What's happening in the Studio?

So what have I been up to in the first half of 2017? For starters I took some time off to relax, be with family, and enjoy the sunshine in Florida. I've realized that the sun energizes me and so my time in Florida is alway a wonderful time to be inspired.

To help that process I enrolled in an on-line class called "Creative Strength Training" led by Jane Dunnewold and her daughter, Zenna. This course is jam packed full of ideas, processes, fun, and serious contemplation. I am enjoying it to the "nth" degree! Since I've been going through serious re-evaluation of where my work is going, this is exactly what I need. Questions like, do I want to continue doing shows, do I want to continue making production items to sell, what will give me satisfaction in the work I do, how will I continue creating with physical ailments increasing, and most of all am I having fun and enjoying what I do, have been an on-going conversation with myself for a couple of years.

 So as that process continues, I am discovering some things.

1. My work needs to change. I work at a slower pace and am excited about creating new work that challenges me.

2. Learning and playing with new techniques is energizing.

3. Production work is not satisfying any more. It was a good run but it is time to move on.

4. I need to connect with artists of all mediums to explore and discuss new possibilities. The CST class has a wonderful Facebook Group with which to share insights, discoveries, and new learnings.

As I explore and move through this process I'd like to share some new work I'm developing. I've been working with this technique for about a year and I am enjoying the fact that it is an off loom technique. That has given my body some time to heal from all the years of weaving on a loom to produce for sales. It also gives me a sense of excitement to see how each piece turns out.

detail of 4" scarves

I started working with the technique by making silk scarves, both infinity and loose hanging. I just recently worked on a narrow version. I am selling these but they are limited in production. Each one, since the dye patterns are not duplicated, is truly one of a kind. As I explore I try to create new ways of weaving them.

4'' scarves

5" scarves

My CST on-line course is definitely an influence as I work on who I am as an artist and what I am meant to do and be. I have new ideas running around my head. Hopefully the ideas will emerge into something new, exciting, and wonderful. It's a challenge but, oh, am I having fun! Stay tuned!

Where in the World is Judy Connor Jones?

If you have been following my Facebook business page, www.facebook.com/JCJonesFiberArt, you know that sometimes I post a little game called "Where in the World" is Judy Connor Jones. I recently was on a 3 week trip to Scandinavia and challenged readers to figure out where I was. Here are the answers. See if you figured them out......................

August 2
Modern building across the street from Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark. The old columns by the gate to Tivoli are mimicked in the design of the new building. This city is rich with design inspiration.

 

August 3
Illum Exclusive Department Store, Copenhagen, Denmark. Well planned design happens here too!

August 4

Lunch at the cafe at the Design Museum Danmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. Even the food is presented with design in mind.   poached egg on avocado, lettuce and brown bread

August 6

Hanging lamps at the Hilton Strand Hotel in Helsinki, Finland. What a grand statement these made!

August 7

City walk around Helsinki, Finland. Birch trees are everywhere!

August 9

"Course of Time" Sculpture, Oulu City Hall, Oulu, Finland. These sculptures are about 18" high and represent every type of person who has lived in Oulu from King Charles IX to pastor, wife, merchant, farmer, craftsman, beggar, society lady, shopkeeper, female doctor, student, and many more to Martti, Child of the Future. There are 32 figures in all. 

August 10

Birches in the small parks in the city of Oulu, Finland. I LOVE the birches!

 







August 12
Train station to the airport in Helsinki, Finland. Textiles painted on the walls depict lace, satin, and  pattern designs.

August 13

Wall print of a Swedish Weaving Technique called Dukagang in the Sheraton Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden. I tried to find a shop where they might sell some textiles with this handwoven technique but was unsuccessful. Very little hand weaving to be found. Sad since this is part of Sweden's rich heritage. 

August 14

Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. This was fascinating and a little dizzying! But oh so interesting!!! Dots everywhere! 

