Home at last

We are back in Michigan, and happy to be home. Even if there is still two feet of snow on the ground and it is 13 degress outside right now at two in the afternoon.

The drive across the country was as usual wonderful. The southern central states were awash in spring bloom, so I know spring will come sooner than later.

I am getting ready for the SAQA / Surface Design spring conference. Desi Vaughn and I will leave on Wednesday morning for the 850 mile trip to PA. I am looking forward to emersing my self in art. We return to MI on Tues and Thursday we leave for the IQA spring festival in Chicago. Desi is giving a lecture on Saturday and I am doing a gallery talk on Fridsay. It will be great fun to see everyone there.

This winter has been somewhat productive for me...more in the area of using my sketch book.
The landscape in AZ is so different from what I am used to, that I tried hard to record some of my impressions. This happened when another artist asked me why my work did not reflect the time I spend there. My answer was ????? I rather think it has to do with the fact that I am slow to internalize my vision...so I started to look especially at the textures that are so amazing in that part of the country. I suspect that some of this will creep into my work shortly.

The other thing I have been playing with is some photos. This an original of a cactus

the needles are an interesting design element. I wanted to look at

negative space. So I used photoshop to do some initial exploring.

So I did a cutout after removing the color. I think this has some design possibilities. I will be trying to take a section of this and traslate it into fabric