State of the Garment Industry

I watched a really good documentary today on HBO about the state of the garment industry in the United States. It was called "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags". I certainly learned a lot from it and it gave me pause when thinking of my own shopping habits. Let's face it, we all like a good deal. Just look at the popularity of stores like Walmart, as well as the many dollar stores. But how often do we think of exactly why these items are so cheap? In most cases, it's because products are now manufactured overseas where people are paid dirt wages in sweat shops. Canadian and American companies cannot begin to compete with these wages, and if you want your company to survive, then you will no doubt outsource your labour there as well. The problem with this model is of course that it eliminates good paying jobs  at home. Skilled workers can't find work in their trades, and we see what's happening to our economy. I was first alerted to this issue when I read the beginning of one of my favourite books, "Alabama Stitch Book". The beginning of this design book educates the reader as to how the cotton t-shirt industry in the south of the USA has been virtually eliminated by the outsourcing of labour to other countries. The author of the book, a designer, has taken a different approach and specializes in hand made clothing, hand sewn in fact, by skilled women who used to work in the t-shirt factories. I admire her greatly for this approach. You won't find an $8 t-shirt at Alabama Chanin, but you will find quality hand made garments that are supporting local workers who are paid a fair wage. Something to think about. By purchasing discount items made in another country you are literally biting the hand that feeds you. By this I mean that as we eliminate work in our own countries, we eliminate taxpayers, people to buy the goods in our stores, people to buy the house you built, etc..... You get the picture. Just my opinion, but again, something to think about. If you want to support the art industry close to home in many of it's forms, check out etsy.com. Go to your farmers markets. Check out the little design shops. Support fair trade whenever possible. Remember that buying goods made elsewhere could mean that it's made by children, and it could also mean that the workers are treated unfairly, paid next to nothing, and have unsafe working conditions. So the next time you see an item of clothing that is an awesome deal, consider how it came to be that price.

Getting Noticed

As any artist knows, getting noticed in the art world is not an easy task. There are a few things that you can do however to help the process along. First, join associations that are related to your area of expertise. I myself belong to Visual Arts Nova Scotia and the Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council. Being in these organizations gives you access to newsletters, competitions, special events, and exhibition possibilities. The cost of joining these organizations is usually quite small as well. You don't need to limit yourself to local organizations. There are also excellent national organizations, such as the Canadian Painters Association or the Surface Design Association. They usually offer associate memberships if you don't feel you are at the stage where you want to face a jury.

Having subscriptions to the various art related magazines are also beneficial. Not only do they keep you up to date on the latest happenings in the art world, they also provide workshops, great photos, artist bios, etc... My favourites are Fibre Arts Magazine, Quilting Arts, Canadian Art, Threads, and Drawing (American Artist). Think about checking out the section on making submissions to the magazine. Got an idea for an article or a how-to? Check out some of the smaller publications. I recently had an excellent felting spread or several pages in "A Needle Pulling Thread". I didn't get paid, but it's great exposure, and something I can add to my resume.

Finally, there are various websites out there who's purpose is to inform artists about competions on a local, national, and international level. Two years ago I was chosen as a Canadian Artist to exhibit in Iceland through one of these sites. A word of caution. Beware some of the sites that have online exhibitions. They charge a fee for entry ( a common practice in most competitions), and you are exhibited on the site, however the only people viewing the site may be the entrants. Do your homework. I have gotten burned a couple of times this way. My favourite site for finding competitions is artshow.com. One final word of caution. When sending a work out for exhibition, make sure it is clear ahead of time how you will get your work returned to you and who will be footing the bill. I can one incident where I sent my paintings via regular post, but the gallery sent them back fed-ex with a HUGE pricetag that I was stuck with. Contracts are a MUST.

Good luck exhibiting!

I won, I won!!!!!!

I just received notice from the lovely folks at Adventures in Dressmaking and Paradiso Designs that I won their free pattern giveaway. I got to chose the pattern, which was of course the Lolita Skirt ( Pictured in my last entry). They are going to mail it to me. The MINUTE it arrives I will be whipping myself up a skirt, and of course I will post the results. I have just 4 days left until my summer break from teaching, so I will be sure to make at least one. I will also be checking around the bargain bins at the fabric shop for some cool fabrics in anticipation. Now if only the skirt could make me look as thin as the model in the picture........ Thanks again to Adventures in Dressmaking for the contest!