August 15

Back in my studio in Plymouth, MA after having a wonderful time traveling around Scandinavia. So much more I didn't show in my brief posts Around the World. I'll leave those for another blog post.

Hope you enjoyed playing "Where in the World" is Judy Connor Jones. Be on the look out.  You never know where she will turn up! Make sure you Like 👍🏼my Facebook business page, www.facebook.com/JCJonesFiberArt so you won't miss a minute of the next adventure.

Mad River Valley Craft Fair

It's been over a year since I've done a craft fair.  I've had to deal with repetitive motion pain issues for the last two years.  I finally had to cut back on my work and then learn how to redirect the way I work and how I sell.  After physical therapy, a chiropractor, exercises, and being kind to my body I am able to return to the Mad River Valley Craft Fair this weekend.

This is one of my favorite places to go for a show.  The valley is always beautiful, no matter what the weather. Although I'm hoping for gorgeous days! The show is a fund raiser for the Valley Theater Players of Waitsfield.  It has a down home kind of feel, a throw back to the early days of craft shows. The quality of work is very good with many accomplished artists.

So if you are traveling in VT this weekend, stop by and visit the show.  I know you'll have a good time.  Visit me at booth T. See what new items I have, spice up your wardrobe for fall and winter, and get an early start on holiday shopping.  I promise you won't be disappointed.

See you at the Fair! I'll be outside enjoying the VT air!

Weaving with New Materials

In the midst of this crazy time of year for me with orders to fill and work to ship off to galleries and art centers, it's always good to stop and take a break and breathe!  Breathing can be a day off, a day away, a day to read, or a day to learn something new and challenging.  I did just that this past Saturday.  I had the chance to learn something new, to work with materials I've never work with before, and to become a student again.  It was great to feel that excitement as I created something totally different than what I normally do in the studio. And I have to say I was proud of what I had accomplished by the end of the class. So what was it that drew me away from thinking about the ton of work I had to do to get work off to places "hither and yon"! It was weaving jewelry with wire and metal!  The feel of the material was different than working with fiber but the techniques were familiar.  We were doing simple plain weave and plying of the wire to create a piece of woven jewelry.

The class was taught by a wonderful artist, Anastasia Azure, a weaver who works with unusual materials - fish line being one of them.  Her work is fabulous and blows me away. You have to check out her website at www.anastaciaazure.com.

The class was held at The Mad Dog Artists Studios in Pawtucket, RI.  How's that name to get you in the mood for a creative experience!  As you might guess it is an old factory building which has been renovated into studio space where many artists come together to work. As one who works alone in my studio I am always a little envious of the inspiration one gets when being in the company on a regular basis of other artists.  So I live vicariously through one time experiences such as I had on Saturday. And it was great.

Here are a few pictures of what I learned to do.............................

Beginnings

Beginning the weaving. Aluminum base with colored plied wire.

Framed and finished pendant 

Close up

Can't wait to wear my new necklace!

What new experiences, learnings, or challenges have you had lately to get the creative juices flowing?  I welcome sharing in the comment section.  I'd love to hear what you are up to!

A Different Vision

For the last 8 months I've had the pleasure of working on an exhibit called "A Different Vision".  It is sponsored by the Plymouth Art Guild in Plymouth, MA, www.plymouthguild.org. The guild sponsored this exhibit in 2010 and then decided to do it again in 2013. A Different Vision is a tactile, innovative, and exciting art exhibit where the blind and the visually impaired as well as the sighted can enjoy the art.  Everything is touchable. Really, it's all touchable!  No please do not touch the art signs here, only Please Touch!

So my job was to help publicize this event by starting A Different Vision Face Book page.  You can find it at www.facebook.com/ADifferentVision.  It's been fun to connect with a whole new group of people on the page.  As administrator I am trying to get the word out to people who might not have heard of this event, artists and folks who would enjoy the show.  My goal is to have 100 Likes on the page by the opening which is May 11 at 7pm.  So stop by the page and give us a "Thumbs Up".

