Taking Steps: updating, showing, combining art and craft

I’m excited to point you to two new features  of the site here on Kro Studio.

1. You can now fulfill your curiosity by checking out my c.v. here. It’s been a little subpage of the about for a long time, but I finally updated and uploaded my cv.

2. I updated the class listings.

3. I updated the pages on Craft Leftovers, Ames C.art and the About page.

And the neat thing about all this is that it is step 3 out of my 8 step plan to start showing again.

In the last year I took quite the break from showing publicly. I think after such an intense and confusing last semester of school I just needed a break from all of it to get my bearings. To figure out what I wanted to make work about. What was important to Me.

I love my professors and they helped me grow so much, but by the end of it, I had so many ideas, I didn’t really know what I wanted and what my professors wanted and how to differentiate between the two.

{sketch from yesterday in my sketchbook – lanterns in Chinatown, SF, CA}

Going out to San Francisco this summer really gave me the push I needed. It really helped me to answer the question of “am I a fiber artist? or am I a painter?” Well, it turns out I’m neither. It’s kind of funny because as a joke to Jason I’ll often yell out in the most ridiculous “jerk” voice I can muster and say “I’ll do what I want”. But you know what, sometimes, that’s a good way to proceed with art.

And in the most wonderful way my drawing and fiber has started to come together. And I think I’m proceeding to the strongest work ever.

And it all started with drawing daily. And that’s my step 1.

So here are my steps:

1. Start drawing daily – get better at drawing, spend more time in my sketchbook.

2. Start posting daily on Kro Studio (or at least 4 times a week).

3. Update my cv and Kro Studio.

4. Decided on 1 show to submit a work to each month and then make/submit one work (this is great for exploring new ideas without the pressure of having to make a whole body of work).

5. Start working 1 day a week at home in my home studio (painting, drawing, papermaking, etc).

6. Start submitting work to juried shows.

7. Submit proposals for a solo or joint show.

8. Start submitting to residency programs.

From start to finish, it doesn’t seem so crazy. But if I were to just say “Hey, I’m going to go from not showing in a year and a half to applying for a residency”, there would be no chance of success, but I’ve made a nice series of steps for getting there.

I’m already in process of #5. Tomorrow will be my first day where I stay home to work on that larger series of work. And I already have 4 shows picked out that I’m submitting work to in the next 3 months (more than my goal!). I’m submitting two old works (fixed up), and then 4 new works. Three of the shows are juried (#6) and one is open submission.

And then going back to combining my art and craft skills. Well, it turns out that what seemed purely drawing based, is now fibers too. Through talking with a friend of mine, I’ve developed a wonderful way to show these 365 drawings at the beginning of next year.

This is the mock up:

It’s going to be a series of 4 boxes, each one holding 1/4 of the year, and they will all fit into one larger box.

And here is where the fibers part comes in. So each box will be covered in hand dyed  fabric, each one a different shade of the same color – a progression from light to dark.

I’m going to make a limited edition printing of all the drawings and hand stitch them together using rice paper and wheat paste. There will be 4 books in each edition that will be housed in a handmade box. Each book will be covered in the same dyed fabric used for the boxes for the originals.  The handmade box will be covered in the same fabric as the fabric used for the larger box that houses all four smaller boxes for the originals.

All this wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t have a background in dyeing fabric or in book binding/paper making. I’m so exciting to see this perfect synthesis of these two skill sets and art forms. It’s been a long time coming, but I think I finally have it.

Now I just need to figure out a place to show this piece next spring. It will be interesting because it’s now just drawing and it’s not just fibers. Maybe because of the book binding and fabric covered boxes I could sneak it into the fiber/clay/wood/metal show at the art center here in town.

Okay, I’ll post my daily drawing for today in a little bit. Have a great afternoon!

Kristin Roach

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Tags: achieving goals, art, art and craft, book binding, box, craft, drawing, fibers, handmade, making, steps