2017 was a good year for art. Two prizes won, six pieces of work sold, and over a dozen new works created. The ratio of sold work to created work suggests that there may be a storage problem with work that has been created but not sold. There is. But I don't want to talk about that right now.
January 2017
Tidal Ripples
Needle-felted with merino wool, layered with hand-painted quilt batting, mounted on stretcher bars
Heaven on Earth II
18 x 24
Painted with Jacquard Lumiere paints on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then quilted and framed
$350
March 2017
Truro Path
Needle felted with merino wool on raw silk
18 x 14
$175
First Sale of the Year
March, 2017 also saw the sale of my first piece of the year, Norfolk Fence, which was created in 2014 and juried into the exhibit, Walls, Doors, and Fences at the Spectrum Gallery, Centerbrook, CT. It was sold to a buyer from Ivoryton, CT.
April 2017
Out There
Needle felted with merino wool on raw silk
18 x 14
$175
May 2017
Heaven on Earth III
18 x 24
Painted with Jacquard Lumiere paints on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then quilted and framed
$350
First Art Prize of the Year
Mid-May 2017 saw the awarding of the Brooks Kelly Award, and Best in Mixed Media, at the Cape Cod Art Association's All Cape Cod show, for my 2016 felted, thread-painted, embroidered, and beaded creation, Last Day of Summer, First Encounter Beach:
This piece has not been sold yet
29 x 29
$600
June 2017
At the end of May/beginning of June, I made this banner to hang in front of the house. This one isn't for sale.
Slithers
18 x 24
Painted with Jacquard Lumiere paints on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then quilted and framed
Juried into Abstract Nature, an exhibit at the Spectrum Gallery, Centerbrook, CT, Summer 2017
$300
Hot Flow
18 x 24
Painted with Jacquard Lumiere paints on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then quilted and framed
Juried into Abstract Nature, an exhibit at the Spectrum Gallery, Centerbrook, CT, Summer 2017
$300
Here I am, post-surgery, hobbling on my cane, enjoying the opening reception for Abstract Nature.
Besides creating these three pieces in June, I spent the last week of the month on Star Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, serving as a teacher for Arts Week. I taught The Felted Landscape.
Teaching there was a truly awesome experience, and I posted at least three pieces about it on this blog in June.
The trouble is, I understand that Star Island likes to invite brand new artists each year. I can understand why they wouldn't want to offer The Felted Landscape two years in a row. But what if I told them that I've since learned how to make three-dimensional creations, have already taught it once, and will be teaching it again in 2018? Felting, yes, but dimensional. Something totally different. I'll have to inquire.
July 2017
July, 2017 was an eventful month. On the 12th, I had hip replacement surgery
Second Art Prize of the Year
Second Sale of the Year
When I was under anesthesia, I later learned, a message was left on my home landline, announcing that my 2015 creation, Eastham Low Tide, which had been juried into the Cape Cod Art Association's annual national exhibit, had taken Best in Show:
Eastham Low Tide
Painted with Derwent Inktense Pencils on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then mounted and framed
Purchased by a visitor from Ohio
I spent the next month recovering in this rented recliner:
But while I was living in that recliner, I was able to work on a couple of things:
Pemetic Trail
18 x 14
Needle felted on raw silk, hand-embroidered, and framed
$175
The Last Picnic
Needle felted on raw silk, hand-embroidered, appliqued with dupioni silk
$175
Two sunprint throw pillows, commissioned by an old friend as a housewarming gift for her granddaughter
Third Sale of the Year
Heaven on Earth, an art quilt, had been juried into Sacred Threads, a biennial quilt show, based in northern Virginia, focusing on themes of spirituality.
It was painted on pre-treated Pimatex cotton, then batted and quilted. It was purchased by a visitor from Colorado.