As an artist I was challenged by this exhibit to make something in my medium.  My normal wearables, while they feel very soft to the touch, were not going to be the thing that got them accepted into the show.  So I looked at the yarn on my shelves, put my weaver's thinking cap on, and decided to do something totally different than what I normally do. I knew I was going to create a scarf but it had to have a lot of texture and something special about it that a visually impaired person could see with their hands.

Yarns used to sample

I remembered taking a workshop one year at Convergence (Handweavers' Guild of America's biennial conference) on Shibori.  Normally Shibori is used as a resist dying technique.  But this workshop used it as a resist technique for texturizing cloth!  (find out more about Shibori at http://shibori.org) So when I was thinking about ways to texturize my woven piece for the exhibit, I thought about creating bubbles in handwoven wool cloth by using the Shibori technique. Wool shrinks and fulls (felts) so the resist would cause the bubbles to form. Then my mind took it one step further.  What if I made the bubbles spell out the colors of the scarf in Braille!  Oh sometimes the creative mind gets us into all kinds of trouble!  After trying several methods (round marbles, flat marbles, thread) for creating the bubbles, I settled on a method which used very tight elasticized bands. This proved to be the best tool to use. 

After much sampling (several 1 yard samplers) I realized that making the bubbles spell out the Braille words was just not going to work effectively in a scarf.  It was hard to scrunch up the fabric in the correct line that it needed to be in order to be read. Each time I applied the band to one area it threw the cloth out of line and I couldn't see if the next bubble was going to be in the right place. So scratch that!  Back to the drawing board.  I thought I had a good idea using the Braille but how was I going to make it happen?

Ah Ha! BEADS! Oh those wonderful glorious beads that come in all sorts of colors! That would do it.  So I wove beads into the scarf at the beginning and end to spell out the main color of the scarf.  It worked beautifully.  I was able to line the beads up in the correct place for each letter. One scarf was Blue and the other was Purple.  I decided to put the Shibori bubbles throughout the scarf which gave it a funky very textural feel.

Drawing up a pattern guide for placement of the beads. This spells purple.

Weaving the beads in place.

I added beads to the fringe and twisted the ends together to form a loop scarf.

I have to say creating these scarves took me out of my "box" and comfort zone but I love the chunky, funky look of these scarves!  

"Bubble Wrap" - blue

If you live near Plymouth, make sure you stop by the Plymouth Center for the Arts and visit the show.  Let me know what you think of my "Bubble Wrap" Scarves. 

"Bubble Wrap" - purple

Butterflies Emerge! Part One

Butterflies have always been a lovely symbol for me.  The meaning and symbolism of these fascinating, beautiful creatures goes deep. They go through so many stages; birth, journeys as a caterpillar, quest for food, struggles for survival, risk, darkness, quiet, and then metamorphosis into something new.  Along the way instinct takes over but also a trust in the unknown that there is more to come.  Wow! How amazing!

Photo by Henry Holcomb

I feel like my artistic journey has gone through similar stages.  There is the larger picture of discovering a path that has lead to weaving and all things textile along with a discovery that I do have an artistic look at work and life.  It was always there.  As with many things in life, it just took a long time to realize.  It didn't happen without the help of others who saw it in me first.  I will always be grateful for their encouragement and support. But despite this larger recognition of discovery, there is always the dying and emerging of the parts within.  The caterpillar/butterfly repeats this pattern and survival of the generations goes on.  This dying/emerging thing also happens for me in my work and business enabling the work to go on.  Always present is looking toward doing a new thing - emergence. To emerge, something must change.  It can not stay the same. No looking back!

Many times if you look close you will find butterflies on or in my work.
 Butterfly Jacket by Judy Connor Jones

I mentioned in earlier posts that 2012 was a year of possibilities; exploring and developing new work,   a time of learning how to use social media, developing new marketing strategies, working on a new website, and finding new ways to sell my work. I spent most of the year concentrating on these possibilities while searching for answers that would work.

