Let's give 'em somethin' to talk about

Hey y'all -- exciting news! I've been picked to be next month's Gypsy Bonfire contributor!

Now I know I don't have to tell you much about Lisa Hoffman. She's one of the journal contributors of True Colors: A Palette of Collaborative Art Journals. Actually, Lisa originated two journals; one was lost in the mail for a bit, so she started another. (Isn't that book like visual crack? Except without the need for rehab.)

On her blog, she has a section where she invites people to tell stories. The kind of stories you'd hear if you were actually hanging out in person. The idea is to provide a place where all us like-minded folks can get to know each other better, even if we never meet in person. So I dug up some pictures of when I was Skeeny (skinny as all get out) and coughed up a few words to string it all together. Lisa and I talked last Friday, and we're officially sharing all sorts of inappropriate information with each other. (Kidding!) Find out which story made the cut.

And tell everyone to tune in May first! Hey, that's May Day. (Try not to think too hard about what dancing around the maypole means.)

Last bits of Artfest

Show and Tell Night was probably even more of a madhouse than Vendor Night, because the rooms in which the art was spread out were more cramped. And of course people want to linger over pieces they like. But it was worth braving the crowd.

The idea is to give you a chance to see what everyone else has been working on in the previous days, and to give you ideas of what you might like to take next year. (Next year?! Can I recover from this year first?!)

I realized that I missed Michael de Meng's classes... I had a ton o' fun in his "Six Million Dollar Man" class back at Art & Soul.
His Morpheus Box class this time really appealed to me (the one in the center, next photo). I think it's the kinetic element -- look, it moves! It does tricks!
Oh, man, check out this artist's Woven Narrative. Coincidentally, I had tried something similar in my Someday artist book.
Anahata's Symbolic Icons still appeal to me, but I have to get over the "my stuff looks like a poor imitation of someone else's stuff" thing. This is how you learn, goofball.
I ran into Michael and complimented him on his collaborations with Judy Wilkenfeld, an artist who will floor you with her heritage-inspired works. (He's her beau, too.) Then he said, "hey, in a minute we're all going to go into another room and Judy's going to show her Twelve Tribes book. Do you want to see it?"

Um, no, I have to meet my crack dealer in ten minutes. OF COURSE I wanted to see it!
The book is an enormous, hand-bound, awe-inspiring artist book detailing the twelve tribes of ancient Israel -- you know, the sons of Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher and Joseph. (Read her March 21st post to get the details.)
Every last detail contains meaning on each page. It's impressive if you don't know much biblical history, but it'll bring you to your knees if you've ever read the Bible's descriptions of each tribe. (Deryn, if you're reading this, you have got to see this on Judy's blog.)

I got a better chance to see the book myself when I went into Port Townsend the next day with Julie and Janine. Judy and Michael were showing it to one of the local gallery owners, and I took pictures of the page devoted to Asher.
Back when we were deciding what to name The Boy (yes, he has a real name), The Husband and I considered naming the baby Asher. It means "happy." (But then I remembered, our kid is half-black. Other black people will shorten his name to Ashy -- which is what black people call skin -- especially at the knees and elbows -- that's so dry it turns white. Um, no.)

Judy really appreciated what I remember of my Bible... I had piped up when she was describing the hand attached to the Benjamin page. Benjamin's mother Rachel, who died after giving birth to him, named him "Ben Oni", which means "my son." But her husband Jacob overruled that and named him Benjamin, which means "son of my right hand" in Hebrew. Judy actually used a left hand, for reasons I really wish I could remember... Oh, it's just so beautiful. Go look at Judy's pictures; they're far better than mine.
I could've stayed much longer, of course, but I had to get back to The Husband and The Boy and make sure they were still in their respective pieces. I didn't worry about them while I was gone, but then when I headed for the ferry home, suddenly I had to keep myself from imagining all sorts of catastrophes. So I distracted myself by thinking about sorting through all my trades...
and I headed home.

