South African Impressions

This morning I finished another larger composition for the South African Impressions project, the third on in the series to date. Like the first piece, this one is kinda sort of landscapey.

The original inspiration is the bushveld of South Africa, lots of grass and short scrubby trees. This piece is about 26″ x 20″.

In addition to working on this design, which will still need to be quilted. I completed the first of the 3″x3″ textile paintings. It will be mounted on a small stretched canvas before arriving at it’s new home.

It was good to feel a sense of completion and get this small piece quilted as the stitching adds the much loved texture to my work.

Not Yet Titled
©2009 Lisa Call
3" x 3"
Textile Painting mounted on stretched canvas

Names

I’ve yet to come up with the titles for this body of work and I’m sure something will eventually strike me as appropriate. So for now they are all untitled.

Misc News

The Fiber Arts Telesummit that I mentioned a few weeks back has been canceled. They are going to reschedule but I’m not sure I will participate. I think I will instead offer a series of teleseminars on social media and blogging for artists through my new project Make Big Art.

When I get my mom settled I refocus on makebigart.com, so look for that in coming months.

Today I received my very gracious rejection letter from Art Quilt Elements. Bummer. I was a bit sad but I don’t let it stop me. Congrats to all that did get in.

So I’m starting to feel like an artist again – rejection, studio time, blogging, thinking about make big art again. Yay!

South African Impressions

Last week I designed the above composition for the South African Impressions project.

We drove by miles and miles of sugar cane fields and gum trees and the occasional fence during my month in South Africa in August, all of these came together in the above piece.

Momentum

I have not yet been able to build any momentum in the studio. My mother will be released from the nursing home next week and I’ve been scrambling to set up an apartment for her in Denver. There is a ton to do and with a full time job there isn’t a lot of time to do most of it.

In a few weeks I’ll join my siblings, in what we hope to be the final trip to Kansas, to empty my mom’s house and bring her stuff out to Colorado for her new life. In the meantime I expect things to be busy around here. I’ll get to the studio when I can and once she is settled in with furniture I will commit to a regular studio schedule again.

Anyone want to buy a house in Chanute, Kansas?

It’s been a while since I posted any photos from South Africa. I do plan on getting through all 21 days of the tour eventually, this is just a low priority task at the moment, one for times when I’m too tired for the studio.

Day 7 of the South African Tour was a free day while we were in the Drakensburg, the mountains in central part of the country. I chose to spend my free day hiking and was happy Barb and Jessie invited me to join them on a hike toward Cathedral Peak. We didn’t aim for the top but to get a great view of the peak.

It was a beautiful day and the hike was gorgeous. These photos bring back only wonderful fond memories.

[For new readers - I spent a month in South Africa in August - had a fabulous time on the arts and crafts tour - you can see previous posts here.]

The Hike To Cathedral Peak

This photo was taken about an hour into the hike. We’d done a bunch of up and had a bunch more to go.

A bit later looking back to where we came from.

Up the valley – looking back again to the start. Notice the difference on the 2 sides of the valley – one green – one brown – amazing the effect of the sun!

The smoke in the distance is controlled grass fires – they do that a lot. Also the peaks in the background are the escarpment that gently slopes down towards the west. Funky thing escarpments.

And finally – after a lot more up that originally anticipated (I think 2 1/2 hours but might have been 3) we see Cathedral Peak. It was amazing!

Very rocky – just like colorado.

The view over the valley.

Someone thought we were dinner.

The dark streak is a burned grass area.

Hiking back down (much faster than going up).

Then I started taking photos of the grass.

Isn’t grass cool!!!

Love the splotch of green grass in the sea of brown. These colors heavily influenced the fabric I dyed for my South African Impressions textile paintings.

It was a fabulous day. We had a long leisurely lunch after the hike then walked back to our camp – another 1/2-hour of walking. Or at least that is what I remember – it was a big walking day.

This was definitely one of the highlights for me on this trip.

The little blurb for my talk:

In this presentation Lisa will discuss how textile artists can benefit from the new social media. She’ll cover both the marketing and sales aspects of an active online presence in addition to focusing on the personal, artistic and other less intangible benefits of social marketing. Pondering such questions such as: Why join Facebook? What do I write about on my blog? How do I find readers? What is the purpose of Twitter? How are Facebook and Twitter different? Does any really care what I had for dinner? And more!

