Where are you going...

Little bean

Where are you going little bean?
I'm going to the garden
where I'll grow green

Collage number 2 of the baby book I'm working on, Where are you going little one?, inspired by the excited kicking of little legs (especially on the beloved changing table where baby loves to lie and talk). Yes, this is actually a pea pod!

New project....

Little star

Where are you going little star?
I'm going to the night sky
but I won't go far

When I'm home with the baby I chatter with him throughout the day, making up songs and rhymes (and even better, now he is talking back!) This week I happened upon some rhymes I really liked, which gave me an idea for a new project...This weekend I had a nice long stretch of time to work and got started with the first piece. More to come!

Adapting

Elevations I

Elevations II

Elevations III

During my three months of maternity leave I started working in a new way, using acrylic paint and thread on regular sized pieces of watercolor paper. Instead of needing long hours to think over collages and sort through boxes of papers, which requires a lot of uninterrupted space and time, this approach lets me work even while watching the baby. I can conceptualize what I'll do, paint a few at once, and then come back and sew whenever I have time. Nothing gets disturbed, the sewing is very relaxing, and I'm really liking the effect.

2010 Ramallah collages

After leaving Ramallah in October, we had 3 more moves (Amman, Georgetown, Dupont Circle) and a baby! So, I'm just now getting around to scanning the artwork I did last year, and remembering my adventures in art making.

When moving to Palestine for the year, I didn't bring very many materials with me from home. I put my boxes of papers and fabrics into storage, along with the sewing machine, scanner, and supplies of paints, threads, wires, etc. I brought only the basics for cutting (scissors, x-acto knives and blades, a small cutting mat) and painting (brushes), hoping that anything else I'd need I could find locally. There are a lot of artists in Palestine, but art supplies were not so easy to find for a newcomer (with no Arabic skills). Luckily a friend was able to guide me to a store in Ramallah that looked like office supplies from the front but had an arts and crafts section tucked away in the back corner. There I found paper and acrylic paints and, later in the year, woodcutting tools for making printing blocks.

Roadblocks I

Roadblocks II

Arab Town

I was always on the look-out for things to use in collages and during a walk along Rukab Street (the main street in Ramallah) I found a nice selection of thread. I even managed--by enlisting some young guys passing by who spoke English--to ask for and find a thimble. That was challenging to explain even in English but I needed it desperately after wearing away my fingertips with the amount of sewing I was doing by hand.

I found a batch of old newspapers listed for free on ramallahramallah, the local yahoo group that is Ramallah's version of Craigslist (there is a Craigslist for the West Bank but it isn't really used). There was also a pile of translucent paper left in the house we rented, which seemed like a good omen given my love of vellum.

I also used a lot of coffee grounds in my work. These were abundant because we were drinking so much Arabic coffee, which is made by putting finely ground coffee (and sugar if you like) in the pot and boiling it directly on the stove. At the end there are smooth grounds left in the pot, which make beautiful shades of sepia and interesting textures as the grounds dry.

I didn't finish a lot of work in 2010, busy as I was with my job and bar-b-ques on the shores of the Dead Sea, but I did start a number of other pieces that I plan to go back to.

STPP music festival in DC

My artwork was used in some posters for a music festival in Washington, DC--June 4 and 5. I designed the text for a couple of others myself. The line-up of bands from NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and DC looks great. U Street will be hopping!

Picture walls part 3

Finally got the pictures up on the walls in the nursery. All that remains are a crib and rug and the room will be ready for move-in!

Handmade thank you cards

Maternity leave is an interesting time. The days are alternately really busy or really slow depending on how much the baby sleeps, and depending on how much sleep I got the night before...One of my favorite activities over the last month has been designing and making thank you cards. These post cards are built on cardboard cut to size from the many card board boxes we've been getting with gifts for the baby (or diaper shipments). I got this great idea from the BBB Craft blog, which is full of wonderful DIY ideas and beautiful pics of the finished products!

