Day One of daily art 2020

During the last week of the year I always angst over what project to adopt for my new daily art.  Sometimes I have made my mind up only in the waning hours of New Year's Eve, but this time I was pretty sure for the last month or so that I wanted to continue my calligraphy for another year.  I have truly loved this project and feel that I have only begun to explore the possibilities of writing-as-art.

Unfortunately, when I was in the craft store in early December I didn't think to stock up on sketchbooks for 2020, so yesterday I had to make a fast run -- and discovered that the kind I have been using all year was not on the shelf.  The whole store kind of resembled a post-holiday war zone, with half-empty shelves and display racks moved for renovation, so I probably should be glad I found any sketchbook at all.  But I will be starting the year with 70-pound "artist paper" instead of 80-pound "premium artist paper."  (Probably won't notice much difference.)

I very reluctantly decided to abandon my daily miniatures with the end of 2019.  I have truly loved that project as well and looked forward to making a new little piece of art every day.  But I realized that documenting and cataloguing the miniatures was taking up a lot of time.  Between the writing and the miniature I was probably averaging at least a half hour a day, and although I had the constant fun and exhilaration of making art, I found it hard to concentrate on "real art" last year.  So with a solo show to put together in June, I am bidding the miniatures good-bye, at least for a while.

Some might ask whether I couldn't just make miniatures without having it be an official Daily Art, and dispense with the tedious documentation.  And of course I could, and perhaps I will, although it will be an entirely different project.  I have learned in two decades of daily art that the documentation and organization is half the fun, and at least to my mind, an essential part of the character of what I produce. 

So here's my last daily miniature, a two-faced Janus: 

And my first calligraphy of the new year, the beginning of the Ode to Joy -- the same text that I used to start last year, and returned to so many times in between.  What better sentiment to grasp as we move forward in fraught times: All men will become brothers where thy gentle wings stay. 

Happy New Year, and let's hope for lots of art and joy ahead.

End of the year on Art With a Needle

Maybe you noticed that there has been no "last week on Art with a Needle" since before Christmas.  That's because we have been on vacation and who wants to write blog posts when you can be walking on the beach (or fixing meals for your adorable grandchildren and their adorable parents).

For more than thirty years we have been going to the beach in South Carolina at or near Christmas, not every year, but regularly enough that we notice when a favorite restaurant closes or a favorite grocery store changes ownership.  Some years it's pretty warm, other years pretty cold, but usually it's warmer in South Carolina than it is at home and we feel lucky.  In earlier years we shlepped the kids to all the obvious tourist attractions in and around Charleston, but lately we never seem to do much except walk on the beach.  Or, this year, play cards and board games while it rained six inches in one day and walking on the beach didn't seem like such a good plan.

But the storm ended, the sun came out, and a big storm means a bumper crop of shells and what my daughter-in-law calls "sea junk" to pick up.  Sometimes we leave our sea junk artfully arranged on the railing of the rental porch.  Sometimes we bring it home, whereupon we throw it out.  Other times we bring it home and stash it in the work room where with any luck it does not stink the place up.  But this year, I processed the smallest bits of sea junk to make daily miniatures (and brought the larger bits home, where with any luck.....).

Just before we left I wrote about helping Isaac make a pillow to give to his dad.  Bethany left a comment: "I have a little grandson that will be very happy to see Isaac's pillow -- he loves to sew with me by hand and at 5, he is almost ready for lessons."  Well, your little boy is doing it the opposite way from Isaac, who learned on the sewing machine first but isn't much interested in hand-stitching.  If you're thinking about graduating him to the machine, you might want to read some of my past posts about teaching kids to sew.

It's getting late in the year, but I'm still hoping that Sharon Buck will send me her street address so I can send her an ornament!

