The snow came as expected, so I spent some time in the studio composing some new Readers Digest Book Quilts. Arranged book covers, toted firewood, played with the dog, ate a lot, napped, repeated the sequence.
Nothing’s final, all moveable and up for consideration.
My little town of Scottsville has a great coffeeshop called Baines. I’ll be showing some art on the walls throughout November.
Come for the friendly vibe, have a muffin or grilled cheese, listen to the LPs on the phonograph, meet yer friends. Oh and drink coffee, buy new and used books!
I’ll be at Baines for the reception on Saturday 11/14/15 from 3-7pm-ish.
485 Valley St., Scottsville, Virginia (434) 286-3577
Hours? Hmmm, I think… Sat-Sun 9-4, Mon-Fri 7:30-4. Good to call.
Nothing like the last minute, eh? Finally ready to show a sampling of cropped preview images of recent work. The show is hung and opens this Friday, got my dress picked out and I’m psyched for this happening!
From our Facebook announcement:
Please join us as we celebrate the opening of our two woman exhibit in the V. Earl Dickinson Building, PVCC, Charlottesville, VA on Friday 9/18/15 from 5-7pm.
The show will feature the artwork and various conceptual takes on the idea of “Lost and Found” as explored by Terri Long and Deborah Rose Guterbock. Up-cycling, appropriation, soul searching and geographic adventuring are all relevant themes in these two bodies of work.
Come support us, help yourself to yummy refreshments and take part in the merriment! Show runs September 18th – November 4th, come on by!
Excited to be part of a two person show opening in Charlottesville on Friday, September 18th. Recent hand surgery has made for a challenging summer and for preparing works, but all is well and I’m psyched to deliver the work in just a few days.
Materials? Discarded library books and ephemera, old text book covers, marbled end papers, leather bindings, one feather, one tiger and quite a few butterflies.
More to come.
Communication comes in many forms, it’s important to get the message out. Say it, however temporary, wherever possible with whatever materials are handy. State it multiple times if need be.
As a visual artist, I’m keen on letterforms, fonts and signage big and small. I have a soft spot for the quirky, grammatically-challenged, warn and forgotten ones.
For your viewing pleasure, here is a sampling of old signage and hand-crafted messages. All images found as is, except the last one, heh, heh, heh.
I donned my craft snood and fashioned some gift items for sale at the Gift Forest, an annual pop-up holiday gift shop hosted by The Bridge gallery with 60+ Virginia artisans and vendor wares. Runs December 1st to 24th, weekdays 12-8PM and weekends 10AM-6PM (Christmas Eve opened 10AM-4PM), 209 Monticello Road in Charlottesville, by the Spudnuts.
I had made and tucked away (forgot and lost actually) two prototype bookboxes and decided to make more with my favorite source material, recycled Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Uniform in height and depth, with faux leather spine, sturdy case binding and attractive graphic print covers, I have a collection of nearly 600 covers to choose from.
Reader’s Digest Condensed Book covers.
The bookboxes have sturdy, contrasting print sides and mini magnetic closures. Perfect for desktop display or to cache treasures deep in the bookcase. I raided my sewing basket for vintage buttons, ribbon scraps and leather tabs.
The six bookboxes and four bookbags pictured below are at the Gift Forest and available for purchase: $25 each bookbox and $45 each bookbag. Have a favorite book you want transformed into objet d’art or unique whatnot? I take commissions.
4 little bookbags: Seahorse, plum gold floral, brown plaid and blue quatrefoil.
I popped in opening night, the first of December to check it out. Strange day, nearly 70 degrees. Yet, it is that time and we will shop in sandals or boots. In my heart, I covet and would add 86% of what I saw there to my wish list. Like that neon sign across town saying, Get In Here: go to the Gift Forest, get in there. But save a few things for me, please.
Outside looking in.
We’ve had a CSA (community supported agriculture) vegetable share with Bellair Farm for three years and reupped for 2015. Can’t compliment Farmer Jaime, owner Cynnie and the crew enough. Besides the abundant fields and ability to choose what you take home in your weekly bag, there are pick your own fields with sunflowers or hot peppers, you can hang out and bring a picnic lunch on Saturdays, hike the walking trails, play with the bunnies and just be on the farm. Our challenge is in eating enough veggies! Always leftovers from each week’s share. At the season-end potluck supper in late October, they provided even more abundance… and with that additional bag, my fridge actually exploded.
Sifting through the vegetable carnage, I know that pickling and canning really should be something I do, but don’t. However, I enjoy fermenting. I made my first pseudo kimchi with gorgeous daikon radishes, carrots and everything but the kitchen sink. My husband commented on the stench, not knowing it was fermenting beautifully and soon to be plated with dinners ahead.
Our other CSA experience (community supported art) is with The Bridge in Charlottesville. In 2013, I was one of four artists invited to produce works for this inaugural offering. Here are images of some of the 50 bookbags I produced from all recycled materials. They’ve expanded the CSA program in 2014 with six local artists and shares are still available.
