Oaxaca Oaxaca!

My dear friends and talented artists Mari Seder, a Worcester & Oaxaca based photographer, and  Oaxacan painter/assemblage artist Humberto Batista are organizing their third  Painting, Photography and Collage Workshop in beautiful Oaxaca.  Ooooohhhhhh is it tempting, as the fall weather starts settling in...

It's planned for March 2011,  how perfect since it's always the time you need to escape winter the most.. Make sure to check it out on their website here. They even got a great review in Budget Traveler which you can read here.  In the meantime, here's a taste of the place:

All above photos (c) Mari Seder

Yep... and here's some of Humberto's assemblages:

No need to say more but you can see plenty more pictures on each of their websites, or visit my blog Oaxaca the Beautiful  that I did last year during my visit... It's really a heavenly place, and that's without even starting to talk about the food which must be the best of all Mexico. So imagine making art on top of that.. it can't possibly get much better...

Ruth Asawa (San Francisco, b. 1926)

Another amazing artist I often turned to get re-inspired.. Even though I feel a bit "in between" right now with my art making, I always have the urge to make something, to create. That might explain why this excerpt fom  The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa - Contours in the Air resonates in me: 

"I have made doing art part of my life. Art is doing. There is either doing or talking about it. Art deals direclty with life. After it is done, someone comes along to write about it; then someone comes along to exhibit it [...]. The only step that is truly real is the first step. The making of the object. This is the step that children should be involved with completely. This involvement helps them to learn their capabilities and limitations. It is learning by making."  Ruth Asawa, 1970.

You can see more of Asawa's work in the book, including some of her fantastic early drawings such as those:

Fall is here..

and Belle Isle is more beautiful than ever..

Making their way to Etsy...

 

 

Kathryn Clark - Minimalist "Articraft"

While taking the amazing-and-totally-overwhelming Blogging your Way class with Holly at Decor 8  (which I highly recommend!), I had the privilege to meet so many talented, creative and multifaceted people... A separate blog could just be dedicated to them & I am sure the energy it would generate would power up the whole planet! Very, very humbling...

One of the artists in the class is Kathryn Clark, a San Francisco based fiber artist. A lot of her work seems to be derived from traditional weaving and quilting techniques but she has a very minimalit approach which makes you look at them in a different way. I really love her esthetic and the simplicity of her pieces:

Kathryn likes to collaborate with other artists (some of the above pieces are from her Side Stitch  collaboration) and talks about it on her blog which you can visit here.  I can't wait to see the finished sketchbook that she's doing for The Sketchbook Project in which she'll include tiny weavings like this one:

Can you imagine a little book of those?? I already want to touch it..

She has a very inspiring blog  in which she focuses on "Articraft (...) artists who use craft and craftspeople who make art".  What's not to love about that...

Alison Willoughby... where have I been?

I am sure some of you will relate to this: you always wear the same thing, you need a new wardrobe, you're ready to shop, you are willing to splurge, you actually go shopping, you look around...around... and around, and... you come back not only empty handed but bored to death... Then you feel like you've wasted a perfectly good couple of hours which you could have used to do something much more productive, or even better, CREATIVE...  Then you see British textile designer Alison Willougby's skirts and you want them ALL...

It doesn't matter that they are from a couple of seasons ago - you still want to wear them..  They are so refreshing and inspiring  that you want to make your own!

Well, guess what, you can still buy some of them there (if you do, I want to see it!).  She also has a book out that you can find here and gives you tips on how to alter used clothes into your own creations. On my end, I might just dive in and make one for meeself...

See more and read more about Alison on her website or her blog. I think she qualifies for my hero of the month...

I want to be at peace with myself and others, and that's hard (Louise Bourgeois).

Sundays seem to be a time to look at long standing inspirations....  And as I'm trying to get ready to tackle the fall with a list of projects to do, the idea of a book of fabric or thread drawings keeps resurfacing..clearly inspired by Louise Bourgeois  Ode a l'Oubli and Ode a la Bievre.  Below are some of my favorites from those books:

Sad to think that she's no longer with us but I can't help smiling looking at this page:

I hope she's having a wonderful time  - wherever she is...

Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2010

Portrait Photo (c) Christopher Burke (detail)

All artwork (c) Louise Bourgeois Trust