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Seems like I didn't do anything all week except work for PYRO Gallery.  I did a shift of gallery-sitting on Sunday, went in on Wednesday morning to hang my work, made the gallery tags for everything in the new show, printed them out and helped affix then to the wall on Thursday morning, went back Friday noon with a few more tags that for some reason hadn't been finished in time, came back at 5 to help set out the food for the reception, talked with dozens of people during the reception, made a few wall tags for new work that replaced things sold at the reception, and then back again to work a shift this afternoon.

It was an exhilarating week, because we had a very successful opening, but I am looking forward to not setting foot in the gallery for the foreseeable future.

Three of my pieces sold last night, all of them the little postage stamp hangings.  This morning I rooted around in my boxes and found one more postage stamp piece that I hadn't taken in, and found another one pinned to my design wall, which with 15 minutes work was ready to be hung.  So I hung the two new pieces in the holes left by the sold work.

six postage stamp hangings, before the opening reception

minus three, plus two, this afternoon

A comment on the blog this week from Rose, who noted my mention of my broken ankle and told me about HER broken ankle last year.  I had it so much easier than she did, and so much easier than a lot of other people I have talked to who broke ankles or other pedal bones.  I am so fortunate -- it could have been so much worse.  I guess we're getting to the age range where it's so much more common to fall, and to suffer consequences.  I wish for all my friends and readers a great new year, free of broken bones and other misfortunes.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

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Longtime readers know that every year I make personalized ornaments for a slew of family and friends.  Some years it's easier than others to figure out what to make, but often I stew over many different plans before finally stumbling, exhausted, onto what I want to do. 

So far this year I have settled on, and then rejected, (1) making organza envelopes into which I would slip a calligraphed Christmas or holiday song, (2) machine embroidering everybody's name onto canvas, perhaps accompanied with a portrait of Santa Claus, (3) calligraphing the names onto paper and mounting on mat board, and probably a few others that came and went before even developing into plans.  But today I not only made a decision, but sent my daughter-in-law on a mission to buy the materials I need while she was in the fabric store. 

I did this guy as a miniature, then decided my drawing skills and endurance aren't up to doing it 50 times.

















This is not the latest I've ever gotten started on my ornaments -- I have left it as late as the day after Thanksgiving -- but it's sure down there in the bottom decile and I'm not proud of it.  This week will be a busy one. 

Every year I like to make an ornament for one or two of my blog followers, just to say thanks for reading.  If you'd like to be in the running, leave a comment before Thanksgiving evening.

After I wrote about my daily calligraphy while I was away on the sea, Rachel commented: "I found the densely packed script far more interesting and inviting than the regular script."  I think I agree.  I have even considered tearing some of those pages out of my sketchbooks and framing them as freestanding Works Of Art.  Or maybe it would look dumb to have the date on each page, and I should make some new ones, without dates, that aren't part of the daily art project.

Here's my favorite ornament of the week, a little accordion book made from a postcard announcing a museum show:

You can check out all my daily art, calligraphy and miniatures, on my daily art blog HERE.

Daily art on the road 1 -- miniatures

I have always defined my daily art with the full knowledge that we like to travel, so my projects have to be portable.  Since we were decadent and took lots of luggage, I would have been able to take even more supplies than I did, but there's a certain excitement in working with constraints.

For my daily miniature, the rule is that I have to make something to pack into a tiny 1 1/2 x 2-inch plastic bag (no fair just picking up a piece of stuff).  So I needed some tools and supplies:

Two spools of thread (on our last long vacation I took only one and got a little bored, so I splurged this time), a little jar of seed beads in assorted colors, some wire, scissors and tweezers.  A needle, which I neglected to put in this photo.  And a glue stick, which expired en route and did not come home with me.

But I augmented these sparse supplies with a lot of stuff that I found along the way.  For instance, here are the miniatures I made during the week of October 20:

Three little books made from paper acquired along the way: a flyer from the jewelry shop on board (no, I don't remember why they had elephants on the cover); a map of  Kotor, Montenegro; and the admission ticket to a tiny church in Croatia with a Tintoretto above the altar.

