BACK IN SNOW COUNTRY

LAX to JFK

We are back.

Missed 3 snow storms!

More tomorrow.

Snow? News? Both!

SNOW COUNTRY

Machine stitched-quilted these winter scenes 7 years ago, trying techniques out for the snow book. (click on picture to enlarge)

Interesting as I pick up the project now, 7 years later, I'm approaching it quite differently. Stitching yes but no more quilted layers. Collaging on paper.

Tomorrow we head back to snow country. Next week back in the studio for me, returning to work on the snow book.

LEANING SNOW

I bought a poster of Breugel's Hunters in the Snow at the museum in Vienna. Here it is framed & set on one of the flexible leaning shelves in the great room.

Above the Breugel are 4 pages of the 'snow' accordion book featured in previous post. (do click on lower photo to enlarge)

• That's me in front of the famous painting.

• The gray & white trapezoid is a holiday card from the Museum of Mondern Art, NYC. Digital art well before digital art was 'out there'.

• 2 postcards from a Helsinki gallery in the land of the midnight sun. I always regreted not buying a small piece of this artist's work, but at least I have these inspiring postcards.

ARRANGING WINTER

Snow on the roof means snow on the skylights. It was like that the day I took this photo. Needed the flash which gives a yellow cast. (click on photo to enlarge)

I started this accordion design book about winter when we still had our house in Vermont. The pages have empty spaces here & there but I'll continue to add pictures as I find them.

Inspiring artist postcards, calendar pages, gallery announcements, stamps, museum postcards & catalog cover flow across the pages.

Return to work on the snow book next week.

SNOWING IN KUNMING

Came across this photo in a local gallery in Kunming, China.* (click on photo to enlarge)

An almost impossible scene to capture. Why?

•Kunming is the 'city of eternal springtime' where it rarely snows.

•It was late March when a particular species of birds only migrate through.

•Families gathered to feed the birds around Green Lake.

Great composition! Enjoying it on my kitchen counter this winter.

*Taught/exhibited at Yunnan Institute of Art - Kunming International Festival of Arts '99.

Return to snow book in another week.

SNOW ON THE SKYLIGHTS

Had 4 skylights put in when we were building. Planned for good natural light in my studio.

The snow is inspiring but it's also blocking the light!

Puffy like cotton, it started sliding off the roof the other day!

DESIGNING WITH BLUEPRINTING

Pulled out an early snow scene experiment (1996). At that time trying out techniques and materials for another project.

Focusing here on the close-up of blueprinted fabric. This was a leftover fragment/scrap from another project - a tree branch sunprinted on chemically treated fabric.

Thinking about designing some blueprinting into the snow book. Maybe. Might order some.

A PAGE OF SNOW

3 favorite children's picture books.

Design, story & illustrations: minimal

The way I would do it. Let me rephrase. The way I am doing it!

Did something just for fun a couple years ago when I first started the snow book. I designed a ‘snow’ page from my story & paper clipped it over a page of One Christmas, just to see how it looked.

Possibilities but not the right time to work on it. BUT someday the time would be right.

'Someday' came a couple weeks ago. Click here to see.

One Christmas, One Evening & One Morning by Yohji Izawa & Canna Funakoshi

WINTER ON MY WALLS

We had a ski house in Vermont. I loved looking at the snow especially from the warm vantage point of our sofa by the woodburning fireplace !

At VT art galleries we bought original woodblocks by Vermont artists, Boiling by Sabra Field (top) & Spring Patterns by Margaret Torrey. (click on photo to enlarge)

Looking at these pieces now, brings back fond memories of roadside VT in March, when maple sap was flowing & trees were being tapped. It would be collected into covered tin buckets strapped to the sugar maples & boiled down in sugar shacks.

I reorganized art in our great room the other day. Enjoying winter on our walls now too.

FALL ON THE EARTH

Trees On A Snowy Night

One of the first non-traditional quilts I designed, shortly after getting into quiltmaking. A patch on the back reads:

For to the snow He says,

"Fall on the earth."

Job 37:6

Winter 1986

I love this verse & plan on using it at the beginning of the snow book.

Snow - inspiring me 25 years ago !

HEAVEN BOUND SNOW

An ongoing sharing of past art experiences. These eventually led to inspiring my current project - the Snow Book. No time to work on it now. Back to collaging snow at end of month.

Heaven Bound * is a quilted fabric accordion book, designed for classes I taught in Zelenogorsk, Russia in 1996.

2 pages of 'snow' created with some of the same fabric & techniques I plan on using in the Snow Book. 11 pgs, each pg 7"x7"

*Actual title is Heaven Bound. Russian translation on cover is Pathway to Heaven. Translating into other languages is never as straight forward as one might think. This was the closest a Russian friend could get to the original. The Russian front page is actually a separate piece velcroed over the actual front page which reads Heaven Bound.

HUNTERS IN THE SNOW

Out & about for next 2 wks. Snow book on hold. Instead will share art leading to wintery collage book.

Pieter Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow, painted 1565, definitely early influence. I dearly loved this painting from childhood, though I only saw it in art books.

Many years passed before seeing it at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. What an emotional moment... standing in front of this massive & meticulously painted work after studying it over & over again on the pages of art books. I cried.

Because this painting was so popular, it led many artists of the next century to specialize in winter landscapes. From What Makes a Bruegel a Bruegel? published for Metropolitan Museum of Art

And it is still inspiring artists today. ME !!!