Mosaic Map Teapot

For Mobilia Gallery's June teapot exhibit, I thought I'd try something a little more colorful, and applied my mosaic map techniques to a 3D paper sculpture. It reminds me a little of a turtle's shell with the geometric pattern and the colors. I had wanted to try a watery map teapot but couldn't think of a good solution to the issue of uniformity over the parts of the shape, so I think this was a good compromise. Maybe I'll figure that out for the next show!

Tiny Painting Sketches

I spent some time the other day just doodling with paint, trying to come up with new ways to approach the kind of aesthetic I like. These were all done on tiny cards, about 2"x3". 

Rainy Garden

The first flowers are starting to come out in my garden, so I went out this morning to take some pictures, even though everything is covered in the rain we've been having on and off these days. Most of these are unexpected; the forget-me-not came out of nowhere, and the pinks seem to have seeded themselves, since the original plant is far away. After two successive gardens on the same porch, there are a lot of surprises in the pots!

Cambridge Open Studios

Yesterday we took advantage of the beautiful weather and biked all around Cambridge for the north/west portion of their Open Studios. We saw a variety of media, with a surprising lean towards watercolor and collage -- I guess we just avoided most of the traditional painting, in favor of more unusual works. Some of my favorites were:

- Chihiro Makio at Almost Perfect Glass Studio, who I knew from Mobilia Gallery. I hadn't seen her multicolored folded metal pieces, and I love them -- they're really delicate, and floral without being flowery. Some of her designs remind me of how I assembled my crocheted flower necklace.

- Hannah Goodwin, who does delicate, scratched drawings on rice paper with bamboo pens. I'm impressed with the control she was able to achieve; I wouldn't be able to stand it! Her drawings mostly evoked images of nests, but the titles hinted that they were inspired by more conceptual ideas.

- Janet Hobbs, who makes watercolor paintings in a variety of styles. I was particularly drawn to a few that looked like scrolls, with a balance of organic wet-on-wet blooms and thin, controlled twiggy sketches. I also liked the contrast of her "Industrial Chroma" series, which is a little more graphic.

BOS-LAX Scenery

It's always surprising to look out the window of a plane and see elements of the kind of geometry I put into my map drawings, even in a landscape I've never visited or even seen before. There was a lot of variety between the coasts, and I never got tired of looking out the window.

Ceramic Vase with Houses

One of my favorite things about Somerville Open Studios last weekend was connecting with artists whose work I really respect, and also meeting new ones! I just met Arielle from Small Spaces Ceramics and I'm already a huge fan. She makes beautiful, mysterious bowls that incorporate mini houses (!) and "bubbles" of clay that look like large-scale granulation, an effect I've always been drawn to in metalsmithing. We arranged a trade, and I gave her a hairclip and a drawing in exchange for the most wonderful vase. The vase has three openings, which is perfect for my floral needs -- I usually display flowers from my porch garden, but only in the middle of the summer would I ever have enough flowers to fill a traditional vase. The flowers end up being part of the miniature scene in the vase, which is something I just love. The two houses on the vase's rim seem to have grown from the granulation around them. Unfortunately photos can't capture the most compelling part of the vase, which is that it was so touchable that I couldn't put it down once I chose it!

I also just love how it allows me to display simple weeds in a way that shows them off. Look how cute these shepherd's purse flowers are:

Dream

I've been having really vivid dreams lately, with bright colors and indelible imagery. The most unusual one included a scene where I looked up and saw these "clouds" made of writhing, tangled subway trains, with arms coming out of the windows so they looked like millipedes. My main response to this in the dream was just to think "Looks like it's going to rain". I haven't forgotten the image even several days later, so I thought I'd try to sketch it.

My tiniest fan!

At the opening reception for the Somerville Museum exhibit on Friday night, we saw this little kid analyzing my map drawing with his dad. Apparently they were charting the course they would take through this particular imaginary place. The exhibit has work by 150 different local artists participating in Somerville Open Studios, and it's on display through May 18th.

Watery Maps

I've been making more maps lately with wide stretches of watercolor and interconnected islands. I like the watery, organic texture of the watercolor and then the precise road lines. I started with small card-size drawings:

9"x12":

and a huge 18"x24" drawing that was in the City Hall show last month:

Recently a lot of people have been sending me links for the City Tracking project which uses Open Street Map data in artistic/informative ways. The Watercolor style is particularly similar to what I've been making lately, so I thought I'd post it below. I recommend checking out the project, it's very cool!

Inside-Out Gallery in Davis Square

The windows by the Davis Square CVS always show an art exhibition, and this month they're featuring artists participating in Somerville Open Studios. I have a couple map drawings in the display, so if you're around Davis I would recommend taking a look!