Coleyism 52!

KING The story of a girl who wants to be King: When I grow up I want to be king
with body guards dressed in red
on horses with royal names,
shielding me from these bullies.
No more broken bones.
When I grow up I want to be king
like the one on postcards my teacher 
sent me: King George VI.  I don't care
about castles, a mud-brick house will do.
I don't need electricity, I see in the dark.
*excerpt and images from my one-of-a-kind handmade textile book King.

Teaching Art One of the greatest joys of being an artist is teaching art to the public.
My classes are free and open to everyone, young and old.
The greatest feedback is when someone says: "Look Suzanne, I made this masterpiece.  And, I am going to hang it on my wall."

Beading
Beading is a nice way to add texture and a little glitter to fabric.  Here is a view of the backside of one of the beaded designs in my handmade textile book Goats.

100,000 Forbidden and Banned Books Banned books donated from all over the world were used to create the Parthenon of Books in Kassel, Germany. The installation was constructed at the same site (Friedrichsplatz Park) where Nazi sympathizers burned books on May 19, 1933 during the "Campaign against the Un-German Spirit."
The brainchild of this installation, Argentinian artist Marta Minujin, established a list of banned books for her project with the assistance of students at Kassel University. With donations from the public, 100,000 copies of the banned books were gathered to create the  structure.  Parthenon of Books has the same dimensions of the real-life Parthenon in Athens.

*** Note: This is a temporary installation and will will run until September 17, 2017.  When it ends, the Parthenon of Books will be dismantled and the books will be distributed around the world.

Textile Books Today I visited the National Museum of African Art to meet my mentor and show her fifteen new textile pages.
 I've been interested in how we read textile pages before they are bound and after they are bound.
One of the things I've noticed is how people tend to hold the unfinished pages much longer when the pages are unbound.  They seem less afraid to "handle" the pages and seem to enjoy looking at the back stitching and artwork.  (Once the pages are bound, the backsides are no longer visible.)

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This has been my mantra for the past two weeks.  It began when my original Exodus carving (and design) didn't work out.   It wasn't the first time I had to destroy my work, however it was the first time I had to destroy work without a backup.   This whole project has been the most delicate and fragile project I have ever undertaken.  At any time, the whole project can be destroyed, and at times, this is exhilarating.  At other times, it is very scary. I had some linoleum left over (from the large roll I began this project with) and I was able to create an entirely new cover for Exodus.   The new image looks much better than the original, and  if I didn't try, try again, I would have never created it.

Linocuts.  Why I love them!
 The challenge of the carving.
 Experimenting with ink colors and viscosity.
Capturing the mood.