As I am sick at home from work today, I thought I would make things simple. I am posting another French postcard from my collection. Isn't her hair great? I wonder sometimes what these people who posed for these postcards were like? Were they artist's models? My good friend, Vero, in France sent me this one.
The back reads (in very lovely handwriting by the way):
"Un camarade qui pense a Vous Bien le Bonjour a M. et Mme. Riller"
V. Charles
Now it is time for me to craw back into bed...
Chunky books seem to be very popular right now. At the moment I am not involved in any books, though I am waiting on two books that I recently participated in. I have created an album with most of my chunky pages that I have made. I have done about six chunky books. They can be very time consuming, but they are worth it when you get the final product. There might be up to 60 artists participating in a book, so the art you get to see in the books is really incredible. I tried to scan the front and back pages I have made. I think I am missing one whole page from a book. In some cases the back page was very plain, so I didn't bother to scan it. And until I can figure out how to organize my photos, the fronts and backs are not always together. But you will get the idea. If you get the opportunity to work on a chunky book--go for it as the end result is really amazing!
There was a time when you could not find any information or books on Tina Modotti. But a search on Amazon now finds biographies, catalogs of her works and even novels. I must have first come across Tina Modotti and her inspiring life and photographs when the photo I have posted was sold in 1991 for a (at the time) whopping $165,000 at a Sotheby's auction.
Her life has been described as tempestuous. She was born in Italy but emigrated to the US in the early 20s. She was a silent film star in Hollywood, learned photography through Edward Weston, and became a revolutionary as well. She lived in Mexico and named as her contemporaries Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera. It was there she became politically active in the Communist Party.
She lived a short life, and for her politics and art were one. "I cannot solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art,"she wrote. Eventually politics superseded her art and she traveled to Germany, the Soviet Union, and Spain. She returned to Mexico where she died in 1942 at the age of 46.
There is currently an exhibit of the collaborative works of Tina and Edward Weston in New York City. I will have to content myself with looking at my own books of Tina's art and life.
Today after work I went to a bookstore for a little fix. I really need never step foot into a bookstore for a good ten years or so, and I will still have plenty of fresh reading material here at home, but that doesn't stop me. People who love to read will understand this, as you can never have enough books. I have stacks of them, shelves of them, piles of them, bookcases of them. You get the idea. I am always reading more than one at a time. And my family pretty much knows I will be happy with any sort of reading material, or the means to get reading material for any holiday where a gift is necessary.
In one of my former lives I worked at a now defunct independent bookstore. It was a sad day when my bookstore closed, but that is a topic for another day. There are two book places that I frequent, but they are not local. They are both like independent bookstores but happen to be mail order catalogs. Both are online as well, and I can highly recommend them both. Bas Bleu is a wonderful book seller. They have unique books and other reading related paraphernalia. Where else can you find Pride and Prejudice: the Board Game? My other catalog favorite is A Common Reader. I have been able to find some works by British authors that are not as readily available here from other sources. They also publish a list of books that have been out of print, but shouldn't be! When these catalogs come, I savor them. They are like going to an independent bookstore. Lots of really good books, and you can tell the people selling them appreciate reading and readers!
So what did I buy today, you might ask? Mostly magazines to be honest. I love magazines. No news weeklies today. Just your basic eye candy. Magazines where you don't have to read the text. You can look at the pictures and still learn something (though I do like to read the text). I bought mostly craft magazines with a copy of Martha Stewart's Living thrown in for good measure. I also bought two crossword puzzle books. I have to say that in this case part of the sell was the cool covers. Sometimes I feel like my mind is turning to mush, so I hope to exercise my brain a bit with these. I found a sale book I had thought of buying when it was a regularly priced hard cover (I love buys like that as I usually buy the hardcover first, don't read it right away and then later it ends up on the discount table). And a biography of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots (though unfortunately it will have to go back as pages 391-421 seem to be bound in the middle of chapter one--hmm). I admit I went to a local chain, as independent bookstores are now few and far in between (a pity!!). What can I say, I can't avoid a bookstore!
