WHY I LOVE BAKERSFIELD.

This greeted me on my doorstep, this fine December morning!

I love my Bakersfield friends. If Spruce Pine wears out, maybe I'll move back west. Liz and Laura visited me ever-so-briefly a while ago, on their way to DC. Besides avocados, in their back yard they have bees, chickens, and certainly other goodness. I'm so envious!

Update on Snails and Art.

So, there's finally work to look at in my Etsy shop, and I have my work on good ol' Papernstitch this month as well.

This coming Saturday I will be teaching a little bookbinding workshop in Bakersfield at Surface Gallery. I love my Bakersfield people, so I'm looking forward to running up there for a minute.

Here's a painting by my pal Vikki.

Crazy busy days.

My brother is visiting from Austin. We went to a childhood friend's wedding on Saturday night at the LA Cathedral. Like many good weddings, it ended with the centerpieces coming apart on the floor. I didn't drink much at all at the wedding, but it was a late night and a very very early morning.

Patchwork was Sunday in Santa Ana. And exhausting. Liz and I made some money...see?

Monday my brother and I spent some time running around town, and I started getting ready for this weekend.

Tuesday I taught. And critiqued.

Wednesday I made a turkey. My brother and I went to our Grandma and Aunt's for an early Thanksgiving. I cooked a really good dinner all by my little bony self, and it was thoroughly exhausting. I slept really well last night, but this morning came early again.

Today is teaching and more prep work for this weekend. What's this weekend?

I'm teaching another two-day bookbinding workshop at Surface Gallery in Bakersfield. Not ready, but looking forward to it.

I'm also getting work ready to take to Henry Road and a group show at Happy.

There are other things I am doing and thinking about and photographing. And the weather is getting pretty. And I'm looking forward to california wintertime.

Pictures from the Surface Workshop

Some pictures from my bookbinding adventures in Bakersfield:


Intense counting.


Intense overalls.


Intense drilling.


Happy ones.


The good ladies of Surface Gallery, whom I am very glad to know. Oh yeah, they took these photos.

Off to Seattle in the morning!

Busy and Travel-y.

photo courtesy of the lovely and talented liz sherwyn

July? What? What happened to June? Where am I?

Here are some stories:

Last Thursday I drove up to Visalia as a chaperone to the awesome young ladies of Bethel 43, Los Angeles, Job's Daughters International. What's this? What is Michelle talking about? Job's Daughters is a youth organization for girls age 10-20, affiliated with the Masonic Fraternity. I was involved when I was little tiny Michelle, (California Bethel 244 and Kentucky Bethel 9) and am now delighted to be an adult volunteer. It was an exhausting and HOT couple of days in Visalia. This was California's state-wide convention or "Grand Bethel." Imagine hundreds of girls in fancy dresses singing "don't stop believin'" a cappella. Noisy charm bracelets and lots of stuffed animals waving in the air. Yeah, its pretty much awesome.

So I left Visalia Saturday morning and headed south to Bakersfield, which I'm fairly sure was hotter than Visalia. I taught a two-day bookbinding workshop at Surface Gallery, where I had an exhibition in March. Besides the bookbinding, I spent time with some really great people. There are really really great people in Bakersfield, and I'll have words with any person who says otherwise. I slept on a couch "like a cloud", there was badminton and scrabble, good art, good tea, good honey, good wine, a good dog, birthday cake.

I love Bakersfield.

Now I'm home, and I'm in preparation mode for my next adventure, which is another bookbinding workshop I'm teaching...soon. This time in Washington at the Kirkland Art Center. I get to see my ol' WVU pal Myra Kaha, and this will be my first visit to Washington state. I'm excited.

So the next few days I'll be measuring, cutting, tearing, counting, counting again....

Happy July, everyone-everywhere, all over the place.

v e r y l o n g l i n e s.

I thought I'd share the statement I wrote to accompany my work at Surface Gallery. I know I'm a terrible tease, considering I haven't posted any images of the work for the show, but I'd love to hear what you think...



statement: very long lines

A few months ago I taught myself how to spin yarn with a drop-spindle. Besides becoming obsessed with the repetitive nature of the craft, I was also fascinated by the spatial paradox of the process. In my tiny little apartment, I could sit in a small space and create a very long fine line. Yards and yards and yards of creation, wound up into a tidy, compact space.

Although the work included in “very long lines” is not made of Michelle-spun yarn, this interest in the spatial complexities of creation has certainly informed this body of work. My current living/working space is very small, and this has affected my art in ways I am just starting to understand. For years most of my work has been petite, or made of many petite fragments. I made a conscious decision to work on larger pieces for this exhibition, making an uncomfortably small workspace even more uncomfortable. It is part of the work that is invisible to the viewer, but working through this discomfort is part of what the work is about.

In creating these airy, open compositions, I am satisfying my desire for a place (or state of mind) where there is room and time for intricate detail, room for growth, and even room for un-organized “stuff” to comfortably exist.

My work is an autobiographical exploration of the non-linear nature of memory. The repetitive nature of my processes, (printing, mark-making, sewing) facilitate a meditative mind wandering, thus each finished piece becomes an abstract record of my thoughts. The “very long lines” refer to time lines, conversations, landscapes, paths, and distances between friends. I often equate interactions or conversations with tangible threads: loops as repetitions, tangles as complications.

March Cold.

I have a nasty cold. This was taken a couple of days ago, when I was still in denial about being sick.

I've had so much going on, and I know that this sickness was partially caused by being run-down.

I went to Nashville the weekend before last, drove up to Murray, Kentucky to eat at Hihburger and see friends, and then back down to Nashville for a college friend's wedding. It was a really, really good time. I'd post pictures, but I have not scanned my polaroids yet.

I saw plenty of ice-storm aftermath:



It did snow a bit on my drive back to Nashville, but just enough to delight this city mouse.



It seems like mere moments after I got home to Los Angeles, my friend Jenni flew in to town, and stayed with me this past week. I was NOT on vacation, and actually had tons of work to do for my show in Bakersfield, but I managed to burn the candle at both ends, and we had a great time. I got to show Jenni some of my favorite California things, and we discovered some new cool stuff. And of course we laughed like crazy about stupid stuff the way we have since we met in eighth grade.



Jenni helped me haul my work up to Bakersfield this past weekend, and then we took the long way home...a very long way home. We took the time to trespass in orange groves, and we found a wonderful honey farm on highway 126.





And we went to the Griffith J. Griffith Observatory... Twice.



Most of these are Jenni's pictures, by the way. So we had a splendid time, in spite of the stress, and business, and work, and sickness. Now I'm just trying to pull myself together and feel better.

Say, my show at Surface Gallery in Bakersfield opens this coming Friday, from 5-9pm. The work is there, and perhaps even on the walls. I'm looking forward to seeing all the pieces together, because the way I've been working on them has been very one-at-a-time, due to my teeny-tiny apartment.



Do come. "A splendid time is guarenteed for all." I'll be wearing a stunning new frock from Anthropologie. Well, I wore it to Whitney's wedding, but its new-ish...I think all the smoky smell from the "after party" has aired out by now.

My cold medicine is starting to make me sleepy, so I should conclude this post.

Good evening.