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September 29, 2006

crazed dawgs fans can kiss my ass.

Also:

rush hour traffic can kiss my ass.

bank employees who change my billing address in the bank's computer system but neglect to change my mailing address (so that not only do all of my statements get mailed to some place in orlando florida but dick blick won't fill my sumi ink order because the cheque card address can't be verified) can kiss my ass.

on a related note: seven dollars shipping on an eleven dollar item can kiss my ass.

people who unthinkingly say things like "when you are pregnant/have kids" as if they don't even consider a woman might choose not to be a baby factory can kiss my ass.

people in ontario who still vilify bob rae can kiss my ass; bob rae was an excellent premier and he will be an excellent prime minister and i can't fucking wait.

sorority girls wearing sunglasses so gigantic they don't even notice that they have seriously endangered my life and limb by cutting me off in their shiny little cars with the "uga princess" bumper stickers can kiss my ass.

migraines can kiss my ass.

people (especially bus drivers) who crank up the air conditioning can kiss my ass.

anybody who feels the need to mention the names tie domi or belinda stronach or any disgusting unholy connection between the two ever again can kiss my ass; please, stop talking about it! IT MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT. So stop. globe and mail, I'm talking to you.

Posted by jodi at 07:24 PM | Comments (8) | categories:  assholes : athens

September 28, 2006

two can have a party

Well, I was going to get all fancy and try posting a video from You Tube for y'all to enjoy on this special day. But apparently I'm not quite technically savvy enough to do that, or something, and I got sick of waiting for their system to accept my blogger blog (which has nothing on it but a link to here anyway). So, click here if you want to see a cartoon, and don't mock my ineptitude too much; remember that when I started university at age 28 I bought my first computer (okay, my first since that Commodore Vic-20 way back when) for 50 bucks and wrote all of my first year lit class essays in Word Perfect for DOS. Oh yeah.

*edit: I figured it out! After Peter told me how to do it, hah.

We may be two around here, but back home my pal Mats just turned one. From the look of the party pictures I don't think he saved me a piece of cake.

For a bit of extra fun and hilarity, here's something I came across last night while dicking around online planning imaginary future road trips: the google maps directions to get from Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk. Be sure to read all of the directions, it's worth it.

Posted by jodi at 07:17 AM | Comments (7) | categories: 

September 26, 2006

MAPC made me want to get back in the studio and print like a machine, all day long.

Woodcut, digital print, collage, sumi ink drawing; 13.5 by 18 inches, edition of 6.

Woodcut, digital print, collage, sumi ink drawing; 9 by 12 inches, edition of 7.

Woodcut, digital print, collage, sumi ink drawing; 9 by 12 inches, edition of 4.

And one of the new things in progress on the work table:

Posted by jodi at 09:59 PM | Comments (12) | categories:  in the studio

September 25, 2006

I don't know why but when we're apart something makes me want to start setting fires and kicking down doors

I've been out of town for the last five days attending the Mid America Print Council's conference in Athens Ohio. Okay, actually I attended the first two days of the conference, then on Friday night my beloved came down to meet me there and I blew off the last day of the conference so I could lie around in a hotel bed, hold hands and wander from coffeeshop to coffeeshop with him for a too-short two night, one day visit. Now I'm fired up to get into the studio and make prints, and buoyed by the fact that the next separation from Peter will be a shorter one: only four and a half weeks this time. I told Pete that I'm going to finish a print today. Think I can do it? Just watch.

Posted by jodi at 07:27 AM | Comments (4) | categories:  art stuff : self-absorbtion

September 13, 2006

something new

Woodcut on dyed cotton. I also printed some of these on lighter shades of blue cotton to use as the base for some appliqued quilts, but I think I'll just put a backing and a little rolled hem on this one and call it done. Maybe I'll quilt it just a little bit.

Posted by jodi at 09:41 PM | Comments (6) | categories:  in the studio

September 10, 2006

I still work with sticks and string too, you know

A wee bit of progress has been made on Alice/Bridie. I had to put her aside for the summer, but now that the edge is off the heat here, it's time for her to come back into the rotation. I don't think this sweater looks anywhere close to fitting me, but my gauge is good and I trust Anna implicitly, so I'm soldiering on with it. It does want to stretch quite a bit so I'm sure it will all make sense in the blocking. The yarn, a camel hair blend, is dreamy-soft and wonderful to work with.

