Getting ready to move on

My stay here in the Virgin Islands is coming to a close for the season. I leave May 1.

Today I have organized the studio space that I have here (a guest room) to see what I should take with me to Maryland and what can stay.

I have been here for over four months, and I have done some art work, but I don't have much to show for it, in the sense of finished art work. I have been experimenting with dyeing with local plants, which is interesting and is turning into quite a larger project than I had thought. I had not thought much about it before I started, actually. Just that it could be a fun thing to do, since there are so many things growing here where we live on the edge of the rain forest. Turns out there are many ways to dye, many ways to make the dye permanent in your fiber, many different fibers that take the dye differently and many, many plants, seeds, bark to try. Overload! I feel that I have touched on the subject of natural dyeing, and I got some results that may encourage me to continue next year. I need to study the subject more, before digging in again, find a narrower focus, perhaps, and definitely limiting myself in some ways. This scientific research process does not seem very interesting to me. I want to do things and see what happens! I guess I am very un-disciplined in my art making.

Here is a picture of some of the dyed fabrics:

As  you can see, some of them look barely dyed at all. If you want to know more about this journey, you can find it on my blog "Experiments in Dyeing" at www.simonsonart.blogspot.com

When I return to Maryland, I have some work to do. I am going to be in three exhibitions before the end of this year. Fortunately none of them are solo exhibitions, so I don't have nearly the pressure of having to put together an entire gallery's worth of work.

The first exhibition is at the Smith Center for the Healing Arts in DC. It is an exhibit of "Visionary Artists" of which I am one! Who knew. What defines a visionary artist, it turns out, is an artist who does not have any formal education in art. That is me all right. I will be showing some of the pieces that I made together with Kathy Beynette a couple of years ago. Here is a sample:

The second exhibition is at the Takoma Park Community Center/City Hall, in July. I will be showing birds.

Something like this:

Finally, I have a lot of work to do to prepare for our Fine exhibit in Lancaster, PA. I hate to admit it, but I have made no progress during this winter. I don't understand why I can't find what I feel is the right expression for me, of the Map theme. I love maps! It should not be hard. The only thing I can think of is that since I love maps, I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to make "the Ultimate Map Art Work". That would be silly, but it could be true.

More on this later.