Japanese Maple Leaf

Raking leaves in autumn is a perfect way to forage natural color right in your back yard. Japanese maple leaves create a pink/mauve dye for your textile and craft projects by simply chopping them up and throwing them in a pot of simmering water. Rich in tannin, the dye forms a strong bond with the textile that is long lasting and safe from light and water. This tutorial will show you how to forage and brew dye from Japanese maple leaves, as well as deepen the color with an iron water bath. You will see the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.

Iron Water

Iron is a great way to shift your naturally dyed fiber to darker shades quickly and easily. Make your own homemade iron water with 3 simple ingredients: rusty nails, white vinegar and water. After a few weeks, your iron water is ready to go! You only need a splash, so store it away to use any time you are looking for darker shades including gray and black. This video tutorial will show you how to make and use iron water, as well as the resulting color swatch samples of 6 different natural dyes on cotton.

Cold pH Shift

You've seen how to shift the color of red cabbage in your dye pot from purple to pink & green, but did you know you can cold shift too? Grab red cabbage dye you already have stored and play around with the pH to see what different colors you can make. Temperature can also play a factor in the colors you achieve with natural dye. This video tutorial will show you how to quickly color shift your red cabbage dye with vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (silk).

Creative Currency

Whole numbers

I am now rich with sand dollars.  Not the broken shells typically found in my childhood beach hunts, but perfectly whole specimens of this sea urchin treasure.

Seriously – we are talking the mother lode of sand dollars.

Never have I seen such a gorgeous array of sizes and colors of whole sand dollars washed up on the beach, Cayucos, California, September 2020.

So, what does an artist do with so much natural wealth?

Simple – leave it behind in exchange for creative inspiration that only the coast can generously offer.

Welcome to California’s Central Coast!

Bank holiday

My latest journey to visit my daughters living in San Luis Obispo filled my pockets up in more ways than one. 

Christmas was the last time I saw my oldest daughter, Devon, and the pandemic had cancelled a springtime trip to play on the beach with all four of us together.

So, two weeks relaxing oceanside with my kids this past month was a true gift. 

Hiking Harmony Headlands with my kids, Zsofi, Devon and Mason, August 2020. So much fun!

Exploring the sea cliffs at Montaña de Oro and Harmony Headlands state parks, watching my girls surf at Dog Beach and Moonstone, and catching some pretty sweet sunsets brought some big smiles.

Devon living the surfer’s life on Dog Beach in Cayucos, California, September 2020.

Zsofi shredding it on a foggy day at Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, August 2020.

It also brought me the opportunity to connect more deeply with my surroundings by leaving small installation offerings as an ephemeral payment of gratitude.

Thank you, Central Coast.

Frozen assets

To tender ice as an artistic medium on a windy beach is exciting stuff.

Finding the perfect spot to create a brief visual experience involves sand, stone and surf.  And, as you might imagine, not all places freely accept my form of creative currency.

You have to place a lot of ice to get a lucky shot, and luckily, the failures melt fast! Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, September 2020.

But, failed attempts are all part of the trek, and without the stagger there can be no sparkle. 

Ice installation is a true balancing act of patience and persistence. Cayucos Beach, California, August 2020.

All of the rejected installations are rewarded with laughter and lessons of letting go - critical elements of building a balanced artistic practice.

Bag of sand

Two beaches that are especially generous in their inspirational exchange along the Central Coast are the pebbly Moonstone and the long sandy strand stretching from Morro Bay to Cayucos.  Although waves crash against both to sculpt the tideline, there are unique features at each one that draw me in time and time again.

•  MOONSTONE

Say hello to a rock hound’s paradise of agates, jade and jasper.  Every visit I make to the area requires a few hours simply sifting through the stones.  So, leaving a small ice installation to mimic the colors of the tumbled rocks felt perfectly placed.

Blue butterfly pea, hibiscus, spirulina and turmeric created beautifully vibrant ice sticks to complement the colorful stones on Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, September 2020.

The honeycomb banks of sandstone at Moonstone are another fascination of mine that has spurred inspirational curiosity on every trip.  While others leave pebble offerings in the rounded crevices, my donation materialized as ice orbs of frozen hibiscus, spirulina and blue butterfly pea.

Ice orbs mixing with the salty spray of Moonstone Beach honeycomb rocks, Cambria, California, September 2020.

The wind whipped hard on the beach that day, adding to the expressive challenges, but my incredible kids stuck by my side (behind a driftwood shield!) so their free-spirited mom could artfully play.

Love you guys! 

• CAYUCOS

While this beach charmed me with its trove of whole sand dollars, it was the long, slow tide and larger rock outcrops that inspired my icy installations.

The proximity to our house made it an especially great space to experiment with frozen shapes across several days and in different light.

As the tide stretched in and out, tidal pools exposed vibrant sea anemones and their starfish friends. 

The neon glow of the sea anemone at low tide was breathtaking, Cayucos Beach, California, September 2020.

The variation of barnacle formations and mussels on the exposed rocks created intriguing complements to the melting blue cylinders of ice.

Perhaps the most compelling geological feature was a sea stack that brought back memories of an installation adventure in Lofoten, Norway in 2018.

Granite Stack ice installation in Lofoten, Norway is one of my very favorite shots, October 2018.

I made several attempts to capture the essence of Granite Stack, and was treated to a special image in exchange for hours quietly washed away by the California tide.

Mussel Stack ice installation in honor of Granite Stack, Cayucos Beach, California, September 2020.

Stack ‘em deep

Seems that my creative reserves have been happily refilled by my time on the Central Coast, and for that I’m thankful. 

The rush of excitement I felt by collecting fistfuls of sand dollars was immediately followed by a natural impulse to interact with their subtle beauty.

Sorting, stacking and releasing them back to the sea is somehow intertwined with the curiosity that drives my installation practice.

How comforting to know I can bank on this coastal inspiration forever.

The Art of Craft

Small craft advisory

As an artist, I aspire to be crafty.

Forget the misguided, and tragically oppressive Western narrative of ‘high art’ as somehow ‘enlightened’ and more valuable than the exquisite beauty found across all creative expression labeled as ‘craft’. 

If you can translate an idea from mind to hand, the material is immaterial – you are an artist - plain and simple.

My creative curiosity has led me down a crafty path or two, and I’m now enamored with one diversion so often associated with handiwork:  natural dyeing.

Some of my kitchen favorites for natural dye: avocado, turmeric, red cabbage and black bean.

While I could fight against the notion that this diminishes the value of my art, why would I entertain such a silly thought?

Nope.  I choose to celebrate, my artist friends, so let’s get crafting with natural color!

Color classics

Focusing on colors from nature in #The100DayProject has filled my fridge with an incredible rainbow of botanical dyes.

Dyes brewed from foraged plants and food scraps during #The100DayProject.

Every time I find a new plant to brew, I add to my collection.  When I see a color missing, I go searching for a plant.  It is a never-ending exploratory cycle.

10 dye plants foraged from Tambark Park and my garden waste to study local flora colors.

As I shared my project, and the art I created with these dyes, I could hear the buzz all around me as people became curious themselves.  Certainly interested, and maybe even inspired, to learn about natural dyes.

I get this.  I have a history of being intrigued myself.   It’s how this passion for organic color grew and how I learned what I know so far.  Ironically, it seems the more you know, the more you want to know.

Having had many of the same questions when I started my love affair with nature’s palette in 2017, I have been searching high and low for answers ever since.

When I learned from a Dutch artist that seaweed was a sustainable source of dye, I headed to Iceland to investigate.

And, because sharing is caring, I’m very excited to tell you a secret I’ve been keeping all to myself:

Starting in August 2020, I will be releasing short tutorial videos and mini-courses all about the incredible world of natural color.  My intention is to build a place where you can easily find the basics to get you inspired to add color to your life naturally.

Soon to be released YouTube channel, Cookin’ Color, with short video tutorials on organic dyes, August 2020.

The topic is HUGE.  There are so many options and different approaches to extracting color, plus a multitude of ways to use it.

For me, organic color has been an integral part of my installation practice, and more recently my mixed media work.  But a beautiful aspect of natural color is that it is available to everyone, no matter where you consider yourself on the art/craft spectrum.

Bioplastics cooked and cured with natural dyes in my kitchen studio in June 2020.

And, the botanical dye in my fridge right now is a perfect example of the countless ways we can weave natural color into almost everything.

Nature’s bounty

Finding a way to create color in an ephemeral installation without hurting an environment is how I got hooked on natural dyes.  But as my #100DaysOfNaturesColors meandered its way through botanical dyes and earth pigments, I could clearly see just how many different ways I have been exploring color from nature.  Maybe one or more of these will strike a creative chord with you too!

TEXTILE

Probably the most obvious and popular use of natural dyes is to create sumptuous hues for fabric.  With a growing interest of sustainability in fashion, botanical colors are popping up from head to toe.  If you’ve got natural fibers in your closet (cotton, hemp, silk, wool), you can dye organically – the options are endless.

Textiles of wool, silk, cotton and bamboo hand-dyed in Oaxaca exclusively with organic matter.

My first on-line workshop will be on how to create an ombre-dyed scarf from foods in your kitchen, and this fall, I will be teaching a similar technique using earth pigments.  Incorporating these rich colors into a wardrobe is a delicious way to get your art out of the house.

However, if knitting or weaving is more your speed, soaking yarn, string or ribbon in a batch of botanicals can create subtle sweetness.  Just look at the wonder of this wool I dyed in Mexico.

Wood hand-dyed in organic matter including indigo, muicle, pericon and cochineal in Oaxaca, Mexico.

While I preferred to use this fiber for installation, imagine a hat, scarf, mittens or sweater with that special colorful touch?

But who says you have to wear hand-dyed textiles?  My mom was an avid quilter which I’m certain has influenced my mixed media textile pieces and love of squares.

Naturally dyed textile piece, Blossom, created while on residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

How special it would have been to forage with my mom and organically dye fabric swatches for her to sew into her quilt creations.  Keep that in mind for the quilters in your life.

PAPER

Textile’s extended fiber family is paper.  The delicate translucency of paper has intrigued me for quite some time, both for sculptural and 2D applications.  In Oaxaca, I first tested how wet strength fibers like mulberry and tissue would hold the colors I had brewed, and it worked like a charm.

First time hand-dyeing paper with plant matter in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

So, one chunk of 10 days during #The100DayProject, I focused on creating collage with these dyed papers.  The variations of color, especially when layering, felt closely tied to the depth I love to create with overlays of silk in my textile pieces.

Hand-dyed paper collage backlit in Tambark Park, made exclusively from organic dyes foraged in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Feeling inspired, I foraged local ‘weeds’ in my beloved Tambark Park the last 10 days of the project and made a new rainbow stock of colorful paper from the PNW.

Paper samples of natural dyes brewed from foraged plants in my neighborhood. Only blue butterfly pea was from my kitchen!

What’s wonderful about paper is its versatility across several art disciplines, and a true staple in many craft projects.   Why not make hand-dyed paper with plants foraged from your neighborhood the next time the scissors and glue need some exercise?

INK

Dyeing paper is one way to spread some of nature’s colors around, but making ink turns just about any organic matter into a medium for drawing and watercolor fun.

I simply poured the dyes I brewed from foraged plants in Iceland and Mexico on paper, but learning how to make ink specifically was yet another way to expand my natural color wheel during the last 100 days.

Testing inks made from avocado skin and red cabbage during #The100DayProject.

I even made blue ink with my cherished blue butterfly pea blossoms for the first time, one of the most elusive colors of nature.

