Ice, snow, and tiny objects

Ann Mansolino

Concord, California

February- March 2015

Ice, snow, and tiny objects

It's snowing outside. I didn't think when I decided to come to the South in the winter that I would encounter, well, real winter. But here it is. We've had both ice and snow in the last week. Fortunately for me, I like winter. I've been living places that don't get weather, exactly, and the snow that's falling softly through the trees at dusk now reminds me of how much I've missed changing seasons, missed the way they remind us that we're tied into a cycle of life that's much older and larger than we are. I believe this awareness matters, believes it helps me keep my own life in perspective. I think this is important as an artist, as well as someone who wants to understand more of what it means to be human in the world.

And winter is also just beautiful. Tiny icicles everywhere. I loved how fragile everything looked when encased in ice.  I took pictures of the Rensing Center and surrounding area following the ice storm, and will share a few images:

But I have to admit that the weather has also affected what I make here, and can make -- in good and unexpected ways. For the sake of being able to work where it's warm, I've been limited this past week to the space of the kitchen table. I've made small, delicate things as a result. Perhaps not as delicate as those icicles, but still: here's one example of a small book I made -- only 1 1/2 inches high -- using basswood, a coptic binding, milk paint, and a small plastic animal toy that I cut in half and painted. I love the way the book functions like an extension of the body, the way the animal seems to be passing through it.

I have piles of cut and folded book sections on the kitchen table ready to go, ready to be sewn and assembled. I'll make more small things in warm spaces, while thinking about my relationship to the big spaces of the world outside as the snow continues to fall throughout the night.  

-- Ann Mansolino

www.annmansolino.com

Solitude and Little Houses

Ann Mansolino

Concord, California

February- March 2015

Solitude and Little Houses

I'm sitting in the Guest House at the Rensing Center, a tiny house perched at the top of a wooded slope, overlooking a small lake across the road. The wind is blowing through the trees, shaking loose the ice that coated the branches after yesterday's storm. The light is beautiful, and makes the ice glisten. I've got food cooking on the stove and art in progress on the table. It's peaceful, and I'm making art I've been wanting to make, working on projects I drew in my sketchbook months ago and hadn't been able to actually create until now.

But first there's the little house and the solitude that makes this all possible. To make art, I need peace and solitude. Deep down, I know that I know that, but I tend to forget and need to be reminded from time to time. And so, on the first night I was here, I was sitting at the table eating dinner and looking out the window, feeling something relax inside me that had been tense for a long time. And then I realized that it was the first time since I'd moved out of my apartment in Los Angeles in summer 2013 that I've had a living space entirely to myself -- not sharing kitchens or bathrooms or bedrooms or studios space or anything with anyone. Since leaving my teaching job a little over a year ago, I've been moving around, staying with friends, doing art residencies, volunteering at retreat centers... generally living with others, often in fairly communal environments. I've learned a lot and done a lot, but have largely been without the physical and emotional space I need to create effectively. I have found that here: in this little house, and in the nature that surrounds it. And for that, I am tremendously grateful. It is something I've needed very much and had lost sight of... and I believe this experience also helps me see the way forward in my own life to what I need, as a person and an artist, in the future.

 And so, when I spread out all the art supplies and photographs and ephemera that I brought with me out on the table to begin to create at the beginning of last week, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make or what direction to go...

...but now a week and a half into the residency, I can see how the space and the peace I have found here have influenced my work so far.

I found that I was thinking about solitude, and about little houses, and about how peaceful and right they felt. I was also thinking about bookbinding... and so I made a book that was a small house (see below). I wasn't sure if it was possible when I started -- to make a book that's the shape of a house... and yet it works.  It's sewn on both sides, and does not open; it thus uses bookbinding techniques sculpturally, rather than functionally. I think of it as a treehouse, and know that it will serve as a reminder of the peace that's found here, in this little house among the trees when I leave. 

I also found that I wanted to make enclosures for some other recent images -- very minimal images of lines in nature in winter that I made just before arriving here. I thus made two clamshell boxes which hold the images like unbound books (or like a home for a pile of previously loose prints). 

I had been feeling like I have not made a lot (I have spent a lot of time walking around in the woods, after all), but when I stacked up what I've completed so far, I was happy -- with the individual objects, with the quality and quantity of what I've completed so far... and actually with how they look stacked vertically, too. So here's the first batch of works, all in a pile:

And then here are details of the individual pieces, below:

The first is "Treehouse", the sculptural book, made from paper, basswood, linen thread, twigs, and a coptic binding.

And this is one of the clamshell boxes when it's closed:

And here are the two of them open. I like that the book cloth is color coordinated with the prints themselves (toned or not toned). Lucky me for bringing the supplies I didn't know I needed until I was here... sometimes these things work out.

 -- Ann Mansolino

www.annmansolino.com

Cleaning House & Moving Out

Skye Livingston

Kansas City, Missouri

November- December 2014

Cleaning House & Moving Out

Happy Thanksgiving! Oh…that was already a week ago? Right. I also woke up thinking it was Friday (the past three days in a row). And then yesterday I considered the possibility that it might be January. I’m a little out of sync these days, which can happen when you spend must of your time in your studio apartment by yourself, only occasionally venturing out into the forest. I also skipped last week’s blog post, which always throws me off. 

I’m winding down my residency at The Rensing Center, and planning to head to Kansas City for a few days on my way over to San Diego, where I'll be for about a month, for some family time and a personal residency from residencies. And come on, who doesn't want to spend the holidays in sunny San Diego?!

