Studio needs

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Lisa Yarost


After doing a considerable amount of long overdue studio organization over the past few weeks, I have realized that space is not my primary issue. Of course, I could always use more, but there are other, more important (and more viable) considerations.

Organization is a major difficulty. While my last studio was not terribly organized, I was still able to find almost everything because it was accessible. I did not have to dig around in shelves that were too deep or piled high with things that had no place. Pegboard was my friend.
I also had sufficient horizontal workspace, thanks to a 16-foot long countertop that supported a sewing machine, a serger, and my oversized art printer.

My current studio, while having no pegboard and lacking a 16-foot countertop, still has plenty of storage. I just need to organize it so that I can find and reach everything. Plastic bins help.

My main enemy, however, is excess stuff. I’m not talking about fabric (although I have plenty of excess fabric) or art supplies (ditto, there), but the stuff that accumulates because I don’t know what to do with it.
Old broken scanner? Can’t throw it in the trash because of e-waste concerns. Giant box for serger? Can’t get rid of that. Last sewing machine? It’s still there.

I couldn’t find my Crayolas a while back because they were crammed into a box with a bunch of random junk. The result? I bought new ones. Now I have them all in a cookie tin, which I open periodically for aromatherapy purposes. Well, and to use them. There are other items that have proliferated in my studio because I couldn’t find them when I needed them: blue painter’s tape, seam rippers, cheap scissors, and small picture frames come to mind.

My long-suffering husband and I will be hosting a super-bargain garage sale this summer, followed by a curb call and a dumpster pickup. The main purpose of this is to rid ourselves of the insane amount of old gardening equipment, plastic buckets, and scavenged fluorescent bulbs that the last owner “gifted” us when he left. There will be plenty of our stuff in there, too.

The funny part about the garage sale scheme is this: we have to find a place to keep all this stuff until we sell it.

Wish us luck.

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Almost Persuaded

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

 

"Almost Persuaded" 5x7" mixed media, Lisa Yarost, copyright 2011

 

I made this tonight after doing a little more organizing and working on an unfinished project with which I am not sure what to do.

The background fabric is unbleached muslin that I “dyed” using watered down acrylic paint and a lot of scrunching. The text is from a very old hymnal. The rest are studio droppings.

This was fun, it’s small, and it fits a photo frame that has just been begging for some art.

Yay!

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Bad studio day (a.k.a. water hates me)

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

Today is a bad water day in the Yarost studio.

Not only am I having studio flooding from the torrential rain that has been falling all day, but I managed to capsize *two* containers of water on my drafting table, ruining one of my art pieces. A combination of laziness, frustration, and carelessness have cost me several hours of work and have prevented me from working on a couple of fabric projects that I had queued for today by soaking them, as well.

This makes me a grumpy artist.

I have already found a way to make some of my clutter pay. One of my stored art projects, consisting of several 4×6″ photos in small clip frames, has been on my nerves lately. It has been stored in its original packing, which was optimal for moving, but less so for storage purposes. I found an underutilized Patagonia shoe box, which just happened to fit the entire project perfectly!

The improvement is delightful, which has helped to soothe my big bad mood.

Old storage method on the left, new storage method on the right. Recycling bin, I love you!

 

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    First signs of spring

    Posted on March 18, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

    Flowers!! In my yard! Yay!

    Posted in photography | 2 Comments

    Magic Socks

    Posted on March 16, 2011 by Rebecca Fox

    These are magic socks.  The toes are grafted so there are no nasty, pain-making seams across the toes.  They seem to fit no matter what as long as you think lovingly of the person you’re making them for.  I first saw this sock pattern being knitted by my dear friend and splendid artist, Irene.

    Even though I’m most-often described as skinny (I, by the way, find this term as insulting as when people called me “fat”), I have extremely wide feet.  I have Hobbit feet…really.  I wish that I could go through life like a Hobbit: barefoot.  There isn’t a shoe on the planet that does not cause me pain–not even custom-mades–because they’re too tight (Keen and Mountain Horse have been lifesavers).   Anyway back to socks…

    Upon learning that there were no nasty, pain-making seams in the socks I immediately wanted to learn how to make them.  I hadn’t knitted anything since I was about ten when my mother taught me to knit scarves, but I assured Irene that I was good at knots and she agreed to teach me.  I got the pattern quickly but it took me a couple of pairs of socks to understand Irene’s instructions, “Don’t twist the stitches or your socks will become “hard” and unwearable.”  There were also a couple of phone calls where Irene very patiently tried to teach me to knit socks on the phone.  Irene is truly a good and patient teacher.

