Well, I'll be darned...Claire Fenton went and tagged me for the 20 list...had to go through other people's blogs to see just what I had to do...Claire wrote lots of stuff but then I looked at Gabrielle's list and it was much shorter. Must say I had noticed these and had read them but didn't realize that one get's tagged! See how out in left field I am? Just don't have all this protocol down!
20 things about myself.
1. I was born in Texas and consider myself a Texan although I have only lived there for two years when I attended Trinity University in San Antonio.
2. I am a honest to gosh red head whose hair has gotten darker over the years and I don't color it...there really is grey in there if you look hard enough!
3. My father was in the Navy and we traveled all around the outskirts of this country....not very many Naval bases in the midwest, although we did live on an Army post at Ft Campbell KY for a year...that was fun during the Army-Navy games...we had a beat Army sign in our window!
4. I lived in Japan in 1957-59 and 1961-63.
5. I taught English conversation to a group of students at Waseda Univeristy in Tokyo where I was able to hold my own when they discussed intergration in the US (I had attended a middle school in Virginia just after the public schools were reopened after being shut down for two years in response to the order to desegregate them)
6. I graduated from High School in Hawaii...from Waianae High and was one of a very few haolis at the school.
7. I majored in art for two years and for 1 1/2 of those years, my roommate was also an art major and we would stay up late at night pulling prints from our woodblocks...had clothes lines strung around the room with prints hanging from them...didn't get to sleep until 4 am.
8. Went to my 8 am class the day after in my babydoll pajamas under my trench coat...the private Presbyterian school did not allow the women to wear pants on upper campus where all the classes were...and my 8am class was a religion class...
9. Rented a house in the community of the school with a group of art students and music and drama students so we would have a place to hang out...everyone not a senior had to reside on campus and we had curfews, etc. Lots of interesting things went on at that house...I built myself a stone carving table and would work on carvings with my hammer and chisels outside. Parties at night.
10. When I left Trinity to go to the University of California at Berkeley in 1967, the dean of women told me she felt I would be much happier there...I wasn't.
11. Attended UC Berkeley (Cal) during riots. Changed my major to social work as the art department and I didn't get along very well...surprisingly, Trinity had been much more open to differences in styles of work. The best thing I learned from Cal was how to weld.
12. Met my husband at the shooting range where I was quite proficient with a rifle.
13. Although my mother outfitted me in a wonderful trousseau, I spent my honeymoon in blue jeans, tee shirts and boots as we wandered around Yosemite in the fall.
14. Art has always been a very important part of my life, even when being a mother, probation officer, wife, Girl Scout leader, etc., etc., took up all of my time.
15. As a probation officer I specialized in working with sex offenders...both adult and juveniles. I know just about everything that can be done to a person and how ugly people can really be.
16.The balance of my case load was usually women drug and alcohol offenders who, surprise, surprise, had been victims of sexual abuse in their childhood but never told anyone before they got to me...
17. I am very glad to be away from all that!
18. I stay away from a lot of political statement making because I have been around a lot and have seen both sides of everything and I just don't want to...my head is not in the sand, but I can't do much about it myself so I work one-on-one to create change where I can.
19. I am an extremely spiritual person but did not feel good about organized religions until I joined an Episcopal church and found people seeking answers as much as I was.
20. I cannot go through a day without doing some type of art.
ll, I have finished all the pieces of "Where Have All the Children Gone", at least the ones I had already started. So I will post them:
o inspiring.
This is fun piece that pops right out at you! It is really interesting to walk in the room with dimmed lights and see this as the green really shows out. It is hand dyed cotton fused on to painted cotton which has a lot of surface design stuff and then has machine quilting and, of course, my seemingly present satin stitching. I am having fun with those organic lines!
This piece is all hand dyed cottons which have been cut and fused. I then used Neocolor I crayons to add additional color and I love the way the red-oranges just pop. It has so much depth in it in person. I am really happy with this one.
Third time is the charm...finally got Study in Red postcards up...these two were done on monoprinted fabric and then I had a ball doing rubbings on my plastic mesh and then doing applique with commercial fabrics and then satin stitching. Did 14 of these, I think, for mailing to my Art2Mail group.
This was a fun piece to do...different layers of paint and then swooshing through with a combing tool...lots of fun! Can't wait to cut it up!
I did a couple of pieces with reds and just really had a blast. This one above and the one below both have a piece of gridded plastic that is used over flourescent lights...just plopped it down and picked it back up!
This hot little number is not a monoprint but was painted in one of my surface design classes and I just came across it. Took my neocolor I's and did rubbings with my favorite plastic needlepoint canvas... I have two sizes of circles and they are both fun to do!
And then this is a final picture of a monoprint that I really like and am trying to decide if I will cut it up or use it and go from there...I'm thinking about cutting it and adding it to other collaged stuff.
