Serendipity

 Saturday morning found me

waiting to catch the train

to New York City to do a bit of exploring.

My first new find was Treasure and Bond

which features New York artists and

 has an admirable philosophy regarding profits.

Not to mention 2 wonderful ampersands 

in the store's name in the front window.

So...I wandered and roamed the streets of Tribeca using what seems to be an outdated list of stores printed from the internet all the while waiting for a phone call from a friend.

You see, I posted Off to NYC this morning to explore Tribeca on my Facebook artist page early Saturday morning and received this comment from my good friend Deb in DC. 

No shit. Really? I'll call you when I get there. Don't know today's schedule yet.

We were posting simultaneously so the messages went back and forth fast and furious. Deb is a member of Batala Washington, an all woman percussion group that performs at various events including the Dominican Day parade in NYC this past weekend. Usually, after taking the bus up to NY, the group does guerilla performances across the city before taking part in a parade on Sunday. 

The serendipity fates-that-be were smiling on us both on Saturday. Batala Washington had a rare Saturday afternoon free, I was on my way into NYC and we both were on Facebook before leaving for our journeys.

photo by Deb Jansen

[I'm the short one in case you're wondering.]

We enjoyed a few precious hours together, wandering the streets and exploring shops well above the Metropolitan Museum, chatting all the while to catch up with our lives. All too soon, it was time to part ways.

Being that I was 50+ blocks away from Grand Central Station, a taxi was hailed...but halted when black and red and white polka dots were sighted, but that's for another post.

Painting

I've been painting a bit lately. No, no, not with oils or acrylic or watercolors even, rather with a tea/vinegar mixture. Any painters who happen to stumble upon this post are probably thinking that I've gone totally bonkers...and that may just be true. Still...

The hard line on the left above resulted from painting a line of tea/vinegar on dry cotton in an attempt to rust a bold line down the piece. The hard line is actually where the mixture/rust bled and was totally unplanned, but very welcome.

Fast forward to a few days after this happened and you'd have found me standing in the studio looking at relic and experiencing an aha! moment. A what if moment.  

What if I rusted a piece solely by painting the area that I wanted to rust rather than soaking the whole piece of cotton? After searching in my treasure box for just the right bit, I decided to rust a rectangular grid pattern.

The cotton twill was folded to nearly the size of the rectangle (sorry, but I don't know what the piece really is in construction terms...hence calling it the rectangle) and the tea/vinegar was painted on the top layer only.

Oddly enough, some of the mixture still managed to soak through to the other layers, yet only the very top rusted.

On round two, more of the cotton was painted and the rectangle was folded inside.

As with the circle grid, this bundle is being opened, repositioned and rebundled each morning, with the exception of over Christmas when we were visiting family.

Five days of undisturbed rusting left quite an impression on the fabric. The heavy rust will wear away through handling...unless I figure out how to keep it there.

 This morning's results.

My plan is to continue until the whole piece is covered. How long that will take depends several things - how big an area is painted, how it is refolded, how wet the fabric becomes from being painted with such a thin mixture, how long it is left to rust each time, what effect the vinegar and continued rusting has on the rectangle....

Stay tuned for...weekly?...updates on this piece.

Tea time

It probably seems like all I've been doing in the studio this week is shuffling around rusted squares, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together correctly so that they'll stop laughing at me and finally share their stories with me. That assumption is right...and then not.

Do you remember tea time? I've had to start naming the fabrics so that I can keep them straight.

The last post on this piece ended with me deciding to go back in and add more lines/stripes. 

And that was done. Monday morning (above left) it was opened and looked pretty good. Then I decided to hang it outside to dry...in 20-something degree weather. Obviously my brain was experiencing a freeze of its own because that is exactly what had happened to the fabric when I went out later to see if it was dry. (above right)

Yes. It was frozen. In one big sheet of cotton...to the line even. Oh! The laughter can be heard, even via cyber space. I know who's laughing...and who's wondering if she should try this rusting method to see what results she gets. Or perhaps she's already tried?

Detail and color that is so lovely and vivid when wet gets lost in the drying, I know, but lines had totally disappeared as had the purple/black from the tea. Still wanting at least one strong stripe, I painted in a line of tea/vinegar, placed two rusted rectangles, re-bundled it, let it set for 24 hours, then repeated the process the next morning. 

An unexpected...certainly unthought of...thing resulted from painting the line with such a thin mixture. It bled. And in a most wonderful way. See the hard edged wavy line above...to the left? That's it.

The lines and stripes that I'd wanted are there. Different, unplanned and much better. A bit of rusty serendipity, if you please.

Hanging tea time and viewing it this way immediately brought to mind cave paintings. From tea time to the relic in one stroke of serendipity. What do you see in this piece? What stories is it telling you?

Serendipity

Serendipity = it's a small world...after all.

Sorry couldn't resist throwing in the after all bit. Flashes of the It's a Small World ride at Disney World flitted through my mind as I typed the line. Yes, I've been on the ride and must admit to being quite amused by it. My husband, however, cringes at the merest hint of it. I digress. Back to how serendipity = it's a small world.

After a rather art-less week, due to my daughters' preschool being closed until after the 4th, I left the little urchins at home with dad on Saturday, picked up two friends and set off for Chester, CT. We were going to see an exhibit entitled NEST at the Lori Warner Studio/Gallery. I'd learned of the exhibit on one of my favorite blogs, Daily Art Muse, authored by Susan Lomuto.

As with any good road trip, we were famished upon arrival and stopped to ask a woman outside Dina Varano's gallery if she could recommend a good place to eat. Ends up that the woman was Dina. I recognized her from the Daily Art Muse's posts about her apprenticeship with Dina.

So...after explaining what brought us to town, we took Dina's advice and lunched at River Tavern. The atmosphere and food were wonderful. Our hunger fully sated, we set off to explore the town and find NEST.

The three of us outside Lori Warner Studio/Gallery previewing NEST.

I did take a few photos of the exhibit, but those on Lori's web site show the art far better than mine. The work comprising NEST - encaustics by Lori, metal sculptures by Dina and porcelain by Pat Smith - is fascinating and was well worth the road trip.

Chester is jewel of an artist enclave and we ventured into each art gallery/studio that was open including Dina's where we chatted and I purchased a wonderful pair of her silver earrings.

It was while my friends and I were in EO Art Lab, salivating over Jaehyo Lee's amazing sculptures (above) that the serendipity = it's a small world thing happened. A woman walked into the gallery, looked at my friends and I, and asked if we'd just been over at Dina Varano's. I did a double take or three before answering yes...and saying "Susan?"

Susan Lomuto, DAMUSE herself, had just walked through the door. Seems she'd stopped by Dina's right after we'd left and Dina had related the story of how/why my friends and I came to be in town. The meeting was sheer serendipity and the highlight of my day. It also shows just how small the world can be at times, especially the blogging world.