Re-vamping my webpage

So I looked at my webpage today and all I could think was BORING! I built the whole thing from scratch using html code four years ago. What I couldn't figure out my students helped me do. While it's not bad it certainly lacks pizazz. I did manage to put a really cool animated icon on the opening page today, and I re-wrote my artist statement, although it is pretty sparse at the moment due to the fact the creative juices have hit a bit of a standstill. It's not that I'm not doing anything creative, it's just that the creativity is someone else's. For instance, I'm knitting a cute sweater for summer right now, but someone else designed the pattern. I'm grading a pattern to sew myself a dress, but I did not design the dress. But wait! I did sculpt that porcelain angel, and I do have a vase and a couple of bowls firing in the kiln as I write this. Maybe it's not so bad after all.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Back to the webpage. I am going to try to update a little bit every day so it is a bit less boring, although I still plan for it to be minimal.

Last item of the day is that there is a brand new spot for those of us who love fiber to visit and sign up for. It's called Feltbook and can be found at feltbook.ning.com. Not to be confused with facebook, although it promises to become just as addictive. I checked it out today and you can find lots of things to sign up for, and of course you can register your blog.

Happy Felting!

First Time for Everything

The last few months have seen me focusing largely on fibre with painting coming in a close second. Over the last two days however I have pulled out my porcelain clay and made a sculpture of an angel. I am not a sculptor and don't claim to be, although I do have a lot of experience with clay. Mostly I stuck to the pottery wheel. I only meant to make myself a little sculpture for fun, but along the way it evolved into something else. It has fallen apart several times already, which makes me more than a little nervous about what could happen to it when it is in the kiln. Clay is always somewhat of a crap shoot, because at any stage your work can be ruined. Maybe it breaks up in the kiln, maybe something goes wrong with the glaze. It isn't over until it's over. I have taken a few pictures of the angel at the leather hard stage which I will post hear. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did a pretty good job. My final plan for the angel is to cover it either in a clear glaze or perhaps in a lavender crystalline glaze that I have. If it makes it to the end I may also make a latex mold of it and cast a few for around my gardens. I know angels are overdone, but I just couldn't resist.

Embellishments

Lately I have been noticing that everything seems to be embellished. The last two t-s I bought have various forms of embellishment. Naturally a lot of these things cost a pretty penny, so what's a girl to do? Well, do it yourself of course! I have been blog surfing today and found some neat sites that can help even the most challenged embellish their own clothes on the cheap. To see some nice embellished clothes, check out Anthropologie.com. The Burda sewing website is also a daily favourite of mine, and the blog today just happened to focus an article on embellishing. Check out the blog adventuresindressmaking.blogspot.com or another good one is a site called Primrose Corner which shows you how to make a sweet flower brooch.

What I have been discovering is that there are simply not enough hours in the day. Dare I admit that while I am teaching art in high school every day I may be carrying a knitting project in my pocket, or cutting up t-shirts on an empty school desk? I can usually justify this by saying it is important for the students to see that I am interested in being creative or that by watching what I am doing student's interest in piqued. They actually get very interested in what I am doing, even if I have an alterior motive that I simply can't help but be doing something with my hands all day.

As I make another extra panel for my Alabama Stitch Swing Skirt I have also started knitting a little halter top for summer. I just couldn't help myself. I don't believe in having one project done before starting another. I usually have several on the go at once.

Happy sewing and knitting.

It's a Good Day

Ok, so today is turning out to be a pretty good day. The best news is that I scored awesome seats for the Simon and Garfunkel concert in halifax in May. I am on the floor right in front of the stage, 3 rows back! I can't WAIT!!!!! I know I am showing my age, because when I told my students about my great news their answer was "who"? I supposed there will be very few people there under the age of 35. I'm just really glad I got these tickets, because Simon and Garfunkel aren't getting any younger, and neither am I!

On to more good news, I am almost done sewing my swing skirt done in reverse applique and completely hand sewn. It's from one of my favourite sewing books, "Alabama Stitch Book." Now I am no country girl, but I can't help but love the designs and the fact that you can make everything from recycled t-shirts! You don't get much greener than that. The only draw back is that all this sewing by hand takes a really long time, but maybe it's good to have something that forces you to slow down in this age of everything done at the speed of light. It even gives me something to focus on while all the guys in my family watch sports. I hope to have a picture up in a couple of days. While the picture in the book is made with burgundy and grey t-shirts, I was forced to use grey and white because that was all I could find at the second hand store that day. It still looks great.

