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Circular thinking can be a flow state too

by | Jun 2, 2024 | Abstract Painting, Anxiety, Art Discourse, Art Quilt, Carlyn Yandle, Circular Thinking, Color, Colour, Conceptual Craft, Creative Process, Distraction, Experimentation, Exploration, Fabric, Fiber Artist, Fiber Arts, Flow, Geometric Art, Hand Stitching, Hybrid Thinking, Joyful Making In Perilous Times, Mathematics, Needlework, Painting, Perception, Playing, Quilt, Quilt Block, Visual Field

I opened up my studio yesterday to the public to get some general feedback on a new series of paintings. Because even though I’m compelled to keep working on it and even though I’m enjoying a growing proficiency in this mash-up of stitching and painting I’m having...

Gritty beauty seen in foundations of this pretty city

by | Feb 28, 2017 | Abstract Painting, Architecture, Collage, Color, Colour, Composition, Experimentation, Found Objects, Graffiti, Guanajuato, Images, Instagram, Mixed Media, Paint, Painting, Perception, Photography, Social History, Vancouver, Visual Field

It feels like the Internet has killed the fun of taking snapshots of beautiful cities and people. So many times over the last four months in Mexico I’ve raised my camera (phone) to capture an impressive bronze sculpture or some baroque church facade then...

Words are not enough to capture the seduction of distraction

by | Jun 6, 2014 | Blogs, Composition, Creative Process, Critique, Design, Distraction, Distracts, Expression, Ideas, Inspiration, Motivation, Painting, Pattern, Perception, Process, Studio, Writing

Distracts #1, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 33″W x 27″H. To me, the easiest part about carving out a place in the visual arts world is writing something about it. Yet most of my artist colleagues don’t know how I make myself do it on a weekly basis. Easy....

inspiration found at accountant’s office

by | Apr 25, 2014 | Beauty, Big Data, Color, Colour, Composition, Creative Process, Data-graphic, Distracts, Inspiration, Painting, Pattern, Perception, Process, Visual Field

With the same anticipation as a root canal I plopped down in a chair at the accountant’s office. Then gasped and pointed, then tried not to point at the adjacent bookcase stuffed with client files. The accountant flipped through my own paperwork. I flipped out...

QR button blanket: Epic fail or a larger reading?

by | Mar 21, 2014 | Additive, Beauty, Buttons, Color, Colour, Composition, Craft, Craftsmanship, Creative Process, Critique, Design, Distraction, Fabric, Fabricating, Failure, Fiber, Fibre, Found Objects, Handwork, Ideas, Innovation, Motivation, Pattern, Perception, Performance Art, Polly-apfelbaum, Process, Production, Project, Qr Code, Quilt, Textile, Upcycling, Use Object, Use Objects, Visual Field

After three months of sewing one donated button after another into a giant QR code, the big moment arrived this week: time to stand back and scan that baby with a reader app, translating this quilt-thing to read, “The devil is in the details.”Except it...