Next

roll the dice, swallow stone, light the candle, to not be alone

the statue is each other's you.

Specimen for Errol

If I could make a place
Where the wonder of what's inside





Made everyone want to take a look
I'd give it to you inside a book





That you can open from time to time
To redefine the things inside







As creatures: friend or foe
Or as captive audience for your next show









To take along or leave behind
Or to be replaced with new things you find.

Adaptations of Birds: On Winged Things and Others in the Sky

I am disappointed in the quality of these, the only photos I have, of this book. I was meeting a deadline of sorts, and sacrificed documentation for detail. Left is before, right is after. The inside pages are collages, paintings, and blank pages paying homage to the beautiful things in the sky. I'm happy that my work is taking direction again. I moved across the country, and for the time before, and a little after the move, I was all over the place. This book took shape in a way that I am familiar with, but found me desiring cohesion apart from the context of the owner. Most of my books are gifts, and some of them turn into a more personal documentation of my relationship with the owner.
The inside pages are mostly new to the book, coptic bound, and glued by end pages to the cover. The folios consist of pages from the original book, tracing paper, gouache paintings of walking patterns of birds, pictures from old books, and so on. The cover is altered by an octagonal recess, covered with green graph paper, with a layer of tracing paper on top. On the underside of the tracing paper are penciled diagrams of war planes, and on the upperside is the stamped text of the title.

moving on

Art is a progressive preservation of culture, through craft. Art is action, an exchange. American art is a reaction to capitalism. Commerce is a network where trade is skill exchanged for craft, or company, or companionship. Collaboration is a journey that ends in wandering, and I couldn’t mean anything without empathy. If reflection is our movement, then this recession has gone too far. We are incestuous with our past, and we’re dying out like the Tudors, or the Romanovs. We’re gone. How am I supposed to know where we are? I’m just telling stories like mirrors, to see myself in them. Reflection is our movement. Look at the wordless stories I tell. Fiction is not honest. The ambiguity of the relics I create end with a willful suspension of disbelief in people. Trends move quickly, and my process is a furious catfish…someone placed glass underneath it, and it doesn’t know why but it can’t get to the bottom (of anything). Materials are easy to come by, because being resourceful has become about making connections. I use stitches, and hand shakes. I’m lucky that everything’s related. The places at which we draw personal lines are tangential to the circles in which we walk. We walk in circles. We talk the same way we walk. And I would like to make a point, the only one: Appropriation is a faculty of sustainability.

Nomad 2029

Felted 3-dimensional robot. Made from 100% natural wool roving, hand carded for a mottled, green metal/marble effect. This robot was meant not to stay in one place, so he is generally accompanied by instructions on how to go about giving him away, and how to make another to also give away.

Nomad 2029

How To:
Begin with the instructions as a loose guideline. Make your own robot or revamp the one you have now. Rewrite these instructions clearly enough to get the point across. Give the robot and the instructions away.

Materials:One set of felting needles
6 oz wool roving
A soft form to felt around: Styrofoam for flower arranging, panty hose stuffed with batting, anything soft enough to poke your needle in without breaking it and that you wont mind covering (size 10x7x4)

Instructions:
Make forms into the shapes you want
Felt the pieces individually. Do this by taking wool roving and holding it against the form. Tangle the hairs of the roving by pushing them into the foam with the felting needle. Be careful, the needles are sharp. Cover the form completely. Felt around all the pieces
Connect the pieces in your desired final form by using extra roving to felt them together.
Once you have the completed form put together, you may decorate it by using wool and your needle around or through the objects you wish to add.
Once you are satisfied with the form you’ve created it, give it to anyone OR sell it to a charitable individual with deep pockets, and give the money away.

And Know That it Would Do Me Good to Hear From you: An Account of Separation Before it Occurs

I hope I can say my last words to you, "Safe travels," while they're exactly what I mean. And I hope I won't try to fit anything else into them, with a cock of my head, or the smile that makes you slap me. I don't know what I'd do, if you didn't arrive.

The Little Skeleton

The Little Skeleton began as an assigment based on Frida Kahlo's life and work. I was influenced by elements of her culture, life, and art. The pictures above are the beginning of what became a long, but quite fluid process. To the left, is a section of the scarf that was influenced by Frida Kahlo's life and work. The colors of the cloth are vibrant, and feminine. The image is dia de los muertos-esq, and ethereal in the vein of Kahlo's imagery. The fabric is hand-dyed silk charmeuse. There are two sides to the scarf, as seen in the picture above to the right. The front has the print on it, and the back is solid fuschia. The picture to the right is of the critique for this project, during which it was suggested that I use this character to develop a story. Stubbornly, I denied my affinity for writing. I wished I could be such an artist that never needed to say what she meant about what she did...


Eventually, telling the little skeleton's story became the obvious answer to a difficult question: How do I make my computer art final tangible? I wanted a narrative, and had almost forgotten that it was pretty much laid out for me. Having just been to deserted Coney Island in the dead of winter, I had a perfect setting, and the story just flowed into it. The above images are the preliminary ideas for the finished little skeleton. They are reverse applique, and applique, embellished, and hand bound covers. The following images were laid out in photoshop before becoming the tactile, finished, The Little Skeleton.





The following are images from a sort of thumb-nail sketch I executed before going into making The Little Skeleton. Luckily, I improved upon what became muddied colors and indistinct blocks of color in this project in the final product.


























Finally:

The character of the Little Skeleton is the concept of death in a child's mind, unaddressed. He is solemnly carefree, evasive, morbid, cautiously playful, and innocent of all of the aforementioned.

The pages of the book are made from natural fabric (all cotton: muslin, cheese cloth, waffle, canvas). They are hand-dyed and hand screen-printed with original illustrations and text. The pages are collaged together using applique techniques and a sewing machine, all bound with pigskin leather. The cover is reverse appliqued, and hand-embellished.