commission progress

Hi Folks!

Here are a few photos of the painting I’m working on. Progress pictures are always fun.

It’s a commission, well sort of, it’s actually a trade, for yoga classes. They’re awesome classes! And the instructor is wonderful and helpful. And as I’m unable to do yoga right now, because of my arm., it’s on hold for a minute. But I miss it! And I’ll probably continue with one day a week after the trade is over. I LOVE it!

So I’ve been working on this painting, since I’m healing from those darned stitches and my arm is now smaller by an inch or so (ahhh!) I’ve been unable to do things. Thank goodness the hole is in my left arm and I’m right handed.

I’ll post more update photos soon. I’m making pretty good progress, but I’ve got a lot of painting to do still!

PS I’ll be ok really soon. I’m just not supposed to do things for a bit. Things I do for work. Like pick heavy things up and move my arm a lot. But it’s been a few days so I’m feeling better. I didn’t think it’d hurt as much as it did! I am feeling at least 50% better after only a few days, and I’m assuming it’s exponential. So I’ll feel just fine by next week, fingers crossed.

Heart Beet

Hi,

I have been working on this sculpture, it’s about 20 inches tall and 5 inches across.

It’s called something like ‘heartbeet’, as it is much like a heart and a beet at once. It only intended to be a beet, then it got ventricles around it’s stem and branchy bits that look like aorta.

I’m pretty damn excited about it. I’ve been working on it for a while. Some of the bits are pretty time consuming. Tiny black flowers at the tips of the top of crochet red branchy things. These must be sewn on, it’s pretty delicate work, with a yarn needle and thin plastic bag strips. Looping and knotting to make a sepal area that cups the flower and pushes the plastic in just the right way.

So my fingers hurt some, although I did take yesterday off from this activity (which I tend to do for at least an hour a day, or until my fingers hurt a lot – up to 4 hours). It’s the eye of the yarn needle that gives the fingers trouble. Little sharp sides of the eye.

But I am itching to work on it again as soon as I can. I have work to do today, but later on I hope to get some time to make and attach some more flowers to the little root heart.

Wednesday night I will be hanging out with one of my oldest friends, Natalie, and working on it too… so I may have good news for you sooner than I’d expect.

I’ve included a photo. It’s hard to photograph using the camera on the computer, and is longer than it looks. And more complicated. I’ll put up a photo when I am done too.

Thanks for reading! I have to get a move on!

Best,

Katie

crocheting plastic flowers

hello!
i am in love with crochet!
i have been working on these flowery things for the ends of the guardian sculptures.
they are like puffballs with crochet bases.
there are like 30odd of them in total, but i only have 7 1/2 left to finish. they are not big, but each takes anywhere from 15 minutes to 40 minutes to finish. i’m so excited to sew them onto the sculptures. i’ve been slowly sewing on a few at a time, so i’ll have 10 to do, then need to trim the sculpture and stuff some of it more – then i’ll post a photo.
These are made with 100% plastic grocery bags.
the whole sculpture is made from bags – from the collections of various people.
people are very generous and share their bags with me often. i cannot accumulate bags quickly. i get a few here and there when i forget my reusable bags or i get paper bags and reuse those for other things. but many people give me their bag collections – often colorful bags. i am blessed with a community that supports my sculptures!
oh! i was on the bus yesterday and saw a woman with a cute clutch that was plastic bags. lovely colors, blue, green and black.
very fine crochet too.
i am including a photo of the last sculpture like this that i made. it is as tall as me (i’m 5′ 3″) and as big around as my leg (not too skinny) and has lots of branchy bits. the new one i’m working on has red, orange and yellow flowers.
oh sweet and beautiful art.
the last one maybe took me 70 hours? it’s hard to divide up the time, as the bags into yarn thing is a separate day’s work (but can take from 3 to 6 hours depending on how much coffee i’ve had, if i have 100s of bags at once available, and if i am listening to ratatat or watching buffy the vampire slayer or metallica, or how hot it is {i use my arm to store the loops of plastic, so if there are a lot on there it’s rather difficult to be cool – temperature wise}). if the circumstances are stacked right i can get a lot done, but if i am not thoroughly distracted and it’s hot out it does take longer.
anyhow, that’s a bit about my process.
please remember that i am having a large installation in october, and you are invited!
thanks, have a great weekend.
k