Sunday, September 6, 2009

This has been another Second Seating day. What 's new? It's now 7:00 p.m. and a few minutes ago, I poured myself a goblet of chilled white wine. Think I'm through for the day which began at 6:00 a.m.
Worked on the gallery guide and sent the first draft with all of its blank space to each of the artists so they can fill in titles and dimensions and prices. I need a short bio of each artist. You know, I am really excited about this group of artists. Each is so talented and their work for Second Seating is really going to surprise folks. When we meet tomorrow at the space, I'll gather some information from Jose and Ted and get it in draft form for them to take a look. And then I'll call everyone else and get theirs in draft form for review, rewrite, whatever.
Also got closer to the final draft of a very 'short story' about the East End and shot it off to Mary Vargo for read. There is nothing she doesn't know about the East End and she says she'll take a look.

Also tightened the several paragraphs I've been working on about Doris Bain Thompson. My mom is 92 and several weeks ago I experienced an epiphany. I have her genes after all and with Second Seating, I may well be doing what she did with her choirs in Aruba. We are both able to think something up from scratch and make it work. After I made this startling connection, I decided to dedicate Second Seating to my mother and though I called Seattle and told her, it will bear retelling again and again. My mom has increasing dementia and it has taken its bitter toll on her ability to retain information or to articulate her own thoughts. But back in her prime time? Well, that's another thing altogether. She had guts and vision.
Here's a photo of her taken last Christmas. She'd broken her arm and was in the hospital for awhile. But she's looking pretty good in this picture. I wish she could see this show. Makes me think I should find someone who can take a video of the opening. Now that, she and Dad would enjoy.
Break time after writing about Mom. I walked out to the oyster shell pile which is something I do often now. That oyster shell pile simply calls me these days.
I've just realized why. Granted, I need to check on them and turn them so they get clean with rain and sun for Second Seating. But every time, I go out there, I also select at least a dozen or two and bring them back into the kitchen sink to scrub and dry. My kitchen counter is covered with oyster shells. There may be 100 shells drying there and I plan to write gold words on each and bake them. Point is, I really like 'choosing' things and the oyster pile is as good as a resale shop. And today, I occurred to me that maybe folks at the opening might like to buy a shell with a word like 'love' or 'longing' or 'yes' or 'maybe' on it.
Sort of a little present to take home? Or give someone?
After the shelling expedition, I glued more collage pieces together and they are now weighted down with big books. The collages are just about done. On Tuesday, I'll buy sheets of plexi and begin drilling holes for the little brass carpet nails that I use to affix plexi to frame.
Took another break to read parts of the NYT, ate a couple of bowls of pecan praline ice cream with sliced bananas. Really. The last thing I need.
Mid-afternoon, I cut and sewed another vesty garment made from my stash of fabrics salvaged from Hurricane Ike. The first vest I made with some of these fabrics, I took to Turkey and to Seattle and I like it very much. Here's a photo of it taken in Discovery Park, where by the way there's been a real live cougar on the loose. Which they caught last night and will take to 'the wild.'
But the garment I put together this afternoon leaves a lot to be desired. It's not what I want to wear for the opening, though that was the intention when I began.
I began to search my closet and now my bed is piled with stuff. All fashion disasters. I need to wear a 'piece of work' basically. After I tried about 15 different approaches, I took a patchwork wall hanging I made for the show and wrapped it around my waist and then above my waist, Empire style.
It was the first thing that made sense. And looked like Second Seating. I wish I had a dress form my size so I could drape the thing. More and more I think about that draping class I took my junior year in college. It was as useful as an Algebra class. Or physics 101. One doesn't always realize how often we call upon the information we learn in basic classes. I may take the wall hanging to the alternation shop and hope they take mercy on me. Maybe they can drape it on me and put elastic through the top. Or I'll find harem pants - wish I'd bought them in Turkey when I saw them at that roadside stand by an ancient aqueduct. But it was either look at the aqueduct or shop. Actually, I think I did some of both, but not as much shopping as I might have liked.
So, late in the day, I made another trip out to the oyster shell pile. And then took a look at the clock and poured a glass of wine.
Tomorrow, I meet Ted and Jose in the space. We'll unpack their work and imagine where it will be installed. And the carpenter should be there with his helper and we'll build shelves for the Wall of Plates. Then I'll be busy with house paint and a 100 plates.
Talk soon again.

