Glacial Recession Timelapse part 7

The top is FINALLY and officially finished! Yipee! If you've missed all my other videos of this piece in progress, click on the label at the bottom of this post or search for "Glacial Recession". Here was my last post. And, here is the final timelapse video of the top of this piece (no I haven't even begun the back yet so it'll be a bit before the whole thing is ready to quilt):

Art Process Timelapse 7 - Glacial Recession Top Finished from Katrina Kouba on Vimeo.

Done! Or at least almost Done!

So I finally finished up the mountains in the front of Glacial Recession. This means I either start re-doing the sky or set it aside for a while to create the back - this is what I'm thinking of doing. Anyway, lets just get right to it. I think this is the most exciting of my timelapses so far:
Art Process Timelapse 6 from Katrina Kouba on Vimeo.

Glacial Recession Timelapse #5

Slowly, but surely, I'm making progress on "Glacial Recession". Last week I uploaded a new timelapse and this week, I'm getting closer and closer to having the top "done". Of course that means I need to get on the ball about getting the back designed and done...
Art Process Timelapse 5 from Katrina Kouba on Vimeo.
My original plan to have the whole piece done by the end of the year is a tight deadline that I'm not sure I'll make it. Regardless, it's enjoyable work - for the most part.

Re-designing Glacial Recession

This is why I seem to have so little to show from my studio work of late:

It's the re-design of the sky and foreground of my Glacial Recession piece. All those little blocks of color were drawn out and colors chosen from a limited palette. Was it a pain? Yes. Why did I do it? Because I think it's the best way to make this come out like my "vision." Each of those pieces has a number and letter(s) to distinguish it from it's friends, and each one will be cut out and pieced together. The whole quilt is designed so that all I have to do is sew in straight lines. Yay!

Ok so why did I redesign the sky? (If you haven't and you want to see the timelapsed progression of the sky as I've worked on it, go to my last post on this subject.) Well, it's currently a little too "Picasso" for me. It's supposed to be a little blocky- abstract- if you will. And it just feels weird to me. I am taking my friend Mindy's advice and waiting until the rest of it is together before I re-cut the sky, but I have a feeling that's what's going to happen.

Just tonight, I've finished cutting out pattern pieces for the foreground and started some more dyes specifically for that area. This past weekend I spent some time picking out more fabrics for the green mountain on the right and I'll get that timelapse posted when I get to it.

Is that Your Studio? This is my Studio!

Recently, textile artist Lisa Call encouraged artists to share their studio habits. I found her post, by way of Vicki Welsh, and the others she linked to very interesting. So lookout folks, I'm going to share my answers too. I borrowed the questions from Lisa, who apparently borrowed them from someone else.

A little caveat: When I'm working on something, and even sometimes when I'm not, my studio is a cluttered mess. And since I'm currently full-force working on Glacial Recession, please excuse the mess.

Is your studio at home or a separate space?
I totally can't afford to pay rent somewhere else. When we bought our first home three years ago we purposefully looked for a place that had the potential for uninhibited messiness! The windows and plain old concrete floor in our basement were the perfect solution. With used carpeting some friends were going to throw out, I was able to make it feel a little more homely without the worry that would typically proceed working over plastic sheeting.


How big is your studio?
Half of the basement. Roughly 500 sq ft.

Typically, how many hours a day do you work in the studio?
That varies. When I'm in the creative mode, I can spend about 3-4 hours an evening in there or 8-10 hours on a weekend day there. But there have sadly been times where the lights aren't even on all week.

How many days a week?
Because I work and have too many passions to focus on, my studio time ebbs and flows. I try to make it down there at least twice a week.

My print/dye room (printing table thanks to my dad)

Do you listen to music while you work?
I pretty much ALWAYS listen to something. It's not always music. When I do listen to music, I tend to replay the same music over and over again - to my husband's dismay - loudly so that I can hear it from across the room. Sometimes I'm sympathetic and put in my earbuds and use pandora on my phone. But sometimes I get carried away by the music and wind up dancing instead of doing my work. So, though I can't dance about architecture, I sure have tried to dance about textiles - usually to disastrous results (I've twisted ankles, made myself sick...).

Lately I've been checking out books on CD at the library. In the past two weeks, I finished Super Freakonomics (which was fascinating), Blink, and The Idea Hunter. I really enjoyed Ignore Everybody (the reader is really great and the ideas come to life through his verbalization). I also really like to listen to talks, either TED talks I've already heard or other inspiring talks (I keep a list of these inspirational things on this page). I tend to re-listen to things because I'll catch something new or remind myself of good practices.

