I’ve been ruminating on the concept for my solo show that’s not taking place until about a year from now. It will be exhibited at Compound Yucca Valley here in the high desert. It takes me a good long time to come up with my ideas for shows, so I’m glad I have this time.

At this point, I don’t have a crystal-clear idea of what I’ll be showing, but I do have plans for a few pieces so far that fit in well with my foggy concept, which will mainly address healing. Not just healing, but more like mending. I’d like to bring in a lot of stitched or sewn elements and pattern-based pieces.

I’d also like to somehow tie in “pattern” in a literal sense, as in garments (perhaps as protection) and patterns that repeat.

How to connect all this feels a little tricky, but it all works in my mind in a surreal, abstract way. I just need the words to describe it so I can put together a clear proposal or statement. And a title, of course.

For days, I’ve been designing a floor sculpture for this show. I’ve never done anything like it before. It’s actually kind of scary. It’s taken me at least a couple of days to decide whether or not it was dumb. But what art isn’t dumb? It’s always been my philosophy that if you think what you’re doing feels stupid, go with it. You’re probably onto something. That means you’re taking a risk and being fearless, right? Well, I figure I should probably stick to my own philosophies.

So, this morning, I bit the bullet and purchased the base section of the sculpture. Not cheap. But it is what it is. I need it if I’m going to do this thing, and I guess I’m doing it now. I’ll be needing a few other things that will cost me some dough, but that’s the cost of making art.

In some of the other pieces I want to make for the show, I have my work cut out for me because I plan to do a lot of embroidery. Forty-eight pieces, in fact. These will all be small, but that’s pretty numerous. I’ve done one of them before, which is a prescription bottle with pills. I want to do that over and over on little pieces of linen and tack them to the wall.

Additionally, I’d love to figure out how I could incorporate my soft specimens since I have a lot of them.

That is just an idea that may or may not work. We’ll see.  

Still trying to get all my thoughts together on this…