Watch out - lake pigments might be just around the next corner!

KITCHEN KRAFT

While all of the above may result in time at a craft table, a stovetop is still a critical element in a studio of natural dyes.  Therefore, it’s no surprise that crafts of the kitchen can also add a splash of organic color.

Much of my installation work was born in the kitchen - infused ice, mung bean and playdough have been some of my edible shining stars.

Mung bean string installation naturally dyed with kitchen scraps in Sayulita, Mexico, December 2018.

Brewing organic dyes as natural food coloring for baking, cooking and blended drinks is certainly a fun way to add color in the kitchen.  At the very least, you can start with next year’s Easter eggs having that natural color vibe.

This year’s Easter Eggs were dyed au naturel in turmeric, red beet, red cabbage, avocado and blue butterfly pea.

Plus, the kitchen is the perfect place to start playing with natural dyes in general.   So many fruits/veggies, spices and even food scraps can make wonderful colors with very simple recipes. 

In case you missed it this spring, download a copy of my Cookin’ Color brew booklet with a few of my favorite kitchen dye recipes, or better yet, sign up here for my 5 Days of Dye short video tutorial series releasing soon in a kitchen near you!

HEADING

Go ahead – call me crafty.  I don’t mind at all.

To be honest, I question why any negative association became attached to a word that honors the vision and skill it takes to create beauty with your hands.  To be an accomplished craftsperson is a lofty goal for any artist, and certainly one I aim for in my daily practice.

So, let’s keep spreading the art of craft in the world today!

The Tambark Ten

Frozen

The itch to travel runs deep in my veins.  Funny enough, I’m also strangely content to hole up in my home for long stretches of time.  Perhaps the balance for me is having an alternating pulse of movement and stillness.

With travel at a standstill, walking has become my movement of choice this spring, and as luck would have it, a small forested land sits opposite my house – Tambark Park.  Daily excursions into the lush greenery spurred inspiration that translated into a surprisingly abundant creative surge starring two of my art darlings:  ice and installation.

Shot glass ice installations popping up all over the place!

Boy, have I missed you two!

100 steps

Heading into the fourth 10-day chapter in #The100DayProject, I committed to placing installation right outside my front door.  Until now, I had connected my installation practice solely to the exploration of distant lands – a way for me to personally interact with a landscape that provided wonder and inspiration.

One of many ice installations inspired by the breathtaking beauty of Iceland, December 2017.

You don’t have to go far in the PNW to have this sensory experience of marvel.   Slowing down and opening up to my local surroundings brought me simple joy, loads of chuckles and some pretty sweet photos.

Organic dyes of avocado, turmeric and red cabbage melting in all their glory.

Let’s meander through these 10 days together.

Spark

Full disclosure - I stole the idea to place installation in Tambark Park.

As the world shut down in March, a beautiful trend of leaving small gifts of love and hope emerged.  Walking the trails, I started noticing flowering plants that were not indigenous to the undergrowth.

Did forest elves plant these colorful treats amongst the cedars?

It took the brightly colored blooms at the base of several looming evergreens to notice a pattern:  Someone was planting these in the darkest corners of the forest to offer light.

Another sweet offering scattered across the property were colorfully painted rocks.  Spying the hidden stones became a visual treasure hunt I looked forward to playing every day.

Some of the painted treasures even had messages of hope.

These acts of kindness poked at my creativity, and so bloomed 10 days of installation.

Icy roads

Colors from nature first appeared in my art as a non-toxic way to tint the ice pieces I placed in Iceland in 2017 – the launching point for my installation practice.

Winter sunset through blue butterfly pea and red cabbage in the Westfjords of Iceland, December 2017.

Frozen climates eventually graduated to balmy locations to push the limits of ice as an ephemeral medium.

From tiny rental refrigerators to mobile coolers meant for chilling wine and travel snacks, I froze all kinds of shapes and sizes of water infused with plant-based organic dyes I brewed.  I took some crazy pride in the lengths I went to transport my frozen works of art to their installation destination.

The ice cooler is a must-have on installation road trips, Maui June 2018.

Ice was an obvious choice for Tambark Park to stay true to my project of #100DaysOfNaturalColor.  And to be honest, I never had it so easy!  Using my full-sized freezer, packing a thermal lunch bag and walking no more than 10 minutes to place installation was an absolute dream.

The beauty of ombre dyes frozen in a full size freezer is pure magic.

Note to self:  it doesn’t always have to be so difficult!

Secret garden

Tambark Park has a network of trails that meander through a mixed woodland.  The search for more pristine locations, however, had me traipsing off the beaten path where I found some amazing nooks and crannies in the greenery.

Ice stack placed where few have ventured except for fallen trees.

I may have been only 20 feet from the footpath I walked every day, but it transported me back to the days of my childhood where we spent muggy summer days hunting for hidden places in the brush to build forts and play hide-n-seek.

Bumping into fellow hikers in Tambark Park while reemerging from the secret spaces always garnered a curious look and sometimes even a smile.

The green light

Blazing my way through the thicket meant I stumbled into some of the PNW iconic vegetation:  erupting ferns, fuzzy tufts of moss, horsetail reed and skunk cabbage.  Such variations of green allowed for creative play that produced a visual tension with the vivid colors of the frozen botanical dyes.

A colorful shoot of ice in the midst of fern fronds.

The woody stumps of fallen trees provided sumptuous textures in a wonderfully neutral palette that also allowed the ice to shine.

Ice marbles wedged into weathered wood.

Possibly the second most exciting discovery was bumping into stinging nettles.  Yes, they left their painful mark on my hand, but without this accidental collision, I would not have been able to identify this weedy herb.

The stinging nettle that bit me during installation will be a welcome addition to my dye pot.

Soon I will head back to collect the leaves because they make the most incredible gray-green dye, a color not easy to find in nature ironically.

Creature comfort

And what would the flora be without the fauna?  Hiding among all of this incredible foliage, I was treated to chance encounters with all kinds of animals:

• Rabbits flourish here and spring is the time of baby bunnies.

• One lone squirrel would rustle in the trees in the same spot almost every day

• A bat swooshed just above my head on a twilight installation.

• Even a snake slithered its way across my path!

But, the ultimate treat, and yes, THE MOST exciting discovery was a tiny friend who joined me on the very first installation.

The first ice installation in Tambark Park had an unexpected spectator (see below photo).

Thanks to patiently waiting for the streams of sunlight to hit just the right spot, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse, and a photo, of this sweet tree frog.

The tree frog who sat quietly for more than an hour while I placed ice and returned to its melted remains.

She didn’t dash away, and even when I returned an hour later to check on the ice melt, she was still cozy in her hole, taking in the afternoon rays.

Ice flow

Where there are frogs, there is water, and Tambark Park has a lowland marshy vibe trickling everywhere.  Many a day was spent mucking through spongey ground to install, but I also examined how a stream’s gentle current would dance with my ice pieces.

Mother’s Day ice installation in honor of my mom, Maia, who passed away May 31, 2019.

I’ve played with kinetic energy in my installation work, and certainly the simple act of melting is an inherent trait of mobility in ice. 

However, running water provided many more layers of movement to explore:  Releasing, floating, bobbing, flowing, dissolving, and ultimately, disappearing.

Frozen floats of organic dyes in Tambark Creek gone within minutes of placing this installation.

Movement, in fact, may be implicit in the ephemeral – an idea I am just now realizing.

Micro-living

Ten tiny days of micro-travel has had a macro-impact on a deeper understanding of my creative practice.  Slowing down to open the senses to my immediate surroundings has brought wide open space for reflection.  Yet again, I’m reminded that movement can be a collective effort of small steps, as long as I actively nurture its momentum.

10x10

Natural order

I’m a big fan of squares in my art.

To be more accurate, I should probably broaden that statement to say ‘I love parallelograms’ because rectangles and rhombi pop into my artwork as well.  Since a square is a kind of rectangle and rhombus, but neither a rectangle nor a rhombus is necessarily a square, I may want to be more inclusive of the linear shapes that have inspired me for decades.

All kinds of naturally dyed parallelograms playing on this canvas!

Side note:  Can you tell that I’ve been tutoring my son, Mason, in geometry this spring?

So, as I sat down to write this month’s Trail Tale to share my journey into #The100DayProject, I realized I was playing with squares again.  Only this time, in an algebraic way:  10x10=100, or more simply written 10².

Projection

When mixed media artist, Natalie Dadamio, suggested I try #The100DayProject this year, I thought it would be a fantastic way to deepen my commitment to my creative practice.  Knowing I would be grounded from travel, at least of the air variety, diving into 100 days of a focused art ‘project’ seemed like a wonderful way to enrich the time in my home studio.

We used to have a kitchen island, but that real estate is now gone, along with the dining room table.

But why 100 days, and how would this differ from the extensive hours in the ‘off-hours’ that I’ve already heavily invested in this crazy creative biz dream of mine?

Seems the consensus is as follows on the power of 100 days of focus:

• It is long enough to create a habit

• It is short enough to see the finish line

• It requires setting an achievable goal

• It demands planning to allocate time and space

• It is extremely helpful to break it up into manageable micro-steps

Coincidentally, three of my 2020 goals are hovering right now in the 100 day range.  Making healthy nutrition choices, increasing movement and meditating have become daily habits.  Ways of living that seemed to elude me throughout the years are wonderfully entrenched in my world today.

And, I’m at least 10x10 times happier.

All smiles on the cochineal farm in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

 100 days of art….bring it on!

Hash it out

First thing first was to decide what my 100 Day Project focus would be.  As you may have noticed, I suffer from a kind of creative distraction disorder.  My artwork crosses all kinds of discipline and medium lines as my curiosity drags me from one to another and back again.

So, how was I to choose just one of my many passions?

Easy:  #100DaysOfMultiPassion

But, in an effort to corral those multi-passions of mine into a more cohesive project, I needed a theme.

One idea came to me naturally:  #100DaysOfColorsFromNature

The rainbow of mineral pigments I foraged while on residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

Now, with not one, but two hashtags declaring my project, there was one tiny manageable micro-step I had to take.

Breaking it all down by 10.

Chunky monkey

As I hit publish on this blog, I’m about to celebrate my 25th day – one quarter done! For those of you following my adventures on Instagram, you have had a preview of where these 100 days are meandering.  For those of you on Facebook – sorry!

Breaking the project down into 10 days each of 10 different ‘topics’ surrounding natural color felt like the perfect solution to keep me on task.  Plus, I argued, it would allow me to truly explore all of the ways nature’s palette has inspired my art.

Pigment color studies from the regions of Peru where we explored and foraged in June/July 2019.

If you’ve read this far, you are in for a sneak peek of the full 10x10 plan.  Plus, I’ll throw in a little commentary and few more photos of chunks 1 and 2 (Days 1-20) which have already flown by:

Days 1-10: Natural dyes

• I may have started using organic colors in ice, but the list of materials I have dyed from nature also include textile, paper, bioplastics and even eggs.  I may have left out mung bean and dough in this project, but I added a new piece to the dye mix – ink!

Cookin’ colors in the kitchen to make inks from red cabbage, black bean, avocado skins and turmeric.

Days 11-20: Mineral pigments

• Over the past 1.5 years, I widened my color scope to include the earth beneath my traveling feet.  Each day, I shared some of the subtle hues I foraged from 7 unique locations:  Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California on the west coast, Pennsylvania to the east and Mexico and Peru to the south.

Pigmented stones foraged along Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, PA, July 2019.