Check twice, cut once

Recently I bought a really nice sewing book at Chapters called "Chic and Simple Sewing" by Christine Haynes. After browsing the sewing section for over an hour I finally settled on this book because it seemed to have the best selection of patterns that wouldn't go out of date in a hurry. I was really excited to try the Classic Wrap Dress, and even more excited when I found 4 metres of really nice cotton pink fabric in the clearance section for $1.00 a metre on sale! Wow! A dress for under 5 bucks. I decided to make the largest size, which was a large, and busily cut out my pattern and began sewing for several hours. I immediately knew something was amiss when I went to try it on and couldn't even begin to get it to wrap around! My mother arrived at just that moment and was as perplexed as me. Then she asked me what size I had made. Well duh, of course I made the large. Then she said, "well what size is the large?". uh oh. had I really neglected to check that before I cut and sewed? Apparently yes I had forgotten. Upon closer inspection of the book I saw that large was actually an 8-10. Are you serious? I wear a size 16. So now I will have to grade the patterns, which I am NOT looking forward to. I downloaded some good instruction on how to do that from Threads magazine. I'll let you know how it goes. The moral of the story? ALWAYS check sizing not once, but twice.

The New Year

I have many new years resolutions, including the usual lose weight and get in shape. I am happy to say, however, that I have actually been making a bit of progress in this area. Another big one is to try to do something creative every day. I find that like anything else, creativity can be addictive. If I am knitting a sweater, it is difficult to put it down. Once I start a painting, I have to force myself to walk away from it. The problem is actually getting started. Now that the holidays are done, my oldest is back at university, and my youngest's birthday party is out of the way I hope to start this. I am actually under the gun a bit, as I need to perk up my portfolio in the next month. The reason for this is that I am applying to the Masters in Painting program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I am not happy with the current state of my portfolio, the main problem being that it is all over the place. I used to think that demonstrating I could do a bit of everything was a good idea. Not so. I need to focus. My focus this fall has been portraiture. Unfortunately I have found a way to spread portraiture out, working with it is fibres, painting, and drawing. The degree is in painting, so I am supposed to show a concentrated body of work in painting. I guess I know what I will be doing every night for the next month. Painting portraits of women. My focus now is painting them with their inner demon. For example, I painting myself knitting with a crow, which symbolizes my ever present struggle with depression.

Lucky for me I have done my creative thing for today. During my off class I did a sketch of my youngest son. He loves it when I make pictures of him. Speaking of which, he enjoyed the book and pictures I wrote about him for Christmas.

Fighting with Technology

The thing about technology is that it's great when it works. I had the bright idea of printing out some images I created onto cotton transfer sheets designed for the printer. Well, I don't know what printer they were designed for, but it certainly wasn't mine. I have been cancelling print jobs and trying to yank stuck cotton on paper out of my printer all day. So much for doing a little bit of art quilting tonight. My printer had other ideas. I would be surprised if it still worked tomorrow. I guess it's back to the drawing board. I had better luck transferring on silk a few months ago, but Michaels no longer carries those printer sheets. Time to take a deeeeep breath!

One down, many to go

Last night I just about finished an oil painting of a child. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I'll have to wait a few days for it to dry before I can do a couple of touch ups. I had forgotten how dirty painting with oil can be. On a more exciting note, my copy of A Needle Pulling Thread magazine arrived yesterday. It was quite thick this time, and I was thrilled with how the cardinal project I designed turned out. The magazine did a great job with the layout. It's always really exciting to see yourself in print. Now I will have to go out and buy copies for family members! It's the third time I have been published, and I hope it won't be the last.

Post Sale Relief

Well, I do believe the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival will be officially over today. I can already see a lot of improvements and gains over last year. I was part of the Fibre bazarre yesterday at the Tantramar Theatre and I am happy to say that it was really well done. It was an intimate setting, the preparation was wonderful, the vendors were fantastic, and it was well attended by the fibre community and other interested folks. I was lucky enough to have been invited to be part of it. As always I was surprised by what did sell and what didn't. I threw 3 pieces that I had displayed last year in at the last minute and low and behold two of them sold. I also found my knitted sterling silver rings to be popular as well as my needle felted polar bear kit. People hardly looked at my hand painted kerchiefs or my landscape felting kits. That being said I made some new friends, had some great chats, made a couple of key contacts, and got invited to go back next year. I am just thrilled that there has been such a renewed interest in all things fibre around the globe. What's not to love? One of the coolest things I saw was yarn that was fair trade and made from banana fibres! I've got to get me some of that!

New Mac and Changes to Web Page

Big day today! After much deliberation I decided two weeks ago to purchase a Mac Laptop. Part of the deliberation involved the cost! I finally gave in to peer pressure and ordered one and voila, it arrived last night. I must say I was more than worried about the steep learning curve, but so far so good. I especially like the built in web cam so I can skype with my son at university. For those of you who don't know what skype is, I get to have face to face chats for free with my son. I think I may be a bit more excited about it than he is. (LOL)! I am enjoying the great graphics, but not enjoying the small screen. To save a few bucks I decided to order the 13inch. I'm finding it a bit small and wish I had gone for the 15 inch. Too late now. I have it sitting on my desk, right beside the PC.