Orangina was finished, but when I tried it on, my belly and the ribbing had such a terrible fight that I think they've broken it off for good. I'm not fat, but I AM too fat in certain places to go putting a tight band of ribbing around those places. Yuck! So I've ripped back and am making the bottom stockinette instead; I may just bind off and leave a rolled edge to echo the top edge. We'll see.

No studio pictures today; I forgot to take the camera with me. I cut out a bunch of little woodblock doo-dads and will be printing with them later in the week.

Posted by jodi at 05:32 PM | Comments (1) | categories:  sticks and string

September 09, 2006

you'll never guess what I did today

More printing, of course. I'm a machine. But first, here's a new woodblock I started cutting this afternoon:

It's not at all what I meant to cut when I started, but I think it'll be fun and a bit of a departure from what I have been doing. I used to work a lot with nonrepresentational forms (although they always stood in for the body and often read as body parts), and while bringing the figure into my work was a big breakthrough and really necessary at the time, I need to get away from it for a while; this last year I've felt like the figure was just bogging me down. And as these prints are all "sketches" for bigger projects, I can be free to play a bit with decorative forms and not worry so much about meaning, because I know that the works are conceptually linked to my larger body of work even if it's not apparent in each and every print. That's something I'd lost sight of, and I'm happy for the time being to just make prints that I like, knowing that some of the things that come out of these prints will wind up as larger, print-based installations later on.

So, I had planned to cut out a few of these circle shapes in order to float them randomly over the stencil prints, but something else happened. I'll still do those others, maybe tomorrow. But I think this will make a good print on its own, with colour reduction. It's hard to see, but there are tiny hatch marks inside the thick concentric lines; they will look like these shapes that I was drawing in my sketchbook all the time last year. I'm hoping these shapes, when combined with the map/self portrait images, will read as targets and as topographical map lines, and also as tree rings: things that mark a place, or a treasure, or the passing of time. Right now on this block I think they just look like frying pan bottoms, though. Heh.

Today I made stencils for eight different images 15cm/6" by 22.5cm/9" and printed a whole bunch of those (forcing myself to work even smaller!). Then I made a few more (very few; I'm perilously close to being out of paper, and somehow that always seems to coincide with being out of money for more) larger prints

I also have to confess that I broke down and did a bit of printing on top of older prints, but only a few at a time. It's liberating to work only on new paper for a change but I feel I need to keep cycling through some of the hundreds of half-finished prints as well, just to get them out of my "in progress" drawer. Here's one from the other day, with part of the self portrait block printed in creamy white, upside down on top of an older print of the same block in orange.

I'm going to try really hard not to go overboard with these. But it just comes so naturally to me.

If you're only here for the knitting and have somehow read this far in hopes of getting some satisfaction, don't despair! I have been flinging the sticks a wee bit in amongst all of this other work, and will try to post pictures tomorrow. I've been working on the lovely Alice/Bridie, still convinced that this sweater might change my life if only I can get it finished, and also started two (TWO! that's how much I love it!) of Stefanie's latest design. Alas, fall sweaters for me will have to move over a bit to make room for next spring's knitting, as the yarn for my next design contract has arrived.

Posted by jodi at 10:44 PM | Comments (5) | categories:  in the studio : sticks and string

September 07, 2006

just a few more. . .

Transparent cream-coloured ink on cream-coloured kitakata paper. I'll keep all the layers transparent on these ones; some of these will wind up being cut up and sewn into garments later. And I swear I'm almost finished with printing these same images over and over! Just a few more sheets of kitakata and then some smaller prints, and I'll finally be ready to alter the blocks and move on.

I love the way the paper looked on the block as I was printing:

The block is stained orange from a previous printing, and the paper is so transparent that you can see the entire image through it. I wish I could make some of the prints look like this.

Tomorrow will be a day off (other than going in during the afternoon to teach my drawing class). I'll do some laundry and some pattern writing, both long overdue. And some knitting: perhaps I'll finish a few things, perhaps I'll start a few. I've been working a bit on Bridie, so maybe I'll just sit down and spend some time with her for a while. We'll see.

Posted by jodi at 08:16 PM | Comments (2) | categories:  in the studio

September 05, 2006

some stuff in progress.