Four found objects tied up with wire or thread, embellished with beads:  some nicely shaped twigs, a clam shell from the bouillabaisse dinner, two metal doodads found on the docks.

Nothing from this particular week, but sometimes I would make elaborate knotted constructions, especially on days when we watched a movie in the cabin and I needed some handwork.

I like working with constrained supplies; it forces me to be creative and attentive to my surroundings.  So I have always found my travel days to be particularly enjoyable as I try to find something new and different for daily art.  Yes, there are times when I get sick of the only two colors of thread that I brought along (that's when I start using the string from the teabags).  And yes, there are times when today's miniature looks a whole lot like yesterday's.  But that's part of the game.

Last week on Art With a Needle

After I wrote about my daily calligraphy, Helen sent a link to some beautiful embroidery by Olga Kovalenko, who starts with a calligraphed word and then executes it in stitching.  I can't tell from the detail shot what stitches she has used, but I would guess satin stitch for the long, smooth lines, maybe french knots for the little ink spatters.  The work is great -- I would be happy if I could simply do the calligraphy, let alone translate it into stitching!!

Olga Kovalenko, Uncertainty

I've finished piecing three small crossroads tops and have one quilted. Still experimenting in search of a way to display quilts in something other than the standard sleeve-and-rod format that I've been using for decades.  I'm going to wrap this batch around 14 x 14 canvases, staple them to the back, and see what that looks like.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week, beads made from air-drying clay, colored with whatever ink was left in the pen after several days of calligraphy:

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On Tuesday I wrote about Carole Harris, a fiber artist from Detroit whose work I saw in Traverse City MI while visiting my sister a week ago.  Coincidentally, I was also corresponding with the program chair from a fiber art group in Detroit about teaching a workshop, and I mentioned in my email that I had seen the show and said "I wonder if you know her."

Got a response 20 minutes later that said "I was just at Carole's studio this afternoon!"  It's a small world.

Carole Harris, Against the Wall

Idaho Beauty left a comment: "Nice to know there's another quilter out there who picks stray threads off quilts."  I confess to doing that a lot, on other people's quilts and on my own.  When I was a guest on Quilting Arts TV several years ago, I was instructed by Pokey Bolton to not pick threads on camera, it was too distracting for the viewers.  Embarrassed to say that despite the warning I couldn't  help myself.

I've been piecing this week, more crossroads quilts with very fine lines.  Decided to get fancy and add a spot of blue to the one I'm working on.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week.  I wondered what would happen if I put ink onto the not-yet-dried-out clay (because my rule is no additions after midnight of the given day), and was pleased with the slightly blotchy surface that I found two days later.

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If feeling sorry for yourself qualifies as performance art, I had a very arty week.  Trying to not walk around any more than necessary on the broken ankle, I read books, did computer work and made all my daily miniatures from the same small pile of beads, wire and clay.

Vivien asked whether it's my sewing-machine foot that's immobilized -- the answer is no, I could do the foot pedal (if I took off my artificially-heightened shoe, currently wearing a clever soleplate to make me as tall on the good side as the boot makes me on the bad side).  But the intricate piecing that I'm doing on my crossroads quilts requires a lot of up-and-down, walking from the sewing machine to the worktable every few minutes for more cutting and pressing, just the kind of activity I'm trying to avoid.   And thinking up a new project that would require plain old sitting-at-the-machine time seems daunting.

Several readers left comments echoing my disgust with the "clever" book titles featuring dirty words, or rather, the same dirty non-word.  Shasta said she thinks she read the one about cleaning up, "or maybe it was one with a similar title with a different curse word about cleaning."  That rang a bell with me, and two seconds online came up with these two oh-so-clever-and-daring books:

What I find amusing are the genteel asterisks.  Why bother, since your objective is obviously to prove that you know a four-letter word and are eager to say it in public?  Not very original, ladies.  (and did you notice the clever nom-de-plume on the second one?  Messie Condo?  give me a break)

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

As always, you can check out all my daily art -- both miniatures and calligraphy -- at my daily art blog.  Thanks for reading; thanks for commenting!

