Through Her Own Words

One of the artist I inner-viewed for my zine “The Inner Eye” has been chomping at the bit to read more on how the other artists answered questions I posed to them, so I thought it time to post another one, now that my group exhibition has been hung.

Today’s Inner-view is about Melinda Schwakhofer.

I first met Melinda a few years ago on her extended trip thru the States to reconnect with her heritage. Although born in the United States, she now calls Devon, England home.

Melinda is a very introspective and spiritual person who loves to cook but especially loves to eat GOOD food. As an artist, she love to tell stories with her art. At the moment she is on a “an inner journey” exploring the sacred aspects of her everyday life and artmaking. As she puts it, she is getting to know her ” Inner Monk and Artist.

Enjoy a little insight into artist Melinda Schwakhofer:

Journey Bundle

Inner Eye: What informs your artwork?
Melinda Schwakhofer: Nature, the ebb and flow of the seasons, certain architecture and urban environments, Jugendstil and Japanese design aesthetics, anything beautifully designed and exquisitely crafted.

inside detail

IE: Why fabric/thread/paint as a means of expression?
MS: I love the texture, fluidity and sensuality of fabric; the process of gathering and stitching materials together is like gathering my memories and experiences and making meaning from my life.  I’m currently exploring its sculptural qualities, combining opacity and transparency, surface design and incorporating text.

Integration

IE: Who continually inspires you?
MS: I’m inspired by the Divine Creator who makes the natural world around me and who ultimately inspires the music, literature, film and artwork which feeds me and my Mom who showed me how to put Love into everything that I do.

IE: What, if anything, precedes the full blow idea for a piece of art?
MS: Certain sights or experiences enter my soul and touch me on a very deep level.  Through my artwork I want to give it back to the world – the experience that I have had, the encounter and the depth of vision.

IE: What matters most to you about the work that you do?
MS: That I am able to infuse it with even a glimmer of the sacred and that the work is beautifully made.  That I make the work that makes me happy and is meaningful to me and that I don’t make work to bolster my ego or get caught up in competition/winning/justifying my work or myself via outside acclaim or recognition.

IE: What do you ask of yourself in terms of your art in the next 5 yrs?
MS: To make things that people can wear or meditate on (or both!), with words hidden on the inside, private and intimate.
- To make and sell my artwork – accordion books, prayer books, altars, wearable art via galleries, design shops and online.
- To make commissioned work for people who crave beauty and soul in their lives and to use my communication skills to connect with and discover what a person would like to have expressed in a piece of my artwork.
- To show my work in places where there is space for contemplation and which invite a sacred and soul experience.
- To work with people in a way that combines my counselling skills with spirituality and art-making.  Not necessarily Art Therapy, but deep, healing work via creativity.

IE: If you could not pursue your art, what other way would you spend your time?
MS: That’s like asking me if I couldn’t breathe, how I would spend my time!  Even when I’m not making art, there is an art to living.  It’s in my perception of the ordinary and every day, bringing mindfulness and creativity to all that I do and really seeing the world instead of just looking at it.

Melinda Schwakhofer

Website: http://melindaschwakhofer.com/

Blog: http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/

To read about other artist inner-views check here.

To purchase a copy of my zine “The Inner Eye” please check my Esty store.

Fiber Art Orchids at Daniel Stowe

Our Fiber Art group exhibit, Orchids: Sensuality Stitched opens tomorrow at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. Yesterday we gathered to hang our show and I must say it looks wonderful.

Cindy Klemmer, Director of Education at Stowe, greeted us warmly, showed us the hanging space and helped us get started.

First things first, we laid out  the pieces on the floor to we decide where they will hang.

That’s my piece on the lower left, “Ode to Gene”. My first foray into whole cloth painting and I loved it!

PJ Howard  “rose to the occasion” (I couldn’t help the pun) and was deemed our unofficial ladder climber. I did not volunteer for that job because the older I get the more I find that me and ladders just don’t get along.

She came prepared with her own tool belt made out of fabric (what else for a fiber artist right?).

The hanging system at the Stowe is the typical Walker System whereby long rods are hung from a picture rail running along the wall about 10″ down from the ceiling.

Hanging clips are attached and the work is hung from these.