I can't type, I can't use the mouse. I've printed all but one day for the last week, I'm exhausted, my forearms are killing me and I've dug out the tensor bandage. I skipped out on something tonight that I really should have attended, saying that I would plead too tired if asked why I wasn't there. Riding home I realized that I really WAS too tired, and felt like I could barely hold myself upright on the bike with my sad, aching arms by the time I reached the house; that's my penance for being such a slack ass, I suppose. Here are some things not yet finished, more of the same and something different; I've posted tonnes more on my flickr photostream. Enjoy.

Tomorrow: no printing.

Posted by jodi at 08:52 PM | Comments (3) | categories:  in the studio

September 04, 2006

my fall sweaters for JCA

These are the sweaters that ate half of my first year of grad school. The cabled pullover is in Reynolds "Blizzard", a big, fat, luxuriously soft and warm alpaca blend, and the hooded jacket is in Reynolds "Whiskey", a lightweight wool that's perfect for colour patterning. I think you could probably get your LYS to order the pattern booklets if they don't already carry them.

Posted by jodi at 07:20 AM | Comments (17) | categories:  knit design

September 03, 2006

a full day of printing

I'm still working on first press runs on more new prints from the same two woodblocks; just a few more full days in the print shop and I'll be ready to start cutting more wood out of the blocks; each of the prints below will need one more run to fill up the other side, and then I've got about thirty sheets of kitakata to print as well.

First I made 15 of these. It's basically the same as the prints I showed you two days ago, except that two days ago I was showing you two separate prints that I photoshopped together. When I looked at them on screen I really liked the way they looked together and made my decisions about how to orient the images based on how they looked next to each other, even though I was only putting them together like that for the blog. Then when Peter saw the image he said that would make a good finished print on its own; since this was exactly in line with my own feelings about how these two images worked together, I went with it. When the beige is dry I'll put the blue on the other side, then pull out some to leave as a finished edition and continue printing on the rest.

Since this was working out so well I thought I'd try the same thing with last week's green and yellow prints:

I made 15 of these also. Unfortunately, none can be left as is because there is some nasty crap all through my yellow that I will have to cover up with more printing. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from but it looked like gray-blue dots spread randomly through the ink. I checked my tools and my stencil and thoroughly cleaned my block twice and still it kept coming up. I have a theory about what it is but I only thought of it later: when I was mixing the yellow there was a little bit of something blue-ish on top of the white ink. I assumed that some slob had left blue ink in the white and didn't worry about it, knowing that there was hardly any and it would mix into my colour and disappear. But I think it may be cobalt drier that some slob left in the white ink, and because it was on top it was too dry to mix in properly so it distributed itself in little chunks (I've seen drier do that before). Arrgh. So listen, assholes, clean your fucking utensils so you don't wreck other people's work. (I suppose I should have cleaned up the ink and mixed some new, but I'm stubborn, and also the ink looked totally clean, so I didn't think the problem was in there).

Still, by the end of the day I had a pretty satisfying sight in front of me:

A drying rack filled with new prints, all neatly stacked. Yeah!

I also ran a huge amount of cotton linters through the hollander beater, enough to fill three totes and a bucket. They're all crammed into my studio right now, so I may make paper tomorrow instead of printing. Depends which shop is less filled with pesky undergrads*, I guess.

*they're not really pesky, and they certainly have every right to be there. I'm just territorial, and a bitch.

Posted by jodi at 08:20 PM | Comments (0) | categories:  in the studio

some finished things

Ms Marigold, worked in a recycled olive green cotton overdyed with blue. I don't think I've ever knit something for myself that turned out such a perfect fit. This is a leftover Project Spectrum project, finished!

A new skirt, cut off a thrifted dress that was too tight around the ribcage. It's flared and a little stretchy, and I think I'll be able to ride my bike in it (my new main criterion for clothes). Check out the beautiful pashmina that Ghita brought me back from Nepal, draped over the mirror there.

I added a wee bit of vintage lace (what exactly makes something "vintage"? I think this may just be a pretentious marketing word for old. . . but it is old, at least) to the hem. It makes me happy, and makes me want to add lace to the hem of everything.

Posted by jodi at 08:54 AM | Comments (9) | categories:  project spectrum : projects : sticks and string

September 01, 2006

tidied up my point of view

If you can guess what song today's title comes from (no cheating!) I will tell you a story about what that stupid song means to me: it has to do with high school mornings and a sense of urgency. And because I can't ever just tell a story without tangents, it also has to do with the fearful possibility of WWII-style air-raids, factory workers, hurried meals and a very famous dog.

