Over the past few months I’ve been logging some serious hours in my studio. I’ve also been logging some serious miles, running on the gorgeous roads and trails surrounding our country home in Good Thunder (population 600)! Running again has made me think about my life before art. Fifteen years ago, when I was practically a teenager, I ran two marathons, loved to shop and dress up, and fancied myself a bit creative. My art was, by the IRS’s standards, a “hobby.” Slowly, I’ve built a career out of my art. A BFA, an MFA, a tenure-track teaching job, tenure and promotion, and multiple grants and awards later, it is fair to say that the IRS no longer looks at me as a hobbyist! And, like Lisa, I am so thankful for the many opportunities that have come my way. The universe has been more than good to me.

As with most careers, in the thick of it, many other parts of my life have had to become less important. Somewhere during the past decade I became a couch potato (albeit one who constantly climbs ladders and runs around galleries); I became a fashion disaster (Good Thunder is not a shopping mecca, and climbing ladders and running around galleries is not a glamour job); and I had no time to keep up with old friends, let alone make new friends.

When I showed my MSU students an Art 21 video with Anne Hamilton a few years ago, you know what struck them? After sleeping through most of her amazing work, they got all worked up seeing the part where Hamilton is jogging. “SHE jogs????” I asked them why they thought that was surprising. Their response: “She’s an artist!”

I thought that was telling. In art, as with many careers, there is this idea that you are supposed to suffer, to sacrifice everything for your art, to give up all the things that normal people do that give them pleasure. But it’s been a while since I’ve had a martyr complex in terms of my career. I learned long ago that I’m happier and more productive if I let life in instead of trying so hard to keep life away.

My husband David is a saint. He’s also an artist. Between the two of us it seems that someone is always installing a show or under a tight deadline. Edward and Gretta, our standard poodles, are also pretty patient, although Edward is full-of-the-devil today! The past month has been all about embracing life outside of art. Which is not to say that I’m not in the studio. In fact, it’s sort of the opposite. I feel more productive…and happier…than ever. I’m gonna kick some butt in that 7 mile trail race on May 7. AND I’m gonna buy some new clothes and stop being such a fashion disaster. AND (last but not least) I’m gonna kick some butt in the McKnight exhibition, which opens July 13 at MCAD Gallery in Minneapolis.

Thanks for reading everyone. Stay tuned!

As the seasons are changing, so is the work in my studio. Over the past few months I’ve been introducing new materials into my palette, which has long been comprised primarily of stiffened felt. In fact, I’m so excited about the new materials that I’ve momentarily forgone stiffened felt altogether, trading it in for faux fur, pleather, and felt with no stiffener. And you thought I wasn’t innovative.

In all seriousness, working with new materials has pushed me to new places technically and conceptually. I’ve had to grapple with issues of weight and methods of attaching one material to another–pleather is heavy…pleather is typically one-sided. Additionally, I’ve allowed myself to make more connections between the multifaceted imagery that has long-informed my work and how the materials I use can better resonate with that imagery. Oddly enough, I’m moving towards greater ambiguity (or at least hybridity) in the forms I reference, and greater specificity in the materials I work with.

Pictures of parades, military processions, and lines of showgirls are all filtered into the new work, and the materiality reflects these diverse interests. If the stiffened  felt I was formerly utilizing had a somewhat suppressed materiality and a built in ambiguity, the materials I’m using now are overt, gaudy, even raunchy. I am super excited about them…and, at times, super frustrated with them.

I am thankful for the opportunity to be in the studio in a continuous but relaxed way, and to work through things that have long needed to be worked through. I am trusting in the process. It’s a time of great experimentation, energy, and, hopefully, innovation. I’m psyched. I love spring.

Hope you are all enjoying the weather. Have a great week and thanks for reading!

My recent explorations in the studio position me somewhere between a bad upholsterer…a bad costume designer…and, well, a bad artist! Still, I’ve never been a perfectionist in my studio. Instead, I tend to fail, and fail, and fail until, at some point, hopefully, I get it right. And, well, if not, it won’t be for lack of trying.

When I started this blog, I promised not to babble on and on about nothing. I try to save that for Facebook. And so, I’ll keep this brief and let you know that I’m out here on the frontier living the life of the artist, and, quite honestly, loving every minute.

Have a great week everyone!

I never set out to be a “felt artist.” It just kind of happened.

In previous posts, I’ve talked about the material’s wonderful versatility. Strong, fragile, resilient, crafty, industrial, tactile—I could go on and on. Over the past year, I’ve made felt do things it isn’t supposed to do. Felt became architectural, and, in some instances, menacing. I formed felt firing squads, bays of felt guns, and complex structures that challenged my abilities as a “felt architect” It was exciting.

Then I came home from six months of traveling. I took a week off. My brain did its work while I did things outside the studio. And let me tell you, after the intensity of the last six months, I was pretty happy to let my subconscious figure things out!

Change is happening in my studio. I am doing what I feel like I do best: I am playing with materials. Think fur. Think pleather. I am, as they say, “in the zone.” It’s really lovely. I’ll write more when I surface for air.