In the time that is left...

I just got an e-mail about getting ready for the end of this year's AA2A. I am very grateful to have had this opportunity. I tend to be very hard on myself concerning how much I expect myself to accomplish with a given opportunity versus the amount I actually accomplish. I set myself a number of goals and have accomplished some.

My main goal was to take my work in a new direction, more in the direction of art. I turned myself loose to follow my instincts. Or I thought I did. It wasn't until I threw my plans away and began working with the wire and paper yarn that I actually did this, really. I still don't know exactly what I will be doing with the wire for the AA2A exhibit and website. There are so many ideas in my head, I must choose the most practical ones to be accomplished, finished up in this last month. What I do know is that I will continue to work with the wire. I've been braiding wire, knitting wire both by hand and by machine, making tubes of wire. Lately I've been playing with controlling the natural sculptural tendencies of the wire through my choices on the knitting machine. I'm using the gold to highlight edges. And I made a discovery in showing some of the wire fabric I've been knitting, intending to make flowers or a necklace or a "crazy quilt" or a sculptural patchwork vase of to a friend. I had it inside my knapsack. It was a sunny day. I unzipped the pouch and a sunbeam fell into the darkness of the pouch and WOW! Now I know that at least some of my pieces need to be shown in a black box into which a light shines.

I've had another opportunity, too. I was playing with the paper yarn the school has. It was not cooperating. I got on the web to research the stuff and found out that more things were possible when it was wet. I began making viking weave tubes of it. Then I saw something in A-N magazine (They have a website. I haven't yet learned to add links here. Someone tell me if anyone reads this, but the fact that noone seems to read my blog is why I feel free to post this description of a work I have in process.) It was a show to be works OF paper. I proposed my idea and it was well-received. I'll use my paper tubing to write my name large in 3-D in mid air. The work is to be called "The Artist Signs Her Work" Looked at from any angle except one, it may make little sense: a bunch of squiggles. There would be instructions to walk around the work, and if you did, at one point, it would all be very clear: a signature.

Now that's taking my work in the direction of art.