art related theme
Disclosure: I’ve been accepted into one of the Spring 2025 art residency cohorts at the Chateau d’Orquevaux. I’m deep into planning what I want to make and write there. That entails my usual obsessive research. I came across this enchanting little self-published book by well-known illustration artist Christina Wald. Château d’Orquevaux, A Travelogue distills Wald’s…
Read More Review: Chateau d’Orquevaux, A TravelogueWiser heads and a month of planning have prevailed: I’m saving the ‘big’ projects for later grants applications here in the States. The Chateau in a typical March is just not set up for projects the size & complexity of ‘Crystal Curtain’ or ‘Sky Tent’. Then add to that the rigors of shipping from Arizona…
Read More Art Residency 2025: Chateau d’Orquevaux, part 2Go into a thrift store, any thrift store. Keep your eyes open: not necessarily for treasures, but for *stories*. Chances are, if you are alert, you’ll stumble across items that seem to resonate with questions, half-guessed histories, and unfinished quests. In February of 2024, I wandered by a shelf of carpentry tools in a local…
Read More ‘Winter Tree Egg’, by M. J. Moye(Me, trying on the larger-scale art installation hat. I like this hat.) (Also, because last fall was eventful enough that I forgot to post my Halloween yard installation when it happened.) For the last few years I’ve been gathering Halloween and Dia de los Muertos (they are not the same) decor from thrift stores. A…
Read More Halloween 2023 Yard InstallationLong post! TL:dr… I’m going to France for an art residency next year. At this place, Chateau d’ Orquevaux. Yep. I’m doing this. I applied on a semi-whim in December 2023, knowing that odds of being accepted were somewhere between 20% and never. I make a habit of applying every couple of years to *big*…
Read More Art Residency 2025: Chateau d’Orquevaux, part 1The ribbons got finished, delivered, and (by the accounts I’ve heard) the winning artists were happy! For Spring 2024, the TFA and I did our usual riffing off the Featured Artist’s work. This time, the Festival showcased the work of a family of extraordinary weavers: Mel Mendez, whose family has been weaving for a century…
Read More Spring Award Ribbons, Tempe Festival of the ArtsAfter the suspiciously-fast progress of ‘Sun Bird’, I started thinking about more book art sculptures with carved-wood bird spines. Lo, I found the Second Bird! Hailing from Bisbee AZ but made who-knows-where, of two-toned mesquite or another desert wood, and very woodpecker-like…this 11″ long sculpture has a flat back that will be ideal to support…
Read More The Second and Third BirdsTl;dr…if you aren’t a fabric craft geek, this post will just bore you. That’s okay. I’m taking aim at a beloved part of recent Fashion History and dissecting it. For the 2017-18 fashion season, Dior released a now legendary Tarot-inspired fabric coat. If you don’t know much about embroidery, this mix of fabric pieces and…
Read More Cheat Codes of the Dior Tarot CoatWhat’s a Wonderwall? Okay, yes, it’s an angsty 1995 ballad from Oasis. I take my meaning from the original songwriters: a wall in their childhood home where they posted photos & quotes that inspired them. In their case, mostly football (soccer to Americans). The Women-With-Studios meme shows off some incredibly creative wonderwalls on Instagram and…
Read More The WonderwallThis is a very long post! Scroll to the end to see a finished book art sculpture! A month ago I found this carved wooden bird in a plastic bag (with some other oddities) hanging on a wall hook at Goodwill. $3.49 for the whole bag. Stupidly, I walked away and left the bag on…
Read More A Bird, a Dream, a BookMy writing platform on Ream.ink has launched! I write sweet to scorching sword & planet and space opera fantasy. https://reamstories.com/page/lfr7ennrzk There’s a Lonhra Sequence short novel already up on Tier One. That’s BLOODSHADOW. This is in prep for launching the sequel SOULBINDER in a month or so, chapter-by-chapter. My Ream site will start with two…
Read More The Lonhra Sequence on Ream!So after nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade was struck down this June, by an overtly Dominionist Christian Supreme Court that has been at least 45 years in the making. Roe was the glacial shelf holding back a deluge of conservative wet dreams: overturning gay marriage and gay rights, the right to privacy (especially in…
Read More A Scarf For Vengeance and HopeI just learned of fantasy author Patricia A McKillip’s passing last week. She was a poet, wordsmith, and major inspiration of mine since 1977. That was the year I discovered a paperback copy of ‘The Riddlemaster of Hed’ in my junior high school library. It changed my life. The high fantasy of Tolkien, but with…
Read More In memoriam: Patricia A. McKillipHappy very late December! Now that my initial rant is behind me, let’s move on to more positive things. What did I do this year, other than survive? In writing, this year was a wash. I’ve been too busy to write much long-form fiction. I had pieces more-or-less edited and ready to go, so I…
Read More Pandemic Year 2: In Review, Part 2PSA: Gotta blog? Use images in it? Be very careful about the images you use. Readers may discover some images on this blog might be disabled going back to 2012. The reason is one ‘professional litigant’ who apparently sniffs around blogs & websites for allegedly-stolen images. Claiming infringement even in fair-use cases, they use SLAPP…
Read More Some legal housekeepingWhat defines ‘good weaving’? In this limited context, it’s basically size of thread, number of colors, and complexity of design. I buy textiles primarily to use in jewelry, book art pieces, costumes, or wall hangings. I’m finding more and more textiles that *are too good to cut up*. Shame on you, collectors. I should not…
Read More Four Woven Ribbons‘Look but don’t touch’ was my mom’s commandment whenever we drove to the next biggest town to visit the mall. That mall, circa 1973-1978, had a department store and lunchroom on one end, a record store and Waldenbooks at the other, and in between stretched a dim, cobblestone-paved concourse lined with various odd shops. A…
Read More Art Glass in an Oilfield TownTl;dr…Why ‘Outsider Artists’ *should* enter prestigious contests, and why many marginalized artists either give up or never even consider these opportunities. Every year I apply for every reputable art-related grant or show opportunity I might remotely qualify to enter. I usually don’t pay, unless the entry fees are modest (under $35 per entry). I do…
Read More Genres, Grants, and Outsider ArtistsA record forty-seven days after I started the physical work on it, ‘Rivers Under The Sahara’ is complete. I’ve been designing this book since before I ever considered making weird book art sculptures out of fabric and beads. Since 1991-92, when I first heard Rush’s haunting anthem ‘Dreamline’ on their Roll The Bones album. The…
Read More Book Art: Rivers Under the SaharaIf you read this blog you might have seen my fabric panels for Ann Morton’s vast and amazing ‘Violet Protest Project’, currently on display at the Phoenix Art Museum. While building the first set of 8×8″ panels last year I was struck by how well the idea would work in book art form: red and…
Read More Violet Nation Book Art