Artfest was wonderful, and wondrous, but until maybe today I felt like my innards were turned inside out. I guess it was the extended amount of time spent creatively exposed. I'm just now thinking of making something, anything, new.

Have I mentioned that you guys rock?

Well, you do. Submit to the pleasure and admit that you rock.

Thanks for reading and commenting. It means the world to me, and it makes me dig my virtual toe in the dirt with pleasure.

Yeah, I'm going there. And you're coming with me.

"Oh boy... she's going to talk about black people again." Yes, I am. No, you don't need a special permit to Go There with me.

Photo courtesy Julie Molina

You may have noticed in the second-to-last post that I said I was going to talk about the last day of classes, "and why all the black kids sit together in the cafeteria." (It's a reference to this book.)
I just had to bring it up when Amy Lee and I met Laren, who's wearing the purple scarf.

Photo courtesy Julie Molina

I said, "You know, if one more of us shows up at the bonfire, we're going to qualify as a mob." (This is a reference to an old, not-really-funny joke that white people think more than three African Americans in one location means the black people are about to form a mob, probably to seek out and mug white people.) We all laughed, but then I pushed it a little.

Now that I've pointed out the elephant in the room... why is it that there are hardly any people of color at these retreats?

I'm plenty used to being either the only African American, or one of less than ten, in a room. This has been my life throughout grade school, college and my working life, really. As a consequence, my circle of friends tends to look like a United Nations gathering.

But I still look around every so often to see if there are any other African Americans in class with me, like this lady who said she came all the way from Baltimore.

I counted. There were six black women at Artfest, including me.

Let's get a few things out of the way: I in no way think this is some sort of conspiracy to keep black people out of this milieu. Nor did I ever feel like a bug on display because of my skin color. And I don't expect these retreats to go looking for people of color.

It's just... why are we the only [black] ones here?

Unfortunately, I can't remember how Laren found out about Artfest. But I think Amy Lee said she'd read about Artfest in the back of one of the Stampington/Somerset arts magazines, in the conventions/events listings. She's also a graphic artist, so she's a bit more likely to run up against this kind of thing.

Amy Lee also mentioned something that seemed to ring true. She said that when she was in school as a kid, art was not really something black kids were encouraged to pursue, as a career or as a hobby. Parents, especially, were more concerned that you got an education that would help you support yourself. (I hear that kind of reasoning from my friends with immigrant parents, only more strongly than in my family.) So: graphic art major -- okay. Fine art major -- not okay.

And it's not just Artfest: at the last moment during Art & Soul last year, I looked around and saw maybe one or two other African American women there. Forget about African American men -- it's astounding to see any men, who aren't instructors, that is.

The Ever-Gorgeous Earl (lots of photos of him in this post at Ricë's blog) had noticed this phenom too. In particular, we wondered: if black women hardly ever come to these things, then where are they? At local dance clubs? Watching TV? (That was the option we thought most likely.) Too damn tired from work and family to do something like this?

The EGE is a black man from Midland, Texas, and not quite the profile of the rare man who does venture into these estrogen-laden venues. But he does because he's a thinker, and he's lots of fun (and because Ricë wouldn't have it any other way).

The best we could figure is maybe it's a combination of money issues, and comfort level with art. I mean, pitching close to $2K, in one shot, at what most outsiders would consider a hobby is something not many black people I know would do. They'd be more likely to recommend you have your head examined (another thing many black people are deeply resistant to doing. "Take
your troubles to God" is what you'd most likely hear, or some version of "suck it up, weenie.")

TV, on the other hand, is cheaper than traveling to any retreat or conference. (I myself spend quality time with our big-ass TV.) So is going dancing with your friends. And no one will call you "bougie" (bourgeois, snooty) or some kind of freakjob for doing either one.

I really don't know. But it bothers me sometimes that so many people who look like me have no idea Artfest exists, much less how much fun it is.