The telesummit is being presented by Art of the Song Creative Radio and Eric Maisel. They have an early bird registration deal until October 31st. You can sign up for the entire telesummit or just the talks that interested you. For more information and sign up details: click here.

I’m not sure yet what time I’ll be talking but I’d guess it’ll be in the afternoon on November15th. As soon as I have details I’ll post them.

Although this summit is for fiber artists my talk will be directed at all artists – not just fiber artists. Social media and blogging is for all of us.

I’m looking forward to giving this talk as it’s a subject I have much passion.

 
PS – I am not being paid to give this talk, instead the link to the telesummit is an affiliate link, meaning if you click it and decide to sign up and I’ll get a portion of the fees you pay. So while not necessary, I’d appreciate you using my link to sign up should you choose to join the call.

The Start

Last night I worked in my studio for 2 1/2 hours and the result was the start of the first South African Impressions textile paintings. It’s quite a departure from my abstract work and rather obviously a landscape.

This textile painting is about 20-24″ square.

In addition to this larger piece I worked on a few ACEOs in the series. These haven’t been quilted yet (neither has the larger piece above) so they lack my usual texture. That will be coming soon.

 
I was thrilled to discover I still remembered how to make art after an almost 3 month break.

This is just 1 of several ideas I have for my south african impressions textile paintings. I was enamored with the houses so expect some of those along with several other designs.

 
For new readers, I spent a month in South Africa in August and this is a series of work based on that experience. Details of the artwork (which can still be prepurchased at a discount) can be see here: South African Impressions

South African Impressions

A month back I dyed the fabric for my South African Impressions project. I got waylaid with life but now it’s time to get this project going and wrapped up.

These aren’t all the colors I will be using, I need to add in some purples for the Drakensburg mountains and some blue for the sky, and all sorts of other fun colors for the houses, but this is the basic palette I will be using.

I really appreciate all the folks that have pre-purchased this art and your art will be created soon. I organized all my paperwork last night so I know what I need to create and I’m pretty excited about it.

Time to make some new art!

Life

Obviously my plan to blog 3 times a week didn’t quite pan out. Since my last post I traveled out to Kansas to pack up my mom and bring her back to live in Denver. She’s soon going to be ready to move into something more permanent, which means another trip to Kansas to get her house ready to sell. So I won’t kid myself this time, more disruption is coming (first I have to find a place for her to live!).

So until my mom is settled blogging will be a lower priority. But I’ll be back eventually.

Home #2
©2008 Lisa Call
10" x 9"
Textile Painting – Fabric handdyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread
Private Collection

The Title and Theme

I announced a few months back that I have another solo show coming up at the Macky in Boulder on the University Campus. I’ve been contemplating what the theme for this show might be and this morning it was obvious that it is to be based on my Home series.

So much of my life this year has been around houses and homes and transformations and it all just fell into place as I transitioned from sleep to wakefullness this morning.

• My recent move and house remodel
• My trip to South Africa and experiencing their houses and homes
• My mom’s upcoming transition in her living situation
• My friends’ stories of their view of house and home

.. all this and more will inform the exhibit.

The title will be What Makes a House a Home?

Action

It feels great to have settle on the theme, next up is to work out how much artwork I need to produce. The sizes, numbers, etc. And then the simple task to make an entire exhibits’ worth of work over the next 4 months.

But first I’ll complete my South African Impressions work. I have papers full of designs (a rare thing for me but I found myself a bit stuck and needed to sketch out my ideas before picking up fabric and scissors) and next weekend I’ll get to work with the fabric.

For the next week I have house guests (and so my daughter is living in my studio – and loving it just a bit too much) and early next week I will be traveling to Kansas to bring my mom back to live near me. Another decision reached.

I’m excited to have her close by and to help her adjust to her new life in Denver, it’s going to be a fabulous time for all of us.

Home #3
Textile Painting
©2008 Lisa Call
8" x 10.5"
Purchase

Crafthaus

This week I’m one of the featured artists on crafthaus.

I’ve been a member of this ning group since it’s early inception and have always been impressed by the quality of the community.

With a zillion social networking groups out there this is one of the few I choose to belong to and participate in (although maybe not as active as I’d like to be).

Check them out if you are looking for more ways to spend time online! (har)

Short Updates

For those that have noticed my absence here on my blog and wondering what’s up, you can friend me on facebook and see I update my status at least daily. So I am about and thinking about things.