Days 21-30: Textile colors

• I’m midstream in the 3rd chunk and creation is underway.  Every day I’m building a quick color study with textile remnants I have collected from larger pieces I built in Oaxaca.  The idea is to push the design from a limited natural palette in a small space.

Textile Stack Series of quick color studies during #The100DayProject. Drop me a line to purchase.

If you want a piece of the action, each one of these mixed media works on canvas is for sale at $40.

What a steal of a deal!

Now the next 7 chunks are part of the plan, but I reserve the right to make adjustments along the way:

Days 31-40: Installation – I will place 10 new naturally colored sculpture clusters within 0.5 miles of my house.

Days 41-50: Oaxaca Minis – I will build 10 new 8x8 textile works on canvas from the full Oaxaca color range.

Days 51-60: Bioplastics –  I will brew up all kinds of wonder with gelatin, algae and botanical dyes.

Translucency and botanical dyes all wrapped up in bioplastics.

Days 61-70: Monoprints – I’ve wanted to explore this technique, so I plan to create 10 pieces using only natural colors.

Days 71-80: Three shape challenge - Textile

Days 81-90: Three shape challenge - Monoprint

Days 91-100: Three shape challenge:  Installation

Let’s just say the last 3 chunks are meant to hold my feet to the ‘simplicity’ fire. 

The same artist who enticed me to join #The100DayProject (Natalie Dadamio), also challenged me to ONLY use three shapes in my work during the 100 days.  I figured 3 chunks totaling 30 days fit perfectly into the 3 shapes theme.

The 3 primary colors very cooly represented by turmeric, red beet and blue butterfly pea infused ice.

These three are for you, Natalie!

Cubism

Riding shotgun to my 100 days, Mason has found a teeny space for his geometry book on the dining table that is now smack dab in the middle of my studio, aka our kitchen.

We started solving for volume this past week.  All of the 2 dimensional shapes have introduced their 3 dimensional siblings:  spheres, cones, pyramids and cylinders.

 And yes, the glorious square is full of pride and flaunting its cube cousin just to make me smile!

My trusty installation travel buddies: earth pigment painted paper pulp blocks. Stack ‘em up!

I sure do love cubes…naturally.

The colorful Mr. Biv

The stuff of rainbows

Don’t know about you, but I have a handful of tricks up my sleeve to remember trivial bits of information.  I am the maven of mnemonics:

• Need to know how many days there are in April?  Got my knuckles for that.

• That 5 letter Great Lake messing up your crossword puzzle? Try H.O.M.E.S. on for size.

• Pulling out the crayons to draw your sweetheart a rainbow?  I’d like you to meet Mr. Roy G. Biv

I think it was my grade school art teacher, Mr. Malley, who taught us how to remember the seven colors of the rainbow.  (Yes, I had a full time art teacher with a dedicated art room when I was a kid!).

Mr. Biv has been a tool in my paint caddy ever since.

The organic colors of the rainbow hand-dyed on paper in my residency studio in Oaxaca, Mexico.

So, of course, Mr. Biv was my travel companion to my artist residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, last month as I continued my quest to find the rainbow in nature’s palette.  Let’s just say, we found all seven of his colorful letters and then some! 

Red

The color of love (among many other things) is a highly sought after hue that has a history connected to imperialism and revolution.  Minerals of hematite and cinnabar, the root of madder and several parasitic creatures have been foraged and crushed so we can bathe in red.

One insect in particular has become the darling in the wide world of dye:  cochineal. 

I had only bumped into cochineal about a year ago when I was preparing for my residency in Iceland.  Visiting a dye master in the countryside two hours north of Reykjavik, Guðrún Bjarnadóttir shared the secret sauce of her scarlet wool yarn.

The gorgeous hand-dyed Icelandic wool of Hespa Iceland. Looks like a neutral cochineal soak to me with those bright fuchsias peeking through.

She had a large jar of cochineal that she imported to Iceland as her ancestors had done before.  You see, red and its variations are not natural colors found in Iceland.

Cochineal is a parasite that lives on the nopales cactus indigenous to present day Mexico and Peru.

The white powder of the cochineal insect dusting nopales cacti before harvest.

Contrary to what you may think, the red comes from carminic acid, not blood, which acts as a deterrent against predators.  Or, if you are human, it seems you are wildly attracted to it!

Working for three weeks on a cochineal farm in Santa Maria Colotepec in Oaxaca, Mexico, the secrets of its beauty were slowly revealed to me.

All the lovely shades of cochineal hanging out in wool yarn on the farm near Oaxaca, Mexico.

But, not only did this tiny insect produce the most amazing carmine color, it played a starring role in many of Mr. Biv’s letters.

Orange

Beyond the measurements I wrote about in last month’s Trail Tale, dyeing incorporates some elements of chemistry. 

Who remembers those little litmus strips from your high school lab?  Well, turns out cochineal is sensitive to the pH level in the dye bath.  Add a bunch of lemon juice, aka. acid, and mira - orange!

Shifting cochineal neutral by squeezing lemons. The secret of playing with pH!

Makes me chuckle to think that adding yellow to red actually makes orange in this corner of the dye world.  Trust me, that isn’t a hard and fast rule in dye chemistry, but cochineal happily plays along.

Yellow

I know what you’re thinking:  lemon juice must be a key ingredient in yellow dye.  Nope.  I have recently seen Sasha Duerr, a natural dye specialist, create yellow from citrus skins, but in Oaxaca, we used pericon.

You may know this native herb as Mexican tarragon or marigold, both of which are used as dye in other parts of the world.  The pericon grown and harvested on the cochineal farm, however, produced a gloriously vibrant yellow that demanded visual attention.

The green leaves of pericon cooking up some instense yellow on silk strips I used for installation in Oaxaca.

Move over marigold – you may have a rival nipping at your heels, but pericon may be tough to find in my local PNW nursery.

Green

When it comes to the plant world, it’s not easy being green.

Both, Guðrún Bjarnadóttir and Manuel, my Oaxacan dye master, utilize the primary color theory to achieve green.  First you dye with yellow (pericon or another yellow source), and then you over-dye with blue (indigo), another elusive color rarely found in nature. Voila - green!

Although I attempted this on the farm with my wool yarn samples, I struggled with the indigo (more on that below).  That didn’t stop me from experimenting in my own dye studio on days away from the farm, and I had some success.

Who knew the cold sludge of fermenting black beans could tease out such gorgeous greens?

No over-dye step required here.  Just a 2 day cold soak in fermented black beans! 

I was expecting a grayish blue dye result when I bought the dried beans in the Mercado 20 de Noviembre.  You just never know with natural dye - the surprise element is one of its sweetest characteristics. 

Blue

If you think red is tough, you haven’t met blue yet.  Treasured minerals of lapis lazuli and azurite are pigments of royalty.  In the plant kingdom, indigo is queen.

The cochineal farm is an educational venue exclusively focused on the natural dyes of the region, and indigo has roots in the tropical climate of the Oaxacan coastline.  Manuel grows every plant we used on the farm, but his indigo suffers in the dry heat.  So, as traders have done for centuries, Manuel brings his indigo crystals from the coast.

Grinding indigo with mortar and pestle before adding it to the dye pot.

Extracting color from indigo is a labor intensive process and one that requires humility and reverence. I was quickly humbled by the mystery of blue.

Indigo

With all the work that went into making 12 dye pots to create 40 unique colors over three weeks, saving indigo for last didn’t surprise me.  However, I soon realized that rushing indigo at the end did not honor its spirit, and so it did not fully share its color with me.

The many shades of indigo from an ignored dye pot hanging out with no-fuss cochineal orange.

When I explained how tough my day with indigo had been, a local artist told me the secret of the blue goddess: one must be fully present without distraction or haste.

I love this thought.  It rings true across so many aspects of life, and so now indigo is yet another gentle reminder of the beauty of presence.

Violet

The last letter in Mr. Biv’s name was a dual effort in the organic realm.  That sneaky, chameleon of a dye, cochineal, can be shifted to a yummy color of the violet persuasion.  All the alchemist has to do is sprinkle in minerals (various recipe options) which can shift the pH balance to alter the hue.

Cochineal neutral plus 15% alum working its violet magic!

No minerals to be had – no problem:  muicle to the rescue!  Picking the leaves of this medicinal shrub on the farm produced a lovely violet dye as well.  I doubt these leaves are sold in my local farmer’s market, so they may be a color treat solely for the Oaxacan palette.

Dye me a river

The colorful experience I was so lucky to have in Oaxaca is not soon to be forgotten. Just ask Mr. Biv.

But, that hasn’t stopped me from building my own mnemonic device to capture some of the amazing tips I learned, and a few of the easy kitchen recipes that can produce a rainbow.

Feeling inspired to get your dye on now? Click here for the Cookin’ Color Brew Booklet to see if you can catch Roy G. Biv just like I did!

xoxo - Byrdie

Beyond Measure

For good measure

One of my new favorite sayings is ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’.  It is a gem of Peter Drucker’s thought that I’ve applied to just about everything in my life recently:

• The food I’m eating, particularly the sugar (cause of most evil in the world!)

• The growing number on my email list (many, many thanks to all of you!)

• The distance and length of time of my daily walk (finally a habit!)

I’m sure I’ve annoyed my closest friends by spewing this wisdom a few too many times.

Funny enough, measurement is strangely absent from much of my creative practice.  My tendency is to eye it, guesstimate, and just plain wing it most of the time.  The result is an inexplicable delight of the unknown.

Will it work?  I never know, but I trust the surprise I may stumble upon is often better than any measured steps I could have meticulously planned.

Bob Ross calls these happy accidents, and I’m perfectly content crashing into some of my most beloved creations.

Bumping into the one and only Bob Ross at the Funko headquarters in Everett, WA 2019.

Drastic measures

Having a happy accident in art school may have started this trend of semi-controlled spontaneity.  It is an example I speak of often, and I believe I may have even mentioned it in a Trail Tales blog of yore.  Forgive the repetition, but I suppose that is how what we learn can truly sink in.

At the University of Montana, the Ceramics Department is world-renowned, many thanks to the unique work of Rudy Autio that pushed the conventional boundaries of clay.  As a BFA student, everyone is required to take Ceramics 101 at the very minimum.

One of the beautiful slices of U of M art school is that it was the most welcoming, inclusive, non-competitive and encouraging environments I have ever experienced.  I count myself extraordinarily lucky as I understand this experience is not always shared among other BFA programs.

Walking in as a complete newbie, I was wowed by the amazing work being produced by the graduate students, and incredibly inspired to bumble my way through an art form that has its roots in measurement.  My professor, Beth Lo, was kind and generous in sharing her knowledge of this ancient art form, and I honestly tried to follow all the steps on each project we were assigned.

Honest.

Our final project was a chance to design anything we wanted to be saggar-fired in a vessel we built ourselves.  As my 3D intrigue was beginning to bubble, as well as my installation curiosity and unexplained love of all things square, I knew exactly what mixed media magic I wanted to create, and I quickly sketched the design and built a board to describe my vision.

One of my BFA thesis mixed media pieces used in an installation. This was the vision I had for my ceramics project.

When Professor Lo pulled the vessel from the fire, she warned me that I would be extremely disappointed in the result because it was nothing like what I had planned.

The center piece of the biggest mistake in my art career, 1995.

True, the 5 cube forms were not the smooth porcelain surface I was after, nor the rusty colors of the earth.  They were a bubbly mess of grays and blues with ashen edges.  My idea of embedding polaroid transfers into the center square was quickly washed away by residual globules of mis-measured glazes that had an unexpected combustion soirée in the kiln.

