Day Four - Prairie Center Rez

I haven't been able to sleep very well yet, my eyes are still anxious to explore the new surroundings.  Early this morning I peeked through the blinds and the light was beautiful.  It was so beautiful in fact, that I had to go out and be with it.  Well...more like see it from the inside of the van on the way to the studio because it was less than 20 degrees and my southwestern skin isn't tough enough for that direct exposure.

I spent the entire studio day working on one task - sewing my painting.  I had gotten the raw unstretched canvas too wet yesterday and it was warping in a wicked way around the edges.  Cure:  cut out the characters and embroider them onto a new square of canvas.  I knew one day my embroidery and painting worlds would collide.

Not a big fan of the word cute as a description for my work but this painting is pulling me into some child-like narrative illustration so why not cute the shit out of it?  I'm going for all out bedtime story.  There is a dark irony between the sweetness and the choice of animals.  I'll explain it later or you can go ahead and Google moon bear farms in China - just a warning...it's pretty gnarly.

The studio space is really inspiring, there's tons of room to move around.  It's extremely industrial-we're surrounded by machines inside the building and out but everything is neat and orderly.  (Which was totally conducive to the one-person sewing sweatshop I had going on today.)  

There is also a kind of Mary-Tyler-Moore-office vibe going too which I adore.  I could never capture the entire building in one shot but there are all of these lovely little vignettes that hint at the space as a whole.  Here are some of my favorites...