so to satisfy my need for some (relatively) instant gratification i have moved my party to the print shop and have taken up mono printing. good times. i am getting into the groove but have no fool proof system yet. oh yeah, nothing is ever fool proof.

i have this idea that i want to develop a series and so i try to do sketches to have some ideas to work with before i get the ink out - but alas, oh my, it is not to be. it works best when i come to the plate with a free and empty mind and no preconceived notions of any sort. or not consciously preconceived anyway. who knows what my subconscious has been scheming.

i think about conceptual art you know, as it is all the rage, that i should do some. but for me it works best if i just don't think about it at all. so that pretty much puts an end to that. oh well, i guess i'll never be in vogue.

anyway, here are a few of the results. i dig. so there.

i have been working day after day after day on mosaicing a chair for my garden. i made it last june when i went with a couple o' gals up to beldenview, wi to take a workshop with the talented wouterina de raad. it was rad. we learned to create concrete sculpture with metal lathe as the base. wrangling that metal lathe was a serious bi-otch as you can imagine. it took some doing. so it (the chair) sat in my studio for a few months while i focused on other projects, but since the first of the year i have been working on it at least two to three hours daily and once or twice a week for six hours a day. and it is still not done.

the chair is one of those projects that i had nooooooo idea how much work it would take going in. mosaic projects are like that. it seems i have to learn everything the hard way. wah. dumb me. i had this vision (uh-oh) while i was beating the metal lathe into shape that the chair would look like a stargazer lily when it was done. yah, easier said than done. first of all, i could not find any hot pink/fuchsia tile. i looked and looked. i was prepared to buy a an entire set of new fiesta ware dishes- but they were more of a flamingo/peach color in person. not what i had in mind. boo. apparently hot pink glaze is pretty darn near impossible to achieve. i would have bought some and made the tiles myself- but no, it's not for sale. doesn't exist. in fact, it is only within the last ten years or so that dependable red glazes have become available (and i am so glad they are). so, anyway, i resorted to stained glass.

now stained glass is something i have always been kind of drawn to - bright colors- so shiny and sparkly and yummy. but i have not indulged in it for one main reason: fear. i was scared of cutting myself. i'm just a wimp like that. buuuuut, i needed to fulfill the vision... so off to the stained glass store i went. it was a big store- more glass than i had ever seen in one place- and guess what/ no hot pink. not even in glass people. wah indeed. buuuuuut- there was this other pink glass the lady showed me that was pinkalicious- mmmm, i wanted to eat it up (ouch) it was all pink and swirly and iridescent- YUM! sold. so i bought that and a few other colors- green for leaves of course- some yellow. then, i got my lesson on how to cut glass. "she is able who believes herself able." a glass cutter, a nips, saftey goggles and i was off. not that different from cutting mirror, which is glass, after all. i cut glass for days on end. days and days and days. i cut myself, and it was not as bad as i thought it would be. then, i mixed batch after batch after batch of mortar and glued all those little bits to the chair base. it was like doing a big puzzle where you make all the pieces as you go along. some of the pieces i had made did not fit, and new pieces were cut. the glass sometimes split in places i did not want it to... and then fit perfectly into places i had not anticipated. it was like magic. i got into the flow of measuring with my eyes the positive and negative spaces and going back over to a sheet of glass and cutting the needed shape. it really seemed so foreign to me and yet it all began to flow. it is not as fluid as painting, not as fluid as throwing clay, not a fluid as drawing. It's downright inhospitable- glass shards flying everywhere. always on and off with the darn saftey glasses. the cuts. the pricks. i was constantly scared of getting glass in my beverage of choice (usually water) and drinking it by accident and cutting my throat on the inside. yes, this thought occurred to me many times. i tried to keep my beverage out of the way, covered. but it all did start to flow. i even started to do puzzles at home on the dining room table. ???

i had envisioned gold tile at the base. i returned to the glass store to buy me some. guess what? no gold glass either. non-existent. caramba! you must be kidding me? i bought amber-colored glass, sprayed the back of it with gold paint and baked it in the oven. nothing like a curve ball to complicate the complicated. the resulting "gold" glass seemed like it would pass.