Do you watch television while you work?
Well not when I'm listening to music or a CD of course...but yes, I do "watch" television while I work. I listen to tv shows or movies I have on DVD. I can't stand commercials and I don't get any stations in the basement, so I'm pretty much limited to DVDs. I will only put on things I've already seen. I used to think it was just white noise until I realized that I actually remember things I hear when I'm working.

Do you answer the telephone while you are in your studio?
Most of the time my phone is upstairs and I don't hear it, but if I have access and it rings, I'll answer.

How often do you take breaks?
I take breaks when I hit a wall or get so thirsty or hungry that I HAVE to stop.


Do you have any over-use issues with your hands or any other body parts? If so, how do you manage them or compensate?
Several years ago I had continual problems with my neck and shoulders. I had visited a massage therapist who was wonderful, but after another six months I was back to feeling numbness in my arm, so I saw a doctor. A month of physical therapy - 3x a week for 4 weeks - and re-learning how to carry my head, I have done so much better! Now, when I have trouble, I do my PT exercises and try to take a break. I also have a back massager that I'll use, and I make sure I take a good warm shower, relax, and try to take a break from sewing or working with fabric in the dyebaths.

The "wet room" (bathroom)

And the question that wasn't asked, but I want to hear answers to.... How do you motivate yourself to be in the studio when you would rather slack off?
Motivation is key. Last night I knew I had a book to finish listening to, and since I can't just listen to the book without doing anything with my hands, I wound up in the studio and stayed longer than the end of the book. 

In the summer, it's cooler in the basement so I will sometimes wander down there to enjoy the cool. In the coldest part of winter, the opposite is true. Mostly, I need to have a project that engages me. I have to WANT to be there. And I've found that coming up with a new technique to try can sometimes really get me going.


Mostly, I try to motivate myself by putting pretty things on the wall but that doesn't always help. Listening to something interesting helps me stay in the groove. It doesn't work for everyone, but I come from a home where music was always playing and that has stuck with me in my adult life.


For more behind the scenes in my studio, check out my progress on "Glacial Recession" via my time-lapse videos. I posted the most recent progress here.
        
 Your turn... What does your space look like and how does it work for you? 

Art in progress... Glacial Recession Part 4

So I've been busy creating lately which is totally awesome!! Since we got back from vacation (don't worry, I'll get back to my pictures and posts of the trip as I alternate between projects) I've gotten back into the studio and have been working full-steam ahead on my "Glacial Recession" piece. So, four months after I did the first three timelapses (see the others here, here and here), I've finally uploaded another one. The first two sections were shot in February and the last ones were done this past week.


I've finally achieved the look I want using salt and the dyes to create texture, and I am even re-designing the bottom part of the piece. Actually, I'm not really sure I can call it a re-design, considering I didn't really have a plan for it in the first place. This past winter, I forced myself to move ahead, working on the sky first, without worrying about the bottom. Sure enough, as my dear friend Mindy says, the piece spoke to me - it finally told me what it is supposed to look like. It's going to require more fabric and more dyes, so I know what I'll be doing.

Here are some of my first pieces of fabric that show the wonderful texture I've been getting with the salt:

 Procion MX Reactive dyes: Cerulean, Lemon Yellow, and Sky Blue

Procion MX Reactive Dyes: Lemon Yellow, Sky Blue, and Cobalt

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Timelapsed Progress of Glacial Recession - Week 3

Alas, another week gone by, fortunately my progress has continued to pick up. Once again, I've captured the dyeing and design process of Glacial Recession. This is the last week I'll be recording the work done in the dye/printing room. But, I intend to continue to record the process of layout and design.

Previous posts on this:
Glacial Recession - starting the project
Week 1 - Creative two-ways
Week 2 - Design and Dye

Design and Dye - Week 2 of timelapsing my art

I got a lot of encouragement from a couple of fantastic people who said they really enjoyed watching my timelapse last week. So, on Saturday, after I'd decided I wouldn't be doing any more timelapses in the studio and headed out to the garage to do some spray-bottle dying, when I came back downstairs and started hanging fabric on the wall, I just couldn't stop myself. Can we say narcissistic? Anyway, most of this week was spent in the printing room, where I experimented with rolling thickened dye on, printing it on wet fabric, and using salt to attempt to get the fabrics for this piece. It's been touch and go as my frustration at trying to get a blue gray surmounted to a new decision that the sky is just not going to have gray. I really loved the texture I got from rolling the dye on, but didn't want to just do that. And the printed texture of leaves and trees are quite lovely once the actual images turn into texture rather than the specific images they started out as. Finally, I managed to control the dye/salt mixture to start getting some really interesting results.