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It was not a good week for Art With a Needle's proprietor.  I fell on a busted-up patch of sidewalk and broke my ankle in two places, fortunately not enough to require surgery but unfortunately with enough collateral tendon and ligament damage to make for a long recovery.  Here's my moon boot, complete with an air pump that inflates bladders around my heel and ankle to hold everything rigid inside.  I can walk on it and there's no pain, just aches after a long day.  (Liquor helps.)

Last week I showed you my cascading-letters calligraphy and asked whether it's a good idea to just keep doing something that you love to do and looks good, or whether you should move on to something else if you can't think of a new twist.

My readers came to my rescue.  Artquilter left a comment: "You have lots of letters from  your dad's collection and your own, maybe it's time to "draw" some of those."  And that got me to thinking...

What if I used some of my metal type to print onto the page, then added the cascade of hand-drawn letters?  (After all, it is a daily calligraphy project.)  (And yes, to the readers who couldn't believe the letters are drawn by hand -- after all, it is a daily calligraphy project.)

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

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For 33 years we have lived in a house set back quite a way from the street near the bottom of a cul-de-sac.  When we first moved in I nailed some house numbers to a piece of scrap treated lumber, stuck it to a piece of scrap metal and set it at the corner of the driveway.  Felt very proud of myself.  But over the years shrubbery grew into the corner and overran the sign; meanwhile the sign itself rotted away.  I have been wanting a new sign for a long time and finally got my wish this week.  Don't you love the bright orange aluminum numbers?

More hemming of quilts this week, but mostly I worked on revising the member handbook for PYRO Gallery.  This is the kind of fussy writing task that I love to do, but it sure is time-consuming, and at the end of the week, when you realize how much time you have NOT spent in the studio.

Walking up and down the aisles of the art supply store, I discovered air-drying modeling clay and bought a two-pound hunk.  I've been thinking that it would be fun to make some little clay sculptures for my daily miniatures, but didn't want to use Sculpey or Premo because they have to be baked in the oven.  My rule for daily miniatures is that they have to be finished by midnight and never touched again except to photograph and store them.  Sometimes I will leave a miniature out by itself overnight for paint or ink or Fray Check to dry, but no further making is allowed.  So self-drying clay will follow the rules.

Here's my first little guy from the bag of clay, and my favorite of the week:

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A reader left a comment the other day about a very old blog post in which I was complaining about  my fancy new washing machine that uses very little water and never gives me the feeling that the clothes are squeaky clean.  At the time, that post got more than a dozen comments from people who also hate their washing machines.  And apparently people are still stumbling over it, and it still strikes a chord.  This week's visitor wrote: "My big problem is the water level.  After the wash cycle finishes and before the spin cycle starts I have actually found dry spots of clothing sticking up out of the water that had never gotten wet.  How could they get clean if they never got wet?"  Amen, sister!

Coincidentally, the same day that she left that comment, I had a washing machine experience that I'd never had before.  The two-year-old threw up in the car as it was pulling into our street, so we began the day with a bath and two loads of wash, one devoted to the covers from the car seat plus a couple of towels for ballast.  I thought the heavy seat covers would perplex the washing machine, which doesn't just wash things to order but has to think about it first.  In the past it has not been happy with large items that get off balance as they spin.  But these covers definitely had to be washed, now.

I chose the "Bulky / bedding" cycle, called for extra water, and kept my fingers crossed.  When I went into the laundry room some time later, it was nearing the end of the wash cycle and to my amazement, I saw the tub full of water!  (The door is glass -- lots of fun for little ones to watch the machine at work.)  The water actually came to within four inches of the top of the tub and the seat covers were happily sloshing away underneath.

