Farewell to 2015, a difficult year

The first week of January 2015, I had a spinal fusion surgery.  Then, within a week,  I got the first bout of what turned out to be 8 months of sinus problems & infections.  So basically, 2015 was a challenge.  I've worked out adaptations for my new physical limitations in most of everyday life but failed almost totally to get that transferred into my studio practices.  With one big exception:  I made some chicken collages in October that I am quite pleased about.  And while I think they are lovely chickens, what pleased me most was working out a process that was not a challenge physically and was a good workflow for me as an artist.  

photo by Karen Dedrickson

In addition to developing a good workflow, I got to work with a metal substrate which was new.  Artists love doing new stuff, worse than programmers even, so new stuff is good.  And doing these 2 chickens added several new things to my studio goals list.

photo by Karen Dedrickson

 

First was creating my own fabrics.  While I enjoy selecting the fabrics from my stash, I'm heading more towards wanting my own textures on top of the colors that predominate in the fabric.  Working with metal, and continuing to use the variegated satin stitch also went on the list.

This list got further refinement during the sinus infection that followed finishing the chickens.  I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about what I need to do next.  And whether I could physically do what I want to do.  And if not, what do I do instead?

All of that has caused me to give myself a challenge to blog daily about Art Experiments.  And in order to blog, I must do.  So, January will be my experimenting month.   I'll talk more tomorrow about how I plan to structure this experimentation so please, follow along, and see where I end up!