GirlMeetsArt

Before he died, maybe 6 months ago, my Dad suggested that maybe it was time for me to give up playing basketball. After all, he noted, I’m in my 50s and I have chronic back pain. I play with a brace on my left knee, because I blew out my ACL four years ago and couldn’t pay for the surgery to reconstruct it.

I announced to him that I’d stop playing when I couldn’t walk. (An aside: my Dad worked for 30 years in a hellishly hot steelmaking plant, and he never was sick—in fact, he never had a headache! When he retired, he got a stomach virus for the first time in his life, and bemoaned to my Mom that now that he was retired, he was going to die!

Well, he made it another 30 years or so. But I recalled our conversation about my quitting basketball after reading Chris Ballard’s Point After in SI, about his 71-year-old Dad continuing to play pick-up games against men half his age, despite two knee replacements and a bad shoulder.

As Ballard notes, “But giving up a game isn’t merely giving up a game.” Exactly.

For me, playing pick-up games against other women is my mental health outlet and a creative outlet, too, when I think about it. Over the past 10 years, my game has gotten better, as I have challenged myself to improve my passing and dribbling skills.

I take true joy in making the perfect pass down the court, a pass that takes imagination to see and creativity to try, and seeing it reach a teammate right in stride for an easy score.

Rest in peace, Dad

Linocuts © Chris Raymond
Click on the image to see more linocuts and prints from the workshop

I’ve been interested in linoleum block printing for quite some time, since getting some luscious books on printmaking techniques, including Printmaking + Mixed Media by Dorit Elisha.

Earlier this month, I took a weekend workshop in the technique with Penny Barringer of the Torpedo Factory Art League School. Despite what it may look like from these prints, I don’t have a drinking problem. The prints are an homage to two cocktail-loving girls, an inside joke with a dear friend. The cocktail glass is printed on Japanes mulberry paper; the crown, on Japanes paste paper I made many years ago at a Penland class.

Cheers!

It’s been way too long since I posted, I know. Crazy/maddening/depressing stuff going on at home and with family. But I actually have been at play. Finally, at least three years after screenprinting a pattern of abstract houses (at a Penland class taught by Clare Verstegen), I am now working on embellishing the fabric to tell a story about some of the places I have called “home”: West Seneca, New York; Chicago; and Falls Church, Virginia.

The project finally ripened, so to speak. During the course, I completed this print as a study in color rhythm and registraton. I really knew nothing about embroidering, and little about sewing except for putting on buttons or hemming pants. Since then, I learned to embroider. I’ve spent countless hours soaking up books on fabric collage, scrapbooking, altered art, and image transfer. I took a workshop in fiber art. I’ve gained confidence to push back that nagging internal editor/dictator. I’m settled into my new apartment.

Now, as I proceed, I have to keep telling myself, soldier on, girl! Don’t make this into yet another overly complicated, overly thought-out project. Just go with the flow and have fun!

Initial layout for embellishing the houses fabric. Roofs and foundations will be map fragments fused to the fabric. © Chris Raymond

Sketch of my plan of action, including dimensions for add-on collaged elements. © Chris Raymond

A close-up of the first stages, showing embroidered letters and a photo transfer of Mom in front of, of course, a snow bank! © Chris Raymond

I just read a most wonderful blog post by Keri Smith, in which she tells a tale of her life in pictures and words, because, as she says, “I have been working on a plot to infiltrate the system and inject it with my subversive ideas.”

From the time in 5th grade, when I was moved into a lower-level reading group because I was being too troublesome [read: bored], I‘ve had a basic mistrust of authority and perceived wisdom. (Oddly, I was also a very good student, unlike Keri.)

For Keri, her time at home and away from school was full of self-directed creative expression. At home, as her cartoon captures it, she was brilliant, powerful, energetic and a risk-taker. School time was like a prison to her, where she was quite, shy, unfocused, told she was unoriginal, and was taught to obey teachers. But eventually, as an adult, she was able to attend art school and find a professional niche as a creative illustrator.

For anyone seeking their creative muse or the spark to pursue your creative vision, this series is an amusing and affecting must-read.

The Climacterica postcard set © Chris Raymond
Click on the image to see the front and back of each postcard

I have had my Climacterica postcard set printed and offered for sale at bigcartel for a couple of weeks. Every sale gives me a thrill and a great sense of affirmation, naturally. It’s much different than feeling satisfaction from nailing a design for a client, because in that case, my work is done to please someone else and solve someone else’s communication problem. Personal work, by contrast, is done strictly to my own desires, esthetic values, and vision.

Now that I’ve made my first sales, I have started thinking like a business woman: keeping track of customers, setting prices, finding the most economical packaging, and of course, thinking about spin-off products.

It’s a whole new world!