I have never seen more than an inch of water visible in the tub, so this was a breakthrough.  I am now wondering whether I could replicate this in the future, such as when I want to dye, or soak after dyeing.

Out of the laundry room and into the studio....  I decided to sew narrow black bindings onto at least two of my four new quilts, and am now stitching them down.  I usually think quilts look more like art and less like bedcoverings when they are finished with facings, not bindings, but for these pieces I think the binding will be unobtrusive, the quilt will be flatter, and it's certainly easier.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

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Last week started off auspiciously as I judged the textile categories in the Fine Arts and Crafts department of the Kentucky State Fair.  I've been honored to be the judge for several years now, and this year was especially gratifying because for some reason there were a lot more entries than we have seen in recent years.  I actually had to debate with myself about which ones of four or five pieces deserved the ribbons, rather than whether anything in the category deserved a ribbon at all. 

I love to go to the fairgrounds before the fair opens, to see the huge expanse of space devoid of people and junk.  In a few days the place will be full of spilled popcorn, discarded napkins and paper cups, lost shoes, crying children and frazzled parents.  Or perhaps lost children, crying parents and spilled shoes.  But for a while, peace and anticipation.

(I'll write about the prizewinners next week.  And I haven't forgotten that I still owe you more posts about the Fiberart International show in Pittsburgh and the four-artist mixed media show at PYRO Gallery in Louisville.) 

Immediately after I got home from the fair on Monday morning, we headed to northern Michigan for my brother-in-law's funeral, a fast turnaround of 1100 miles in three days.  The funeral was excellent as funerals go, but the trip itself featured lots and lots and lots of road construction, plus the occasional accident and rush-hour traffic jam.

Back home, I am almost done with quilting the fourth crossroads piece.  Next week it will be decision time: will the quilts be finished with binding or facing?  I have been kicking this can down the road, but I hope to stop dithering and get them totally done and ready to go out in public.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week, embellished with one of the many leftover bits from my striped piecing:

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Quilting!!  I have three tops finished and the fourth one almost ready to be sandwiched.  My original thought had been to make them all the same size and then I could join them into a four-patch big quilt.  But even though I made every attempt, somehow they ended up different sizes.  I have never worried about this kind of thing happening, because one of the big advantages of the quilt format is that quilts can be whatever size they end up to be -- they don't have to fit into frames or be attached to stretcher bars, so who cares if something is 56 inches wide or 55?  But if you're going to fit four together into a square...

Then I realized that it still didn't matter, that I could fit four together no matter how large each one might be.

So that's my plan.  Not sure if the four I have made so far will end up together or if I'll make more for a different color plan.  But these are sewing up so nicely that I don't mind making more.

After I wrote about my adventure with the kitchen ceiling fan, Carol left a comment: "We have ceiling fans, though current decorating gurus say they are passe."  Oh my.  I am so sorry to hear that.  Guess I have to take all mine down, as it is important to me to be on trend, decorating-wise.  (Wait till the gurus find out that I still have formica counters in my kitchen, and love them.)

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

I used this very old thread to wind a bobbin, and was surprised to find that the empty styrofoam spool was a beautiful pale yellow.  Hard to think that the color leached out of the thread, which was olive green (but who knows what happens to dye chemistry as time goes by) but also hard to think that the manufacturer would deliberately color the invisible part of the spool before use.  A mystery.

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I bought a new computer and made an appointment with my geek to come on Tuesday to get it set up and transfer my life from the old computer to the new one.  He spent most of the afternoon here, but went home when thousands of emails started transferring and the computer estimated it would take "more than a day" to finish.  He came back Wednesday, spent most of the day, and went home to let the contents of my hard drive, including about 50,000 photos, transfer overnight.  He came back Thursday, spent a few hours, and went home thinking the job was done.

Ha ha.  I spent an hour on the phone with him on Friday clearing up some unresolved problems, plus discussing a problem that is going to require either him coming back to the house or me taking my old hard drive to  his shop.  Then Friday night I discovered that most of those thousands of emails, the ones that took all night to transfer, have disappeared from where they were on Thursday. 

I'm not worried that anything is going to be lost -- I have cloud backup of the entire computer as well as the old hard drive -- but I worry that it will take another week before everything gets in order.  If I'm lucky.  Those psychologists' lists of the ten most traumatic life events (death of spouse, loss of job, house burns down, diagnosed with deadly disease) really should also include getting a new computer.

Miraculously, I have spent a few hours in the studio in between geekwatching, and may even be ready to start quilting on my latest top next week.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week, the idea shamelessly stolen from Sandy Snowden, except that she's stitching 24,000 beads into these wavy tentacles in a year-long project, while I only did about 60.

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After I said that I thought one of my "crossroads" tops wasn't good enough and needed to be fixed, Shannon left a comment: "I wonder if you would be willing to share some of your critical thought processes or just general thoughts about what makes something good or not.  I struggle with this pretty often with my pieces.  Sometimes it's very clear that something isn't good, but when it's not so obvious I have a harder time.  I also really struggle with differentiation between pieces that are "good" and pieces that I just like.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this!"

Shannon, thanks for asking -- this question is one of the all-time big ones for artists, right up there with "what is art?"  Every artist, in every discipline, struggles with this every time a new piece is made.  So developing your critical eye is just as important a skill for an artist as actually learning to make things.

Sometimes you can learn and practice this skill by joining a critique group, or taking an art class where critique is part of the routine.  Sometimes you can learn a lot by reading comments from critics or teachers, or from books.  I have been a regular reader of the magazine Art in America for many years, as well as the art section of the New York Times.  I particularly enjoy the show reviews where at least one piece is pictured, along with the critic's comments.

Unfortunately, there is little published critique in the fiber art world, since Fiberarts magazine folded several years ago.  So you may get more out of discussions of paintings, sculptures, mixed media or installations.  The elements of "good art" apply across all mediums, so if you learn to detect good or bad composition or color use in a painting you can also detect it in a quilt. 

Here's the quilt I showed last week and said I needed to go back and improve it:

When I get to it, I plan to make at least one or two posts that describe my thought process, and how I go about making the fix.  Maybe thinking along with me will give you more insight into how I approach the problem of self-evaluation.  It won't be next week or the week after, because I need to let this stew a bit before I have at it.  But it will happen, I promise.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

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Lots of piecing this week -- one more small top finished and another one (this is #4 in the last three weeks) with a good start.  Last week I compared machine piecing to riding a bicycle -- you don't forget how, when you don't do it for a long time, but you are rusty.  And three days ago I decided my self-evaluation skills are also rusty -- it took me until this week to realize that the first three pieces aren't really what I call very good. 

I had high hopes for number 3, with one quadrant of the quilt composed of colored stripes for the fine line "roads" to contrast with the black-and-white stripes in the rest of the quilt.  But when the whole thing was sewed together and put up on the wall, I wasn't happy.  I think it's repairable, with a lot of fussy, fiddly ripping and remaking, but I'm not going to do that right now.

But number 4 -- I love it!

Here's how far it's gotten in two days.  Another two or three good days in the studio would probably be enough to finish it, but looking at my calendar makes me wonder when those days are going to be possible.  What's more frustrating than having to interrupt your huge burst of creative energy with a bunch of other things?

Here's my favorite miniature of the week.  I've always loved those red berries on wire stems that you're supposed to wrap around branches on your Christmas tree.  Hardly ever wrap them around branches on the tree, but I love to have a bunch of them on hand.  This week they got stuffed into a tiny (half-inch diameter) spool of thread.

