Yayablog

Suddenly it is late Fall, spectacular thunder storms, foggy mornings, overcast rainy days and a chill in the air. Suddenly the conifers seem more odorous- can it be that the colder air does something that causes them to emit their wonderful perfume? It is the kind of cold that is invigorating not intimidating, the kind that feels like therapy for the skin, that encourages long rambles in the countryside- not that I have time.

I have too many art projects going right now. I have a couple of botanicals in marquetry requested by a gallery on the Big Island, three pieces to prepare for another Hawaii event in early ‘09 that I want to get off (shipping will kill me), am working on felt masks, vases and wall “spots”, (photos soon to be up in www.julimorsella.com), fourth and final piece in the Civilization series to make, large panels in marquetry and watercolour, two of three raven panels cut but not glued.

This is when I like it here, the almost complete lack of distractions, noise, people, problems is so conducive to creative production.

Raven on Fence

This is  actually the back, as the front is full of tape. It will be darker when finished- that is raw wood.

                   Big Mouth Fish

This is hand felted with a felting needle, something I have started  recently and really enjoy doing.

     Apex/Solo Goya

The figure is wood and the whole thing is painted in watercolour. It is second in the Civilization series.

So that is a taste. I have yet to photograph most of the new stuff, and create new pages on my above-mentioned web site to accommodate all of it, but I am having a helluva lot of fun with the variety and experimentation at the moment.

Unusually, I have been spending most of my time up in Todi with Carlo these days. A week ago he proposed a space in the Santa Maria church complex as a in-town studio for me. It is a nice sized room with an independent entrance on a courtyard. The room  was absolutely filled to the ceiling with stuff such as  old windows (old going from the 60’s to the 1400’s), doors, chairs, tools, boxes, school notebooks from the 50’s, stones, plastic sheeting, chemicals, diesel fuel, broken vacuum cleaners, magazines, old shoes, bee keeping paraphernalia, toys, a  pair of giant lungs of a church organ and naturally the 40-50 years worth of dust that had settled on the objects since they had been stored in the room.

 It was a dirty  job, but in a week we are down to needing to mop the floor, and with all sorts of interesting finds set aside, many of which I hope to incorporate in my artwork.

To keep a balance, my feminine side has been felting when at home. The type of felting that is done with sharp barbed needles. As I am doing vases and other three dimensional objects, I am holding the pieces in my hands and poking holes in my finger tips with the little barbed points far too frequently, a sort of “Poke, poke, poke, shit! Poke, poke poke, shit!” rhythm. I have found that barbed needles are very painful, one gets used to pain, and finger tips heal very quickly. Felt is fascinating. It holds shapes wonderfully and  I love the sheepy smell of the Norwegian wool I have settled on, the simplicity of the material and tool.