Some of my most favorite designs are by Carriage House Samplings. Kathy Barrick-Dieter is the designer behind CHS, and she comes up with some of the most wonderful creations! She also owns this old farmhouse, which she is renovating and occasionally posts pictures of her progress on her website. You might have noticed that I love old houses and antique-y sorts of things, which is part of my attraction to Kathy's designs. One of the things I like best--she is very approachable and will willingly answer questions about her designs or give floss conversions--she really "listens" to her market. The picture I have posted is something she released last year called "The Houses of Hawk Run Hollow". The photo comes from the front of the chart as I am progressing slowly on this project. I wish I could say mine was stitched and framed, but alas, there are only so many hours in the day (not enough for me I am afraid).
This is house number two, which I am in the process of trying to finish! I am finished with house number one. If you want to see it you can look in my Picturetrail album. I am too lazy to rescan it (it is a pain as the fabric is so big and I can't get it to lay flat), and Picturetrail won't let me snag it off the site! I started out using plain old DMC on house #1, but I wasn't entirely happy with the colors. The original is stitched using Soie D'Alger. There are many more silk colors available than cotton colors, so some of the conversions to DMC were a little off to my eye. I had started on house #2, and decided I didn't like the colors enough to do such a large project using DMC. So I bit the bullet and picked out all my stitches on house #2 and am now using the Soie D'Alger. The downside is silk costs far more than cotton (DMC is about 25 cents a skein and I won't tell how much a skein of the Soie D'Alger is!). So I am buying it as I need it. Since I am such a slow stitcher, I figure I can spread the cost out over a long time! I had thought I would eventually pick out all or some of the stitches on house #1 so it would all be in silk, but I am reconsidering the practicality of that idea.
As for the little details of this project: I am stitching it on 40 count Pearled Barley from Lakside Linens. The stitch count is 369W x 278H. The finished dimensions will be approximately 18" x 14". I don't have a very good record for finishing really large pieces like this one, but it is one of my goals this year to get as close to finishing it by December as I can. As I am doing some Valentine's Day stitching at the moment it is on the back burner. But it is sitting on the night stand staring me in the face every night, so it won't be forgotten! And there is the little problem of getting distracted by new designs. Nashville market is coming up and Kathy has about seven new designs coming out. I have no doubt I will be tempted by some of those (to add to my ever growing collection of her charts). I just hope none are quite so big as this one
I am a recovered ATC addict. I say recovered as I am not currently spending all my free time making cards, or thinking about making cards, or reading about making cards...you get the idea. I still do make cards, but it was all consuming last year, and I had to take a bit of a break. But ATCs are certainly addictive. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, ATCs are small cards (2-1/2" x 3-1/2") that you create using whatever method or media you choose. I like to collage them, as I am hopeless in drawing and painting. These are then traded (never sold), with other artists. This is supposed to be done face to face, but I have always only traded online. There might be trade sessions in my area, but I am not aware of any.
My ATC odyssey began when I decided I wanted to take up rubber stamping. As it turns out, I am not very good at stamping, though I do try and use my small collection of stamps on my cards when I can. I had purchased a copy of Somerset Studio, which I absolutely love by the way--very very creative stuff, and was looking at ads for stamping companies online. One company, ArtChix, sells the most amazing art stuff. You can also sign up for ATC and other altered art swaps through this website. I have even hostessed an ATC swap myself. It was a Divas, Darlings, and Drama Queens swap. There are truly a lot of very talented people out there!
There is even a book on ATCs. I have a lone card that made it in. It was a bit of a fluke as I only submitted one card (I was in the midst of my overdose crisis). It did not make it, but a card that I made for an Alphabet deck did make it. What a surprise. I wish now that I had submitted more. If you look at these, they are really the coolest things. It is fun to have something someone made who lives on the other side of the world. And as I love art, this is the closest I will ever come to actually making anything close to being art.
