Walk by the transfer station and train tracks

Photos have captions that tell the about what we saw on our walk today to find some flowers for a formal bouquet Keith is designing. It uses pink and orange flowers which  all comes from our garden and the roadside. Keep an eye on his blog Keith Stanley.com for a finished bouquet in coming days. We enjoyed our steamy walk along the railroad tracks on the trash transfer access road looking at all the cool "weeds" that flower and bloom along the road side. They all get mowed down about twice a year so today we were collecting a few flowers he needed, while I was photographing even more.

Keith picks a few wild ever blooming pea flowers

Trash is transferred here from collection trucks to huge transport trucks  behind the fence

in the long grass I noticed something pink...

Not sure what it is but it was pretty.

My friend from DC Modern Quilting Guild Aubrey says that the pink flowers are called Evening Primrose or oenothera. I was hoping someone would help us with that name it was buried deep in my fading memories from some other time but just didn't come to me while writing this post. Thank you for your helpful comment Aubrey! I looked it up and found this great description of it on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center native plant database. Pink evening primrose  check the hot link for more : Oenothera speciosa

so we closed in on it and brought home a picture

trucks go in transfer the load and go back for more waste 

The hill of green lush trees is the forest of Fort Totten park 

Blue Chicory and white Queen Ann's lace common road side flowers 

Rare white flowering chicory 

white cotton like fluff from a cotton ball tree was all mixed in one area of crown vetch flowering vine 

Metro and CSX railway tracks run right along the roadside 

Keith approaches with his bouquet 

pink every blooming pea and queen Ann's lace 

Native milk weed flowering smells very sweet and attracts bumble bees this time of year. 

It's the kind of milk weed that Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on as they migrate south to Mexico each year. 

These milk weed will be mowed down in a few weeks 

the back drop to the edge of Catholic Univ. playing field is a jungle of invasive vines and bushes mixed with some natives. 

Teasel flowering. We saw it yesterday and it hadn't bloomed but today it looks half gone! 

OPENING NIGHT

18 images and an artist statement make my wall complete

 We arrived about 6:30 and just made it in to the second public parking garage to find a space before the crush of visitors to Crystal City on Friday night too them all away. Artomatic opened at 6:00 but we were in the rush hour crawling across the city so we didn't arrive on time. The line was long at the door but somehow we managed to pass it by going in the loading dock doors at the back of the building we used while installing the show.

Keith and I standing by his work taken by a beautiful cartoon artist from across the room.  Urvi Metha

The second floor was tidy and lots of artists were there standing near their work ready for guests to arrive. We did our last minute installation of our artist statements on the walls by our work. Then took some photos and chatted with some of the other artists while waiting on our friends to arrive and visit our shows. Keith spotted my buddy Douglas Kingsbury first and he was alone and not sure he was ready to take in the whole building full of art but asked if we knew others in the show he might know... Having not seen the whole show yet I just pointed out a few friends I knew were in the exhibition. We had a nice visit and he went on to tackle the next floor.

Other guests and visitors we didn't now began to pass through and stop to talk. Met a couple from Alabama who loved my prints and were excited to hear that I also quilt! We shared a few quilter's stories. I got a nice tip for a "jelly roll" quilt to try so I am off to search YouTube to see what it is later today. Over the course of the night we had a good flow of visitors friends and art acquaintances complementing our efforts and creativity. It was rewarding to hear the praise. One fellow told me that he had seen my wall of work featured on Huffington Post Washington DC edition and Keith found his work on the Washington Post Weekend section slide show. So we were lucky to be in the visual line up of media this time around. We saw Molly Ruppert and Christina her daughter for a few minutes and Dwayne Franklin my friend from Baltimore who stayed late after work to see the big show. He wandered in late looking overwhelmed and a little burnt out from all the rooms of art he had visited. He managed to find us and was "done" with thoughts to return and revisit to see more but he had seen enough for one day.

  Christian Tribastone the guy who makes Sketch-crawl Washington DC happen every two or three months and a very nice art teacher who draws on brown paper with black and white media stopped by to see us. Love his art and I am looking forward to my chance to get up to the 9th floor and see his work, check the link on his name to see his blog posts of drawings and fun art give aways he does in the streets of the city.

Keith talking with Tomás Tarr the glass lamp-work artist who helped us secure our spaces on the first day. 

Keith's piece is best seen up close! All those details of sawed off and painted red stick ends and the spindly yellow craspedia bobbing over them make a wonder when you get in close. I was so glad he joined me at Artomatic this year it would have been lonely without his support and company. By 9:15 we were spent and tired from a long day and packed it in to get out and leave some parking for the people still trying to get in. Missed poet Dan Vera and Peter Montgomery our neighbors by a few minutes. They found our work and as I suspected Narcissus Poeticus print was a favorite for the poet!

