Fibermania

Renewal

So I surprised Frieda at 7:15 am with her new scarf. I was itchin' for some of her steamed milk coffee and I was amply rewarded.

She poses elegantly for the side view. While I was there we looked at her recent work in the new downstairs studio, and she showed me a new piece that she was abandoning. It looked perfectly fine to me. I volunteered to take it home and quilt it (whaddami nuts?) and then I promptly spilled my coffee on it. I felt so horrible. Is nothing sacred from my recent bumblings? She was not the least upset until we saw that some of the coffee had gotten onto a new piece of freshly fused green. Damn.

This is Socks, Frieda's kitty, or her son's kitty, or former kitty. Whenever I visit, she rubs my legs, purring and I pick her up and give her lotsa moosh. I love her. She is, shall we say, underappreciated at Frieda's house since George is the main attraction. Socks is often offered to me, as I would give her more attention and I have tried to get Dave to let me take her home. He always says no. So yesterday I decided I would just do it. We packed her into a box and I drove her home.

She won Dave's heart immediately, but Popeye is not convinced. This will take a bit more time.

We are back to being a two cat family, and it feels great. She slept on my bed, and Pops slept with Dave. Sigh, we are too happy.

Speaking of renewal...I am determined to resurrect this mess. I finished this painting a while back and then gave it a coat of acrylic gloss medium which made it impossibly shiny and just awful looking.

So yesterday afternoon I repainted it all. I am much happier now. It has a nice surface, but not shiny like before. It is named Adobe.

When I was in Yellowknife, we visited Dawn Oman's studio and I noticed that she had gold outlines, ala Laurel Burch. I asked about this, and she told me about the paint pens she uses. I had to have them too. And I used them to outline some shapes in the new paint.

I would never ever have used tools like this in my 'fine art' days at school. Ha! Those days are over. I find that I am attracted to art that has pattern and color and line and is decorative. So against decorative painting were all my teachers, that I was convinced for years to dismiss it too.

But that meant that I was left out of the making of it. Why should others have all the fun?

I compared this to not being able to make the kind of quilts I make because they are fused. Ack!

No limits anymore. I am painting what I wanted to paint all those years.

And my former teachers can't stop me!