I have also decided to make some changes to my web page that reflect changes I am being forced to make in my life. I have now removed the sections of my gallery that involve pottery and jewellery. Instead I am going to focus on my painting and fibre work. It was all becomming too much , and you know what they say; jack of all trades, master of none. While I still love clay and will continue to teach it in high school, that's about as far as it's going to go. I am also getting up the nerve to put all of my jewellery making tools, silver, etc... on kijiji to sell. I am going to have trouble parting with everything, but it's certainly not doing me any good boxed up in the basement. You can check out my web page at lisadaniellemartin.com.

Mentality

Mentality is the name of a Magazine published out of Nova Scotia that addresses the issues and needs and opinions of those who live with a mental illness. I had the chance to check it out the other day and was surprised to see a felted self portrait I had done of myself as part of a women and art exhibit last year that was up at the Dalhousie University Women's Centre. The issue I was looking at was spring 2009, and I had no idea that it had been published. Nice surprise for sure, and something more to add to my Curriculum Vitae. It was a partially completed felted image of the upper part of my face. I didn't finish it because I wanted to show that we are all somehow incomplete, always a work in progress. Who we are today will change by the time tomorrow comes. Although I have already shown it in two exhibits I am planning to put it with my exhibit in the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival as a change from all of the nature scenes I have been felting and art quilting. Speaking of which, I finished another art quilt today with my new crayons. This one is from a picture I took while on a hike at the bird sanctuary with my two sons. We had some bird sees, and the chikadees would fly down and eat the seeds out of our hands. I took a picture of one in my son Justin's hand, and this is the image I art quilted. The rest pf my day today is going to be spent reading art history, knitting, and baking some pies (like I need to be eating pies!).

Crayons, not just for kindergarten anymore

Well, I have a new best friend in the textile world, and their name is Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watersoluable wax pastels, i.e. crayons. They even look like crayons. My biggest compaint was that they arrived from the states with 5 broken tips, and a $40 shipping fee!! So not cool. Naturally I have now found a canadian supplier, the same place where I order materials for my art class at school. A pack of 30 crayons was $45. A friend expressed real horror at the cost of these crayons, asking if there wasn't something a lot cheaper. For those of us into creating, we know that we get what we pay for. These crayons are truly amazing and perfect for the art quilter or textile artist. You basically color your image onto pre-washed fabric (cotton or muslin), then take a wet watercolor brush and brush water over your image. The next thing you know, you are looking at a fabulously blended watercolor painting! After it dries you can quilt and stitch paint to your hearts content. Just remember however that because it is water soluable you can't wash it afterwards, so it's not suitable for a bed quilt or a wearable item. I can't wait to give it a try, and I think today is the day. I'll post an image when the work is completed and stitched. I know I need to be cleaning my house, and I've started back to work, but a girl has to have her art time.
p.s. the cotton sweater I knit looks awful on me. I hate it when that happens!

My first day blogging

This is my first day blogging, so please bear with me. I'm going to talk about my art, the art I see of others, my job teaching art, and of course my life as I try to live as an artist.

Let me start by saying that everyone is creative in their own way, and just because you think you can't draw or paint does not mean you aren't creative. Maybe you're an awesome cook, perhaps you come up with great ideas to keep your kids occupied during the summer months, maybe you are passionate about the environment (I'm with you on this one).

I also want to start out by saying that making a living as an artist is not romantic. I do not live the bohemian lifestyle (much as I might want to), I do not eat granola (too fattening), I do not dress weird (well, at least I don't think I do), and I do not think I am eccentric ( even if my students say I am). I am not rich, nor do I ever think I will get rich as an artist. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of low pay, and I have to teach to make ends meet. I like to make things that I like, not what I think people want to buy (Perhaps this is part of my problem?). Still, being an artist is who I am, I would be lost without it, and I struggle every day with it.

Ok, enough of that. I want to talk about the direction I've been going in lately, and that's fibre. I LOVE fibre and all things fibre. With this medium I can do anything, and it provides a great way to combine painting, sculpting, design and textiles. In particular, I am "painting" with felt, thread, wool, yarn and oil paints. Instead of just felting images I have been going over them with thread, quilting, yarn, and whatever else I can find. I'll post a couple of pictures to let you know what I mean. I have a solo exhibit I'm getting ready for in the fall as part of the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts festival. Check out the website at fibreartsfestival.com. I also have one of my pieces in the festive issue coming up this fall in the Canadian Publication of "A Needle Pulling Thread".

My job today (besides cleaning the house and doing laundry, VERY romantic) is to pull out the thread and start working on thread painting an oil on cotton work. I think I am keeping the thread companies in business lately.