Last day of Artfest classes

Whew! Sorry for dropping out for a whole week with no explanation. I'd like to think I blog without obligation, but apparently that is just not the case. We did lose power over the weekend because it snowed (and yes, it was just OUR neighborhood; we saw everyone else's lights a-twinkling).
Anyway. Day three of Artfest classes had me in Bee Shay's "Handful of Curiosity" class, preparing a tiny little journal case and journal pages. How 'bout this for a sample?
First it was down to the beach, and its stinging wind, to collect anything that struck our fancy.
It could be rocks, driftwood, kelp...
(Yeah, those are all kelp. Even the center one: I was praying it wasn't a used condom. But it had this lovely deep red center, and wavy edges which made me think it was some sort of jellyfish.)
Even some little crab remains.

And then we headed back to class to think on what we'd collected, and why. Then we wrote our thoughts on heavy printmaking paper that we dyed with Adirondack re-inkers. I had all sorts of deep thoughts on the beach: the footprints/pawprints/bird tracks, side by side on the sand, making me think how we all share this little bitty planet...
I thought about jellyfish (because of the kelp I picked up) taking over the seas because of humans overfishing around the world... But most of that slid right off my brain due to fatigue, once we got settled back into the classroom. Such is life and Artfest.

Bee also taught us how to carve little stamps (I can see why that's so addictive), and how to pierce the lid of the tin to attach items on the front. And this was with a small hand-cranked drill, not a Dremel! (Maybe if I get one of those, I won't make so much dang noise at 12:30am making art. Nah.)

As usual, things seemed to click for me in class about 2.5 hours before we had to pack up, so I dashed madly to finish up. I had even less ability to think through the panic because I was so damn tired, so Bee kindly helped me finish the ties that keep the journal in place under the tin lid.

Then Bee and LK Ludwig took our (mostly) finished journals to Show and Tell, where everyone gets a chance to see what everyone else has been up to in their classes. One of mine is center row on the left... again, I was so bleary-eyed I didn't even notice my second tin was up in the right corner.
I managed to do one page in that journal before I had to throw myself into the other portions of class. Still amazed that I got anything done, much less two separate tins.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Artfest coverage

Another of my new dorm-mates posted a comment -- the talented Celeste. You'll find her in one of the bonfire pictures in the previous Artfest post. I just love it when I know where to find y'all online!

Once again, I have no idea how I made it to Vendor Night, seeing's how I was so dog-tired after another full day of arting. But Morag and I made it to the big ol' hangar where it was being staged. You see why I say "staged" instead of "held":
These are people attending Artfest, as well as Port Townsend locals who were interested in the art. Yes, it was crowded, but not as slammed as the Vendor Night at Art & Soul in Portland, because that was in a couple of large hotel break-out rooms. Plus there was all that overhead space dissipating some of the body heat. So it was warm enough to make you take off your jacket, but not dance-club-crowded.

I made a couple of circuits, because there was no way to move like an assembly line -- people want to look more closely or chitchat with the artist. You had to get in where you could. So when the crowd eased a bit, I saw LK Ludwig close to the front:
Anahata Katkin, selling like crazy (I promised to post a good pic!):
Nina Bagley (she liked my calling card design!) and her pal Misty Mawn, right next door:
I took pics of the necklaces Nina made for both of them. Nina teased me about sneaking in a boob shot.
Catherine Witherell, parting with one of her articulated pendant lovelies:
She took a little time to browse through my artist book:
... and I took advantage of her weakness to scoot in and take a couple pix from the inside of the vendor ring.
Look! In the dark sweater -- a guy at Artfest who's not teaching! (You may have noticed these events tend to be, um, estrogen-rich.)

