Well after the fair was over.....

ARTISTS Of ALL AGES

enjoyed the Haleiwa Art Festival !!

This sweet little girl came through my tent early 
on a Sunday morning with her grandma
and was fingering some of my hand painted fabric. Her grandma said to her,  "You  know you can have only one choice from one of the 5 booths we have been to recently." The girl nodded while narrowing her choices in her mind no doubt. Not much time passed  before i saw her walking towards me with a bright smile. I had a feeling she just might be an artist in the making 
as she selected one of my hand painted aprons,
the one with lots of vibrant colors circling about.
Here she is modeling the apron while i tie it up. After the the girl handed me the denero, i folded up the apron and placed into one of my hand painted lunch sacks i use for smaller items and handed it to Haley.
 She gave me a big hug ! What a way to start the day!!
then i thought of this string of words....

" So without imagination and paint

upon cloth, dried and  then manipulated.....

there would be nothing to see HERE! "

sonja hagemann

HAF  participant  since 1999

Aloha!I 

 I could be showing, feeling my age as it is 2 weeks past the HAF so i am almost up to energy level that i think is the new normal.....for a person my size! At the fair i had a sign up sheet for folks that ask if i have a painting class. i  say,  I do when i can get a few folks to agree on a day to gather.  We have a group  next month that will learn a bit about mixing colorful inks for fabric painting, sketching flowers, looking and seeing, experimenting and having fun  with color. Seams  that many of the folks that show up are quilters 

that like the colors i get into my fabrics and  

how i use the the transformed fabric that started out as a 
plain vanilla hued cotton. 
 In a class setting, I  can share my paints, brushes and tools and ideas as i have a  history of painting upon  things that do not move fast. Flowers get my focus and because you have to put the color somewhere, a good place to start and  because i love leaves
 and all the many shades of green that shows up in green!
I have plans for these lovely blossoms  below. 

                                                                            magnolia

"To create one's own world in any of the arts

Takes courage."

Georgia O'Keeffe

• What do i do when i empty a jar of possibilities??
•              Here are some  brushes standing  in a jar that once contained inks and now wrapped in a bit of painted cloth.
• 
  
• I hope you are having a colorful summer
•  and  finding  cool shady spots to sit  and  sip  a cool ice tea!
• be well, Sonja
• 

sunny saturday

I have been in studio preparing for the Haleiwa Art Festival that i do each July. I have juried into for the past 19  plus years so 2017 will be my 20 th show under those white billowing tents. As much as i love blogging, sometimes and for a period of time, i have no words to share,

 other than inner dialogue going on in my head, around and around. 

My hands are talking to my stuff and inner artyself, mostly. 

And just like any painting or quilt or story or piece of work, it simmers and changes and stops/starts and is resolved  in its' own time frame. It is in  this process where i am problem  creating and solving as it flows and if one stimmies me, i shift to another project because perhaps the next step has  just become clear to me by not thinking about it..but in the shift of thought/mind. Interesting. 

Anyone reading this that is a maker might recognize the joy/agony in the making process. Those who are curious about the finished work might gain a bit of  insight knowing that ideas do not come to most of us fully formed but rather in more fits and starts and parts and wrong turns ...
each one informing the next decision/s.

And so it goes; it is a journey for me and the piece is the log, the diary or proof of the documenting processes. It no longer is/it never never was   an idea.... 

the object is more of the sum of many ideas, it is itself, a quilt, a painting ,a story, a cake....a miracle perhaps and at least something that did not exist before.... 

OKAY, here are some of my favorite tools of the trade:

 cloth, paint, brushes, cutters, large work surface, water, small rocks. 

 This is how most of my work beings.

 And with that seed of a inkling of a possible idea kernal...it begins.

i must add each side track is fun like the

 3 brush containers in the front, 

under the wrapped fabric lurks an empty pint jar that once held my paints/inks.

 love quotes that say to me 

Yes! that is just what i was thinking and someone else has already located 

 and arranged those descriptive words, beautifully !!yea!!

If i am dreaming of creating a quilt using some of my fabric painted cotton 

in every color imaginable, 

i reach for scissors, pins, threads and one of two of my favorite sewing machines,

my Featherweight 221 singer

Noodles  the watch cat  

Noodles 

 or my Bernina 830 record, the old square one.

My current cat assistant and studio investigator, Ruby

I like joining  up fabrics on the FW and quilting free motion on Bernie 

 i have both of them set up in opposite ends in my studio so i can get up and move often.

Also, after machining there is always hand stitching involved and ....
i like to take that outside and sit under a shady tree.

So, do you have favorite tools or helpers in your make spot?

Be well, see well, Sonja