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Kevan Lunney from the Fiber Revolution group came up with a concept a few years back called “art concentrated” (or AC) which basically means a small piece of art that is framed and then sold at Fiber Revolution group shows.  I’ve been fortunate in that the pieces I’ve made in the past have sold, and it’s time to make some new ones.

While I was making collages for the One fundraiser, I played with some additional ideas for possible future work.  I wondered if one collage in particular would work for an AC.  I scanned it, reduced its size from 5×7 to the 4×6 AC size, and printed it on cotton fabric.

Collaged bird on left, stitched bird on right.

A close up of the collage.

A close up of the stitched piece.

I’m happy with how the print came out and the final result.  I used a bit of black acrylic paint to seal the edges rather than trying to do a teeny facing or binding.  I’ve tried both in the past, and each resulted in edges I didn’t like – wavy or whatever.  Using acrylic paint on the edge keeps everything flat and true to size.

I’m going to try this with some other collages I’ve made.

Here are two other ACs that I made.  The one on the left is a digital design printed on fabric.  The one on the left is from a piece of fabric that I painted and digitally printed a month or so ago (it’s somewhere lower on the blog posts).  I like how the paint is sort of crumbling off in places.  I’d like to incorporate more of that type of paint crumbing off in larger work.

I keep hoping that the smaller pieces will kick my butt into gear to make some larger work, as I am hungry to do some new large work.  Instead, I joined a gym.  What does a gym have to do with creating new art work, you wonder?  Nothing.  But every once in the while that kind of thing happens — I’ll want to do one thing and will then end up doing something totally unrelated.  For example, I’ll need to work on my taxes and suddenly I’ll decide it’s time to wash the kitchen floor.  So, the gym.  I decided that since I work from home, and work often gets stressful, that I would leave my home and work out.  It’s not that there isn’t workout equipment here, because one side of the basement is loaded with Rich’s stuff.  But it’s not the same. I decided that physically leaving the house and working out would be a good way to let off steam.  I imagined I’d come back refreshed and invigorated and raring to go.

Originally it was a no-brainer.  I was going to Gold’s because it’s about a mile and a breath away.  If I make the traffic light, it’s probably two minutes from my home.  In the summer I could walk there.  I imagined I could go there, work out for 45 minutes, and be home — all in less than an hour.  However, Rich pointed out that there is a very large new gym about 5 miles away,  a straight ride on a 55 mph zone road.  He said, “Let’s go check it out.”  We did.  He loved the place.  “It’s double the size, better equipment, more equipment, it’s brighter, it’s cleaner, open floor plan, two floors.”  Then we were told that any member is able to give a free guest pass to anyone during the time the member is working out.  Rich’s face brightened.  “So I can go with her anytime for free?”  Yes.  I reminded him he has equipment in the basement.  He didn’t care; he liked the idea that he could also go.  I told him I didn’t care how big the gym was or how much equipment it had.  Gold’s has what I need, and it also has T’ai Chi classes (something I did many years ago and would like to do again).  Still, Rich’s face was lit up. “This place is great!”  And, the place is less money, and there was some special (I’m always skeptical of the “unadvertised special”) going on so that there was no enrollment fee.  Thus, about 1/3+ less money.  In the end, I joined the second gym.  Yes, totally sucker punched.  And if he read these works (nope, he never reads my blog; I don’t think he’s even seen my website), his mouth would drop and he would probably have his feelings hurt.  But I was sucker punched.

It’s great while I’m there, but I haven’t yet learned how not to calculate in my mind the time wasted from 1.3 miles to 5.1 miles as I drive past Gold’s.  Yes, I calculated the miles and the minutes. So much for getting rid of stress.  And that place is loaded with young people which only hammers home me being over 50  (note to self, get there earlier in the day while school is still in session).  It’s almost depressing to the point of making me want to wolf down a full package of Stella Dora Breakfast Treats.  And when I get home, I’m tired!  And I’m sore.  Yet, I’m keeping my eyes open for any specials at Gold’s.  Will I actually waste money on a second membership because I don’t want to drive a few more miles?  Am I nuts?  Yet somehow in my strange manner of thought process, I think that would have a very positive effect on my personal artwork.  “You belong to two gyms and you’re still not in shape?”  Correct. I don’t have time for a gym, I am concentrating on my artwork.  Hmmm …

This entry was posted on Friday, February 25th, 2011 at 12:40 am and is filed under Misc. Art/Quilt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.