I am fascinated by unintentional art. Those cropped, unexpected glimpses that give you pause, a random vignette on a friend’s bookshelf or stopping to view a brilliant canvas of colors under your feet.
Beta Bridge on Rugby Road, in Charlottesville October 2013
I thought I was being clever in coining that phrase, “unintentional art” but no. A quick internet search reminds me that everything that one could possibly conceive, or wish to see or must know, already exists — the photos and descriptions are online to prove that someone else documented it first. Except a video of perspiration forming which does not exist. I check, regularly. So, anyone who cares about this hole in the internet, please grab a video recording device and meet me at the hot yoga studio, because there is no time lapse video, anywhere, of beads of sweat at the exact moment they appear on skin. And I really want to see this.
But I digress.
Back to art and Beta Bridge. I have very few connections to the University of Virginia. I do know that the campus is not a campus, instead it is called grounds. Recently, I was approaching grounds walking amongst the students, who I still like to call coeds, a phrase that dates me. The coeds had their heads aimed down at their smart phones as we all walked along Rugby Road toward the Rotunda. I had my smart phone in my bag and my eyes up so as not to trip, because this is how adults walk, with eyes ahead. Until I got to Beta Bridge and saw the colors. Eyes down. The random splatterings of house paint on the surface of the old bridge sidewalk stopped me short and I conjured drop cloths and Jackson Pollock, while the coeds walked on or stopped to catch the bus. The photos below, indicate but a little of what I encountered over the course of 3 weeks in October, as I found myself regularly walking to and fro Beta Bridge.
The constant bridge painting and repainting by the coeds isn’t new, it’s been documented since 1967 and is one of the UVA traditions that ages well, unlike Easters, now extinct or the fourth year fifth, which should be. Some local folk, a coed, maybe grad student or staffer perhaps, similarly enamored by regular walks created Beta Bridge (almost) Daily. This site documents the near daily transformation, with long, wide and wonderful shots of the solid walls, giving insight into the billboard-like, real-time phrases of the day.
I love the worn patina and myriad layers and feeling that the whole structure may well be tenuously held together and reliant on a fresh coat of paint, probably being applied right now.
Live.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this old* earth.
Listened to author, farmer, good man Wendell Berry recently reflecting on his time on this earth. He’s had a life well spent and listening to him — or reading his books and poems — makes a body want to go outside, open your eyes wide, get your hands dirty, be present in the moment, be productive and make sacred your own place. Decided it was past time to dig out a bumpersticker I had squirreled away and mount it on the family vehicle.
(*Old is relative. Some days I feel old. Wendell Berry and my Mom are 79. You could say our earth looks pretty good for 4.5 billion years. Ok, maybe if you step back a bit.)
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Currently volunteering outside with a sculptor named Patrick Dougherty.
Patrick Dougherty and passerby during week 2 of Stickworks production.
He likes sticks and being out-o-doors so much that he quit his day job 30 years ago to be outside, weaving maple saplings into fantastical sculptures that undulate and reflect their settings and space. This 3-week project is happening on the grounds of UVA and has brought together teachers, students, local photographers, working artists, community members. I’m told it will be completed Friday October 18, 2013 at 4:59pm, no earlier, no later. Public reception on final Friday of the month, Oct. 25th. It’ll remain in place at least a year. Can’t wait to watch it’s gradual, beautiful decline.
End of a work day, hanging out at Stickworks.
Looking up through Stickworks on a wet grey day. UVA, Culbreth Road, Charlottesville, VA.
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Still working and playing with books.
Playing with 2 wee red books outside in the elements.
Working on 50 book-related works for inaugural Community Supported Art share with The Bridge in Charlottesville. Nearly 30 of the 50 have sold!
Red books, fall porch, wabi sabi.
I frequent the McIntire Recycling Center once a week, sometimes more. I choose to drive my recyclables from home knowing that with each stop, I can pop into the book bin and see what’s new. You never know what you’ll find, but as its free, the price is right by me.
It’s become a reading room of late. Employees and volunteers have spruced the 20′ shipping container up so that it’s down right homey in there. Gone are the floor-to-ceiling hoarder piles and most of the musty smell. Most of it. Ok, the air freshner helps not a bit. But for the curious book hounds and collectors, it’s worth the regular visit. For someone like me, scavenger artist aiming at repurposing books — contents, spine and cover — why it’s a smorgasbord of compelling typography and graphic images of yore!
Favorite, curious, amusing, must have titles I’ve brought home include: Leather Pants, Peter Gets the Chicken Pox, Better Rural Living.
Yes, I just found The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown book!
This is a decidedly nicer way of saying leave your books, take some books, then go.
Discussion and Debate nestled between The High Cost of Peace and The Holy Bible.
No one goes there for the view.
It’s practically cozy inside, really. Lamps, rugs, armchair, hot coffee and donuts!
terriloui 