I was blown away, smiling from ear to ear, because I could never have planned such surprising beauty.  At that moment, my professor told me I would be well-suited in the wild world of art.

Measure up

For the past two years, I have become passionate about extracting color from nature.  Much of this was driven by a desire to use only organic matter in my installation practice, particularly when leaving a piece of art to dissipate into the earth.

Starting in my kitchen, I began brewing colors from spices and vegetables I found in my cabinets and fridge.  From there, I became curious about foraging for botanicals and experimented by creating dyes from seaweed and lichen.  My longstanding love of stone lead me to the world of minerals and earth pigments.  Yes, I am officially addicted to the quest for a natural palette.

The colors of the rainbow courtesy of Moonstone Beach in Cambria, CA.

And, the exploration continues.  Today, I am writing from my artist residency studio in Oaxaca, Mexico, a global center for textiles and botanical dyeing.  My intention is to learn by doing with hands-on instruction from a dye master of the region, as opposed to my stand-by instructor known as the internet.

How will things measure up?

In short measure

As I’ve quietly entered the wide world of natural dyeing, I’ve become acutely aware that ratios, weights and recipes are quite important in assuring a desired color result.  I have the utmost respect for the long history of passing precise knowledge from master to pupil.  Beyond that, I am humbly grateful to have the unique opportunity to simply learn about botanical dyeing.

My master, Manuel, teaching me the Zapotec dye tradition from the Oaxacan region in Mexico, Feb 2020.

Manuel, the dye master in my residency, has shared many local practices along with some practical advice about what to avoid:

• Don’t let your dye come to a boil to avoid losing the colorant to vapor

• Don’t brew your textile with your botanical material to avoid splotching

• Don’t let the textile touch the bottom of the dye pot to avoid color variation

• Don’t stray far from the ratio of plant-to-water-to-textile to avoid weak color saturation

• Don’t dry your fabric in the direct sunlight to avoid quick color fading

All of this makes perfect sense in the world of order and consistency, but as Manuel noted, none of it is a guarantee of color perfection to match your mind’s eye. It’s Mother Nature’s job to figure that out for you.

With this wisdom, I believe I’m perfectly suited for organic dyeing.   The joy I experience is in the unique variation of color that nature chooses to surprise me with every single time.

First color swatches in my residency studio with textiles brought from the US and NL. Excited for the wool yarn soon to dye at the farm with Manuel!

In fact, I hope to never dye the same color twice, and splotches – bring ‘em on!

In equal measures

On my mantle, I lovingly display the biggest mistake of my BFA program, and my most cherished piece of art.  These explosive cubes of clay are a constant reminder that although measurement is important, celebrating the unexpected is the spark of life.

Wonder what color surprises Oaxaca holds for me the next few weeks? Stick around for the big reveal in next month’s Trail Tales!

Listless No More

Paper cut

For someone who claims to be an artist, I have a problem with paper.  Don’t get me wrong, I have it strewn everywhere, and I think handmade papers are sumptuous.  But, I recently realized that I am a total tight wad with it.  Not sure where I picked up this thrifty habit, but I’m actually afraid to use it.

This bizarre quirk certainly didn’t come from my mom.  She was famous for having stacks of legal pads all over the house with her chore lists on them.  You know, things like ‘dung bathroom’ and ‘H2O plants’.

Now…my aversion to list making definitely sprung from those piles of yellow paper.  I became a master of tactile tricks to access all those lists I kept cluttered in my mind.  I mean, writing lists meant using paper – duh!

So, as I sat down this month, for the first time in my life, to review 2019 in great creative detail, I had to face two of my weirdest demons:  consuming copious amounts of paper to create extremely long lists!

All good intentions 

The first time I heard about writing down yearly intentions was while on a creative business retreat in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 2018.  My coach, the amazing Desha Peacock of Sweet Spot Style, gave me a journal and told me to sit quietly and write.

Thank you, Desha Peacock, for standing by my side on this creative journey, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, March 2019.

Not only did I not want to ruin the beautiful custom journal she gave me by…gulp….writing in it, I also had no clue what I would actually write.

Funny enough, with a few guiding prompts, one of which was to write in the present tense, I let the ink smudge all over the pages of that journal.

And did I write!  Once I started, it seemed to flow out of me with wild abandon, and I didn’t even flinch when I turned the 3rd page of that journal and just kept writing.

The page in my journal where it all began: setting intentions in 2018.

It felt decadent - so many words, and even some lists.

It felt reckless -  didn’t even stay in the lines and my handwriting got really messy.

It felt amazing!

Watch, rinse, repeat

You can imagine my surprise when two months later, in Nicholas Wilton’s Creative Visionary Program (CVP), I was asked to set my intentions all over again.  Having recently decided to chase my creative dream, I did exactly as I was told.  I figured, if I had heard it from two people I trusted and admired for building successful creative businesses, it must be a worthwhile activity.

Plus, this time, the paper got a whole lot bigger (24”x36”) and I could mix up the words with some pictures!

The extremely cluttered Desire Board of 2018. Thank you for all the visualization, CVP!

Once the intentions were set in my journal and the dream board was up in my office/studio, my only job was to read them over and over again.

I should have known something was going to happen.  But it would take hindsight and that old standby of 20/20 vision to really understand the magic of it all.

Color outside the lines

Fast forward to today as I sit with my 2020 Leonie Dawson’s coloring book of a creative planner.  As a first timer to this whole ‘plan a year in advance’ stuff, and with my strange aversion to writing paper and lists, Leonie’s planner is a perfect place to feel like I’m playing and creating, instead of being so darn serious.  I don’t mind doodling, crossing words out or using as much or little of the pages as I like.

It’s actually quite fun.

The first planner of my creative business should be bright and colorful, no?

So, what about this magic outside of the tattered pages of my 2020 workbook?  And what, if anything, did my intention setting and dream boarding from 2018 have to do with what I saw in my 2019 year in review?

Very simply:  Everything.

First rate

2019 was a year of firsts in my creative practice and newly built business.  Seems while scribbling in that journal and pasting cut-outs on that board in 2018, I predicted many of those firsts:

A few of my 2018 intentions that came to life in 2019.

• Fully funded art residencies:  My very first artist residency happened in February 2019 in the Westfjords of Iceland.  Although it wasn’t fully-funded, I was a finalist for the Mary Olson Farm Residency in April 2019 which is a paid program.  I wasn’t ultimately selected, but I got my eye on the prize this year.

• Large scale global installations:  My very first gallery sponsored installation was in March 2019 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  Global – check.  Large scale – for me, yes.  I created a hanging abaca installation of 100+ pieces that was 13’ high and two 5’ tall exterior installations.  Thank you, Galeria Manuk, for letting my swizzle sticks sizzle.

• New mediums – glass and wax:  Dabbled a bit in wax in 2018, but the new medium in 2019 was bioplastic.  Sure has a glass-like vibe.

Bioplastic urns made from gelatin, glycerol and organic dye soaking up the surf on Cannon Beach, Oregon, Nov 2019.

• Clutter-free:  2019 saw some huge life changing events, one of which was a serious drive to release as much clutter, both physical and mental, as I possibly could.  This process of simplifying has brought about more creative abundance, and I couldn’t be happier.
  
  

• Healthy mind, body and spirit:  I suppose this intention is a life-long desire for most of us, but I experienced a surge of passion and focus on making these 3 pieces a priority.  It’s a work in progress and high on the list for 2020.
  
  

• Full-time artist:  Funny – I now see I’ve been doing that my whole life.

I plan to keep the rest for now.  Reviewing them today, I wouldn’t change a thing, but I’m excited to work on adding to it with 20/20 vision.

Bucket list

Maybe building lists is not so bad after all.  I may still need to work on my paper chase, but I’m not afraid to use a few more pages in my journal to continue setting intentions.

And as I do so, I’m going to refer back to one of the first lists I wrote in 2018.  It’s simply a list of the feelings I’d like to surround myself with as I walk towards my goals in 2020:

Follow the feelings to find the experience.

No need to cross anything off of that list.

Cheers to 2020! Please share a word from your list in the comments below…

Kisses - Margaret

Pacific Passion

Empirical data

Growing up in the 70s, the Earth had four oceans and our solar system had nine planets.

Somewhere along the way, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet while Antarctica’s icy waters became the Southern Ocean to make five. Although I have never been to Pluto, I have had the good fortune of dipping my hand into each of the 70s’ four oceans.

What I remember of the Indian Ocean was trying to keep my mouth closed as we splashed our way at high speeds out of the Maputo harbor.  The grayish oil-slicked water turned to a crystal clear azure as we jumped fully clothed into its surf to swim to our sandy beach destination.

My tummy ached from all the laughing we did that day.

The crashing waves and windswept moments frozen along the Arctic Ocean have a stronger pull for me to return.  From Northern Iceland to Lofoten, Norway, my polar curiosity is headed further into this frigid sea as Svalbard now beckons me north.

Abaca swirls installed on Uttakleiv Beach in Lofoten, Norway, October 2018.

Both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have provided countless memories from north to south: the rocky coves of Maine to the beaches of Ipanema in Brazil, all the way to the red sand of Angola and to the edge of the Irish Cliffs of Moher.

Everyone needs a travel buddy! Pre-installation times with Chris at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, March 2016.

Simply put, I love the ocean, all four of them, but the Pacific is the one I call home.

And, in the past two years of travel in pursuit of creative inspiration, the Pacific has called me home time and time again.

Piece of peace

Being born in Oregon and living much of my adult life in California and Washington, I can safely call myself a west coaster, the rugged home to one tiny slice of the Pacific. 

As with the Atlantic, I have stood on the edges of the largest ocean from north to south and east to west. 

However, my creative journey along this shoreline has kept me nestled on the western side of the Americas.

The memories are many, but in an effort to quietly honor the Pacific, I’d like to share my gratitude with one simple installation photo from each of six sandy destinations, as well as one lesson I’ve learned at each beautiful seascape.

Join me as we head from north to south…

Washington

I adore beach combing and will spend much of my time on the coast with my head down, fixated on the treasures in the sand.  The Washington beaches are wide and hit hard by wind and rain which brings incredible gifts from the sea.

Lesson 1:  The beach covered with thousands of deep blue Velella, the sailor’s jellyfish, is a rare phenomenon that I was lucky enough to stumble upon, and install within, much to my creative delight in April 2018.

Oregon

My mom instilled my love of walking along the rugged beaches of the PNW in the off-season.  Hunting for agates or sand dollars on the Oregon coast filled many stormy winter holidays in my childhood.  The harder the wind and rain pelted our faces, the further we walked.

Bioplastic swirls in all their translucent glory, sun-drenched on Cannon Beach, Oregon, November 2019.

Lesson 2:  The sun can shine with clear blue skies even at Thanksgiving on the beach in Oregon.  I could not have asked for more perfect weather to explore the translucency with the first installation of bioplastics in November 2019.

California

The further south you venture does not change the temperament of the Pacific.  The beaches of California are equally as wild as those of the Northwest.

Although my daughters may don a wetsuit to surf the Central Coast, I can honestly say I have rarely, if ever, spent time frolicking in its waters.

It’s too darn cold!

Paper pulp sticks installed in black iron oxide along a vein of red ochre on Tamarack Beach in Carlsbad, CA, October 2019.

Lesson 3:  Learning about earth pigments and how to spot minerals in cliffs along the watershed has enhanced my creative beach experiences immensely.  The red lines of ochre running through the weathered sandstone looks amazing next to the black iron oxide glittering as magnetite in the California sand.