    I’ve been knitting socks for over ten years now.  I’ve learned how to indefinitely patch them; how to remove an un-patchable foot so the cuff can be reused; how to modify the pattern for exact fit (Irene’s modification is to knit1, purl1–instead of knit2, purl2–the cuff).  I’ve perfected my sock-making and now, like Irene, I’m often asked by people if they could buy a pair of socks from me.  I tell them that I’ve only ever given the socks as gifts.  I tell them that it takes me about two days to make them and the yarn costs between $15 and $20 and then ask them how much a pair of handmade socks are worth to them.  They usually answer $20.  Since that’s not a very reasonable trade of products and services, I then seriously offer to teach them to knit their own socks for free.

    No one has taken me up on this offer (Little do they realize that if they took the time to knit with me that we might become great friends, and then I might come to love them enough to want to knit a pair of magic socks for them).  These are gift socks.  They are made with love and good intent given freely to the wearer.  These things and these socks can’t be bought.  This pair was given to my sweetheart for Valentine’s Day.

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    For Pete’s Sake

    Posted on March 15, 2011 by Rebecca Fox

    I am not dying.  I am dyeing.  Really, I CAN spell but somewhere in the wee hours of the night my dyeing process became a dying process.  Both are good techniques to do well I suppose.

    Posted in Humor | 1 Comment

    Squid girl is done!

    Posted on March 15, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

    After some penciling and a little more paint, Squid Girl is finished. Yay!

    "Squid Girl", 6x9" mixed media on watercolor paper copyright 2011, Lisa Yarost

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    Squid Girl

    Posted on March 14, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

    This is another project I worked on over the weekend. It isn’t quite finished yet. I need to either ink it or pencil it because it’s too small for me to paint the details. Maybe somebody else could, but my hand isn’t quite as steady as it used to be.

     

    "Squid Girl" - mixed media on watercolor paper - 6x9"

     

    I tried to make the squid iridescent, but it’s a bit more difficult than I had imagined.

     

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    My beloved monster

    Posted on March 13, 2011 by Lisa Yarost

     

    Awww... Goggie!!!

    "Fido", 11x14", mixed media on watercolor paper

     

    So, maybe I haven’t dyed my own fabric to make a dress from scratch this weekend, but I have been busy. I reworked my reworking of my drawing and created this painting.

    I should reassure the world that I come from a normal household and family. There was no cultish devil worship in my childhood, despite what the neighbors may think. It’s not my parents’ fault that this is what happens when I try to do happy and sweet. Yes, it is happy and sweet, but it’s… well, me.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about our beloved monsters… they are the big, scary things in our lives that protect us from other people. They can be addictions, behaviors, thoughts, fears, or any number of things. We are completely intimate and comfortable with our monsters, with the benefit of keeping other people at arm’s length.

    So… do we have, keep, and protect our monsters, or do they have, keep, and protect us?

    And, as a postscript: For those of you who were wondering who my model was, it’s this guy:

     

    Oh My Holy Cow this guy is horrifying!

    "Sam", the Word's Ugliest Dog, for three years running. I believe Sam passed on to the Rainbow Bridge in 2005, where he is hopefully much more attractive in his eternal form.

    I think it’s a credit to my disposition that my mind is not warped enough to create an uglier animal than Sam from my imagination, even though I tried very, very hard.

     

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    Work in Progress: Hanging Out

    Posted on March 13, 2011 by Rebecca Fox

    This is the stretch silk charmeuse fabric I dyed last night hanging out in a fare facsimile of the finished convertible dress.  Fabric that is cut on the bias–as the skirt of this dress is–must hang for a while to acquire it’s proper drape.

    The hanging process inevitably causes my well-calculated waist opening to become too large no matter how much I try to compensate by subtracting inches from my calculations.  I couldn’t sew the entire garment together to begin with as I didn’t have thread that would dye to the color of the fabric.  Therefore the pieces that make up the ninety-inch-long straps are basted together.

    I’m trying to decide which color to place at the bust-line and, once sewn together, I may over-dye the whole thing again with chartreuse to liven up the olive-grey green at the bottom and to make the blue a little greener.

    Posted in creativity, sewing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments