Monday, July 30, 2018

Charlie and the City Girl

I know, once again it's been almost a month since I posted out here, but at least this post will be a long juicy one!

This is Charlie.  Charlie is a golden mantled ground squirrel.  Ground squirrels are not the same thing as chipmunks -- they are bigger and have no stripping on their faces (and of course they are smaller than their cousins the tree squirrel -- and have no blow dried tail!)

For the three days that I was there, Charlie (and his girl friend Stella) were my "I want to be in your house" pets when I spent time as Artist in Residence at Caribou Ranch.

For those days, this was my little space in the meadow where I could spend time taking photos in the open space, make art and just enjoy being in nature

Inside I had a little kitchen area with a table, cooking space and room for coolers as well as a comfortable couch and enough light to be up late if I wanted to as long as I conserved energy during the day so the solar powered batteries could charge up.


these are just a few of the almost 200 photos I took that will be used for future pieces of art

and there are all of these pictures of Charlie -- or Stella -- the only reason I'm sure there were two of them is because they spent a lot of time chasing each other around the tires of my car

and they figured out how to lift the screening at the big door of the cabin to let themselves in to search for a snack of some kind

I did not feed them -- some future artist might not think they were so cute

and there is this weathered, beat up old bus that sits in one of the parking areas for the open space

this of course was something I just couldn't resist taking photos of

now the hard part is that I have to decide what I'm going to do as the piece of art that will go to the Boulder County Open Space!

when I got home there was some utilitarian sewing that needed to get done

like these two pair of pj pants for my grandson, who has gotten taller this summer and had outgrown the ones I had made him before

and the boring part of making art quilts -- making the bags that they go into to both store them and to send them out into the world for shows

the top bag is for this quilt which will be part of a show titled "Boundaries" in Lafayette, CO, starting in August -- I have also been asked to create a sort of scrap book that talks about how this piece was made that will be on display with the quilt in the gallery

the other bag is for this piece which will be winging it's way to Raleigh, NC, for a show in a gallery there -- YEAH!

just before I went to Caribou, I delivered the commission piece I had been working on

when I delivered it, she also purchased this piece

 WOW!

I've been working on other things too -- for instance, this piece is now ready for the quilting

and the quilting is done on this piece -- I just need to take the final photos so I can think about entering it in a show somewhere
part of the point to being "Artist in Residence" is that you work on something so the folks hiking around the open space can see the art being made

for only three days I didn't think it was worth while to haul my sewing machine, so I decided instead to work on the next piece in the Parched Earth series - the water tower

this is a first of it's kind for one of my pieces as it has no horizon -- the background is entirely sky because of the angle the photo was taken at

I'm making good progress on the sky

meantime, I have also finished the pattern of this piece which will be fused

and I am working on some other pieces too, some of which will not be revealed until after Christmas!

Mr Benson did really well taking care of dad while mom was away, but he seems to be happy to have me home again and back working in the studio!