03.18.09
Posted in Dance at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Rissa Peaceroot of Pretty Impressive Things, also the Editor of CQMagazine online, is also on several of my bellydance lists. This current issue of the magazine is a tribute to their original editor, Nora Creach. what I didn’t realize until reading Rissa’s editorial, is that Nora, or Noora, was also a dancer. she had some marvelous insights on bellydance in the “good old days.”
I have a desk job — my stitching hobby is also pretty sedentary. I love bellydancing because for me it is a way to keep moving while having fun with other women (and men) of myriad shapes and sizes.
And that brings me to a question — who else do I know hiding a secret identity? There is an entire website gallery of bellydancing librarians. There are more of us than you might guess!
Dancing stitchers – show me your shimmy! Do you make your costumes? Do you avoid “real” sewing like the plague? How do you combine your hobbies, or do you?
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03.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:00 am by deRomilly
I have realized these days that this blog, despite its name, has been a lot more about the stitching than the shimmying.
This is not to say that there hasn’t been dancing in my life – I think last week’s posting about shows and workshops proves otherwise!
What it comes down to, I think, is that I’m not thinking a lot about dancing – I’m just doing it, in a very zen way. I teach, I attend workshops. I perform. I don’t often sit down with a pen and analyze my dancing or why I do it, although I DO sit down and analyze my technique. It’s just something that has always been part of me – separate from school, and writing, and stitching.
I’m going to try to remedy that omission over the next few months. Please bear with me – I haven’t thought about dance this way before, so some of my ideas may be a little half-baked. If you think they are (or if you agree!), talk to me in the comments! I love to hash things out in dialog. Heck, that goes for stitching, too!
Session 2 classes start this week – if you’re in Fuquay-Varina and have ever had an interest in bellydance, I encourage you to join us. It’s a lot of fun, good exercise, and none of us bite!
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03.13.09
Posted in Book Reviews at 7:00 am by deRomilly
The best bit of advice I’ve gotten recently actually came from a business book. I don’t know if you’ve noticed from my posts – I’ve tried to keep it in check, but the last couple of months of 2008 were pretty stressful around here.
During that time of health issues, moving relatives, business development and car trouble, I was reading a book, The Savvy Crafter, by Sandra McCall.
Near the end of it is a chapter on what to do when you get overwhelmed. One of the suggestions was to ignore all of the to do list and just take time to create. It sounds like it should be counter-productive. But it reminded me of the advice I was given in college – stop studying for the test. Go to bed and sleep. So I took both pieces of advice at once. i started playing with art journaling as well as working in my studio journal.
It has been rejuvenating. And I’ve accomplished a lot since I started this experiment in late December. While I still want everythign done at once, forcing myself to take 1/2 hour or so a day to play creatively is amazingly calming for me. I’m finding it puts all the issues back into perspective and lets me focus on what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
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03.11.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
In photography, depth of field refers to the distance between the camera lens and the object to be photographed so that the subject remains in focus. When you change the depth of field you can decide whether the subject or the background has more clarity. It’s an advantage in SLR cameras that you can play with this.
Block one with many (not all) seams stitched!
Recently I have been focusing my depth of field on backgrounds in my art. Simple is beautiful. but as I discover some of the more detailed and deep layering in mixed media art I want to figure out how to apply that to my tixtile work. A while back I took Sharon Boggin’s Sumptuous Surfaces class — which set me on this path. This year I am taking her Encrusted Crazy Quilting to continue this line of thinking. What better format for adding this kind of depth than crazy quilting? I stitch slowly, so I can’t promise you quick results on my original blocks (though I seem to be moving faster than I originally expected!)
In addition to the quilting class, I took Kelly Kilmer’s Prompt a Day mixed media journaling class last month. Can’t justify the time this month since I havent’ done all the prompts from LAST month yet! But what I’m finding is that the more layered the background, the sharper, and more prominent the focal image appears — a way of adjusting the depth of field in hand-made art as well as photography. This should be an interesting experiment.
I highly recommend sidestepping out of your normal media choice and play for a while. The results to your focus may surprise you.
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