Inspired By a Joan Didion Quote

“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be...”  Joan Didion

Years:
1987, 1994, 1998
1979, 2021, 1978
1971, 1976, 1980

I posted the above on Instagram, I thought I would go deeper into the images here.

Or at least pull away from the square crops.

There are some versions of me that I gladly leave behind (my married years especially).

Others, I want to keep in touch with the spunky young me.

In backwards order:

2021

Next to four of my map weavings
Holly Jolly art reception, Roswell Space.

1998

A place Severo and I stayed in Cambria.
We toured Hearst Castle that trip. So much fun!

1994

Final day of a week long summer workshop with Rafael Ferrer at Bennington College.
Holding a self portrait.

1987

Otis graduation, BFA in Fashion Design
Lisa on the left, Dad on the right.

1980

Xmas at my parents, Hampden, MA.
What am I doing in that preppie sweater???

1979

That time I was a bride.
Photo by Jamie Wolff.

1978

At Alines apartment, her birthday?
Ex removed from photo.

1976

Outside the art studio.
College of Creative Studies, UC Santa Barbara.
I quit after my first quarter of Junior year to move to NYC with the ex,
as a 20 year old know it all does..

1971

Freshman year at Emma Willard.
Music pod in the library.
Winter uniforms, mine is a micro mini version.

On to the new year and new adventures!

Linking up with

Shelbee's Spread the Kindess

Shining Brightly at the Old Broads Art Reception

Shelbee inspired me to create a blog post. Woohoo!
She and Nancy are hosting their monthly Good Buy, Good-bye series with the topic Sparkles for December.

I donned some sparkly accessories for a recent art reception.

I was thrilled to have a reason to get dressed up!

It's been eons since an outfit photo has occurred.

Garment/Pattern array. I got the metallic scarf from Ideeli
(anyone remember that online designer closeout site?)

Devil shoes! The Fluevog Maha

The exhibition:
Old Broads @RAM [Riverside Art Museum] is up until January 2, 2022

“In most human endeavors, experience is a highly valued attribute. Not too many people ask for the ‘new guy’ to perform a car repair and the demand for newly minted neurosurgeons surely does not outstrip supply. In the performing and written arts, the wunderkind who is worthy of an Oscar, Emmy, or Pulitzer is celebrated but recognized as a rarity. In the visual arts, however, this construct is turned on its head. Gallerists are routinely asked the age of the artists whose work they are promoting; in addition, print media abounds with articles lamenting the difficulty female artists face in getting their work shown.

“So, in a region where 20-somethings are botoxed and 30-somethings routinely get ‘a little work done,’ whose dominant industry is peddling our youth-obsessed, airbrushed culture to the rest of the world, what is a woman of a certain age to do? ‘Old Broads’ is a collective of 30 female/female-identifying visual artists over the age of 50, working in the greater Los Angeles area. The show seeks to showcase and celebrate artists who bring a lifetime of experience and experiences to their work. Our aim is to promote each other, poke fun at prevalent stereotypes, and have a damned good time doing it.”
—the Old Broads

At the reception:

With Marthe Aponte and our art

With Adeola Davies-Aiyeloja and our art

My art piece in the center includes gold brocade

"Midas" gold brocade stitched on painted denim

My sparkly purse joined the fun

I got this at Pic N Save in 2000(?). $5.00. A keeper!

A bunch of us had dinner at Mario's Place afterwards. Outstanding!

As they say, "the Mission Inn is across from us".

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Linking up with

Shelbee's 

Link Up On the Edge

80's Vibe

 Maybe you saw this in my Instagram:

It was a "Lost 80's Live" night at the Greek Theater, Severo's debut on that venue's stage as bassist for The Romantics. He kindly got me a ticket, as the comped guest ticket situation was, um, messed up.

As Dez says, "Are these my seats?"

There were 13 bands on the bill, to perform in a 3-hour window, with set changes for every band.
Doing "concert math", that equals 1-2 songs for most bands. The Romantics played two hits: Talking in Your Sleep and What I Like About You. Severo did great! There's a video (not mine) at the end of this.

But how about my outfit?