I'm happy to say the Butterfly is beginning to emerge in 2013 with many of these goals in progress or met.  As part of developing new marketing strategies my new and improved website is up and running.  It took 10 months from the time the contract with the web designer was signed to the completion.  The results have been fantastic. Thank you to Steve Culp of Culp Design, www.CulpDesign.com. It was a lot of hard work, back and forth, and took a lot of time to get all the pictures and content together and written. Feedback from family and friends was crucial in knowing how others perceived it, what content they would look for, ease of use, and the overall impression they got when they went to the site.  If you haven't been to it recently, please take a look at www.JudyConnorJones.com.  Let me know what you think.  What do you like about it?

Studio

As part of the new marketing strategies, you can now sign up for my e-newsletter by going to the website and clicking on the cute little "Mail Chimp" monkey icon on the Home page or by going to the Contact page.  This will take you to the sign up sheet. By signing up for the e-newsletter you will receive up to date information on what's new in the studio, occasional special offers,  show updates, and when and where you can purchase my work.  I promise not to bombard your inbox with newsletters.  You might receive 4 - 6 per year. You will always have the option to unsubscribe, although I hope you will want to stay connected to the news around and about the studio. If you have topics about my work that you would like me to discuss in the newsletter, e-mail me at info@judyconnorjones.com and let me know.  I will try to answer questions in each newsletter.

I look forward to this new adventure in my relationship with you, my supporters and followers. Let's stay connected. I always appreciate having a dialog with you. Thank you for being there as we journey together.  Here's hoping you begin to discover the Butterflies in your life!  :)

Reflection, New Beginnings, and Possibilities

Close up of Triangular Shawl by Judy Connor Jones
Photographer - Mike Ritter, Ritterbin Photography

This year has been a year of reflection and new beginnings for me and my business.  It has been a year of growth and new directions.  The funny thing is, many times this happens as a result of struggle and disappointment.  Believe me, 2011 brought plenty of that!  But if it hadn't happened I would still be doing the "same old thing" and wondering why the business was struggling.  Taking this year, 2012, to rethink how I do things has been a blessing.  It hasn't all been easy as I tried new markets and shows  not knowing if they would be successful or not.  Financially I worried whether I would make enough to handle all the ongoing business expenses.  The economy didn't help as my costs rose and my buyers had their own financial concerns to worry about.

A friend reminded me that I have "Dwell in Possibilities" stenciled across my studio steps.  (Sometimes we need to be reminded of our own mantras!) So I returned to that mantra and realized, once again, that there are loads of possibilities out there.  I just have to grab on!

So 2012 has been a year of grabbing onto possibilities. Sometimes they work and other times they don't and may even fail miserably.  But think about it.  A failed possibility can be turned into a learning experience which then leads to another possibility. Hope abounds! I am the eternal optimist!

As a result of  my reflecting, rethinking, taking risks, and looking for the possibilities 2012 has turned out pretty good.  I took the financial risk to develop my website to be more than a "splash page".  I had new photography done. I designed new woven items.  I worked on my social media presence. And I approached a friend to produce some videos which I will be able to use on my website.  I began to think about other ways to sell my work and as a result I have representation in four galleries in different parts of the country.  As an artist I am learning how to partner with these galleries and new relationships are forming.  You can visit the websites of these galleries by going to my website, www.JudyConnorJones.com, and clicking on the  Shows and Events page. If you live in or visit any of those places please support these small businesses. They work very hard to display and sell artist's work. Many of them have Facebook pages so you can Like them and get news feeds about what's happen in their gallery.

Artist Exposure Gallery in Plymouth, MA

Next week is Thanksgiving and I have much to be thankful for.  As I look to 2013, I am full of possibilities for new designs and am thankful for the time I have had to rejuvenate my creative soul.  Most of all I am thankful that "Possibilities" always exist.  I ask for the wisdom to recognize them!

Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and the gift of seeing the "Possibilities" around you.