If you’d like only short art updates (and not off topic ramblings about making salsa and other such things which appear on my regular facebook page) – you can instead become a fan to my art facebook page instead. When I can’t think of an entire blogs worth of something to say I post short updates on my fan page.

Art and Fabric for Sale

When I left for Africa in late August I turned off my art for sale pages on my website. I’m just now getting around to turning them back on. Hm – I think I forgot about them.

Collectible Art for Sale
Hand dyed Fabric for Sale

I also have PFD fabric for sale to dyers that would like to try out the Kaufman pimatex I use in my artwork.

And you can still preorder my South African Impressions work at a discount through the end of September. There are only a handful of ACEOs left. You can get details here: South African Impressions.

I’ll be showing the first pieces in this new series very soon here on the blog.

I keep thinking I’ll get into things but I still haven’t found what it takes to get me to the studio or to my computer on any sort of consistent schedule or for any amount of time.

There are a zillion things that have factored into this and currently the major one is some decisions around my mom and her health and living accomadations and all of the attending emotions that come with dealing with situations like this. It’s a story told over and over and one that isn’t easy for anyone involved.

I believe that continuing to work on my art is an ideal way to process the situation and stay balanced yet I’m not quite there yet. Doing nothing seems to have more appeal at the moment.

In the meantime I think about blogging, I think about making art, and soon I’m sure, I’ll be back to do both.

Thanks to everyone that has emailed me and contacted me and commented on my absence. Much appreciated!

August 7th was the day to see San Rock Art in the caves with our guide Frans, an anthropologist and rock art specialist. There are around 20,000 individual rock paintings at 500 different cave and overhang sites in the Drakensburg.

After a rather adventurous hike (Frans might benefit from a GPS) we found the location of the first cave (really more of an overhang). Not visible in the photo but it’s to the right:

 

Before we started up, first a stop at the waterfall for everyone to catch up. This is one of the very few photos of me taken in South Africa:

 

Another view of our destination – we had to go up to about the level of the white cliffs on the right hand side of the photo. Note the taller mountains in the background also:

 

And finally – the paintings. I can’t recall how old these are, somewhere around 1000-4000 years old I think but I didn’t write it down. It is very difficult to date because there is almost no carbon in the paint to date. (click on the photos for a larger image to see the art better):

 

An Eland:

 

Running people. Frans talked for quite a while about the paintings and it was absolutely fascinating. He might not be the best at directions but he certainly knew his rock art paintings.

 

We sat in the cave for quite a while listening to his stories. The roof of the cave also caught my attention:

 

Cathedral Hotel

We had lunch at the Cathedral Hotel after our long hike. In my opinion this was one of the best meals of the trip.

I’m not a fan of pineapple but they had a pineapple, tomato and cucumber salad that was delish. And for dessert – home made icecream and milk tart (like custard) – I had 3 servings – yum yum. (I ended up gaining 5 pounds on this trip – buffets can be evil things – oink).

The Cathedral Hotel is even closer up near Cathedral Peak than Didima Camp where we were sleeping. The view was stunning (Cathedral Peak is the one to the far right):

 

Another Adventure with Frans

After lunch Frans said he knew another closer place to see some rock art that was a shorter walk so we loaded back into the bus and headed off to this secret location.

When we got down to the river he noted “er, there was less water last time”. There was no way to walk along the river to see the paintings.

Well except I wasn’t to be deterred and started to crawl along this ledge and was able to find the paintings (you can see the last couple folks crawling back along the ledge in the center of this photo):

 
Only 4 people followed me, everyone else waded across the river to try to see them from the other side. With Frans pointing things out from the other side we were able to location the human figures and 3 eland. I didn’t bring my camera on the ledge so no photos of that art.

After crawling back (there was about 2 feet of clearance) I also took of my shoes and waded across the river as there was more rock art on the other side.

Well except not really – it had been destroyed or worn away by the cattle. All that was left were 2 legs about an inch high.

I did find the rocks to be beautiful so it wasn’t a wasted trip across the water:

The Views

The walk back to the bus afforded us some beautiful views of the valley and Cathedral peak:

Didima Camp

After the hike we rested in our rooms and enjoyed the view of Cathedral peak before another big buffet for dinner (if I never see another buffet again I’d probably be okay).

 
This was one of my most favorite days of the tour. I got to go hiking, Frans was delightful, the food was amazing, the weather was gorgeous. I am definitely a mountain girl.