Thanks to you, Golden State, for making such installation dreams come true.

Maui x 2

To visit Maui is a beach bum’s dream come true, but to return unexpectedly within a year is where manifestation blooms.  Blending a perfect mix of tropical and arid landscapes with warm crashing surf makes Maui the hot climate version of the wild Pacific.

Threaded orbs installed in lava rock in Makena, Maui, June 2018.

Lesson 4:  From lava rock to pure white sand, finding sites for installation in Maui is always made easier with the sparkling blue seas as a backdrop no matter when you visit.

Paper pulp stack installation on driftwood at Ukumehame Beach, West Maui, April 2019.

June 2018 or April 2019 equals installation inspiration all the time!

Mexico

The west coast of Mexico has treated me to some wonderful times splashing in the waves.  Similar to Hawaii, but without the wide open Pacific pounding from all sides, the water in Mexico is deliciously warm with the perfect hint of swell.

Ice shots infused with botanical dyes and stacked on dried fronds at Haramara in Sayulita, Mexico, December 2018.

Lesson 5:  And from swell, I really mean sweltering, particularly in the dry tropics of Sayulita in December 2018.  If you want a creative challenge, ice installation on this coastline will test your patience and your sandy limits.

Blink once, and it is gone.

Peru

If the Pacific of North America has taught me anything, she keeps true to her mission of creating stunning beauty wherever she makes landfall.  Peru is no exception, and as luck would have it once again, we walked alone on some of the most beautifully wild beaches you could imagine in June 2019.

Wheat paste paper stack installation in the sands of Playa Supay in Paracas, Peru, June 2019.

Lesson 6:  The plight of plastic runs deep in the Pacific, and sadly, I experienced this in spades in Peru.  We picked up as much plastic as we could carry from this seemingly pristine beach that blessed me with multiple installation sites.

Safe to say, my discovery of bioplastic was bred from Peruvian sand.

From the depths

So, darlin’ Pacific, thank you...

Your vast beauty will stir at my creative soul forever, even with the magnetic pull of the Poles. And, although I have my sites in 2020 on the North Pole of the Arctic Ocean, I’m coming for you too, Southern Ocean.

We shall meet one day on the 7th continent for an installation this artist is destined to place, because let’s be honest:  you are simply the wild cold cousin of the mighty Pacific.

Into the biodome

For the love of lava

Flying between the Pacific coastline and the Cascade range is a visual treat on a clear day.  Making this trip up and down the west coast is all in a day’s work for this technical sales person turned traveling artist.  If you’re extra lucky, the plane may even fly directly over some of my favorite volcanic peaks like Crater Lake or Mt. St. Helens. Living near Seattle, we are almost always greeted by the giant of them all, Mt. Rainier.

Even on a cloudy day, Mt. Rainier always pops out to say hello. Portland bound, October 2019.

As you know, I’ve got a thing for volcanoes and all things lava.  Many of my dream destinations are volcanic hotspots – Iceland, Hawaii, Mexico, Peru and my home turf in the PNW.

What I didn’t know was that one of the most incredible architectural designs, the dome, was also a natural phenomenon in the world of lava.  Just inside of Mt. St. Helens crater, for example, is a beautiful lava dome, all perfectly rounded from hot magma.

A tiny peek of the lava dome in Mt. St. Helens from 30K feet. Still Portland bound, October 2019.

Somehow knowing this, makes my pursuit of the dome shape in my installation work much more interesting.  Rather than connecting it to the architectural design feats of Dome of the Rock or Taj Mahal, I’d like to connect my inspiration back to the greatest artist of all – Mother Nature.

All that glitters

The dome shape came to my creative practice because of a simple craft kit I saw in a department store during a Christmas shopping blitz: glitter bowls.  You just never know where your next idea might pop up, so keep your eyes and mind wide open!

Glitter bowl’s brother from another mother - the thread bowl.

Eager to explore new shapes, the kit came with the first materials I would test:  glue, glitter and three sizes of plastic molds.  The kit was intended to make small sparkly jewelry bowls, but I saw everything upside down. 

The first of the upside-down glitter bowl, aka. dome, all sparkly in blue, January 2018.

These molds would become my architectural ‘crutch’ to defy gravity and build my first dome.  Rushing from store to store to gobble up as many holiday glitter bowl kits as possible, while supplies lasted, I managed to collect an army of molds so volume production could begin.

Crumbling down

Glue is pretty amazing while glitter is just plain pretty.  Combine the two and some visual magic can happen.

For six months, I feverishly built domes, and they had a starring role in my installation work in Mexico, California, Hawaii and Oregon.

A spruce bush in San Miguel de Allende all spruced up with glitter domes, February 2018.

I loved them so much, I began searching for a way to display them for an interior installation that could be submitted for art shows.  The inverted domes, aka bowls (haha), could be nested with various sizes and colors, and adhered to a flat surface of wood or canvas.

Upside-down domes all nailed down and ready to show, March 2018.

There was one major problem with the design:  glue is no friend to climate change.  Everything I designed inside, and certainly those that traveled long distances, had no chance of ever surviving.

The domes became a brittle pile of shards or a melted glob of goo.

The dome remains after a long, and obviously hot, flight from Maui, June 2018.

Back to the drawing board.

Pro Biotic

One aspect of the glitter dome that I loved was its translucency.  I’ve been chasing this in my work forever (hello ice!).  One major characteristic I was less in love with was the inorganic material used to make glitter today – plastic.  While I tested mica as a sparkly organic substitute, it did not provide the same binding properties as glitter.

Mica plays the sparkling role in these gold domes, Black Butte Ranch, Oregon, August 2018.

As my installation practice developed, my search for organic material has expanded:

·      Brewing vegetable and spice dyes from my kitchen to color my first ice installation in Iceland

·      Foraging plants like lichen and seaweed to dye textiles for my mixed media canvases

·      Hunting for mineral deposits to create earth pigments as a material for paper studies

My quest to create ephemeral sculpture that can dissolve cleanly into the soil has become an integral part of my artistic world.

But how to find a translucent material made from botanicals that could hold a dome shape?

Hello mung bean!

Hibiscus dyed mung bean all domed out in Aguas Calientes, Peru, June 2019.

Biodiversity

Ahhhh….the short-lived life of a mung bean dome.  Yes, it can drape across a form and hold its translucent shape, but again, travel and the elements are not kind to mung bean.  Even more delicate than ice, the mung bean dome could barely handle a five hour flight.

Ode to a mung bean dome after many an installation flight.

Yes, I could sleep peacefully knowing the organically dyed mung bean would return quietly to the earth.   But, if it can’t be transported to the installation site, it’s burnished glimmer is lost before it’s ever seen.

While repeated material disappointment might stop some in their tracks, not this artist.  Every single iteration of my dome has been an informed failure for the next discovery.  Without each of these stumbles, I would never have found the newest material I’m so excited to explore – bioplastics.

Oh, let the light shine in, you gorgeous bioplastics, you! Bothell, Washington, November 2019.

Dome 3.0 is born!

 

Biosphere

This weekend, I cooked up my first batch of bioplastics.  Built from organics of agar, glycerol, gelatin and water, the quick and toxic free recipes were easily brewed on my kitchen stove.  Adding dye steeped from the blue butterfly pea and hibiscus flowers created subtle shades of grayish blue and purple.

Beyond the dome: molding square bioplastics in my Bothell kitchen, November 2019.

As they quickly hardened in various molds, translucent forms emerged as the water evaporated during the curing progress.  Shrinking and contorting, every day a new shape has appeared.

Agar bioplastics morphing back to algae, November 2019.

Now, it’s time to test the dome.  Only problem is I have no idea where those molds are in my new garage, soon-to-be studio.

No worries – I have time.  The bioplastics are sure to stick around.

Beyond the biodome

Finding a name for a shape before it’s even been built, I just know the biodome is going to be a success.  Beyond the lava field, some of the most beautiful ‘biodomes’ constructed by humans have been igloos, wigwams and beehive houses.  Anything built of ice, bark, reed and mud is an inspiration for an installation artist like me.

Into the biodome I go…

Head into the comments to join me!

3's company

Three me please

Three is a magic number.  From the micro (protons, neutrons and electrons) to the cosmic (planets, stars and galaxies), nature bundles it’s wonders in three.  I suppose it is no surprise, then, that humans do exactly the same within their world:

• Storytelling and the trilogy

• Religion and the trinity

• Art and the tryptych

Our brains are hard-wired to seek out patterns and relationships, and we are drawn to clusters of three as the simplest way to connect thoughts.  We see it used in speech-writing, classroom learning and comedy skits.  Simply put: three rules.

So, perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that I too have a trifecta of sorts, at least as it relates to my creative world.  Today, it seems these three elements are intertwined more than I had imagined:

•  My job

• My travel

• My installation

Mung bean installation on Maui will melt with the rising tide, Kaanapali Beach, April 2019.

Triangulation

To be a full-time working artist is a dream of mine.  My guess is it’s the dream of most creatives, and unlike popular myth, it is completely attainable.  However, most of us have had other jobs to support ourselves at one point or another, and sadly, many feel ashamed of this.

Not me.  The work that has sustained me and my family for decades is not art-related, but it is the foundation that I stand on, and it has taken me around the globe.  Through this travel, I became so deeply inspired by the landscapes I roamed, my installation practice was reignited.  Now, my installation is sprouting new opportunity for work, but this time in the art world.

The perfect art world, high above the clouds on Haleakalā, deserves an abaca swirl installation, April 2019.

See how that rolls?  Job—>travel—>installation—>job - and the power of three is born.

USD 3.3M

I had an exceptionally good sales year in 2018, as did many of my colleagues.  As a gift to our team, my company hosted our annual sales meeting in Maui this year.  As a bonus, a few extra days to explore the island and an invitation for our loved ones to join was extended.

My guy, Chris, and yours truly, finding amazing new vistas in West Maui.

Mahalo, Opticon, bon voyage, and aloha installation!

Funny enough, this trip was my third visit to Maui, and it’s said, the 3rd time’s the charm.

No small trifle

One very delightful piece of this voyage was a treasure hunt I hosted for all the creative travel enthusiasts I had to leave behind.  The beauty of our digital world allowed me to stay engaged while installing almost 3000 miles from home.  Working remotely never felt so connected.

In the midst of meetings and Power Point presentations, I managed to sneak away for six installations over six days.   With a virtual family of travelers in tow, I shared a map of Maui and posted visual clues on social media about each piece.  Nothing like playing a game at work!

Vertical stack of paper pulp bricks painted with earth pigments and installed in drift wood.

So, what was the real treasure in this hunt?   The amazing community I’m so lucky to have found along the way!

Triple threat

As rewarding as this trip was, installation always has it’s difficulties.  Add work and children to the mix, plus a healthy dose of wind, and new challenges were bound to bubble up:

Challenge 1:  Business meetings always spill into the evening, and the sun sets relatively quickly the closer you are to the equator.  How do you photograph an installation in the dark?

Threaded orbs installed on a banyan tree with the glow of darkness, Lahaina, April 2019.

Same orbs but with a flash of delight! Which one do you prefer?

Challenge 2:  Teenagers have slightly less patience when it comes to tagging along on an installation trek.  How quickly can you find a site before your child gets bored?

My son, Mason, chillin’ at 10,000 feet, while I was a few hundred feet higher installing. Thanks for waiting!

Challenge 3:  Maui is in the middle of the ocean, so it is very windy.  How do you keep paper pulp from blowing away?

Wind whipping is one of the many dangers of installation at 10000 feet.