Our one dilemma was how were were to hang fiber art that is usually hung using a rod/slat in a sleeve.

For each of our pieces we each made a sleeve that would still hold a rod (so the pieces can still be exhibited in a quilt show) but made it long enough to cover the foam core we used.

Wire was then twisted onto the foam core so that they could be hung gallery style.

After having made 4 of these revised sleeves I will be creating a PDF tutorial that I’ll put in my sidebar for those that want to know how to make one.

Let me just say there were few prototypes before I got to the one I eventually used for the backs of my artwork.

Here’s Deb Langsam (left)  rehanging one of her pieces after adding the wire to the foam core earlier.

Susan Knapp (right)  brought sewing supplies to finish adding a label to the back of one of her pieces.

While we were hanging, staffers occasionally popped in to see what we were up to, admiring all the work we had done.

The two ladies (below), on the way out of the Garden, walked in to have a gander.

Most people are still a bit uninformed about art quilts or fiber art and curiosity got the better of them. They spent a few minutes asking questions.

I love this part about exhibiting, answering questions about our work and the processes we employ and find it fascinating that people still marvel at the fact that these artworks are all made from fabric.

Included in the larger works,  we each made one piece, 18 x 12, using the same photograph as inspiration.

These pieces were hung in the Garden’s  atrium where we will also be doing our demonstrations (12-4pm) of some of the techniques we used in the artwork. Some of us will be available at different times to walk through the exhibition to answer questions.

To find our more info about each artist check out our blog at www.fiberartoptions.blogspot.com.

The Exhibition will run through March 14th and we’d love to have you view our show.

Feb. 6 through March 14, 2010
Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden
Belmont, NC
704.825.4490
www.dsbg.org

Orchid #3

Finally finished quilting all four pieces for our Orchid Exhibition coming up next week. Since I’ll be snowed in today (crazy snow this way in NC) I’ll get to devote a lot of time to adding facings and preparing each of them for hanging.

So in that vein, here’s another sneak peek at Orchid #3. Can you correctly guess what this orchid piece is about?

Ha!

~

Toodles,

NIght and Day

I know this is not what you expected when you read the title of this post but hang in there with me.

Try this….put your cursor at the top of the picture in the link below,

then s l o w l y move the cursor to the bottom of the pic…no stopping, no clicking on the mouse.

How cool is that!

http://61226.com/share/hk.swf

Sneek Peak…Twice!

Last night, busy in my studio, I decided to take a computer break. As usual, I got caught up and before you know it, I had spent almost 25 minutes online (considering I just went there to refresh my memory on a photo I had taken…mmmph!).

I stretch, after having sat there for so long, look over and see this red blob on my floor,

and realize that there’s a barely perceptible whizzing noise coming from the blob as well.  Now what do you think this can be?

Of course the first thing any sane person does in this type of situation is….grab  the camera, of course (duh!).

First things first, earlier in the afternoon I was helping my son with his homework. We finished and he left the room to repack his book bag. I then began to wonder what little gift he set up for me.

So with camera in hand I step closer to reveal my gift (can you see it yet??????).

And what to her wondering eyes should appear (yeh I know, must still be in the mind for Christmas)…

~

…but a little boy – fast asleep.  Awww shucks…isn’t that the best gift?

BTW, the big round thing under the blanket is my exercise ball.

Don’t ask.

ART BREAK:

In a few weeks, the art group I belong to (fiberartoptions.blogspot.com)  will have a fiber art orchid exhibition at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, NC. We are so excited. So for the past few weeks I have been hard at work finishing all my pieces. Here’s a sneak peak at another one of them.

I’ve tried something totally new for me and have hand painted this one using acrylic paint on Pimatex cotton, with Gac 900 as the textile medium (yah me!)

Using Golden Gac 900 with their line of fluid acrylics (instead of regular textile medium) gives the fabric a softer hand than even using Jacquard textile paint, which is what I started with.  The area at the bottom right (painted with Jacquard and medium) is much harder, almost like paper, than the rest of the piece.

I think I’m in love…with Golden products that is.

~

Birthday Party for One!

Today’s My Birthday

yeh, yeh, yeh!

My birthday comes sooooooo soon after Christmas that it’s almost an afterthought. Well…not anymore. My hubby says birthdays are special so he sets out to have my birthday last at least 5 days.