August 2017
Fourth Sale of the Year
Sandy Neck (photo transfer, quilting, and beading) was created in August of 2017 and juried into the Lyme Art Association's annual show. It was sold, even before the show had its opening reception, to a buyer from East Haddam, CT
September 2017
Before the Storm
August-September 2017
This mixed media piece includes felting, hand embroidery, quilting, and photo transfer
It was juried into the Provincetown Art Association and Museum's 2017
Members' Juried Show and purchased from that show by a private
collector.
Labor Day 2017
Labor Day weekend bought a visit from our girls, including those who now live on the West Coast. All three of our girls, and their partners, and family friends and neighbors, converged on our house in West Hartford, and we had a shibori day!
Everyone contributed a square to a quilt that became a wedding present for Julia and Elana.
Plus, I made many shibori scarves, with the intention of selling them at Open Studio Hartford in early November. Unfortunately, I ended up unable to participate in Open Studio because it occurred too close in time to Julia's wedding at the end of October, so...oh, well. I sold some of the scarves at the Festival of the Season at the Unitarian Society of Hartford. The rest I'll save for Open Studio next year!
September 2017
This is the month when Joe and I usually spend at least two weeks on Cape Cod. This year, we went for the last two weeks of the month, and the weather was hurricaney. I'm fine with that, though: I happily sat inside and worked on this piece:
Fall Walking into Winter is now hanging at the Spectrum Gallery, Centerbrook, CT, as part of its exhibit, "Winter: Its Beauty and Secrets."
Fall Walking Into Winter, Felted Landscape, 18 x 24
Fifth Sale of the Year
While I was on the Cape at the end of September, I got to go to the opening reception for the Provincetown Art Association and Museum's Members' Juried Show. I'd had a piece, Before the Storm, accepted into that show. It was purchased by a private collector.
October 2017
For the first two weeks of October, I was focus artist at Maple and Main Gallery in Chester, Connecticut.
The gallery put together a beautiful little display of my work, right by the front door, for those two weeks:
I even went down there on a Sunday afternoon and demonstrated one of my arts, needle felting:
At least two of the people who came by said that they visited especially to see me because they wanted to know how my work was created. That was gratifying.
In mid-month, my friend and former co-worker, Margaret Clark, paid me a visit. Margaret was a friend from my legal freelancing days at the Society for Human Resource Management. She lives in northern Virginia, so I hardly ever see her, but I feel a real affinity for her: we were both raised Catholic, both married Jewish men, and both went to law school. Also, Margaret was born and raised in West Hartford, CT, where I now live, and came up through the Hartford region's Catholic schools, including Our Lady of Sorrows and Northwest Catholic High School.
I showed Margaret a number of pieces, then left her in the dining room to think about it. She choose Streetside Lace, a closeup look at crackling and crumbling ice by the side of a road. That was my
Sixth Sale of the Year.
Thanks, Margaret! You made my day, week, and month!
At the end of the month, my daughter Julia was married to Elana Arian, the love of her life.
As wedding present, besides the shibori quilt I showed you above, I made them a challah cover, which is one of the things they asked for. Why does challah need a cover? I don't know, it just does.
For the challah cover, I used an image of a stringed instrument copied from an antique Japanese silk kimono which has been in my family for years. My grandmother's brother brought it back for her from a trip to Japan he made with the U.S. Navy.
On the kimono is a motif of a stringed instrument. I chose this image for the challah cover as a way of honoring Elana, who plays every kind of stringed instrument there is, including the oud. Well, maybe not the sitar.
I neglected to take a photo of the whole challah cover before I gave it away. But here's its central motif, which is felted and embroidered.
November 2017
Can you believe I constructed it from a tiny typewriter ribbon box, no more than 3 inches in diameter?!
As soon as the wedding was over, we were into the whirl of the holidays, but I did manage to begin creating these two pieces, Heaven on Earth IV and V.
What else? Teaching, for one thing. I taught a lot in 2017. Also, I learned a new skill: a new way of structuring three-dimensional felted creatures. In fact, I've already gone out and taught that once, and will again in the coming year.
But I've gone on for long enough, dont'cha think?