A Little Progress

Went into the studio this afternoon to work on two different projects. I cut some of that Hurricane Ike damaged velvet to patch on to one of two chairs that will sit on either side of the Bayou, Bay, Beach table. Actually it will rest among the thousands of oyster shells that are now drying and smelling up the area behind my studio.
Love the fabric because the dye ran when it was soaked with flood waters so it fades from light grey blue to dusty mauve. I'm finding it's perfect for covering the current herringbone upholstery on these chairs.
Also began to work on a montage of dozens of wallet sized East End images. Got out a big sheet of black and white checked paper that I've had forever. I think I'll use it for this montage. I've arranged the photos six or eight times so far, trying to find something compelling. I may add another paper like that intense Chinese red wrapping paper. Or may layer the images. I'll mix and match until it looks like something.Haven't gotten to painting labels for text yet. Maybe this evening? And though I made a ruffle for the fabric chandelier, I didn't pin and sew it in place. What is holding me up on that thing? Really needs to leave my dining room table.
Must say though, that one cup of Chinese black tea sure turned this day into one that's been productive. Probably should take a break, go to bed and watch Netflix tonight.

Collage, Montage, Whatever

I've not been out of the house today except for a morning walk. Back to work in the studio, after a unplanned cleanup of the place. It hasn't been fun to go into the studio lately because the floor was covered with fabrics from work on that chandelier with the red vase at its center. The counter space was piled high with photographs, books and just plain mess. When Catarina was here yesterday working on the database, I decided to straighten things up out there. Strange how a clean-up mode takes over, comes out of nowhere and for me, so infrequently. Finished the job this morning and so spent the afternoon mixing and matching photos and fabrics.
I always think nothing is going to come of the process. It's painful how long it takes me to assemble something that looks like 'something.' It was easy to make the cut out of the gelatin salad and tuck it in behind the smaller one gelatin salad that's been sitting for some time on that square piece of weathered tapestry. It works, but how on earth am I going to affix these gelatin salads to the tapestry fabric? Back the photos with mat board? Cut around them again. Adhere with Velcro? Glue? This is the part where I think that everything should be done with PhotoShop.
Went on to work on another potential piece. Mixed and matched forever. Then all of a sudden, the collage appeared and I think it's OK. So, collages are sitting on the floor assembled and waiting for judgment. It's time to decide just what steps I need to take with each one in order to, tape, glue, sew and otherwise secure it. As I said, this is the part I don't like because I mess up so many times. I am not good at gluing. I can ruin a whole piece very quickly, so I have to think all this through carefully and see what portions of each piece I can take to Art Supply for a dose of their vacuum press.
This new one with the bananas and a portrait of Caroline from long ago is going to take a lot of big stitch sewing and I'll probably use embroidery floss. By the way, it's always a surprise how random images like this shot of Caroline are just right for a piece.
Worked on and another collage appeared and it may be finished. Not totally sure.
So here are all of the pieces, just sitting there on the floor, fermenting or seasoning or whatever. I'll look at them again tomorrow and see what the next steps are. Probably don't need many more. Need to get back to those fabric wall hangings and see how I can mess them up a bit. They are way too tame.
Also finished the first draft of yet another grant application today and will have a friend review it on Monday to see if it's seaworthy. And I'll look forward, yet again to see if I am 'worthy and well qualified,' as my dad used to characterize graduates every year at commencement.
Back to the collages. They all look more than a bit baroque at the moment.
By the way, I am writing on more plates, platters and bowls and was given a light fixture with pieces of foot long rectangles of beveled glass. I've decided to write words on all the glass, bake them and paint the structure. Another baroque piece to add over the table with the patchwork cloth.
Roofer is coming to Irma's on Monday to repair Hurricane Ike damage. Good news. Still need a final bid on the sheet rock panels I want to have installed here and there along the walls of the space. Onward.

The Eyes Could 'See' This Evening

Well, a more successful evening in the studio than I had the last time I tried to make a collage. Last week I gave up and tore everything apart and locked the door on it all. Tonight, a few things came together. Nothing glued down yet, but two or three collages look like they'll turn into something. You just never know what's going to happen. Used that little painted plate and spoon again. This time I think I like what's happening with the images. This time it may all work.
The less than stellar lighting in my studio made it hard to photograph tonight's work and to avoid glare I shot from low sideways angles. But you get the idea. These may turn into something for Second Seating.

Unrelated Collages

Sometimes it just works to go into a studio and spread photos and scraps of photos all over the floor and simply begin to place them, side by side against backgrounds of other photos. These collages have nothing to do with Second Seating. Yet, they have everything to do with getting into that state where images are made.

Cross Reference

Two of my blogs are intersecting more and more. So here's what I wrote in Rockbridge Times this early Sunday morning. It seems to have a lot to do with Second Seating:

A friend hosted a women's dinner last evening. She called it a surprise party and asked us to bring a stack of magazines that we wouldn't mind cutting up. There were nine of us around Kem's big square dinning room table and the talk was fast and furious and funny. I am forever reminded of how many articulate, savvy, smart, creative and outrageous women I count as friends. They enrich my life and I could do without them. All of them.


