The end of July

Here it is, the end of July. I think August is a sad month. Summer is winding down, and all the fun things you did when the weather first got nice are sort of old hat now. The garden is tired looking and it's too hot to plant anything. Even if you could stand the heat, the plants couldn't. Even the dog is listless.

I didn't have any plans at all for August, until last week. My sister and I are going to Virginia to see our dad and stepmother for a few days, and then we, along with our dad, are going to South Dakota for a family wedding. And it won't be any cooler there, trust me.

Trying again

I managed to get one more photo uploaded. This is called "Get Over It!"

The first one I did was very colorful, and a friend wondered aloud what it would be like in black and white. I had to add the green shoes, and then of course the green lettering. I just couldn't make myself stick to black and white.

Here She Is

Here is the latest in a series of "Spokeswomen." I used to call them wild women, but it seems too trite to me these days.

In a class I took recently, there was a lot of talk about "the big idea" behind artwork. I don't think I have a "big idea." Hence, this piece.

I've been trying for 3 days to upload photos of her sisters, but Blogger isn't cooperating. Maybe tomorrow.

Another Chasuble

Here is another chasuble that I designed for a priest here in Baltimore.

The fabric is hand-dye European sateen, bought from Heide Stoll-Weber, from Frankfurt. The inserts in the sleeves are heavily stitched silk dupioni. The silk was green to begin with, but I put it in the same dye bath as the sateen, to be sure that it blended.


You can see from the detail that there is stitching in the background, too. This chasuble is lined with rayon, and the stitching holds it all together, similar to quilting, only without a batt. I think priests' clothing is hot enough without adding the batt. The stitching is green pearl rayon, in a grape leaf design. The altar set that this chasuble complements has a grape vine design. I'll post photos of it later.

Absence Explained

Back in the spring, I took a break from blogging. I was working on a commission pretty much all the time, and didn't really have anything else to talk about. Thinking that it wasn't really fair to show images of the commission to the blogosphere before the client saw them, I just took a break. But now the pieces are finished, and here they are, for the world to see.

I had been asked to create a 5 piece altar set for St Thomas Episcopal Church, in Richmond, Virginia. The stained glass in the church is from about 1910, and is a sort of prairie/Frank Lloyd Wright style. Each window has a simplified dogwood motif, and that's what I decided to use for the altar set.

This is a detail of the altar frontal. This is the right side, and the left is identical. The entire frontal is 72" wide and 7" deep. The dogwood is painted and couched on silk dupioni.

The chasuble is a festival garment worn by the priest. This one is made of raw silk, and the design is painted and couched onto heavily stitched silk dupioni.







Here is the stole, also made of heavily stitched silk dupioni, painted and couched. The other two pieces are lectern and pulpit hangings, and have the same design on the heavily stitched dupioni.

I worked constantly on these pieces for most of the spring, and delivered them to St Thomas right before we left for Spain.

Photography woes

Photographing my work is like a comedy of errors. Every time I set everything up, it begins to rain! Today is no exception. At least I got one piece shot before I had to quit.
But, first I used a gray card to get the settings. I set the camera for aperture mode, set the aperture at 8, and filled the screen with the gray card. Shutter speed indicated was 1/5. OK, I changed to manual mode, used those settings, and the exposure meter said +2.9. Naturally the image was wildly over exposed. I cropped this image, but didn't do anything else to it, not even rotate.


So, I set the camera back to aperture mode, and used the exposure meter to find the shutter speed. So this photo was taken with aperture 8, shutter speed 1/80, exposure meter -0.1. I clearly don't understand the gray card business!

When it stops raining, I have another piece to shoot. Let's hope it doesn't get rained on, too!

What Kind of Coffee are You?

I'm not sure that this is flattering!

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

I'm testing this image to see how it looks on the web. It's the lettering that worries me: is it legible? So we'll see. I've been working on my images in PhotoShop Elements, changing all the backgrounds to white. It's a chore, since my pieces generally aren't exactly square. I usually trim the edges without a ruler.