But for now I'd rather tell you about how my new regimen is going. Today is day three: so far, so good.

As I mentioned the other day, I have slacked in my studio work so far this fall. I'm doing independant studio work instead of taking classes, so I should have long stretches of unbroken studio time. But the class I teach is from 1:25 to 3:20 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon, and since I'm a daytime worker this cuts a vast swath across the middle of what would otherwise be my most productive days (Tuesdays and Thursdays there are two simultaneous undergrad book arts classes going on at Green St, and I've never worked very well with a bunch of people in my way, preferring the studio to myself so I can spread out my work and centre myself and think clearly). I also like to do a lot of printing at once, spending eight to ten hours in the shop at a time. Clearly this isn't going to happen this semester, so I've had to adjust my routine somewhat.

I am very good at setting goals for myself and not so good at sticking to them; we'll see what a long weekend will do to shake up the new routine. So far I've done pretty well: Wednesday morning I made about forty prints before taking the bus up to Lamar Dodd to teach my drawing class (this bus ride will provide me with two little ten-minute sock knitting sessions three times a week, which seems a small thing but contributes greatly to maintaining my sanity). On returning to the studio after class I was a little less productive, but we're taking baby steps here, right? Thursday I again got up early, did yoga and was in the studio by nine. I worked through the morning ignoring the letterpress students as best I could (did I mention what a territorial princess I am? If not, you've probably figured it out on your own), and ended up with a first press run on twenty-six of each of these two new prints (the separate colours are separate images):

They look pretty funny right now, I know, but there will be several reductions in the wood block, plus a second block and some collage elements. Possibly also some drawing. I've been feeling like I'm getting away from printmaking a little too much lately, with all of these grandiose textile projects and little embroidered drawings and printed paper sewn into garments and crazy print-based installation ideas. I need to get back to the basics of what it is I do, and I need to be continuously working out all of these ideas in the small scale, in print. So my goal here is twofold: I want to spend some time concentrating on pure printmaking again and produce a new body of printmakerly work, at the same time using these prints as sketches for my larger mixed media projects.

And because I can't just make one radical change at a time, I'm also forcing myself out of my security circle: first of all, I'm only printing these images on brand new paper. This is something I rarely do, preferring to build complex images over time, printing on top of the mistakes that came before and creating a dense web of imagery that's nearly impossible for a viewer to penetrate. Yes, I still have hundreds of sheets of printed paper in my drawer and I will still use it, I'm just going to take a break from it for a while (although I am going to do some cutting and pasting in these new prints with pieces of the old ones, I want to let go of the baggage that's attached to that old work. Especially since I'm still using old woodblocks). I am also forcing myself to leave a lot of white space, something I fear although I'm not sure why. I am forcing myself to work in editions again, and to work small. These prints I've made this week are fifteen by twenty inches, smaller than I've worked for a very long time.

Today I spent my before-teaching time dyeing some fabric for a quilt piece I'm working on,

tearing down a roll of kitakata paper to be printed this weekend, soaking and flattening out the twelve sheets of BFK I found in my studio that have been rolled up for months, tearing up and soaking cotton linters for a batch of handmade paper, and generally puttering around getting things ready for next week's work. As tomorrow is the first home football game of the season, I'm taking a day off, avoiding campus (there's some sort of new rule against tailgate parties starting before seven a.m., and any place where a rule like that needs to be enforced is not a place I'm biking through to get to my studio, thanks). Tonight I have some pattern writing to do, and then my day tomorrow will be free. I'm going to do a little work on some neglected knits (Ms Marigold just needs her neckband sewn down and her ends woven in, Orangina needs a few more inches, and poor Cleo needs to be taken apart and sewn back together so that my boobs don't plop out of her). I'm going to set up my sewing machine work area and sew together some of the very large pile of skirts I cut out a while ago. I may sew up a few pairs of cute new underpants out of old t-shirts, just so that I can put off laundry a couple more days. Then Sunday, back to the studio by nine a.m. And with luck it won't be full of undergrads, and I can be a territorial princess. Print-cess. Har.

Posted by jodi at 08:54 PM | Comments (6) | categories:  in the studio