And, I am trying out a new way of rinsing the dyes, which I found on Vicki Welsh's blog.

Creative two-ways

Every year on vacation, I "have" to get one timelapse of a sunrise and one of a sunset. It started in Glacier, the first vacation I had a video camera. Now that I have a new DSLR camera and got a timer for Christmas, I figured I need to learn to work the thing. Here's my second attempt at a timelapse (the first attempt is so bad it's not worth keeping):


So by now you're probably wondering where the second way I've been creative comes in... Well, lately have been frustrated by my big quilt that I began finally really working on last fall (Glacial Recession), but that hasn't kept me out of the studio this week. With all my curiosity about making good timelapses,  wouldn't you know it, I came across a video of a timelapse of a painter in her studio. One thing led to another, and voila, I couldn't stop myself. Once I had the timer going, I had to do SOMETHING. So here you have it, a timelapse of me working in my studio not quite every day, but often enough...


Y'know, I really should put some music under this for interest....oh well, next time.

Glacial Recession: the start of a project

After the talk by Mindy and an extended discussion over lunch - I think she's got such brilliant ideas I couldn't help but be a sponge, soaking up all her beautiful thoughts and words - I knew that it's time to get back to my personal projects. Fortunately, there's a piece that I have been wanting to start for some time now. I first wrote about it on LiveJournal nearly two years ago. And though I've done a small "sample", I never started the big piece. Well, that ended this weekend. I thought I'd share my original thoughts...

Written Nov 12, 2009:

That's the name I just came up with for my previously titled "Alaska piece". Yeah, I'm terrible with names, but for some reason, "Glacial Recession" just came to me. I then started picking apart why that would work as a title and here are my thoughts:

This piece is the beginning of a series of work about the natural environment and how we humans are impacting our world/planet. I decided to start with a landscape from Alaska because I began reading a book called Field Notes on a Catastrophe, where the journalist author began by talking about permafrost and glaciers. Also, I decided to start here because my 4 day backpacking excursion in Alaska left such a resounding impact that I've failed to use it as inspiration for anything yet because nothing can ever measure up to the breathtaking beauty and the life or death situations in which we found ourselves. I am incredibly blessed that I have had the opportunity to walk on a glacier, and drink the freshest, cleanest, naturally cold water the earth can provide, straight off the glacier as it flows into the teal-blue crevasses. I would presume not many people can say they've been there, done that.

My first view of a glacier was at Glacier National Park in Montana, so far, my favorite of the national parks. But truly for where we were able to go during our stay at Glacier did not bring us near to any glacier, rather we saw the remains of the glacial recession. And what spectacular monsters those glaciers must have been. It's almost sad that I am no longer shocked to learn that scientists are proclaiming an even shorter life span for these sheets of ice, and the belief that a park named for the glaciers will no longer be home to glaciers in a number of years - probably in my lifetime. So these two trips, with their amazing vistas that can't even be remotely captured by camera, have inspired the beginning of a series of work about the environment.

Another thing that interests me about this title is that it includes the word "recession", one that we have heard so often in the past year, that it has become part of daily speak. Everyone seems to be afraid of this word. My response is that it could be a good thing. Why? Technology has advanced far beyond our ability to use and implement our own advancements. I mean, my goodness, you buy a computer brand new and it's already out of date, what kind of sense does it make then to buy a computer? So, as a society we may be advancing our technological achievements, but we don't seem to be implementing them very well. Sounds to me like a perfect time for society to slow down and develop new jobs that do implement the technology that will help save us from destroying our planet. For example, we have the ability to stop pollution and slow global warming by using technology, but the cost seems too high. I ask, but what is the cost of destroying the world in which we live? So, I hope that our decision-makers, law-makers, and the wealthiest nation in the world can implement new energy-saving and environment-saving technologies so that we can also slow the recession of the one thing we cannot re-create: our natural, beautiful world.

Finally, it's intended to be a thought-provoking, inspiring work that helps the viewer to stop and look inward into oneself and question. We should question what we do that makes an impact. We should question why we choose not to step out and observe the beautiful world we were blessed with. And I think we should question our own existence. How are we part of the cycle of life and not just the damaging spoke in the wheel that ruins everything it comes into contact with?