3, 2, 1…

Three has been a lucky number in my life (just look at those amazing three people I call my kids!).  So, I won’t dismiss the power of 3 and the critical part my job plays in today’s creative triangle.  Without it, I would not have traveled to Maui’s paradise to create yet another set of installations, trying fresh materials and finding new beaches of inspiration.

Wheat pasted paper rolls embedded in a rocky beach in West Maui, April 2019.

So, as a typical human being, I suppose I also look for patterns and relationships in the world around me.  While pondering the impact of my day job on my creative practice, a few more connections popped up, which I leave for you to chew on:

•  Without the 3 primary colors, we would have no rainbow

• Without the 3 legs of a tripod, a camera would struggle to capture the aurora borealis,

  and perhaps most importantly…

• Without AAA’s TripTik, we would all be lost.

Don’t worry -  I got you covered on the last one.  If you’d like your own copy of the Maui treasure map, click, click, click!  Let me know what treasures you find in the comments below…

Kisses - Margaret

Not too frail to fail

On the rise

Bubble bread is a buttery ball of doughy goodness that bakes in our oven every holiday season.  Although I don’t recall when or where it melted its way into our family’s feast, my children have gobbled it up every Thanksgiving since they could rip it from the loaf.

The famous Bubble Bread in all of it’s risen glory!

As much as this seasonal treat brings smiles and happy tummies, bubble bread has a history of being an epic failure in my kitchen.

Rise yeast, rise!  This mantra screams in my head as I hold my breath waiting for the single-celled fungi to wake up and eat the sugar I’ve lovingly fed it.  I’ve learned to have several packets of yeast in the wings after too many holiday attempts left me scrambling to find a grocery store that was miraculously open on Thanksgiving or Christmas.  No longer a problem in today’s commercial world, I still feel a tiny nervous pang every time the yeast hits the tepid milk.

Baking is truly an artform, and frankly, I have struggled with it my whole life.  Here’s the thing, though:  without every failed attempt, and the push to try, try again, there would be no tradition of bubble bread in our family.  Honestly, it is the process of kneading the dough, watching it rise, punching it down and rolling tiny morsels of yum that keeps me coming back, even when the yeast decides to take its own holiday.

Dough of the installation kind, organic and placed on a beach in Maui, June 2018. No yeast required.

Basically, bubble bread is exactly how my art practice tastes.  It is the product of failed attempts that has allowed me the humility to stumble, the courage to get back up and the sweet reward at the end of a winding road of discovery.

 I think it’s time I share some of my failed ingredients.  Move over yeast!

There is an egg in bubble bread, but frankly, there should be no eggs in installation! Maui, June 2018.

Mounds of trouble

Reflecting on the past year, I am not only grateful for some incredible creative opportunities that have bubbled up, but also thankful for all of the bumps along the way.  And, let me tell you, there have been more than a few.

Torturing a Bird of Paradise for the sake of art….if you can call it that! San Diego, CA, April 2018.

To read the definition of failure, you often see it referred to as the ‘opposite of success’.  But, if you dig a bit further, failure can be described as simply a condition of not meeting an intended objective (thanks, Wikipedia!).  Sounds pretty benign to me, and it is predicated on the assumption that there is a goal, which in my book means you got your ‘stuff’ together.

As an artist, each one of us knows the complexity of translating vision to action, from mind to hand to paper (or substrate of your choice).  Most of my creative musings are never realized in a final piece, and what I’ve discovered is what I see in my head and heart is only a tiny sliver of the artistic puzzle.  I have to try every piece out, move them around, see if something links together, and use every ‘failure’ as guidance for the next step.

Note to self

One year ago, I decided to throw a few of those puzzle pieces around.  To be exact, I chucked a bunch of ice across the elfin land of Iceland.  My intended objective was somewhat fuzzy, but I knew it was time to see what that gnawing creative vision was all about.  Let’s just say the first pitch was a curve ball.

The very first documented installation attempt, rough at best, Blue Lagoon, Iceland, Nov 2017.

But what specifically did I learn from that icy first day?

• It’s cold, wet and windy so pack the right clothes, and don’t forget to wear them.

• Not all installation locations are equal, so be prepared to lie face down in snow, dirt, mud, and sand, or better yet, look for placement at eye level!

• It’s okay to feel scared, stupid and foolish because you are stumbling (and most likely slipping and falling) into the unknown.

First attempt saved by trial and error, contemplation, experimentation and the incredible arctic light of the autumn sun in Iceland, Nov 2017. Lava rocks and lichen certainly didn’t hurt.

The perfect storm

One of the warped puzzle pieces of social media is that I can choose to create a façade of perfection.  No need to show the 17 attempts to capture one decent photograph of an installation gone sideways or the stack of rejection letters from galleries, grants and publications.

Trust me, the heap is huge on this artist’s studio table.  However, without crawling through each one of those failures, I would not have pushed through to secure my first international gallery installation in Mexico next year. If at first you don’t succeed…

Cactus garden at Fabrica la Aurora in San Miguel de Allende where I will have a large scale installation in March, 2019. Hope to see you there!

We should celebrate it all, the good, the bad and the ugly, and wear each one proudly like a badge of honor for all to see.

Tangled webs

In the spring of 2018, I applied to an artist residency on a local farm in a big leap of faith to honor a newly revealed intention so proudly displayed on my first vision board.  My proposal was to gather natural materials from the farm and create woven installations throughout the property.

A tree on the Mary Olson Farm as a potential installation site, Auburn, WA. Little did I know that lichen would play a starring role in my next residency attempt.

Although I landed in the Top 10, I was not selected for the next round of interviews because there was no history of weaving in my background.  The ‘rejection’ did not keep me from requesting feedback which I would not have otherwise received.

Nope, it was this critique that allowed me to strengthen my next residency proposal:  forage natural materials from the wild land of Iceland to make natural dyes for installation. 

Testing pigment extraction from Evernia prunastri, a lichen foraged from a fallen tree in my neighborhood. If successful, might have deep purple dye in 2 months.

Guess where I will be in February?  Hello Westfjords, Iceland….

The long and wild drive to the Westfjords, Iceland, Nov 2017. It ain’t a road for the faint of heart!

Over-cooked

Two weeks ago, my daughter Zsofi made bubble bread twice for the holiday, and only once, did I mess around with the yeast.  Maybe I stirred it too vigorously or it was that ‘back-up’ pack from last year, but it just didn’t rise to its doughy potential.

Reaching into my bag of tricks, lessons learned from every botched job of yore, I placed it into the microwave above the toasty-warm oven working overtime to cook our Thanksgiving feast.  No…I did not turn the microwave on…but left the dough, knowing maybe, just maybe, the ambient heat would give the yeast the gentle nudge it needed to rise.

Guess what?  Success.

Tell me about your recipe for success?  The box below needs a new trick or two!

Fifty is nifty

Hash taggin’

Slinging slang in 1860, thespians may have created a clever way to shorten the word magnificent.  Leave it to artists to mix things up even back in the olden days.  The fact that this artist is using the word nifty in 2018, however, might be an indicator of age as opposed to creativity.  My kids will certainly attest to that.

However, nifty is a perfect word to consider as I approach a half century of living and loving on this amazing earth of ours.  The magical number of 50 has been swirling in my mind lately, and I have to say, I’ve lived a pretty magnificent life:

·      More than 50 countries have been stamped in my passport

·      50 new creative ideas have popped up in my head this year alone

·      I just traveled 50 hours to secure my 1st gallery-hosted international installation!

Pretty nifty stuff.

Traveling the globe is where inspiration is cultivated.

So, why not write about 50 things that happened in those 50 hours as a memorable way to welcome in 50?  Sounds excessive maybe, but when you stop and truly reflect, you can find magnificence in as little as 50 seconds of time.

High Five

It is said that we can only remember about five things in our short-term memory.  As a tactile learner, the five fingers of one hand becomes a useful tool to help remember those things.  Therefore, instead of taxing the brain with a long list of 50, let’s break it down into 5 bite-sized chunks of 10:

1.     Planes, trains and automobiles

2.     Techno Logic

3.     Color therapy at 6000 feet

4.     The factory of dawn

5.     Words of wisdom

Should we start with the thumb or the pinkie? 

Planes, trains and automobiles

Having 50 years of wanderlust tugging me around, I’m no stranger to the bumps of travel.  During this whirlwind trip, however, I easily had 10 sweet moments (two hands are better than one!) in the land of transportation:

1.     Caught six flights to/from Mexico and was on time to each of my meetings

2.     Enjoyed a free upgrade to first class on AeroMexico’s flight to Guadalajara

3.     Sipped tortilla soup thanks to TAR’s 150 peso food voucher for a 4 hour flight delay

4.     Found Ignacio, my taxi driver, even though the sign he held said ‘Ana’

5.     Listened to Mexican love songs for 3 hours by Ignacio’s side

6.     Treated like royalty in the Priority Pass lounge in Queretaro

7.     Marveled at a lightning bolt display from my plane window

No, this is not my photo, but I swear this is exactly what the storm looked like!

8.     Spent 185 pesos for a 2 minute cab ride to eat 3 tacos for 45 pesos

9.     Zipped through immigration for the first time with my Global Entry card

10.   Grabbed my bag as it tumbled FIRST from the luggage carousel belt

Techno Logic

Switching off your airplane mode as the wheels touch down means you know that travel technology is a blessing and a curse.  One week shy of 50, I still remember the days with nothing but a coin for a payphone while on the road.  No coins needed this past week with these 10 minor miracles of telecommunications:

 1.    Connected to free wifi at four out of five international airports (wake up LAX!)

2.     Gazed at Thor fighting to protect the Infinity Stones on not one, but two flights

3.     Received the good news of my free upgrade to first class on my Delta app

4.     Wrote and designed my very first opt-in at 36,000 feet

5.     Finished uploading photo images in my website shop to launch on my birthday

One of many installation photos that will be available to buy on my website shop October 1st.

6.     Located Ignacio using my Airbnb app, not the sign he held in his hand

7.     Saw every wrong turn Ignacio took on Google Maps before he did

8.     Gratefully accepted both of Ignacio’s USB slots to charge my phones on the road

9.     Recorded a live announcement on Instagram in the halls of Fabrica la Aurora

Live and kicking my announcement at Fabrica la Aurora, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

10.  Created a hot spot with my Blackberry when there was no wifi (LAX…sigh)

Color theory at 6000 feet

If my thumb and pointer finger are all about travel within 50 hours, the last three fingers on my hand celebrate the artistic side of the journey.  To realize my dream of a large scale international installation in my 50th year is a thrill.  To have this event in San Miguel de Allende in the heart of the Mexican plateau is a visual treat that can be summed up in 10 colors:

1.     Coral spires of the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel

2.     Adobe tiles of weathered cantera stones

3.     Burnt orange of the stucco facades

My next door neighbor in San Miguel de Allende.

4.     Mahogany carved doors of courtyard entrances

5.     Ochre washes of high garden walls

6.     Fuchsia blooms of the bougainvillea vines

Glitter infused adhesive domes installed in a bougainvillea in San Miguel de Allende.

7.     Amethyst flowers of the jacaranda trees

8.     Taupe cobblestone of the winding streets

9.     Parakeet green of the spiny cacti

10.  Azure blue of the clear skies above

50 shades of color around every corner in San Miguel de Allende.