Let's start with the black and white things:

Fluevog Checkerboard dress, my art,  Redbubble
available!

Checkerboard leggings, $2.99, Telco discount shop in Brooklyn

Striped socks, I think these were part of a Uniqlo sock bundle. Nope.

Zebra print Dansko clogs, Poshmark, 2017

And, to top it off, the Ungaro silk harlequin shirt:

Fabulous $6 find at the Santa Monica Antiques Market, 2018
Read more about it

Let's rock:

Linking with
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness
Rena's Fine-Whatever

Black and White and Scrappy Squares

My posts are all about the Scrappy Squares these days, aren't they?
Can't be helped, they're top of mind, as I do all the prep for the 50|50 group show they'll be in.
Here's my "Title" page:

click to embiggen

I did do one totally black and white Scrappy, the "Leo" 

Instead, I want to highlight the "Stephanie", for which I destroyed two skirts:

"Stephanie" was named for a certain person who wants a certain fabric used herein.
Stephanie is on socials and keeps her ID on the downlow, hence no link. 

One of the skirts, before destruction:

It's fraternal twin, in a more deconstructed state:

sometimes, in the frenzy of creation, I forget to take the "before" shots

So, what's the back story on these skirts?

I got them both at a place in Venice called DBA (that resold designer discards like Ross, but not a chain), sometime when I was already working at "The Panty Factory" (my nickname for the day job, designing prints for underwear and loungewear). Maybe 2006? The floral caught my eye as a potential panty print, the dot, well, polkadots! They were only $12, and a nice 100% cotton percale.

When I stopped wearing most of my skirts (too many cupcakes), I put the dot skirt up for sale on Poshmark. The floral never got posted, not sure why.

And then the Scrappy Squares got hungry for fresh textiles, and, riiiiiiiiip went the skirts.
As I said in the previous post, everything is fair game in Scrappy Square creation!

Linking with
Shelbee's On the Edge
Rena's Fine-Whatever

Stripes in Peril, part 2 Striped Chambray Skirt

 Not much left of this one!

It started life as a skirt (underskirt?) that Tony Young designed for a Mentor Project with Guess Jeans in 1987. I won the auction for the outfit which also included a cropped jean jacket (still have!) and a denim overskirt (sadly became badly mildewed during a roof leak eons ago and tossed).

[need sketch. sorry]

I redesigned the top of skirt by eliminating the waistband and shirring and instead formed inverted pleats and backed them with a muslin facing. The styling was reminiscent of my most favorite striped skirt from high school.

I still hardly ever wore it. Maybe the stripes were too preppy?
I was going to list it on Poshmark, but when taking photos, I noticed a lot of stains. It went into "The Pile", there was a lot of usable fabric in it.

Perfect for Scrappy Squares!

Linking up with

Shelbee's Edge of the Week

Stripes in Peril, part 1 Striped Lounge Pants

All the stripe garments I've destroyed for Scrappy Squares, part 1.
It's not "Goodbye", it's "Hello new art".

I'm in my final week of creating one piece of art every day for 50 days.
Titled "Scrappy Squares", these are weavings made with textile scraps using a rug knotting technique. At this point, almost any textile in the house is fair game.

The first to go, before the official series even started, were my COVID Uniform lounge pants. The spandex had died, the legs grew about 4", and I was tripping on them. 

not exactly the same pants but you get the idea

Stripey, link to artwork details

I paired the stripe with another pair of lounge pants for the first piece in the series:

Wendy, link to artwork details

Other pieces using the black and white stripe:

I still haven't used up every last bit (I had two pairs of them). I'm holding on to the cut pieces with the pink overlock. Well, to be honest, all the pieces:

Preciousssss......

Linking up with

Shelbee's Edge of the Week

I Match My Art!

I'm wearing 2/3 of the textiles used in this:

"Anne" Scrappy Square, 7.21.2021

The rayon black/white circuit print tunic is an old favorite. It has many a story to tell.
I found extra remnants to use in the Scrappy Square.