He cooked a wonderful dinner for me and a few of our close friends on Saturday…

Mushroom Medley Soup (starter)

Orange Glazed Stuffed Cornish Hens &

Lemon Herb Stuffed Cornish Hens

Pesto Risotto

Glazed Carrots

Cauliflower Au Gratin.

What a wonderful meal and to say that we were all “stuffed” (pun intended) by the end is an understatement.

Then today I hung out with our Pandoras group and Susan baked me a lovely cake. The top of it was covered with lemon curd with cream cheese icing on the sides. Delicee-o ciousness indeed!

Tonight will be a regular dinner but since TODAY  is my actual birthday, hubby gave me first dibs on what’s for dinner……parsnip soup with a hot, hot, hot Indian curry for the entree.

Birthdays are not so bad after all (she says with a satisfied smile)..

~

Manifestation

Here’s a short blurb from Christine Kane newsletter:

“Clarity trumps practicality. When someone is clear, and they take action from that place of clarity – then practicality has no choice but to move aside and let manifestation occur.”

Love it!

ART BREAK:

My first foray into watercolour. The pic above shows a small piece (2.5 x 3) painted on 140 lb watercolour paper. I made it to grace the front wrap-around cover of a new journal I designed.

A while back I bought myself a Winsor & Newton halfpan 12-set compact on sale thinking it was enough to start with but not enough expenditure if I found I didn’t like it.

Uh oh……I LIKE IT!

Took the watercolour paints out a few weeks ago looking for something different for my journals and this is what I came up with. Yummy!

Still experimenting with other paintings. I just love the mixed media aspect of these journals. It’s held in place on a piece of my hand dyed fabric with metal brads and staggered stitching.

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WordPress Gone Wild!

Don’t know what happened but for some reason I am all over this WordPress “Art Store post today but I’ll take it (see, tags do work).

Check it out and scroll down for me, me, me and more me. Weird!

ART BREAK:

Above pic is a fused piece I did of a bite of an apple, refreshingly called “Apple Bite” (ehh…what can I say, that’s what came to mind and the title stuck – so sue me!).

Anyhoo, originally made to enter the Quitling Arts Calendar contest last year this time but never got around to quilting it. Cool looking dontcha think? It’s still sitting at the bottom of the design wall…..just begging me to finish it.

~

A Teal Etsy Treasury

How way cool!

“Begin the Journey“, a fabric journal in my Etsy shop, was included in Karen of Mystic Wynd’s cool TEAL treasury. Check it out here.

Now that’s a nice looking bunch of handmade items huh? TEALicious indeed!  **Thanks Karen**

Love these words...don't you?

~

The Year to Come

D I L I G E N C E.

My word for 2010.

...constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken

…persistent exertion of body or mind

…steady and careful application

…proper attention or care

But first a recap.

I chose 2 words for 2009…Intention and Self-discipline. I found that by the end of 2008 I needed to seek out new goals, to define my INTENTION for the year to come and, by adding SELF-DISCIPLINE, I was able to keep myself on track. It was a year of thinking, redefining, repurposing, even if I came to the conclusion that I was to let go of art (yes, I even went there) or just do it for my pleasure – not to sell or exhibit.

I gave myself the whole year to clearly define what I wanted to do for me and how that would manifest itself through my art, while still creating art as well. This year was about clarifying my wants and needs and purging all the shoulda-coulda’s that I seem to always let come to the forefront and sometimes take over and block my creativity.

I realized that I not only did I see what others did to be successful but thought I had to do it that way myself, all this without taking the time to put ME in the equation.

Now that I have established intentions for myself in terms of life and art, I can now act more DILIGENTLY toward implementing them…2009 was definitely a year of finding ME in ART again.

In 2010 I will, with DILIGENCE…

* make the art I CHOOSE to make

* explore opportunities to share my work

* pursue the red barn wish (mmmh you say?)

* be content in the moment personally, creatively and spiritually

I wish for you, in the year to come, all that you desire YOUR year to be.

Blessings to you and yours.

~

Bummer! I scheduled this to post on New Year’s Day but some glitch in WordPress prevented that. Thankfully I was able to find it and repost today. Whew!!!