The factory of dawn

To travel 2600 miles across the continent to an altitude of 6200 feet, one should expect to be dazzled by more than just the vivid colors of San Miguel de Allende.  Known as a creative haven, it is an incredible honor to have my first show at Manuk Galeria and on the grounds of Fabrica la Aurora.  I would travel this distance 50 times over to have 10 glorious moments like these:

1.     Met for two hours with the owner of Manuk Galeria to discuss details of my show

2.     Presented physical and printed samples of creative ideas for the space

3.     Admired the work of 5 other wonderful artists represented by the galle62

The artist/owner of Manuk, Lourdes Rivera, is a lovely woman with an open heart.

4.     Shared stories of our creative lives as two female artists on opposite sides of 50

5.     Walked the grounds of Fabrica la Aurora to select outdoor areas for installation

One of many cactus gardens that will house my installation work in March 2019.

6.     Introduced to the director and exchanged ideas for the outdoor space

7.     Discussed logistics and strategies for shipping artwork internationally

8.    Chatted with several artists who have working studios in the area

An old textile factory turned design center for creatives of all types.

9.     Watched an artist working on a piece he anticipates will take him a year to complete

10.  Stumbled into Ana Thiel’s open studio and unlocked a window to my glass future

In February 2018, I discovered the Manuk Galeria and the work of Ana Thiel, a Mexican glass artist whose work holds the aesthetic of my heart. I met Ana in her studio last week - lucky stars!

Words of wisdom

Seamless travel, technology triumphs, a kaleidoscope of colors and an artist’s dream all wrapped up in 50 short hours is something to cherish.  In those quiet moments in between, I found myself thinking about 10 simple words that will usher me gracefully into my next half century. I am:

1.     Grateful

2.     Aligned

3.     Creative

4.     Excited

5.     Inspired

6.     Lucky

7.     Focused

8.     Balanced

9.     Alive

10.  Young

Hello 50.  Damn glad to meet you…

How about meeting me in the comments below? It would be a birthday wish come true!

Take charge of living large

The stuff of dreams

Nestled in the sand among sea-weathered driftwood in La Push, Washington, my daughter, Zsofi, dazzles us with tales of the universe.  As the stars above begin to twinkle, wild statistics of relativity bounce around our banter like the sparks of our campfire:

• All of the planets from our solar system can fit between the Earth and the Moon.
• Jupiter is approximately 318 times as massive as Earth.
• 1.3 million Earths can fit inside our Sun, but 9.3 billion Suns would be needed to fill VY Canis Majoris, the largest known star in the universe.

How many grains of sand can you hold in your hand?  Only the La Push jellyfish really knows...

And to bring us right back to the very beach we are huddled on, famed astrophysicist, Carl Sagan’s timeless quote drifts by:

• “The total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.”

So, as we sit in awe of the cosmic vastness around us, a very simple truth emerges:

We are small.

Zsofi sizing up the largest piece of driftwood I've ever seen.  The magic of La Push, July 2015.

 

Major Minor

The notion of small, and it’s more expressive cousins of compact, tiny, petite and wee, are often celebrated in our culture.  All things technological are shrinking while becoming more robust and efficient.  Micro-living and tiny houses are infiltrating both our consciousness and our neighborhoods.  Even our planet, in its itsy-bitsy place in the Milky Way, is dwindling as globalization becomes the norm.

In the creative world, miniature art has been thriving for centuries with dozens of active societies across the continents.  Who isn’t intrigued by the artist who has the patience, focus and unparalleled fine-motor skills to create the minute?

That artist is not me….or so I thought.

Teeny tiny Ice embedded with pea and berry atop a lichen covered lava rock near Stykkishólmur, Iceland, December 2017.

Under the microscope

Building a sculptural piece for my installation practice has been dictated by the space it is created in - studio, kitchen, freezer, silicone mold – all relatively small.  However, the proximity I have to the work in vision, creation and documentation magnifies its size in my mind’s eye.  Nevertheless, like moving from sketchbook to canvas, I can see that my installation’s substrate is actually massive...

Welcome to Planet Earth!

I spy with my little eye a teeny tiny ice installation.  Can you find it?

Lights, Camera, Action

The Hawaiian Islands are a tiny ripple in the Pacific Ocean.  Iceland is an elf in the shadow of Greenland.  The expansive beach of the rugged Olympic Peninsula is a milli-fraction of North America’s coastline.  Yet, each of these wonderlands have elicited vastness in contrast to the tiny installations I have placed. 

Ice embedded with leaves at the base of Dynjandi waterfall in Iceland, frozen above at 330 feet tall, November 2017.

Through the lens of a camera, I’m pulled magnetically towards the details of the artwork starring in my play, but the setting is an integral part of the plot.  The locations have been carefully selected by a visceral energy, their draw magically nipping at my wanderlust.

Simply put, I travel to these sites because of their immense beauty.

Blue butterfly pea infused ice installation melting fast on the black sand beach at Waianapanapa in Maui, June 2018.

Placing an installation within a sweeping environment does not make me feel small, but rather fills me with limitless creativity.

You see, it’s all relative.

Acres of ranunculus blooming in Carlsbad, California, made a perfect site for an installation, March 2018.

Blink of an eye

Beyond the miniscule nature of being alive and kicking in this teeny twirling orb called Earth, our time here is nothing more than a blip.  How about that for making you feel small?

In my artwork, people often wonder why I make ethereal pieces that will be gobbled up by the world around them.  All of the time and effort, heart and soul, to be snatched away in a matter of moments?

Organically dyed dough (or Fruity Pebbles!) installed between lava and coral in Maui, June 2018.

Placing tenuous work allows me to experience the now.  It is the nano-second of time that I can create my own unique mark and marvel at its micro-impact.

Standing in the massive lava flow on the MacKenzie Pass in the Oregon Cascades, a spectacle that belched its way across the landscape close to 3000 years ago, I see a few scattered trees.  They have no business being there, but it is their wee mark in time and space that captures my heart and my artist's eye.

So, get out there and plant your creative sapling now.

Glitter infused resin cubes installed in a Lodgepole pine setting up shop in a lava field on MacKenzie Pass in Oregon, August 2018.

Bigsy Small

For many of us, the idea of being small is crippling.  Comparing ourselves to those around us can foster fear and produce feelings of inadequacy.  Artists have this affliction in spades, all wrapped up in limiting beliefs that keep us from making our mark, even though the world is anxiously waiting for it.

Installation of acrylic painted paper sticks installed along the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas, March 2018.  I had more people stop to talk to me about the installation than ever before, all curious about what kind of mark I was making.

Funny enough, the best way to move beyond this fear is by taking the tiniest of steps.  Just one unique speck today creates a growing momentum and informs the splotch of tomorrow.  We’ve been graced with space, so fill it up, buttercup!

The granular level

The next time you are laying in the sand, imagining the grains you hold in your hand are only a snippet of the stars you see in the sky above, remember this:

Living large and making a mark on Pacific Beach in Seabrook, Washington, April 2018.

• There are more atoms in a human than stars in the universe.

Guess that means we truly are larger than life!

How about leaving your mark in the comments below?

The square root of pie

Creative Blocks

A bat, a moth and a butterfly flit into a bar…

Might seem like a strange visual, but these are the most common images (sans bar!) that people see when they examine the first of Rorschach’s ink blots.  Known as Klecks at University, the Swiss artist-turned-psychiatrist developed his love of Klecksography into one of the most widely known psychoanalytical evaluations of our time.

Two Peas, 2018, my first attempt at painting with the organic blue dye of butterfly pea blossoms.

So, here is my question:  what is the fascination of finding the reality in abstract art?

As humans, we have an inherent need to understand what we see and connect it to the world around us.  The figure, the landscape, the dogs playing poker - we get that and it makes sense.  It's exactly why puffy cumulus clouds have a tendency to channel Mickey Mouse.

Seems Mickey Mouse was absent this day.  What do you see?

But, when someone says your work reminds her of dried fish swim bladder, what does that say about you, or more importantly, your art?

Mawther Nature's candy

Building and installing abaca sculpture, a fiber made from a native Philippine plant in the banana tree family, has garnered lots of ink blot banter.  The swirls have been lovingly compared to Dr. Suess’ fantasy world, Chihuly’s glass work and unicorn horns.

Abaca swirls installed on Black Butte Ranch in Oregon, August 2018.

However, when Cherry, my Thai sister-in-law, feverishly helped me slather adhesive on the abaca to prepare for a festival installation this month, she saw fish maw.

How does a fish float and sink in water?  Swim bladder of course!

And you know what?  I get it.

Not because the dried seafood delicacy Cherry was forced to eat as a child actually does resemble my abaca swirls.  Nope.  It’s because, for some reason, the number one recurring connection people make to my artwork is food.

Fish out of water

Merging my love of global travel with art installation, I never imagined I would learn about the foods of distant lands by sticking art in the ground.

Hibiscus infused ice installed on quicksand in Seabrook, Washington, July 2018.  Beach ice pops!

Although my sculptures have seen international waters, none of these tasty treats have influenced my work.  In fact, some of these morsels and their homelands I’ve never even experienced.

Let’s make a shopping list:

• Borrachitos – the little drunk filled with sweet jelly
• Lokum - the Turkish delight meant for royalty
• Khanom Chan - the nine layer dessert of Thai prosperity

Who says you can’t have dessert first?

 

Punch Drunk Love

I love everything about Mexican food, but I must admit, I’m not one for the sweets of this scrumptious country.  While on Desha Peacock's Sweet Spot Style creative retreat in San Miguel de Allende in January this year, an artist friend, Melissa Partridge surprised me with a gift of borrachitos.

Not a shabby place to create some adhesive domes while on retreat in Mexico.  Don't eat the art!

Melissa was not appealing to my sweet tooth. She saw the crystallized jelly cubes and immediately thought of the resin work I was installing in San Miguel. 

You might get a little drunk munching on these sweeties in Mexico.

These sugary squares were originally created by nuns to give to their patrons in appreciation for support.  Eventually, the sisters found their entrepreneurial spirit and began selling the delicacy to the public.

Glitter infused resin cubes stacked and good enough to eat in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, January 2018.

Love it!  Artisans realizing the value of their work – something we all need to embrace!

 

The turkey trot

Unlike damar resin, an organic substance drained from trees in East Asia, the resin in my current work is 100% man-made polymer.  Nothing you want to gobble down with a tall glass of milk.  I would venture to guess eating tape, paper and glue would also not sit well on an empty stomach.

Don't pop this cube in your mouth please!

Not so apparently.  The Pop Cubes I’ve created have recently been compared to the wildly sweet Turkish Delight of the spice markets in Istanbul.

Lokum love to share with family and friends.

Although I would not recommend munching on my adhesive treats, the process of making lokum reminds me of the delicate nature of working with resin.  The ingredients are simple, but you have to make sure you follow the directions and have everything at your fingertips before you start cooking.

As you can see, I follow the directions perfectly, including the precise measurements and appropriate equipment for handling resin polymer.

 

Thai spice drops

The kitchen is the heart of the home.  It is where we create food to nurture ourselves, body and beyond.  We gather around the table to connect, celebrate and commune.  Therefore, having my resin cubes compared to khanom chan in Thailand is an honor, and apparently quite lucky.

Glitter infused resin cube at Pacific Beach in Seabrook, Washington, April 2018.

Butterfly pea jelly dessert Thai style.

Making the jump from my sculptures to fodder was not an obvious leap for me.  However, if I reflect on the past year of installation, much of my work incorporates organic material and requires the kitchen as my studio.

I mean, isn't the artist's apron borrowed from a chef?

Dough nuts

Organic dyes first entered my practice when I built frozen pieces to install in Iceland.  I spent weeks in the kitchen researching dyes derived from plants.  Even the elusive blue was found in a magical tea brewed from the blossoms of the butterfly pea.