The first design is very "meta", as it uses the light blue and vellum papers I used for my sister's wedding invitation years ago, along with the postman's string I used in our wedding invitation, to make the heart and little knots at the corners. The second two make use of a linoleum cut I made last week stamped with white acrylic paint...

Picture walls part 2

The main wall in the living room has 2 of my collages and one painting, a print my sister made, and a painting by Jimmie James that I traded for a collage a few years back.

New picture walls

We've finally gotten (nearly) all our belongings out of storage. After bringing it home we were feeling kind of overwhelmed by the number of frames, paintings, and posters stacked around the place. The first photo is mostly collages I've made, inspired by Palestine. The poster is one I got during my post-college backpacking tour around Eastern Europe. The second photo includes a number of pictures we bought at Eastern Market here in DC, a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge that I got as I was moving out of NYC in 2004, and a few more collages. Phase one of finally putting things on the walls completed! More to come...

Cutting Edges

Just received my copy of Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage, with 3 of my collages included!

Day 18: Last winter in Ramallah

Foggy winter day in Ramallah

Packing, working, reminiscing...

Day 15: Emirates Palace

The $3 billion Emirates Palace Hotel

Tim in front of the $11 million tree (Tree= $10,000; jewels adorning it=$11 million+)

Day 17: Back to Amman

We leave the "perfection" of Abu Dhabi for Amman. Life in Jordan feels so much more real than the UAE...complex, disorganized, human. It is good to be back.

Day 13: Sheik Zayed, the founder of the UAE

The UAE is 39 years old this year

Day 12: Abu Dhabi at night

Day 11: Traveling to Abu Dhabi

Arriving in Abu Dhabi late at night. The air is perfect, the streets are empty, but less than 5 hours before I have to get up...

Day 10: Sunset

Day 9: More from our street

We live on 9th Sha'ban Street in Jabal Amman, but since street names were only put in recently (and there isn't really a tradition of using spacial data in Jordan) no one knows it by that name. The foreigners call it the pet shop street and though I don't know how Ammanites typically refer to it, they know what I mean when I mention the bird and fish shops. The other distinguishing feature is that it is right next to Rainbow Street, which is known all over Amman as it is one of the only real pedestrian areas in town, full of restaurants, cafes, and galleries.

Our street is somewhat old and dirty (it hasn't gone through the revitalization of Rainbow Street) but the bird stores below us have the really nice side effect of starting and ending the days with singing.

Day 8: Taxis in Amman

Today was too busy with meetings, deadlines, and inching through the terrible Amman traffic... I also had a somewhat typical exchange with a taxi driver. As I stood outside the Marriott after a meeting, deciding what to do, a young guy came up and asked in great English if I needed a taxi. I wasn't sure he was driving an official taxi because he wasn't in it and it was parked across the street, but he confirmed it was indeed a yellow official taxi. He said he'd just charge me 1 JD extra because of the traffic but wouldn't use his meter. This is a common trick amongst Amman taxi drivers who prefer to offer foreigners overpriced flat fares. I said, "but you're not a "hotel taxi" right?" as their base rate is 5JD when my expected fare with a meter was just over 1 JD. He said, right, and, tired and ready to get home, I agreed. On the way we had a great conversation about Jordan, Palestine, his experiences in Palestine and mine (something like 70% of Jordanians are Palestinian by origin and residency permit. Mentioning that we've lived in Palestine often starts a nice discussion and has even led to situations where I have to force the driver to take my money because we have such a nice bond!) By the time we arrived and I asked him "Adesh? (how much?)" he was ready to give me a discount. I offered him 2 and he said 3, down from 5--he was a hotel taxi after all!

Day 7: Planet earth collages

   

I'm trying not to accumulate too much as we prepare to move back to the US so am making art out of found paper (like my early days of collage...). I worked into some exhibition fliers I found with a combination of marker, watercolor, thread, vellum, and salt.