Open to the Public: Open Studio events and felting parties

This weekend (May 19th & 20th, 2018) brings another episode of Silicon Valley Open Studios, an event that welcomes the public into artist's workspaces to see what we do and how we do it. I have to admit that I love to do these events, despite how absolutely drained they leave me at the end of the weekend. That's because I really am excited about what I do (and I talk about it all day, thus the exhaustion), and it's fun to get the reactions my sculpture and process receive. 

This time around I'll have several of my human-sized industrial felt pod-like forms that I'm starting to cover in white wool. Visitors will have the opportunity to help me poke the wool and attach it to the forms... and if they like that, sign up to join me at a felting party this summer. I hope you can make it-- things are shaping up!

Getting Down to Work: my process of patterning, cutting, and stitching felt for large-scale sculpture

Now that my space is set up enough I'm finally getting some work done on my InTouch project. I've made a lot of tiny test pieces to work out the pattern pieces for the most basic forms, and I've been learning along the way that human error makes for some interesting effects. As much as I draw and test and print out and trace and cut patterns, there's still a lot of variability that comes from, ya know, being a human as I stitch. 

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Reexamining small models I made to figure out plans for larger pieces. The twisted piece I'm holding didn't start out that way-- the twist came about from the directionality as I sewed the pattern pieces together. But I like it, so I'm going to recreate the effect in the full-size version.

After ironing the freezer-paper pattern onto 3/8" thick wool,I cut out each piece. Yes, my studio is very cold in the winter.

To go from idea to large-scale piece, I start by making a small felt pattern and stitch it together, trimming, changing, and restitching until I like it. Then I take it apart, trace the felt pattern onto paper, and scan the drawings. Then I digitally trace over the pattern using Adobe Illustrator, scale it up, and print it out. I use the light table to trace the pattern onto freezer paper, which will adhere temporarily to felt when I iron it on. 

Stitching together the large pieces. The bumps you see will actually end up as indentations in the sculpture.

Corraling Styrofoam: creating a dedicated space in an art studio for messy work

Settling in to my studio has been a gradual process as I prepare the space for the tasks I have planned. I happen to hate cleaning things up, but I love a tidy environment to work in-- so I focus on prevention and try to put systems in place to deal with messes ahead of time. To that end, I knew I would be carving some styrofoam models for larger pieces (don't worry, I'm recycling through repurposing) and want to contain the tiny static-infused bits as much as possible, so I took a note from some home remodeling we did and enclosed a corner of the studio in heavy plastic specifically to work with styrofoam. I still have to vacuum up all the bits when I'm done for the session, but the zippered door and taped-down-to-the-floor plastic walls help me keep the bits from traveling all over. I wear coveralls to work with styrofoam and have to use the shop vac on myself when I'm done, too. But I'm reclaiming the bits to use inside finished stitched pieces, so there's very little waste, and patting myself on the back makes it easier to deal with the cringey mess of EPS.

Dedicated foam-friendly workspace...

Laying out plastic on the blessedly large floor in order to stick on the zipper door kit-- basically two long zippers with sticky sides you can apply to the plastic, then cut in the center.

A view towards the styrofoam carving area in the back left.

Moving in slowly... preparing a new art studio space for working

I've had possession of my new studio space for about three weeks now, and I'm at the tail end of readying the space for work. A lot of work has happened thus far, just not artmaking. In a way it has felt like those puzzles where you have to shift all the tiles around in order to move one to its real spot, then shift them all again to move the next into place. In my case part of it has been getting and putting up shelving in my back storage area (thanks as always, craigslist) and readjusting the shelves twenty times as I figure out what will go where as I try to find homes for everything-- supplies, tools, packaging materials, finished work-- it doesn't seem like much when I type it out, actually. Hm.

My space is basically a warehouse with a window, so while it is bright and lovely and cool in the summer (I've visited its previous occupant, my dear friend Tricia Stackle, then), it is also quite cold already this far into winter. I installed carpet tiles (Habitat for Humanity ReStore is a great source) this week over the concrete floor to add a bit of insulation and to ease the standing-on-concrete effect. 

Carpet tiles turn out to be pretty easy to install...

Simply place the things down and do some trimming on the last two edges of the room. Ready to move furniture around.

I've also been playing around with how to lay out the space to use it (and my acquired work surfaces) in the most efficient way-- without dragging everything all over the space. I will confess to being overly nerdy and not totally averse to technology. So I've been using SketchUp to virtually plan out the room-- I drew up simple furniture stand-ins so I could move them around. So. Dang. Satisfying. I can see through walls and defy gravity, too. We'll see how it translates to the Real World.

Google SketchUp rendering of my space, sort of.