I am liking this kind of collaborative art project more and more lately. I’m also a participant in The Sketchbook Project, and have been gathering materials for it for a couple months now. I hope to have some pages completed and scanned to share with you soon.

I acquired a bunch of new brushes on sale this past Tuesday at Jerry’s Artarama here in Austin. And they are mainly large brushes since I am starting a couple paintings that are much bigger than I normally work.

Every vessel I already had brushes in was simply overwhelmed by these new size 14-24s. Several containers that I tried simply fell over immediately from the weight of the brushes against the sides. Then inspiration struck!

I purchased a couple storage containers called Button Banks (by June Tailor) a few months ago, but they really didn’t work for the beads I had planned to store in them. However, they are perfect for my brushes! As you can see, they are divided into eight compartments that neatly sort my brushes by size and hold them upright.

A small thing in the overall scheme of my ongoing studio reorganization, but a thing that pleases me nevertheless.

In the middle of it all, I did manage to get over to Albuquerque for Convergence 2010. The exhibits were wonderful with some really interesting pieces, and I took down tons of artists’ names so I can look them up and bookmark their websites and blogs. As I track them down, I’ll post some of their websites here.

I’ve also been getting my “business services for artists” company up and running with all the details that are necessary to operate at full speed in Texas. Over the past year I’ve taken on very few clients, but some things have now evolved that make it possible for me to expand my client list and services. More details coming soon.

There are some deadlines coming up fast in a couple of my media, so I really need to get back to work in the studio. Talk to you later!

The work was quite diverse and interesting, with a mix of artists whose work I know and several new-to-me artists, as well. The exhibit runs through July 25th, so you still have time to take a pleasant drive and enjoy the show!

Artists in the exhibit:

Lana Book
Paula Cox
Mildred Cuffaro
Georgie Cunningham
Fay Drozd
Deborah Geistweidt
Jeanette Guetersloh
Lisa Kerpoe
Karen Maddox
Susie Monday
Linda Rael
Letitia Rogers
Mary Lee Tennant
Georgia Zwartjes

The QuiltArt email discussion list turned 15 this spring. I can’t believe it’s been around that long, although, come to think of it, I’ve been on other lists just as long, if not longer.

When it first started, QuiltArt was a pioneer. Not many people had heard of art quilts, and fewer knew what they were or were actively engaged in creating them. This has changed radically since then, with art quilts being featured in most major quilt exhibits, and many exhibits each year around the world dedicated solely to them.

The QA list has grown like topsy since then, too. It was started in 1995 by Judy Smith with a handful of subscribers and now has nearly 3500!

To celebrate the 15 year milestone, a challenge exhibit was mounted on the list and the resulting art quilts are now posted online. My entirely-stitched-by-hand piece, entitled “Space,” is below. You can see them all here: QuiltArt Quinceañera

Click the image to enlarge

Click here for a detail image

It seems that most people don’t mind having the title with the piece, and want the other information available, but only after they view the piece and decide how they feel or what they think for themselves. Commenters, both in on-list remarks and private email replies to me, were quite strongly opposed to situations where they thought they were being told what to feel, what to think, what to like.

This reminded me of how this was handled in an exhibit I saw last autumn while back home in Upstate New York. The barest information was posted in “Vibrations: Color Resonance in Antique Quilts 1860–1940,” curated by Gerald Roy, but there was a special phone number set up so that one could dial in from one’s cell phone as one walked the exhibit. When one wanted more information and commentary about a piece one was viewing, one simply entered a code for that piece and the information was presented. If one wasn’t interested in the extra information about a particular quilt, one just didn’t enter the code.

(This is, of course, similar to other venues where one can obtain a headset and listen to recorded information on an “audio tour” of the exhibit. But I really liked the ability to view the exhibit in any order I liked without messing up the recording synchronization.)

The consensus of this somewhat informal survey of a relatively small sample, was that we’d like to see more exhibits presented with only a title and artist name next to the work, but with more information available in a simple printed handout one could carry along, or perhaps available on an audio commentary. If a venue really wanted to get high tech about it, one could have free downloadable apps for smartphones tailored to each exhibit. A mix of these media would be ideal.

Do you know of a museum, gallery, or other art venue doing this? Please leave a comment and let us know!

My years spent in New Mexico had a very strong influence on my worldview and artwork. It seems I’ve unintentionally created a series of watercolor paper collages based on my time there that I’m now calling Southwest Vistas. This includes my previous works “Desert Sunset” and “Rose Mountain,” and a couple other larger works that I have not yet unveiled on my website because they have been submitted for a juried exhibit.

I just mounted a new 11″x14″ piece in the series on canvas this afternoon, and have another piece in the final stages of assembly. The image below is a shot I took last night as I was auditioning papers for their place in the final arrangement.

These two newest collages will be hung in the Austin Fiber Artists Member Show and Sale at the Wesley Gallery.

The digital postcard for the upcoming Austin Fiber Artists Gallery Show and Sale at Wesley Gallery has arrived. I was surprised and pleased to see my piece “Desert Sunset” was included on the image. It’s in the third row down, second from the left.

This piece is already in the collection of Debra Eisert, but I will have similar paper based, Southwest inspired collage work in the exhibit.

Do stop by for the reception if you are in the area!

I’ve been using this old, 1940s-era ironing board (shown in my former Montana studio) for about 10 years now. And I’ve put my loyalty aside and decided it’s time to move on!

This old board is still fine for ironing clothing, but for the kind of textile work I create, it’s less than ideal. It’s not all that sturdy, and it’s pretty darn narrow. It’s difficult to get a piece of fabric completely wrinkle free because part of it is always dropping over the edge. And fusing… well, let’s not even go there!

So I have made a new pressing surface. Starting with a 30″x30″ piece of 3/4″ plywood, I covered it with two layers of batting, pulled the edges to the back and used a staple gun to affix the layers. I then covered the batting with two layers of unbleached muslin, stapling it to the back in the same manner.

Look at that beautiful expanse of pressing space!

This surface exactly fits the width of my studio cutting/assembly table, and is perfect for pressing or fusing anything I might want to take on. And if it gets gunked up somehow, no problem. I can simply recover it and get right back to work.

I’ve decided to separate my photography from the rest of my artwork by creating a dedicated website for it. While many of my photographs fall into the “art” category of photography, I persist in thinking of it differently than I do my other work. Perhaps this is because I was a photographer before I worked in any other medium.

My photographs have been exhibited and published regularly over the past 25 years, and stock licensing has picked up for me in the last 24 months. It just seems to be time to feature my photos on a site that makes viewing and licensing an easier proposition for everyone, myself included.

My new site, WenslowPhoto.com, is being hosted at PhotoShelter. Although I’ve just begun using their service, I’m pretty happy with it. They have some great features that take a lot of the pain-in-the-neck factor out of licensing and selling photos. There are some improvements coming in the near future that will address the one or two things that didn’t make sense to me, and I expect to be completely thrilled with it when the changes are made.

Getting the site up and running was a painless and quick process, but sorting through thousands and thousands of images and deciding which to upload over there is taking quite a bit longer!

If you’d like to chat with me about PhotoShelter and obtain a referral code that gives us each a discount, just drop me an email.