Another circuit... this time I ran into some of my friends, like Stacie:She's naughty. It says so right there.
And here's Kecia, my Art & Soul roomie. She's a trained professional, kids. Don't try this at home.
And Laren, trying on a necklace (she's on the left):

I knew going in that I probably wouldn't be able to afford anything; most everything I'd love to take home was at least $225 or more. Which is almost as much as an Artfest class. But surprise -- I did find a little something I could afford, at Pamela Huntington's table!
She made a little articulated circus acrobat, and gave him a wire tightrope to walk on. I love the doorknocker, and the text above:
And then I stayed up far later than I should've again, at the "afterparty" we had in our dorm. Someone even had those plastic bracelets they give you to enter a party, so we figured that made our "club" official. Lots of fun.

Next time, on Blogging Queen: Last day of classes, and why the black kids always eat together in the cafeteria.

Parade o' weirdness

Excuse me while I take a break from the Artfest love, so I can show you the random weirdness we encountered yesterday during our shopping trip to Costco.
The cell phone camera doesn't quite do justice to the eye-searing hue of this guy's windbreaker (for his sake, I assume this is a safety windbreaker). Believe it or not, I forgive him the go-to-hell pattern of his Hammer pants. He's old. They don't ride up on him. But the combination... Lord have mercy...

They came to Costco in this demure little putt-putt.
Yes, it's an H2 Hummer. With flags on every corner. Because toxic orange cars are so hard to pick out in the parking lot.

Oh, but the madness doesn't stop there. It stops at this house and the accompanying car.
We've seen this geodesic dome-style house before, and I like that it's such a throwback to the 70s. But I almost choked on my own spit when I saw the deLorean parked outside. All they need is the Back to the Future theme blaring from loudspeakers.

Why yes, it is, in fact, all about me.

Lots of fun in LK Ludwig's "This is Me" class. The above picture is printed on rice paper -- I still can't believe it turned out so well. I cut the paper down to 8.5x11 size, and set the "Properties" to "Other Specialty Papers." I also kept the other, regular papers in the printer to keep the rice paper closer to the feed part (does that make sense?) and held down the regular papers by hand while the rice paper fed through.

Basically, "This is Me" was an altered book class on self-portraiture. In the class materials, she asked us to print out pictures of ourselves on various types of paper, in various sizes. Here's one on photo paper that I painted with iridescent paint...
Textured paper...

Papyrus (the photo in the middle is of my mom in London)...
Even some regular color photocopies.

Then LK taught us how to alter them in various ways. Some I already knew how to do, like water transfers from crappy photo paper. But a new one on me was embedding photos in layers of sewing pattern and blank tissue paper.
The photos are on the next-to-last layer, stamped with a Michaels-type foam stamp, then covered with a blank sheet of tissue paper to pull them all together. So it's a very lightweight, dreamy kind of page; how thin it is depends on how many layers you use.

Another favorite: spraying patina onto brass or copper mesh. We used various items to create masks against the mesh pages.
LK also showed us a masking method that I used to draw my hand pointing. The lacy pattern is a second mask.LK had told us to think about various favorite expressions or sayings, a couple of which I decided to do on the mesh.
I wasn't expecting to finish the project, just learn the techniques, and I didn't. But it should turn into something pretty interesting, which I'll post when I've recovered from Artfest. This class was fairly stress-free, but the prep was kinda scary. I was just worried that I'd forget something, and I had no idea how to use some of the stuff. But it was a lot of fun.

Next post: Vendor Night madness.

What's that smell?

Hot dogs...
S'mores... Actually, I don't really like s'mores much because of the marshmallows. Yes, this means I am a bad American.

Sorry about the delay in posting. The rest of life had the nerve to get in the way.