On 2nd floor one of our favorite sculptures Edmund van der Bijl 

He painted the soiled rug black covering up some cool designs he painted below the black. We figure he ran out of time waiting on the black to dry so he couldn't do the detail work over again before they threw us all out last weekend. 

Pretty artist watching her neighbor explain a glass and ceramic mosaic to a small redheaded boy

Xavier Malina's moving lights box was a favorite in a dark room 

hallways decorated with the fabulous spray paintings of street artists

Finally Artist Nicholas Zimbro seen here talking about his work. My favorite artist including the collage behind the paintings and drawings on the first floor. We saw him on our way home.  

Lots more of Artomatic is open and waiting to be explored. It is fun to see all the good and crazy art installed and well worth a few hours of your time if you are anywhere near by, make a point to drop in and find your favorites and post a few for us to see on your facebook or somewhere.

connecting the rose stars with white fabric in between has begun!  

Now it is time for me to get back to my quilting projects...

Ready Set Go ... Artomatic 2012

The walls are painted, the pictures framed and hung, the name is in place. All that remains is to go and enjoy the shows. Artomatic 2012 is billed as a thousand or more artists in one Crystal City retired office building running May 18th through June 23rd and this year's Artomatic is using about 8 floors of an 11 story building to display art of all sorts.

I was so excited last weekend when Keith and I finished hanging, painting, lettering our displays that I began looking around to pack up and I began visiting with other artists in various stages of completion. So excited I forgot to take photos of our finished installations. I have a few to share from Keith who was trying to get pictures casually as I rambled on with my roommate Beth and neighbor Kathrine who were both finishing up.
The opening is tonight and some sources say there are only 500 visual artists this year and about that many again performers and other types of art events. It is always exciting to have a newly painted wall full of my artworks to share in the joy with so many other artists is worth any pain and cost of doing this event. Tonight marks my fourth time as an Artomatic artist in the past 12 years.

central part of my exhibition display

The grand opening is tonight 6:00 PM to 1:00AM at 1851 South Bell Street Arlington, Virginia about a block from Crystal City Metro-rail station. My work is on the 2nd floor in space 0121. It is in a room at the north west corner of the building. Keith Stanley is near by also on the 2nd floor in an open room spread out on the floor. Directions are listed here on the Artomatic.org website http://www.artomatic.org/visit/directions

Keith pulling off electrical waste to prepare his wall.

Beth hanging her papers on the dark blue wall

Soon as my work is done greeting guests I will be touring and photographing my favorites at Artomatic 2012 to share with you readers who are so far away that you can't come see for yourselves.

getting ready

large and small Coptic bound books ready to fill

This past month I have been working on making a bundle of new Coptic bound blank books to offer at the Art in the Burg show Saturday April 28th in Middleburg, Virginia. It is always exciting to select the various materials that go into the covers and sewing of a new Coptic binding. There are fine cover cloths and handmade marble papers and a color bee's waxed linen thread that gets glass beads strung on them as they loop in and out of the signatures of each book spine. First step is to select the cover paper and cloth and prepare the boards they are glued over. Then cutting them and gluing them down and put in my heavy steel screw press from the 19th century to hold them with blotter paper very flat while that glue dries over 24 hours.

two sets of new book covers after pulling them out of the screw press 

Cover on the left a cherry blossom printed japan paper and on the right are woodblock printed red from Florence, Italy (wrapped in waxed paper) 

Then comes adding the folded, hole punched signatures of fine cotton writing paper is the next step. It begins with the paper signatures then a length of linen thread and a cup of glass beads at the ready I start and sew it all into a book small takes an hour larger takes a few hours to get them all laced up and in the stack of completed Coptic bound books.

brown cloth, aqua end pages and green linen thread and glass beads

all sewn together the finished book stands n the sun ready to use. 

4 new pocket sized books completed in blue, gold, brown, and purple

and recently added ORANGE! 

In addition to books I am working on adding scans of my new watercolor sketches to my portfolio web site which now has a new page devoted to my practice of a daily sketch. That is over at this web site: Frederick Nunley  Prints and originals will also be on display and available at the Art in the Burg show. Earlier this week Keith and I signed up to show at the 2012 ARTOMATIC in Crystal City, Virginia with 1200 of our dear artist friends and neighbors! This will be our 3rd Artomatic done together since 2000. He will be making a large ikebana installation and I will be showing my sketch prints the big opening May 18th is in a huge office building right next to the Crystal City metro station exit. It runs Wednesdays through Sundays all day and late into the night for after work visitors. Hope you can plan to stop by this spectacular exposition of all kinds of art works by local artists. It began in Washington DC as a non-judgmental art collective installation and rules as the biggest and most diverse exhibition opportunity.

4-14-2012 the twin pink parrot tulips that came from our garden were my sketch subject...