Saved by Tim’s Oriental Grocery and joss paper

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I’d been in a creative slump, probably because my studio is so disrupted by construction outside (and a busy mid-term schedule at school) – until I remembered that my friend Jessie Voigts of Wandering Educators told me to find an Asian market and check out their joss paper. Then another friend I saw at the herb Market today mentioned Tim’s Oriental Grocery just outside of the city and said they had lots of such paper, so off I went. Well! In the far back corner of the store I found an amazing selection of packets of all kinds of joss paper with lovely prints, foils, incense and candles – beautifully printed and reverently put together in bundles. I brought home an armful of these lovely materials for less than $15. It’s inspiration time again!

And then there was the food – just the packages made me swoon. Tim’s was a great discovery – just when you think you know everything about your city, someone helps you discover something new!
Here’s an online review of Tim’s from one visitor:
Probably the only place in San Antonio for Asian groceries.. well, the biggest and most well known anyways. I love going here. On weekends, they have bbq pork, roast duck, and roast pork hanging for you to select and buy. Never tried the duck, but the bbq pork and esp roast pork is DELICIOUS! So crunchy. They have frozen dumplings that I would literally die if I could not buy every week. And of course the spicy dumpling sauce to go with it! They have fresh veggies not available at HEB such as Chinese brocolli and Hollow vegetable. Lots of candies and sweets and chips from all over Asia. Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. Some days I just go in there and not buy anything. It’s just that fun.

Agreed.

Workshop on silk scarves and transformation

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I’m giving a workshop tomorrow on personal transformation for a group of teachers at a great school where I used to teach. One of the things we’re doing is dyeing silk scarves and talking about silkworms as a symbol for transformation, etc. I had to practice the technique myself today since it’s not really in my “art repertoire” – it was fun and I think it will work as a metaphor for the group activity. First, we’ll write some favorite quotations on the silk about transformation, then do the dyeing project. Here are pictures from my experimenting this afternoon. I like doing workshops and am looking forward to this one, especially since it’s hard to make a mistake with abstract silk painting!

Studio space temporarily hard hat zone

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Just as I got the studio reclaimed and organized, I had the bright idea to enhance it with a new artist-friendly half-bath off the front wall where the laundry room was. I’m sure the end results will be more than worth the current construction chaos, but at the moment, I’m sharing the space with plumbing devices, various incoming and outgoing appliances, and other assorted construction necessities. Target date for completion is around the first of November. I’m excited about the changes – stay tuned for progress report and occasional whiney comments when I don’t have a lot of room to work. The outside studio wall is in the top picture, and the toilet pump and I are sharing the inside space, below.

Autumn’s in the air . . . and in the studio

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The first cool front in South Texas is always welcome, and it slowly filtered in yesterday evening. This morning when I went out for an early walk, there were stars, clear skies, and a temperature of 61F instead of the summertime low 80’s. Fall is definitely in the air, and i realized that I had been subconsciously picking up on that in the collage covers I finished yesterday – the palette is definitely autumnal.

Artists have probably always been influenced by the changing seasons – it’s nice to share that communal creative instinct!
I’m posting more photos of the new work this morning on my Etsy gallery site.

Japanese Stab Binding – Video

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Simple but packed with informatiion – I need this kind of visual explanation! This is a You Tube vanillajoy tutorial, nicely done.
Part One: Cutting and Measuring

Part Two: Sewing the Book

Reminder to self to mark this technique a keeper

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Mulberry paper with glazing medium over a picture and metallic PearlEx pigment powder rubbed into glaze with fingers – nice depth and texture.

I have no idea where the pigment powder set with lots of little jars came from – probably from my the old art teacher days, but I never knew what to do with it before. This is nice! – and the acrylic glaze on the paper strengthens it and gives it transparency at the same time. I may cover up the picture!

Studio organizing

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I don’t think a studio, at least not my space, is ever really organized like an office, but it’s good to know where to find things – last night it rained (hooray) and so I spent the evening in, re-ordering stuff and getting ideas for future projects. Here are the results of the re-ordering, mostly for me to see what the place looks like when it’s not covered in paper and glue. I should put up photos of those times, too, because that’s what it loooks like normally.

Nique o’ the Day – Surface and texture redux

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I went back to some old techiques for surface decoration on paper yesterday – one technique is to apply metallic liquid acrylic onto paper through a squirt bottle, then spray it with gold paint while it is still wet and let it dry.

I also ran a sheet of joss paper through a crimper – we used to use real paint tube crimpers, but since this technique was discovered, manufacturers are making “corrugators” on purpose. The effect is nice, though. I’ll use these both on the new covers I’m starting tonight.

Help! My creativity is stuck in neutral . . .

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I’ve thought that too often, and this morning happened to run across a COPYBLOGGER post that helps unstick – Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?
The first one is something I am always nagging my students about when we talk about design:
“One of the worst aspects of formal education is the focus on the correct answer to a particular question or problem. While this approach helps us function in society, it hurts creative thinking because real-life issues are ambiguous. There’s often more than one “correct” answer, and the second one you come up with might be better than the first.”
I think I’m going to make the whole article required reading – for me, especially.

New clay beads – following the directions

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I am learning more than I wanted to (almost) about polymer clay. I thought you just rolled it out and baked it, which may be why, after my first attempt, my beads were pretty but not very strong. The clay needs to be “conditioned” first, which means rolling it through a flattening machine a bunch of times. I got one of those, and that part was pretty easy. It’s a lot easier than wedging “real” clay for the potter’s wheel. In the photo, it looks strangely like bacon, and it IS pretty thin. You can stick it back together, though, to make it thicker.

Then you need a dedicated oven to bake the stuff in. I got one of those, too. Actually, neither was expensive, especially with a Jo-Ann’s coupon! This was Sculpy day in the studio, and the beads came out well, if a little bizarre looking with the squashed faces on some. They seem a lot stronger. More work than I thought, but the results are promising.