Mostly, the bonfire is a chance to art while you're hangin' with everyone else, or just a chance to hang and watch other people art. There's Celeste, Kristi, Cheryl and Layla (waving), faced by Nicole.
I don't have an art journal, just a notebook where I write or try to sketch stick figure versions of ideas. Nothing like this:
But I made Julie drive Amy Lee and me down to the beach anyway to go to the bonfire.
That's the thing about Artfest: You're wiped, but you don't want to miss anything! If you were concentrating this hard on classes at home, you'd never make it to an extracurricular activity -- you'd just wolf something down and crawl into bed.
Random violinist, but she did add atmosphere. Lots of chips, beer, hot dogs, s'mores... and gossip. That's where I talked to the three or four other people who were unhappy about the class I talked about in the first post. It came up like this: "So what did you take today?" "How'd it go?" I finally got tired enough of rehashing it that I just rolled my eyes in response after a while.

And after the bonfire, I still ended up staying up even later! Oy. I got a good night's sleep, but man, it's like living three days in one!

Next post: Day two of classes, with LK Ludwig.

First day of class-"Family Paintover"

I was so looking forward to my first class, "Family Paintover" with Lisa Bebi. I thought this class would give me some creative ways to use my relatives' pix in my artwork. Longtime readers of le blog (um, anyone who's visited since autumn of last year) know I've been getting into the genealogy thing. I've nagged my aunt and cousin for pictures and info. So I figured, even if I don't finish the class project, the instructor will have given me really cool techniques to use.

Well, not really.

The first half of the class went pretty well. The instructor was kinda nervous, since this is her first year teaching at Artfest. So I cut her some slack for going a little overlong on telling us about her published art and gallery shows. She also mentioned that she was taking Vicodin for a knee problem. But Julie was in my class too, so I figured we'd have lots to talk about once we were done.

First up was painting the background, using a bright color under a darker color. Then we used stamps, doodles and whatever else we wanted to partly reveal the first layer of color. (My throat is a little sensitive, so I wore a paint mask while I worked.)
Next, we sealed photocopies of the relative(s) in question with matte medium (so that the colors to be added don't sink into the photocopy paper). I used one of my mom in 1965, one of her father and uncles from the early 20th century, and one of her as a baby.
Finally, we carefully glued them down to the background. Julie made this useful suggestion: Don't put the whole image down at once. Glue a small area down, smooth out bubbles, then glue some more down and smooth out bubbles until you're done.

We took a break for lunch... and in the second half of class, things started to go downhill.

The instructor began by trying to do a quick overview of what was next. First, she began explaining one way to bring color to the people images, and how to marry that paint job with the background paint. Fine, but then she said, "wait, let me show you the 15-minute version I did for such-and-such publication." Okay... we'll go with that.

And as she demonstrated, the instructor veered back to the more complicated version. Then she tacked back to the simpler technique! Back and forth, back and forth. Maybe it was the Vicodin she mentioned earlier that messed with her focus. I don't know.

Finally, the instructor told us to bring up our paintings if we needed help. Which is fine -- but it wasn't fine that she ended up finishing most of the paintings herself, instead of giving suggestions. It was as if her brain had clicked over from teaching-mode to studio-mode.

So I got frustrated... I tried to fight it, but my brain tends to shut down to anything else when that happens. I ended up having to leave the classroom with one of my seatmates, DD Wigley, who talked me down outside.

Julie, on the other hand, has done some similar paintover techniques, and she was working busily. So I said to myself, fuck it. I'm just going to do what Julie's doing. Here's the first result.
I painted over my mom's skin and the other images with a thin wash of Yellow Oxide by Golden, everything except her eyes, hair and dress. (Painting over the black would only make it pop out more, and the goal was to have that recede a bit.) Then I used a heavier coat of the Quinacridone Crimson of the background color, and finally some Nickel Azo Gold to tone things down a little. While it was wet, it kinda looked a mess, but when it dried the color around my mom's face looked softer, like an encaustic (beeswax) piece. That looked roughly like the "simpler" technique the instructor was trying to get across.
The second one turned out better. Here, I decided to go whole hog and paint my mom's skin, hair and clothing with more visible layers of paint. I don't have much experience with acrylics yet, but I tried to mix a color that was close to her skin tone. (The other students were using a pre-mixed "flesh" color. You know, because all human flesh is pink. Or darker pink.)

