Archive for January, 2008

We had another good session for marbling – a lot of remnants, plus a couple of good pieces of silk – and another good piece of velveteen – which we haven’t done in a while. Three hours, start to end of clean-up today, but that’s not counting the two hours of prep yesterday, plus the hour Dean spent getting paints ready for today. Nice and relaxing, everything worked. As we get ready to think about doing a new preferred letter, we have to look at how much product we can do with tight space and my not always being available. As we don’t do as much fabric any more, we don’t have to worry about taking one whole day of the weekend for the actual marbling.

I can feel myself getting depressed today, knowing that school vacation is almost over, and I still need to get ready – which I’ve allowed time for before Sunday, but I still have enjoyed the days so much, and I really don’t want to get back into the grind. I’ve started walking again, relaxing, getting my nails done, and I am SO looking forward to eventual retirement. At least I can “retire” periodically through the school year and then all summer.

I need to finish my Photoshop class, but the projects really aren’t interesting me, as I would rather look at the tutorials on NAPP and work from there. But I have learned so much from those lessons and developed a lot of confidence in what I am doing. There’s no big deal to finishing, just that it’s a loose end that I would like to take care of. I have discovered that I am really not into photo retouching or restoring per se – I like the original creations.

That said, I need to go read a few tutorials and work on a new piece tonight.

As the new year starts, it’s always a time of reflection for me. I have two times like this during the year – one in January as I look ahead to the next calendar year, and one in August when I look at the coming school year. One of the newslists I get is from Education Week, and there was a link today on Steve Jobs and creativity. This was his commencement address to Stanford in 2005. Some very interesting things – never knowing when something you have done in the past (like his taking a calligraphy class that eventually led to the fonts for the Macintosh) will be the key to what you will do next in the future.

Do what’s in your heart, never feel regretful, because everything you experience builds who you are. A lot of what bothers me about teaching these days is that I have all these experiences from the past, and I would like to be able to have these skills utilized. It gets me angry, but then I realize that I am bringing all this to the students, and I never know when something from the past will be the key to reach a student.

Those words really resonated with me today, as I need to hold to that to get through the remaining years that I am teaching. If I can maintain the momentum from this past week, I will be able to draw on the digital marbling as a creative outlet for the spring. I think what’s really working for me with Photoshop is that I can see definite progress in a piece, whereas when I am quilting, the progress is always much slower.

Speaking of skills I have developed, a few years ago when I was looking for another job, I interviewed with Drive Time to set up their business partnership program with local schools. The first thing the CEO of the company asked me was, since my resume was so full and so diverse, just how much of it was true. Well, I guess, once again, I am determined to be a Renaissance woman – everything is true, continues to be true, and I guess I keep adding in other directions.

Suzan and I have done a couple of really amazing pieces over the last few days. This one is based on the original piece in yesterday’s blog – but you would never know it! Dean wants to call it “Tapestry Secret,” which I like.

A very busy morning – did lots of shredding of old IRS stuff, old business stuff – several bags for recycling. Did some cleaning (still have a very long way to go….) And I got a walk in – the weather is nice and breezy. We burned sage in several of the spots around the house – get the good energy flowing.

As I reflect back on 2007, it was a good art year. Not so much in terms of actual fiber created, but we were able to finally solve our marbling problems, I started on Photoshop, and I finally got into doing digital work from the marbled fabrics. We sold an art piece (Night Eyes, from some of our first framed attempts), had some good ebay custom orders, and felt like we had momentum with Marble T. Now it’s time to look at the coming year and what we would like to accomplish. Which I think will be our goals for this week – we definitely want to reactivate our Preferred list, so we get more hits on the website, as well as add more fiber work. I want to get a fiber portfolio completed, and I would like to enter a minimum of five different shows this year.

Lots to think about, and trying to balance the momentum with school with be interesting – as usual. I completed most of my art plans today – looked through standards, sketched out the semester projects, and developed the rules for art class – which I think are pretty good. One of the things that amazed me as I was working with the art standards is how much my kids were actually in the intermediate set of standards, between the various discussions and projects. I feel really good about that.

Math – that’s another thing to think about over the next few days. I’m avoiding it because teaching to the test really is morally and ethically against everything I believe that makes a good education for a child. Heard from Kathy in Vermont that the new principal is even thinking about doing away with their exploratory classes in favor of more academics. Who was it who said a society is judged by its art? The Bush years have not been good ones for civilization…..

I’m working on another piece off a freeform pattern – here it is in original, black and white lines, and then as the genesis of a Rainforest piece.