The magazines were piled among wine glasses, hummus and crackers, cheese, fruit and then salad fixings followed by bite size cookies, sorbet and ice cream. It was almost an hour before we took scissors to glossy magazines to begin our assignment: gather images that speak to us and arrange them in a collage. And don't think too much about it.

First, there were eruptions of anxiety. No one's right brain would kick in. Kellye was intimidated, she said, sitting next to me because she says she's a totally left brain sort of person. All not true. Collage brings out the hidden and unknown. It can be a bit like dreaming if you don't 'think' while you're tearing and pasting.

I remember taking a week of classes at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY and our first assignment was to make ten collages in an hour. It was a wonderful way to begin the class. We ripped apart magazines and created very loose collages - a few of which I've kept all these years just to remind me that faster is often better - few windows of time in which to 'think' about what you are doing.
The nine of us continued with wild digressions and asides until Kem set An hour later, we'd produced remarkable collages, all of which I wish I'd photographed for you to see. Perhaps I'll email a request to all and ask that they send an image that I can post.

I came home and immediately began removed two scraps of paper from my collage and judged it better for it. Then began to think of the images that I will put on the assortment of plates and platters I've been assembling for Second Seating's Wall of Plates. Ever onward. Also woke up this morning with a thought about the Oak Farms Dairy school milk cartons. I am going to call an HISD art teacher friend and see if she can gather some random art work from her elementary school students that can be incorporated into the milk carton chandelier. The whole piece can be a sort of mobile with cartons balanced by drawings of the children who drink the milk. Perhaps they can draw milk cartons?
Oh, the power of that moment as we awaken. It's the mother lode for ideas.

Table Cloth for Banquets In situ

Just came in from the studio after an hour or more of work assembling a layout of the Hurricane Ike fabrics for the fabled 'Banquets In Situ' table cloth. I say 'fabled' because it's been so much on my mind lately and when I go to the studio over on Harrisburg and see the potential size of the thing, I turn up the anxiety meter. Then I have to tell myself to 'trust in the universe' and just get busy with it.

A friend is coming to the Harrisburg studio mid-week and I'm making this visit a reason to have a section of this immense cloth stitched or at the very least pinned together, so that perhaps we can both envision how a finished crazy quilt of silks, brocades, chenilles and velvets look all torn and layered and encrusted with bias strips of ruffles and random pieces of silver plate flatwear.By the way, I keep siphoning off pieces of these Ike fabrics so I can make myself some floppy vests. I've already draped one and cut a lining on which to piece it together. I love it already. And I have to say, I'm liking some of these fabrics with my crochet work. So it's onward on two fronts with these salvaged fabrics that just got better after the storm and a stint in my washer and dryer.

I am remembering just how it is when I work on a collage or an sort of arrangement. I can stay with it for just over an hour and then I have to take a break. This morning, I've had an extended break, frying three breakfast sausages for a snack and then giving a call to my dad in Seattle who is celebrating his 92d birthday today. Will wonders ever cease? He says they tied a balloon on his walker and he'll have birthday cake at lunch. I said, "Dad, your birthday is a miracle." Last fall, he was on hospice and then as we were all holding our breaths and fearing the worst, he got stronger and stronger and called last night to ask me if I'd send him the tape of his tenor rendition of "Shine on Harvest Moon" which he sang in Aruba back in the 1950s.

OK, back to the mixing and matching of bits of fabric. We'll see how many square feet I can piece together today in one way or another.

What Is It All About?

‘Second Seating’ is an art installation scheduled to open in spring 2009 in a metal shop/ warehouse on the eastern edge of downtown Houston. ‘Second Seating, Houston’, the blog, will document the making of this installation. Designed as a series of elaborate fantasy dinner tables, ‘Second Seating’ will be created with cast off furniture, found and recycled objects, vintage table linens and silver flatware, assorted china, crockery, Coke bottles and oyster shells, paint and paper, all mixed with text and photo imagery.

‘Second Seating’ refers to the practice of turning tables at restaurants in order to serve more diners and thus, the title becomes a metaphor for second chances, the passage of time, fulfillment and memory. ‘Second Seating’ also references the revitalization of Houston’s East End with it ’second time around’ possibility.


With an installation, an artist often uses a particular space as an integral part of the work. Setting fantasy dinner tables in an unused warehouse and using raw and recycled materials from East End businesses and industry suggests that both the space and the resultant art work will purposely reflect its origins and indirectly deliver information about a specific community as manifested through a collaboration among several artists.

‘Second Seating’ will both celebrate the vibrancy of the East End community and highlight the vision of a group of artists who, using common materials, create uncommon beauty and a dreamlike environment that is poignant, whimsical and wise.

This blog will chart the making of ‘Second Seating.’ Please join us as we begin to gather the materials that, when assembled together, will make magic of whatever you thought about dining.

More details about individual tables and specific artist’s work will unfold - just like grandmother’s old fashioned, hard to iron linen table cloths.