And I have to mention Bernie Berlin who has done really amazing work creating Yahoo groups, and helping considerally to put together the Stampington ATC book. Her artwork also appears in some of their many publications. She is very talented. Of course there are lots of other talented artists out there. Maybe in the future I will share some of the cards in my collection from some of these artists. If there are any other ATC artists out there who want to swap...just let me know!
I have just completed reading, "The Rare and the Beautiful: The Art, Loves, and Lives of the Garman Sisters" by Cressida Connolly. It is a veritable who's who of the literati and glitterati as well as personalities of the art world of the 20s, 30s and 40s. The Garman family actually consisted of nine children-seven girls and two boys. The book is primarily about Kathleen, Mary and Lorna as well as Douglas, though the author touches on all their lives.
Kathleen, was the lover to and later wife of Jacob Epstein. Throughout her life she collected many great works of art, which now make up the Garman Ryan Collection in Walsall, West Midlands. Mary married poet Roy Campbell. She had a scandalous affair with Vita Sackville-West. Lorna, the youngest and most beautiful, had affairs with Laurie Lee and Lucian Freud. They were described as significant women.
"The Garmans had an intoxicating quality, and people felt their lives had been transformed by knowing them. Almost everybody who knew them called them 'just magical'."
If you want to know what life as a muse must have been like, this is the book to read. They all seemed to lead enchanted lives. They were wives, lovers, and friends to artists and writers. It is hard to imagine people now living as they did--even the rich and famous. Maybe it was the time period. There is a certain romance to it all. Even the tone of their correspondence was different than today. Maybe it wasn't really glamorous then (world wars and revolutions...)--history once lived maybe takes on a rosier hue. But they were certainly glamorous people.
....or not. I have a great talent for semi-completing things. I have a plastic bin with needlework projects that are finished in terms of stitching, but not "finished". Some are "smalls" and others are full samplers, just sitting there waiting to be rediscovered. I actually stitched most of this while on vacation last summer. It is a Just Nan design that was released last year. The designer used to work in an Oklahoma needlework store called The Silver Needle. They celebrated 20 years in business, so Nan designed this scissor case exclusively for them. In the fall I sat down and started to sew it into a scissor case. Really all that is left is to sew it closed and add cording. The problem in this case--I am afraid I am not going to be able to sew it closed without the lining showing through. I suppose the cording will hide it if that happens. I also have to stitch the loop that will hold the flap closed. There is also meant to be a fob to attach to the scissors, which I didn't stitch (but will someday).
This is part two of the exclusive design. It is a needlecase, which I think will be very pretty stitched up. I have yet to start stitching this, as I figure I should really maybe finish the scissor case first! I really love small designs like this, but I tend to have more that other people stitched for me, rather than "smalls" I have stitched for myself. I have given away lots of little fobs and pillows and ornaments in exchanges, though. It is amazing what a deadline will do to make me finish something! Otherwise I guess it just sits there in my plastic bin!
I like to collect different things. I don't have a large collection, but I am always looking out for vintage images. This one is a French postcard (I can't tell the date from the postmark, but it is probably from the 20's) that I bought from Vintage Charmings in France. Kate Murray, the owner, buys vintage postcards and other ephemera at markets and "brocantes". I found her website through some collage/altered art groups I belong to. As I love to read I am always on the lookout for images of people reading, but I like all sorts of unusual images. Aside from just collecting them, they can also be used in collage work, as they are generally old enough to no longer be copyrighted. I also find old photos and postcards in antique stores. I am always on the lookout for something unique.
Check out this funky fabric I found at Michaels yesterday. I am not sure what I will do with it, but I had to buy it. I do a little bit of quilting, but lately there has been no time for it. I also use fabric for needlework projects when I am "finishing" small projects. But I am not sure what I will be able to pair this with! It was too funky and retro to pass up.
I even had a good mail day yesterday. Not one bill, and an order from Criss Cross Row, an online store I order needlework supplies from. This is one of several places I like to "frequent". I ordered three new charts: Lettres a Elise, Spanish Wine Sampler, and Sampler Heart. I am going to need to live a very, very long time to stitch everything I own...