My work here has been really segmented. I spent the first two weeks creating drawings for the Holiday Hot Shop at the Sherry Leedy Contemporary in KC, the following week going through and organizing all of my studio supplies, and this past week revisiting some embroidery and sewn paper work. Since I’ve had this whole space to myself for the past few weeks, I’ve really been able to spread out and take over every available horizontal surface. 

I've come to really enjoy the space I've inhabited here. It took me a while to nest in it, but now that I have, I feel like I've really hit my stride so I'm sad to be leaving so soon! So thanks for everything Rensing, it's been great!


You can view more of my work on my website, and follow my adventures at other residencies on my blog. 

To view my recent newsletter and sign up for occasional email updates, click here. 
SKYE LIVINGSTON

The Pickens Flea Market

Skye Livingston

Kansas City, Missouri

November- December 2014

The Pickens Flea Market

One of the things that I find so amazing and endearing about Pickens is the weekly flea market, which happens every Wednesday. Why is it on Wednesday mornings? Because it always has been. How do hoards of people manage to come every week despite school and work requirements? Who knows! Apparently they tried to change it to Saturday a while back, but no one came. Because the Pickens Flea Market is on Wednesdays. Every week. 

There's an incredible selection of things being sold. They have everything from the standard farmers' market selection of produce, bread, eggs, jams etc. to packaged foods, toiletries, otc medicine, toys, used clothes, shoes, fancy roosters and even puppies. Anyone can rent a vendor space, so a lot of people seem to use the opportunity to have a weekly garage sale of sorts, which means that there are a lot of great things to be found. Tintypes, heirloom furniture, old coins, antique knives and all kinds of unexpected ephemera have all been spotted. 

For the most part, you really can do all of your shopping at the flea market. And it's set up that way. I'm amazed at how many people I see there (except yesterday of course, when I took these pictures, because no one told me that on cold days, everyone comes later in the day) and the assortment of goods I see them purchasing. People really seem to establish relationships with the vendors and come back every week, not only to do their shopping, but to hang out, eat tacos (there's a taco stand) and talk to the really nice guy who sells baby lettuce sprigs while his old beagle sits on the flatbed behind him and watches. 

It's a great experience, and I love going there weekly to gather my groceries, do a bit of people watching and soak in the atmosphere. 

-Skye Livingston
www.skyelivingston.com
www.followthenomadhome.com

New Resident, New Work

Skye Livingston

Kansas City, Missouri

November- December 2014

New Resident, New Work

This is my introductory blog post for the Rensing Center and I'm delighted to share my studio practice and some of my current work in progress. I arrived about a week and a half ago and so far, it's been a whirlwind. Amidst the overlapping arrival and departure of residents, acclimating to the area, getting settled in studio and celebrating a birthday, it's been an eventful ten days, to say the least.

This is my studio space, just after I moved in and just before the fruitful production these past few days.

And here it is in its current state of production. I have a deadline to finish quite a few drawings for a gallery in Kansas City, so it was nice to have a direction upon arrival so that I could jump into creating. I'm currently residency hopping, so I came straight from a residency in Nebraska where I had started working on these in their current state, but I have been able to really develop them here. I'm excited about the direction of this work and can't wait to see how it grows at The Rensing Center.

You can read more about my work and residency lifestyle on my personal blog at followthenomadhome.com, and see all of my work on my website at skyelivingston.com

-Skye Livingston

Message from the evening muse

Apart from one torrential downpour, the days here, mostly sunny and beautiful, have passed much too quickly.  It has been truly lovely watching the landscape overhead change from dropping scuppernogs to acorns and large crunchy leaves.  The trail through the woods has been a wonderful nourishing place with changing mosiac skies, mysterious paw prints in the sand and little fish darting in the tiny pools collecting at a bend in the falls.
A multi-media, sacred artist/social activist, singer-song writer, stage and voice over actor, wife and (until recently) mostly stay-at-home~schooling mom, who's found it impossible to choose one or be all, I find myself at a bend in my own road: continually asking the question: "what am I supposed to be doing again?"
The answers come... Sometimes whispering in the night, through poetry and pictures and sacred texts that open up to just the right place, right time and space.  I am using my time here to rest and press the " reset" button, to qualify and quantify myself;
sometimes running hither and yon'
To help a friend transition, to co-craft a song
Or a voice over gig, that comes when I leave home
Through grant writing and research that says I'm not alone...
(thank you Christine for your patient camera crewing through many botched takes,
Ellen, for lending your awesome home space, and Xiaoren for your listening and supportive ear.)
Finally, Who I Am is coming clear and I think I can claim a new career!:
a therapeutic artist that came here to heal
And a writer who speaks from the heart of what's real...

Words of wisdom from the evening muse:
To anyone who gives a dern
Or thinks they can't cuz they got chi'rn
I say god dang it, make the time
To put yo'self somewhere sublime
And re-member your Self Divine
Let folks who"need" you stand in line
Until you get some peace o' mind
Now I ain't sayin it's always easy
To cool your toes an sniff the breezy
But I'm grateful that I carved it out
Before I did I had some doubt
But time is fleeting, that's for true!
So better take some time for you.
It starts at first by givin LOVE
that you too are deserving of

- Micaila-Ayorinde

Alder Creek projects it's own movie

I've come to the Rensing Center from the high desert of West Texas longing to be near water, rain and the forest. The lush landscape that surrounds me has provided many surprises. Walking down to Alder Creek I found the sunlight reflecting off the water onto a tree limb. I paused to watch and listen.

-Christine Olejniczak