Gathering Winooski 7/8/12

I spent a pleasant week a-gathering and creating. The weather has been phenomenal this summer with each warm and sunny day followed by another equally warm and sunny day. I finally got to pounding the petunias, which is always a fun time. I love the absurdity of it, as well as the physical involvement with the tools. I also love making art outside in the weather. I did one arrangement of sorts by placing the flowers down one at a time. I plan to do more of this and perhaps incorporate the flower prints into another textile work, and try some on paper as well. It was swell of the Winooski folks to give me a whole plant so I can continue my explorations.

I got a Vermont road Atlas in a free box by the curb after yard sales were done last week (collage parts), a couple of trout neckties from the thrift shop(textile collage parts), and this weekend I found a $1 vintage aluminum sprinkler (the kind that goes from side to side) at a garage sale.  This is the type my sister and I used as teens when we would slather ourselves with baby oil, set up our reclining lawn chairs, and lie down for a nice sprinkle and sun bath.

On my drive home, as is often the case (the movement of the car stimulates my little grey cells) two ideas for the sprinkler popped into my head. I can see a large piece of watercolor paper with powdered tempera paint or concentrated watercolor paints applied randomly, then this paper would be laid out on the ground so that the sprinkler would sprinkle it off and on. The other idea is a bit more involved. I would lay a sheet of plastic down, apply some kind of paint to the surface of the plastic, then put on my bathing suit and run through the sprinkler and into the wet paint making footprints and other marks, Then I could lay large paper down on top of the wet paint-y marks and pull some prints.  It sounds like a good messy time. 

I have been working on a series of small yo-yo quilt style wall pieces, exploring the three patterned blue shirts gathered the week prior from the Winooski thrift shop – The Classy Closet. I have made three pieces. Each one uses two of the three shirt fabrics in alternating circles, with three across and three rows down, in order to explore different pattern combinations.  I plan to do some more work with these shirts, possibly more yo yo style, and possibly something entirely different.

Last weekend a plethora of plastic dinosaurs presented themselves. I pondered them for a day or two.  At last I pictured them wearing some kind of hand-made apparel, but what? I decided on teeny, tiny crocheted scarves. I was going to make them all black, but in communing with the dinos further, they informed me that they wished to be more stylish, and so I have chosen vibrant colors to match their individual personalities. Perhaps if they had been properly dressed they would have been better prepared to survive the drastic climate change that did them in. This reminds me of one of my favorite riddles – from my dinosaur joke book – yup – a whole book of jokes about dinosaurs from my elementary school teaching days.

Why did the Stegosaurus wear spikes to the party? Because she was a sharp dresser.

The photos of the dashingly dressed dinos was taken by Joy Kipp when she visited the display on First Friday. Thanks Joy!