The rose print skirt/pinafore (which I hastily safety pinned to the tunic for the first photo) was almost completely sacrificed to the Scrappy chopping block. It never worked as a skirt:

2012
back view here

It will work as a summer pinafore!
I could have sworn I have more yardage, but never found it, so I gradually tore strips off the hem for the Scrappy Square, preserving as much as I could of the skirt-soon-to-be-dress.

Many garments are falling victim to the Scrappies. I've started ruthlessly raiding my Poshmark Closet.

Linking up with

Shelbee's Spread the Kindness

What does a Forty Year Old Pop Tart Look Like?

 No, silly, not the food!

I deconstructed my old "Pop Tart" tee to use in the Scrappy Square project.
See how I used the fabric strips in the Black and White piece.
I forgot to take a photo of the tee intact, here's the graphic:

One of my early Photoshop efforts, '95? '96?
I put an actual Pop Tart directly on the scanner!
Had the art made into a heat transfer at Kinko's.

I will freely admit, in 1995, at age 39, I became a Pop Tart in the LA pop music scene.
Won't go into the sordid details, will leave it at "I had fun". Heh.

Here is an old photo from that time, "rocking" the look:

1998, with Pat DiNizio (RIP), Len?, Severo at Coney Island High gig in NYC
I'm 42, Fiorucci tee purchased in 1978

Here's how I wore the same boy's size 14 tee in 1976:

outside the art studios, College of Creative Studies, UC Santa Barbara

There's NO WAY I could wedge myself into a tee that small now!
Only a memory...

 

This one has Severo in it:

   

 Linking up with

Shelbee's On the Edge

The Tired Tie Dye Skirt/ Dress

I think I got this at Old Navy? In the beach coverup area?
Or maybe it was Ross.
One of those, in downtown Santa Monica.
All I remember is, it was super cheap. [Which is why fast fashion can be so hard to resist].

Skirt or Dress?

Yes, I'm cavorting on the back patio almost naked. 

I tried, and failed, to find an old selfie wearing this as a skirt. Not found with the tag "tie dye" here, maybe I never posted it. Then I scoured my Tumblr Archive as far back as 2015. Nada. Gave up. (I use Tumbr to quickly access my old Instagram posts. Though my annembray share link has been broken for months. I need to link manually. Boring, sigh).

Currently, it had been taking an extended stay on Mending Mountain - the elastic smocking on the waistband had died. It will now become a dress. After I tunnel new elastic through the top of the waistband. As you can see, I already installed some straps.

Last year, it took and unexpected turn as art!
This transpired through the conjunction of

• taking some photos of the tie dye stripes for possible use at the day job
• uploading an app called Momento (only iPhone?) that builds videos from stills
• an online art collaboration with Angela Izzo

The first video:

See what happened next here!

Included with Shelbee and Nancy's Good Buy/ Goodbye July feature "Tie Dye"
Linking with
Shelbee's On the Edge
Rena's Fine-Whatever

Furloughed! Am I using my time wisely?

Yep, it finally happened.
Over the the past few months, my paid hours at the day job have been steadily dwindling
2/10 - no more than 19.5 hours/week (was 32 hours/week prior)
6/21 zero

sigh

So what have I been doing instead?

Scrappy Squares!

test models

"Wendy" the first official piece for the 50|50 Exhibition

This is an ongoing project that officially started 6/28/21.
Each artist juried into the show will be creating one new piece of art on 6x6" panels for 50 days.

I'm rug knot weaving textile scraps onto the panels.
Here's what the back looks like:

The exhibition will be at Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, CA, 9/10 - 10/10/21

All the art will be uploaded on my Art website on a daily basis. Click here to see them all!

The Big Blanket Mend

I decided to join two old twin "horse blankets" that are both full of moth holes into one.
As always happens with things I repair on the coffee table, Mr Lou thinks it makes a great bed.

note how he plants himself exactly where I'm sewing

Fluevog Shoe Art

I have sketched Fluevog shoes going on four years now.

Uploading the art to Redbubble and Spoonflower helps garner some income.
Happy to report that all of the 2021 sketches and repeats are available on both sites.

Now working my way through 2019's sketches.

There's more, but I think that's enough news for now.

Linking up with

Shelbee's Spread the Kindness