Artist Residency - PEARS - Studios of Key West

 I got to Key West a bit after midnight after a lot of travel issues.  After a long layover my flight was cancelled and I rented a car from Fort Lauderdale to Key West.  I started my journey at 8:30 pm and it was raining. I was scared driving because it was so dark and narrow but I got here.  I dropped off the car and got a LYFT from the Key West Airport to the Studios of Key West.

The Studios of Key West is incredibly beautiful. My studio is enormous .  Am I asking myself - how did I win this??   I feel so lucky.

TUESDAY

On June 3rd, we went grocery shopping and to the 99 cent store and I set up my studio.   I was got in contact with the museum at access to the collection. To my amazement I had a nice convo with Judy Blume at her bookshop.  I was crying when I saw her.  She was so important to me as a teenager.

WEDNESDAY

On June 4th, I met with the museum director and she's letting me go in the museum everyday for free.  I also did Bikram and got my notes together from the Cottman book, "The Wreck on the Henrietta Marie."

THURSDAY

I worked on the Sankofa designs again.  I want to the museum and I went to the local Bikram Studio.  I also went to the Mango Madness Art Opening next store.

FRIDAY/TODAY

I'm working on some designs from a mask I saw at the exhibit.  I'll put in another post what I have accomplished.

Owen Boyle, Lightkeeper - Saint Just-in-Penwith Parish Church

 “St. Just alias Justini, being the very West Poynte of Cornewayle, where St. Just ys no thing, but a Paroch Chyrch … divers sparkeled Howses…”. 

In the windows of the parish church in St.Just is the story of Owen Boyle who died at 18-1/2.  He was the lightkeeper at the Longships Lighthouse.

Some how this story affected Sarah and I a lot and I can’t get Owen out of my mind.

"Fishermen who walk the cliff paths or the beaches at night hear the drowned men 'hailing their names,' calling dismally from out of the dark waters." 

p. 46, Unknown Cornwall

When I was playing with typography I like the idea of the n falling away from the Owe in the name Owen (like it was drowning).

 I got inspired by the way the waves were rendered in this part of the stain glass window in the church.

I made some sketches changing the shape into a circle.

I worked a bit on tracing paper to design a linoleum block.

Here is how it printed.

Here's a final piece for Owen using the wave design.  The text is the same text from the stain glasses windows in the parish church in St. Just-in-Penwith repeated several times.

I like this border too.  I haven't done anything with them yet but maybe I will.

These are beautiful yellow roses. 

I love this net of prayer - how perfect for a church by the sea.  I need to figure out how to do something with this the net.  Maybe it can become a coordinate if I make this into a collection in the future.

Here is a mixed media piece I made for Owen.

Inside Brisons Veor

Upstairs at Brisons Veor with fantastic views of the sea.

Lots of good food and wine was served on this table.

Tim and my bedroom.

This is the downstairs studio where I did a lot of printmaking.

I love putting stuff on the wall.

My companions on my Cornish Journey: Michael (visiting Falmouth from Berlin), Sarah (teaching and living in Falmouth), my husband Tim (staying at Brisons Veor with me), and me.

 

Brisons Veor - The Celtic Triskele Symbol

“No county in England has a stronger individuality than Cornwall, whether in economic or social conditions, in history, nomenclature, tradition, or even in physical characteristics of the land.” Encyclopedia Brittanica sometime before 1925 quoted in Unknown Cornwall 

Before I came to Cornwall I used the Celtic Triskele symbol to signify water in a piece I made about cotton and middle passage.  

The triskele is not specifically a Cornish symbol but I felt committed to make some coordinates to go with this piece and explore the symbol a bit while I have the time and the space.

I'm trying not to be too serious or product oriented as I work at Brisons Veor. I'm working on newsprint not to be too precious about anything. I don't have a big ruler so I am just folding newsprint to line up the patterns.  I bought 44 sheets in Truro. I am also really giving myself permission to be messy and free and see what I can find in the process.  

Here are some of the sketches I did on tracing paper.

The proportions on this one didn't feel right.

This second drawing felt better proportioned for me.

I carved this block with the soft linoleum I brought from the US. 

This is an experiment using 2 colors and spattering. I love spattering and because I don't have great clean up facilities the paper was getting some finger prints on it.  I decided not to worry and just cover it with spatter and consider it texture.

I like this one a lot.  I think I could play with more of an overlap.

In this piece I incorporated a quote from a book I am reading that I brought from the Los Angeles Public Library called "Unknown Cornwall."  The quote reads - "The sea in storm, with the clamour of falling surges and the whipping of white spray over the boulders, fills you with thoughts which are hard, firm, distinct and cleanly cut, like rock.  In calm weather, the sea invites you to play: in storm challenges you to a tussle  ."  

I am using the quote as a stripe.  Althea McInish has some pieces with great stripes in the backgrounds of her designs.

This piece has the triskele symbol overlapping on itself and rotating.  I think I will develop this a but more with a new carving. I folded the newsprint to give me some rough guidelines.

Here I added a bit of spatter.

As part of the textile collection.

St. Hya or Ia, Riding to Cornwall on a Leaf

I became interested in the story of Ia after I read about her in my Unknown Cornwall book.

"You may have read, or heard, how the daughter of an Irish noble, a Christian girl named Hya or Ia, desired greatly to join the expeditionary force of holy men and women who were setting forth from Ireland to fight heathendom in Wales and Cornwall.  She hoped to find a place in the company of Fingan and Piala, devout missionaries, but they sailed without her.  And one day, as Hya was walking by the waterside, there floated close to her a monstrous large leaf.  She put forth her staff and drew the leaf towards her; it was so broad and so buoyant that she, stepping daintily thereon, was wafted across the sea to the very shpre that she was seeking. St. Ives the scene of her landing, bears her name - St. Hya, or Ies or Ia." pps. 73-74

I went to Ia's church in Saint Ives on the 3rd of January.

One night at Brisons Veor I began doodling about St. Hya a few days before I got to St. Ives.

These are bench ends from Ia’s church in St. Ives. The church is full of interesting bench ends. 

This is a piece I made about Ia.  The text reads the same as the text I used the start this post from the Unknown Cornwall book.

Playing around with these shapes from the top of a bench end from Ia’s church in St. Ives. 

This design is put together with draw shapes in photoshop. 

Here I decided to cut some blocks. 

This print has a washed background and the linoleum prints and some hand painted elements. 

Here is another variation with the same blocks except I didn't used the diamond one.

Here is the design incorporated in my collection about Jamaican Banana Sellers called "Day-O"