Then I painted her dress her favorite color, yellow, but it was too close to her skin tone, so I painted it blue, and did the socks in a lighter blue. Her hair is a mix of black, Nickel Azo Gold, and brown. This one looks a bit like the instructor's more "complicated" technique.
The brothers were difficult, because like many African Americans, their skin hues vary wildly within the family. I still need to figure out how to reduce the blackface effect I created on the brothers in the back row, but the seated brothers, who were paler, turned out a bit better.

I wasn't the only one unhappy with the class: that night, I talked to three or four other students who were pretty ticked off as well. And you can see the difference between the student work...and the instructor finished work.
Interestingly enough, my new friend Morag Campbell took the same class in Paris -- and said it turned out fabulously. But not here, man. Let's face it: If you have to do the work for the student, you haven't really taught them how to replicate the technique.

A couple of days later, I ran into the instructor, who had heard that I was very unhappy with the class. She told me she thought my work turned out very well, and that she'd be happy to help me fix anything I didn't like about it.

But I was just so mentally fried by that time that anything she said would've gone in one ear and out the other. I did tell her what confused me. I also pointed out that I would hardly have been insulted had she taught us the simplest version only. She apologized, and said if I email her later she'd still love to help. But you know... I'm done. Maybe I'll noodle with the pieces later, but for now, I'm done.

As a student, I need the instructor to teach me one technique, with no distractions, until I've gotten a chance to do the basics. Add on the options later. It reminds me of what I yell at other drivers when they're weaving on the road in front of me: Pick a lane and stick with it.

Tomorrow's post : fun at the famed Artfest bonfire that night.

"One time, at art camp..."

I'm back -- and crammed to the gills full of Artfest fun and wisdom! Prepare to be inundated for the next week or so. There's just so much to show and tell.The ferry trip and drive through the Olympic Peninsula was pleasant and uneventful. I meant to stop in at the "festal virgins fountain" (aka the Haller fountain) but once I saw the "Welcome to Port Townsend" sign, I couldn't stop until I got to Fort Worden.
My home for the next half-week: dorm 202, front view.
I was on the second floor.
Uh-huh. All the way up there, and no elevators (this was built waaaaay before disabled-access laws, plus it's a former Army barracks.) In spite of having brought way too much stuff, I managed to get it all settled in the right room.
The fantastic four:Cheryl, Liesel, Layla and me.

So I went to stand in line to register, and enter my "Dryad and Child" into the gallery. I think it was only about a half-hour after the Artfest office opened, but it was crammed with people dying to get the party started. Like Maya and Cindy.
Surprise -- I had a hard time focusing on the task at hand, so Cindy pointed out what I needed to pick up and look through. See those big-ass name buttons? Those are actually lifesavers -- your brain quickly becomes too crammed full of techniques and new info to remember people's names.

I found some mint fudge in my welcome pack, so that also helped me keep going. Then I met two more new friends, Amy Lee and Janine.
We took in the sights...... until dinnertime, when I met Julie for the first time in real life!
She's on the left, talking to Tiphoni, one of the instructors and Teesha's daughter.

The food was great, and then the frenzy continued -- this time with trades. (These are optional little gifts given as a little "nice to meet you." They can be anything you want, like artist trading cards or charms.) I didn't even have to get out of my seat! A lot of people were so excited, they finished dinner and began going from table to table, offering to trade.
Afterwards, we all went to the first-day meeting, where Teesha and Tracy introduced our instructors. Then we were free to go to the Art Asylum, which is a room where you can journal...or make something from the donated odds and ends.I was way too wired to focus that much, but I did show people the artist book I began at Art & Soul last October.

Day two of Artfest is coming... gotta continue my re-entry into the rest of my life.