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Greatly energized by some mystical force, I've been sewing madly this week on a project that isn't exactly clear in my mind, but I feel I have to sew for a while before it's clear what's going to happen.  I'm making a bunch of small quilts, about 27 inches square, which will each be quilted and bound individually.  Then at some point I plan to assemble them into a larger piece, either a four-patch or a nine-patch, joined together either by hand stitching or with ties through grommets.

I have two of the tops finished and am maybe halfway through a third one.  I'm having such fun on the piecing that I am postponing quilting until I run out of enthusiasm.

Last week Shasta left a comment on my post about working with leftover yarn bits on my endless mile-of-crochet project.  She asked, "Are you using one piece of yarn until it is gone or are you mixing the colors as you go along?"

If it's a small bit of yarn I'll use the whole thing.  If it's more like a half-skein, I might divide it up, use part in one place and the rest in another.  I do try to achieve some kind of color scheme in each "cake" of crochet, so would probably not put random colors together.  Since I plan to display these with the sides of the rolled-up "cakes" visible, I like to have some pleasant variety of color in that side view, so no cakes made of a single color.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week.  A couple of months ago, right after an episode of very high water on the Ohio River, my son and I went on a scavenging expedition to the river banks.  I searched for tiny bits of stuff that would fit into the 1 1/2 x 2 inch bags of my miniature project, including this bit of driftwood.  Add a simple gold wire wrap, and it became a daily art.

 

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My big news of the week is that my newly cleaned-up sewing table has indeed motivated and enabled me to start sewing on a quilt.  I think this is the first major quilt I've worked on in at least two years.  Can't exactly tell you why I decided to take a sabbatical from quiltmaking, or why I decided to start again just now.  But it does feel good to be back at the sewing machine.

Here's what I've done so far.

Not a masterpiece, because it's been three years or more since I worked with fine lines and I obviously haven't left enough unpieced space on the right side of this composition.  But that can be fixed.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week.  I sometimes feel that it's unoriginal to just find some random object and make a lot of knots onto it, usually with a couple of beads for good measure.  But then I realize that's an important recurring theme in my art, and I should just embrace it.  And I do love tying those knots -- so zen.

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Two weeks ago Idaho left a comment on my blog about doing research before purchasing new stuff and I responded by saying how I know I should do that, but I find it hard -- my inclination is always to dive right in and learn by doing, even if that brings missteps.  Last week Idaho commented, "My art group is split between those who just go for it and those who dip toes in cautiously after gathering lots of info...  Info gathering can often be seen as procrastinating, and that can be true -- If I find just one more relevant piece of info I'll be confident enough to give it a go -- that sort of thing.  I DO find myself doing that and have to suck it up and proceed to diving in!"

That made me remember one of the most commented-upon blog posts that I ever wrote, in 2011, about a writing teacher who divided people into two groups: planners and plungers.  If you're a planner, you're big on writing outlines, filling sketchbooks, making diagrams and templates before you get to work on the actual product.  If you're a plunger, you dive right in and start working.  If the teacher makes you turn in an outline before the paper is due, you write the paper first and then write the outline.  Maybe you'll have some false starts and sections destined for the trash can, real or virtual, but working is how you figure out what is it you want to say, what it is you want to make. 

I re-read that post just now, including the comments that many people left on it, and it did me good.  Made me realize, again, that you have to figure out how your brain operates and then develop work habits that go with that rather than fight it. 

Shannon suggested that if I'm trying to do calligraphy that's more-like-art-less-like-letters I should look at Arabic script.  "I frequently find it exquisite, and as a non-Arabic speaker I'm drawn to it simply for the artistic forms," she wrote.  Shannon, you are absolutely right, and in fact it was seeing the work of Golnaz Fathi, a wonderful Iranian artist who makes art from Arabic script that helped me decide to do calligraphy as my daily art this year. 

Golnaz Fathi

I am so glad that you reminded me of looking to Arabic as an inspiration, because it's been on my to-do list since I made this decision.  I promise to start something this week, and I'll show you what I come up with.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week: