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

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.

A map of the mysterious land of Climacterica (watermarks not on original) © Chris Raymond

Late in the week at Penland, surrounded by cards, sketchbook, and dictionary pages © Chris Raymond
Click on image for more pictures from the week

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the last week of August taking a workshop, “Illustrating the Personal Narrative” at the Penland School. I began the week with trepidation: I’d never really worked in watercolor or pen-and-ink, my drawing skills left much to be desired, in my mind at least, and before even arriving, I had already gotten very bad vibes from the instructor, a brusque New Yorker with no experience teaching the mixed-level classes that define the place.

My week lived down to expectations about the instructor, but exceeded expectations greatly as to the work I produced: a series of postcards from the mythical country of Climacterica, where all the residents are female, minds go absent, lists get lost, and intentions often go far off track.

Like most artists I know, I am REALLY hard on myself and nitpick my work to death. But I have to say, the set of postcards I created please me greatly. They hit my sweetspot of combining concept, humor, color, and writing. And several fellow students are in line to buy these once I get them reproduced.

I’m now researching the best way to reproduce the set and getting tips on selling my work from colleagues; so in a way, this could be one of the more transformative weeks at Penland for me, if it finally nudges me toward selling my work.

The instructor asked us ahead of time to think about a personal event to use as a springboard for our project. At first, I considered my recent move from an apartment I’d lived in for 10 years, with all the associated grief of purging and packing and changing addresses. But after spending nearly two months in the process, I’d like to STOP thinking about it!

Instead, I’m kicking around the idea of making a series of postcards, with fake stamps, from the country of Climacterica. In Climacterica, residents lose their short-term memory abilities, often meander around trying to remember what they got up to do, become easily distracted, and develop annoying but unexplained aches and pains. If you are not sure what I’m talking about, look up the word “climacteric.”

I’ll be posting images of my process and the results in September. No, I will not be posting live from N.C.; one big part of the whole experience is being off the grid (though now we all have to pay a modest fee for wifi access, which frankly, I resent. It’s bad enough to have to be assaulted with people on their cell phones and laptops in everday life. But now have to deal with this in a remote location dedicated to creativity?)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how one’s home environment can greatly affect one’s creative energy. Over the past two-plus years, I have become more and more disaffected by the place where I live, a oldish, sorta run-down garden-style apartment. Friends have noticed how my demeanor has taken a turn for the worse.

• A half-dozen yapping dogs whose owners walk them outside my bedroom window, on the ground floor, and wake me up early in the morning and late at night.
• The way that the front lawn outside my apartment has become the complex’s sports park, in spite of the large open field and playground equipment available at the back of the complex.
• The regular banging and yelling that accompanies the basketball games at the hoop in the parking lot outside my balcony.
• Walls so paper thin you can hear people vacuuming or using a rowing machine—in the adjacent building!