so day after day i glued- the unexpected presented itself and told me what comes next, as these things do. sooo, now finally- the grouting. grouting- i thought it would be a one time deal and done- not so. it is also a step by step by step process. more cuts on my hands. my index finger has been cut so many times i think i my fingerprints will never be the same. i have gone through at least one whole box of band aids. but now, i am getting close. i can smell it. soon, soon, soon...

so tonite i met dara at utrecht and we wandered around and looked at art supplies and she made all sorts of suggestions as to different stuff i might want to try out- and she told me about things she likes to use and we talked about textures and tone and ease of framing. it was awesome. i mean how much fun is it to go into an art supply store with an art teacher. and not just any teacher. your teacher. i mean that is fun. well, it is my idea of fun anyway.

mostly we talked about drawing supplies. we started with the pastels and rubbed colors on paper and discussed pigment quality, hardness, agility. we moved on to the charcoal pencils- there were skinny willow ones and big fat thick ones, compressed charcoal and kneaded erasers. we looked at paper in a rainbow of colors. we talked glue, we talked tape. we looked at matt board, presentation board, clay board, and ink. ummm. paint and medium.      

we made a few choice purchases.

i got a really big sketch pad- a really big one. dara gave me a gift of some charcoals and a kneaded eraser. (thanks dara). we went out for pizza and talked about the history of the civil rights movement in milwaukee and the nohl show at inova. dara liked the photographs.

when i got home with amaru i broke out my new sketch pad and asked amaru if he wanted to draw. he drew in his notebook. finally he could not resist the sketch pad any longer and he took up the willow stick and we drew on the big paper together. it was so fun. i like the way he draws better than how i draw. his lines and directions are so fresh. so unexpected. i love that. my lines and shapes are so cliche. predictable. but then i wonder if they are really just predictable to me, because i am me and i just know myself. i doubt it. but okay, so i'll work on it. and i will learn from amaru. he's a genius.

well, i've been making all sorts of things lately. one fun thing i did was make some zines with my kid and contributed to the zine kid table at the polish falcon this weekend. it was a great experience for both of us. there were such great zines there! i always wish i had more time and more money at zinefest. it was inspirational. i discovered that where i used to be more comforatble expressing myself in words, it all comes our much more visually now. someone said making zines is kinda like "cross-training." i agree. my zines kinda suked but i try not let to self jusgement stop me. because then i probably would not make anything ever.

i have been looking at the pottery of oaxaca mexico and it has been blowing my mind and i really want to go there. so i have been helping with the day of the dead altar at redline and making clay skeleton puppets and dotting out skulls. a part of me is nicaraguan. if my name was jessica espinoza it might be easier to see. and that is a pretty name anyway. beats jessica laub. but nicaraguan women don't really change their names when they get married as a rule. so it did not make sense for me to change my name either.

also did a super-cool "fabric burial" down in bayview with another artist/friend from redline. we wrapped up an bunch of silk with berries and brussel sprouts and cranberries and buried it in chelsea's garden. we're gonna dig it up come spring and see what it looks like.

went on a mad canning spurt. something in me just loves tomatoes. and is so sad to see the farmer's markets close for the season. its my way of holding onto it i guess.

also making some animals, and magnets, and dishware, and mosaics. drawing. trying to learn to see. to pay attention.

so here is the mosaic that i recently completed for Cafe Corazon in the heart of Riverwest. i am very satisfied and relieved to have it completed at last. it took a lot of work and there were some glazing issues i had the unfortunate pleasure to learn about. like plain white clay slip is not so good for mixing into underglazes to lighten the color because then the glaze doesn't stick to the tiles so much. white underglaze has a fluxing agent in it that is important when it comes to making the glaze stick- especially if you are painting it on bisqueware. so when people say that underglaze is just slip with color added, that isn't entirely true. this is a lesson i will only need to learn once. now i know. and knowing is half the battle people. knowing is half the battle.

anyhey the piece turned out pretty well all in all and the peeps down at corazon seem pretty happy with it. and so am i. stop by corazon and have some of their good eats and take a gander at it in person. 2139 n. bremen, milwaukee, wi. http://www.corazonmilwaukee.com/