Residency at Women's Studio Workshop

Hello readers! Somehow my time for blogging has managed to evaporate recently, but if you follow me on instagram you've been treated to some tidbits from my recent residency at Women's Studio Workshop. Here's a little summary of my month in Rosendale. 

At Women's Studio Workshop, I worked on a project that merges my love of sewing and patterns with my work as an artist. It isn't always the case that my work as an artist and my the other aspects of my life intersect... but is very fulfilling when they do. 

I decided to use draping to create patterns for natural forms, then use these patterns as an inspiration for imagery for my prints. My original inspiration was an acorn squash that I grew in our garden. When the three dimensional form was translated into the two dimensional pattern, the ovoid shapes formed in interesting play between repetition and organic variation. 

My residency was in the silkscreen studio. For nearly a decade, my art work has been largely studio photography. Working in silkscreen allowed me to work with color much more directly than I usually do in the photography studio. Photographers do have to make color choices, but they are usually a matter of choosing from available colors in the environment rather than inventing entirely new colors from the addition of minute quantities of pigment. Early in my residency, I played a lot with color variations.

The screen that I'm working on may not look that large, but it is the second largest screen in the studio. (I'm pulling down the length of it, so it is foreshortened!). When I began to choose other forms to work with, I made sure they were smaller, rather than larger. While I did get pretty good at managing these large screens, they were unweildy and it was difficult to get a consistent result. 

Garlic is such an amazing plant, in so many ways. Perhaps it should not have surprised me that it made for a fascinating pattern. 

Women's Studio Workshop was a wonderful place to be for so many reasons. My fellow residents were one of them. Everyone was making such inspiring work, and it was great to see the magic happening as we wandered through the each other's studios. From left to right: Katie (Katie Groove Studios), Miki (mikipalchik.com), and Philly (Phyllida Bluemel). 

There were so many inspiring people there, really. We had daily pot-luck lunches, and I had so many great conversations. Studio manager Chris and interns Molly and Sarah were just so incredibly patient and helpful, and always hard at work somewhere in the studios. Somehow the interns have also found the time to make incredible works of art: Molly Berkson and Sarah Rose Lejeune.

My residency at WSW was the Parent Residency. Traditionally, artist residencies aren't very family friendly since they are built on the idea of giving artists time away from their usual lives to work on their art. While this is a great thing for artists in general, it isn't possible when you're also mom to a little person who relies on you! Lilly stayed home with dad so that she wouldn't miss preschool, but Leo (18 months) was able to come with me. 

Everyone was super-kind and supportive of Leo. Here he is in the ceramics studio where Miki is showing him the wonders of clay-stamping.

During my residency, I had an evolving exhibition in the gallery space, and in my next post I'll show you some of the works I exhibited.