Nothing more beautiful than a gradient study of blue thanks to butterfly pea blossoms.

Planning my installation trip to Maui in June, the stove-top became my drafting table once again.  In a stretch to move from cubes to a spherical form, I opted for an easy solution – dough.  Funny enough, it was actually edible art!

Organic dough is more salty than sweet - beware.

Placing organic dough on the beaches of Hawaii elicited a kid-in-a-candy-store list from spectators:

• Skittles
• Pop Rocks
• Nerds
• Sprinkles
• Fruity Pebbles
• Easter eggs
• Potatoes (ok – this one isn’t very sugary, but sweet in thought)

A little sand never hurt.  Organic dough on Hamoa Beach, Maui, June 2018.

Connecting my art to the confections of Mexico, Turkey and Thailand fits my Bohemian soul.  That said, I love that my organic work has crossed into the mass-media influenced candy industry of the United States.

Andy Warhol was definitely on to something.

Pop psychology

I’d like to think that Rorschach would be proud to know he had reached cultural iconic fame with his ink blot artwork.  Being immortalized by Andy Warhol in the art world is no small honor.  

Rorschach by Andy Warhol, 1984.

Interestingly, the ink blot was eventually used to test for creative thinking.

When I look, I don’t see a butterfly or a delicious dessert.  My ink blot always looks like an island I need to visit one day.

So, tell me, Artist, what do you see in your life's ink blot?  I promise not to analyze anything you might say in the comments below...

Barefoot in a Sneaker Wave

Better get your trench coat

From 16,000 feet deep in an under-water ravine to the crest of an 8-story thundering wave, the coast of Nazaré, Portugal has a magnetic pull.  In the churning Atlantic water of Praia do Norte, hard-core surfers, and spectators alike, plunge into the wild world of big wave surfing.  In fact, in November 2017, Brazilian surfer, Rodrigo Koxa, broke the world’s record by flawlessly riding this massive 80 foot wave, honoring a life-long passion.

First and last time on a surfboard in 8 inch surf at Praia do Madeiro, Brazil, 2010.

Northern exposure

Later that same month, 25 degrees north of this famous breaker, lying face down on a rocky beach along the Strandir coastline, I encountered my own booming breaker.  Fingers numb in the gusting wind, I howled, “never turn your back on the ocean” -  a saying my kids have heard me utter many times.  Placing my second ice installation within feet of crashing waves, my travel mate, Chris, kept eye for any monster swell that could sweep us away.

Dried leaves embedded in ice installed on the Strandir coast in the Westfjords, Iceland.  The tiny black thread near the top left side of the ice is my glove, sticking relentlessly to the frozen piece. Thus, bare hands were required to install!

In absolutely no way were we facing the danger of Nazaré, but chasing my creative dream pulls me back to the ocean time and time again.  What power do these wild waves have over my journey, and how do I make sure I’m not turning my back on the surf in front of me?

Facing the churning sea in Djúpalónssandur, Iceland to install blue pea infused ice.

The Big Kahuna

Duke Kahanamoku, the father of modern surfing, is credited with coining the famous phrase that keeps us facing seaward.  Both practical and philosophical, this saying teaches us two important life lessons about the power of the ocean:

1.     There are significant physical dangers of being hit by a wave.

2.     Mankind needs to show deep respect for the sea.

Humbly, I’d like to offer one additional lesson to be learned:

3.     The wave coming could be the ride of your life!

Rising temperatures and rising tide at Kirkjufell, Iceland means melting ice...fast!

 

v = f x λ

Waves as a metaphor for artistic creativity is perfectly suited.  Many of us have had times brimming with unbridled imagination and surging productivity.  For each crest, however, there is a trough, a quiet time…the lull.  Without one, we can’t have the other, so I’ve gingerly embraced both, experiencing the drought before the flood.

Silk thread orb installed at the driest place on Maui:  Haleakala Crater.

Roll with it

Today, facing an expressive tsunami, however, I am feverishly grabbing at each medium that pokes out of the rushing water.  Ice, resin, paper, fiber, adhesive, wax, paint and canvas are all bobbing about my studio.  While I could be drowning, each one plays an integral part in this wild ride, one supporting the other in ways I can’t begin to understand.  But, that is okay – I trust the process.

Glitter infused adhesive domes melting in the Hawaiian heat.

I have to - these are my life-saving floaties.

Making waves

So, if today's story is about ‘The Big One’, let’s dive more deeply into some of the ways we choose to describe a tidal wave, creative or otherwise:

• Sneaker Wave:  Well, as we already determined in my last blog, sneaking has its perks.  With creativity, it can pop up at any time, without warning, and pinch us hard.  I say it's better to laugh than cry.

Abaca installation turned upside-down in San Antonio, Texas.

• Killer Wave:  Yet another negative description, but how many times have you used it to describe something extraordinary?  If you get out there, showing up every day, I guarantee you will be killing it.
• Rogue Wave:  When creativity hits, I urge you to ‘go rogue’ in the full Urban Dictionary sense.  Don’t follow the rules.  Let your heart lead and do what feeds your soul.

Nobody gave me permission to do this installation.  The only formal invitation I received was from Mother Nature.

• Freak Wave:  So, Rogue, go listen to the lyrics of ‘Come from the Heart’ and dance like nobody is watching!  As one of my favorite contemporary artists, Nicholas Wilton, would coach:  create art in exactly the same way.  Flying your freak flag is what makes your art uniquely yours.
• Extreme Wave:  Not for the faint at heart, when creativity comes calling, push yourself as far as you can, all the way to the edges of your comfort zone.  I promise, you won’t fall off.  That’s where the good stuff hides.

Blue pea and red cabbage infused ice installed near the outer edge of Ögur, Iceland.

I met a Cyclops in Ghost Trees

If the names for waves weren't scary enough, what about swells being creatively called Jaws, Dungeons and Mavericks?  What do these mega-wave meccas have in common with Praia do Norte, or the crazy 'artist' who chooses to play in the 'surf'?  At these beaches, to ride the Big One, tow-in surfing is not a luxury, but a technological necessity.

Yes, it means having a partner in crime, someone who understands the fierce power of the ocean and pull of passion, and is there to help propel you safely through the choppy waters.

Guess we should add one more life lesson to The Big Kahuna list above:

4.  Never swim alone.

Chris, partner in crime, soaking seaside after a long day of ice installation in Drangsnes, Iceland.

On the very same island as Jaws, Chris stood watch with the surf pounding against the lava field at La Perouse Bay while I swiftly placed the last of my Maui installations.  Mouthing the words that have become my mantra, my partner in crime faced the waves by my side, keeping me safe while I dove in.

Feeling the ocean spray in my face while installing organically dyed dough at La Perouse Bay in Maui.

Passion Fish

My sleep is often filled with dreams of crystal clear tidal surges that I manage to negotiate perfectly with a surfer’s ease.  The trick I've learned is this:

Dive straight into the face of the wave before the crest crashes.  Passion is on the other side.

Tell me, what do you dream about?  Jump into the comments below - the water is perfect!

Why I put the ice in Iceland

it's cold out there!

In the deep darkness of December, thirteen impish little guys cause all kinds of ruckus across the frosty heaves of Iceland.  These pranksters, the Yule Lads, spend the holidays swiping and gobbling their way through the night, sneaking treasures into the shoes of children, both naughty and nice.

Welcome sign to the Dark Fortress, home of the Yule Lads

Warming his stiff legs by an open fire, I was lucky enough to meet my first Yule Lad in 2013, Stekkjarstaur in Dimmuborgir among the snowy lava spires.  Something magical was in that flame, sparking my inner elf and awakening the mischief in my creativity.

Meet Stekkjarstaur, a.k.a. Gimpy, and my travel buddy, Chris.  What an incredible surprise to stumble into a Yule Lad hiking in a lava field in the north of Iceland!

What tiny gems can I leave behind for the wide-eyed and young at heart to stumble upon unexpectedly?  A sparkling surprise for just a tiny moment before lacing up their boots and moving on?

Ice...obviously.

Gold leaf embedded in ice, installed in a snow drift in Suðureyri, Westfjords, Dec 2017

Medium rare anyone?

My love of ice as an artistic medium is longstanding, maybe born from:

• Holiday seasons growing up when my mom would freeze pine needles and holly berries in an ice ring for the spiked punch bowl?
•  Watching icicles form through a frosty window, one tiny drip of water at a time, only to melt in exactly the same way?
•  Climbing snowbanks to pluck them from the roof’s edge and enjoying nature’s homemade popsicle?

Icicles falling from a rooftop in Bolungarvík, Westfjords

If childhood memories primed the pump, discovering the ephemeral beauty of Andy Goldsworthy’s site-specific land art sealed the deal.  His creation of exquisite artwork made exclusively of organic materials, only to be exposed and lovingly manipulated by nature’s fingertips, is at the core of my artistic inspiration.

I was hooked…ice hook(ed) to be exact.

Installation is my insulation

In my second year of art school, in the frigid climate of Montana, I placed my first ice installation.  Studying photography, I opted to embed Polaroid transfers from a trip to Russia, in hopes they would blow away when thawed, perhaps found or lost forever.  But, it was the deep carmine flower petals frozen in the ice blocks and the crimson pigment outlines acting as their pedestals that felt pure to me.

Hitherto, ice installation by Margaret Byrd at the University of Montana, Nov 1994

Exactly 23 years later, my second ice installation was created, placed and thawed in the most enchanting polar landscape I’ve been lucky enough to explore:  Iceland.  More than twenty icy art bundles were scattered across the Westfjords and Snæfellsnes Peninsula, left behind to let Mother Nature collaborate in any way she felt fit.

Who am I to argue?

Ice embedded with berry, installed in situ at The Blue Lagoon, Nov 2017

Out of control

As artists, we may never have full control over our medium.  If we hang on too tightly, we can squash creativity, wonder and the excitement of discovery.  Perhaps I hide behind the delicate property of ice, allowing its inconsistency to be the twinkling star of my work?

As solid as ice in my hand

Regardless, the breathtaking moment I open the freezer, seeing how the water has transformed and the crackling magic of the unexpected is revealed - this is why I come back again and again.  My heart skips a tiny beat to see how the infused material dances with the water on their icy date.  It's not unlike peeking into your shoe to see what morsel was left behind by a roguish Christmas troll.

Great balls of fire...no wait, ice!

Sneaky Pete

So, that brings us back to the mischief in this tale.  If my desire to leave small marks of visual candy has an altruistic tinge, the devilish side of this artist is also smirking ear to ear.  I mean…I run around (sometimes stumbling), uninvited (typically), probably on private land (some of the time), defacing nature (sort of) and littering creativity all over the place.

Sounds like graffiti to me!

Peter was my confirmation name.  Why?  Because it means 'stone'.  I knew even then!

If you look up ‘sneaky’ out there in the virtual world, there isn’t much with a positive twist.  Seems in general, sneaking around is kind of frowned upon.

But, I’d like to reframe it for you:

• Sneaking treats from the cookie jar is absolutely expected, no matter what age you are.
• Sneaking around your neighborhood on a sweltering night playing flashlight tag is how every kid should spend the summer.
• Sneaking out to meet your lover is downright romantic.

Chris and I on the last day Súðavík saw the sun for six weeks, Dec 2017

Sugar and spice and everything nice

You see, sneaking any kind of ‘sugar’ is kinda sweet.  Just ask any of the Yule Lads!  They are sneaking into my comment box every night...