Happy 2011:Where Has The Time Gone?

The ending of 2010 was a blurred rush for me, slowing down a bit for the Christmas holiday and then heating up again with blizzards of snow, delayed and cancelled flights and enormous changes at the last minute.

I like to think I am fleet on my feet and fairly supple, adapting as the demands need be, but this was a challenging time none-the-less. I took on one too many projects, which collided together in a wreck at the last minute. In addition to my art practice, I had started a new job as Educational Curator at Artspace in New Haven in August, and also had agreed to be in a number of exhibitions, all of which I was very happy about. Happy and busy. But there is a tipping point, and sometimes the overwhelming things are not the big ones, but the small ones, and they can take over.

I don 't want to go into too many details, but lets just say:

"Don't start delicate and exacting bead-work projects with set deadlines when the majority of your available work time is on mass-transit. "

If I can condense this sentence neatly I might make it my 2011 new year's resolution.

("No conceptual beading in a hurry"? "Experimental projects need development time and attention"? -not easy this. I welcome YOUR suggestions- I will then cross-stitch this using hand-sourced hen's teeth and frame it over my desk.

Said project was a silk tie which I was beading with the instructions in Braille for tying a Windsor knot. This project is a collaboration between myself and the enormously talented Harper Della-Piana, a fashion designer. She has an atelier and boutique in Wenham, Ma. (SEAMS) ,which caters largely to brides and is both couture and eco-friendly. She is a power-house and a force to be reckoned with. I jumped at the chance to work with her!

Let me just say here: She asked me to do something on a silk tie that she would supply me with and then put together. I came up with a conceptual project (braille bead-work instructions) that took hours of hand work and required actual concentration to get right. I am soley responsible for making this whole thing WAAAYYY more complex and time-consuming then it EVER needed to be.
Mea Culpa.
Add to this several false starts, a change in materials and you have one black hole of a project, that just does not seem to finish itself. Note to self: get ELVES.
It IS pretty, and should be actually quite wearable, but was it WORTH it?

We'll see how much it sells for- then I'll know. It is to be auctioned off at the annual Cambridge School of Weston Art Auction (see here ), where we both attended high school.
Yes: that was a long time ago, Yes: we are still friends- thank you, face-book!

It was a good cause, I liked my idea and Harper is wonderful,
so I thought : why not?

EXCEPT that I really, really didn't have time, and not having time made me distracted and make mistakes which then cost more time. It took me AGES to complete and ended up with me, in my Ramada Inn hotel room near the Sea-Tac airport, holed up because my flights had been cancelled, sewing, DYING and ironing the durned thing in order to get it back to her in enough time for her to finish it properly and send it off.

It was a craft-gone-wrong sit com situation and I thought of contacting Regretsy more than once. This was of course compounded by the fact that one cannot post, mail, send ANYTHING anywhere near an airport anymore for reasons involving crazed disenfranchised American bombers and angry Muslim extremists-or at least this is the post-office's line. I think they are just trying to put themselves out of business. More than one holiday complication involved the post-office and the impossibility of simply mailing a package in the greater new haven area, without driving over to the wasteland near the Ikea and the highway. That is another boring, angry tirade I'll save for later.

But I digress:
The tie is done, it is lovely and will be up for auction and I will post information on THAT when I have it...

Cancelled flights not-withstanding, I did make it to France for the new year, and was blissfully free of phones, airports, wi-fi, in fact pretty much anything involving connectivity except a tv and face-to-face contacts!

It was also very, very foggy: see above image.

I slowed down, I ate, I worked on my french and various drawing projects and actually thought about what I was working on in a concentrated but un-rushed way. I took stock as well: 2010 was a year for me of branching out, expanding sometimes over-extending myself and making work in new ways. I exhibited quite a lot, made limited edition projects like the seed packets, tote bag and had my first knitting pattern published (see here), as well as participating in several panel discussions and gallery talks. I had many adventures as well: jumped off of high cliffs into waterfalls in Corsica, climbed through wormholes in pitch-black caves in France, hike high atop red stone "fins" in Utah. My Job was going really well, but was hectic and required mental acrobatics.

It felt good to stop and observe the cobwebs....

I visited friends, ate too much, and got tired of all that was in my suitcase: by the time I was scheduled to leave and head back home again I was ready. I was starting to think about my job and all I had to do there: I have a big project involving lots of people that opens in February!


I missed my studio and worried about the house, the car, the snow back east.

My last second-to-last night was spent in Beaune in Burgundy and was the PERFECT (and surprising) lead in to 2011 and a great send-off to head back to work.
We headed into town for dinner and had time to walk around first-
it was very cold and a bit rainy so we were bundled up with hoods on.

The town is VERY beautiful with lots of windy streets and old buildings some of which have multi-colored tile roofs. the old city is surrounded by ramparts and has a river and bridges crossing it to get in. cobbled streets, old stone and stucco walls and a pretty vibrant shopping area with lots of wine boutiques and pastry shops. These were all magnificently illuminated with the cities holiday lights strung across streets and on trees, so even in the rain the effect was magical.

What I did not know was that they have an annual competition for digital animation on the cities historic buildings. There were no signs, no markers, you just wandered and then would see a church bursting into blooms of medieval tapestries flowers with parrots flying across and then the whole exterior would turn into one huge blaze of stained glass.

Even in the cold, in the rain, in a place with limited night-life, save a few restaurants, this got people's attention. we clustered and gawked and watched the luminous flickering show die down to restart in a few minutes.

Some of the fun was really in NOT knowing:
We would head down a dark windy alley to a courtyard and -Bam!- A turret glowing vermilion with images from the Burgundian dukes and scenes of a joust taken from a book of hours would careen across the balcony.

The majority of the works were historic in nature and served to enhanced the architectural features of the building, actually getting one to better notice the existing space (I think the best public art does that: permanently makes you see that which you might have missed before).

Some of the works were more contemporary in nature, some were funny, some regal. The one to the left here has 17th gardens an d fountains blooming across it's surface, ending with a showering cascade of waterworks shooting off for it's finale.

The great square clock tower in the town center served as a sort of billboard and showed off some of the winners from the past- a visual survey. They spanned the gamut from the sophisticated and clever- Pilobolus-like giant legs dancing and prancing , but also trapped by the limits of the tower- to video-game ugly: super-mario like animations on a growing Disenyesque grape vine.

I was entranced.
I was inspired. I was ready to go home and make some art and curate SCRAWL at Artspace and have as many amazing experiences as I can in the year to come!

Welcome 2011, snow and all!

Postscript: good thing I felt that way: In Beaune, the light show was on it's final night, as were the Christmas lights- the next day the Town center was DARK.

It was over,back to business as usual, no more phantasmagoria. and as I flew back to Newark via Germany, things proceeded without a hitch. By nightfall I was back in New Haven, wondering where all my mail was, but with things eerily as I had left them, and then at 11 pm the snow started falling. By the next day the world was transformed into a glittering white sea of dunes, all airports and highways and roads halted.
I made it back just in time.

Happy 2011 everyone!