It was a beautiful day for a walk around the grounds.
The first photo is Ragdale House where most of the writers are housed. The second is the new Meadow Studio, which has glorious light and difficult heat(now fixed we all hope). The red is the back of the Friends Studio which houses the composer in one side and, this time, a dancer/performance artist in the other. The rest are just phots on the walk around the prairie.
It took some doing. I drove to Waukegan to find a JoAnn Fabric store. I needed iron on interfacing (and an iron) so the paper would not rip in this process and a cheap glue gun. Where JoAnn's was supposed to be was now an Off Track Betting Facility.
Back to Ragdale. Back to the internet with my Rand McNally Atlas by my side. I drove to Vernon Hills, and could not find it in the maze of malls. This time I had brought the phone #. It was next to the Home Depot, deep into the maze.
When it was time to glue this afternoon, I realized I had bought the wrong size glue sticks. So, back to the internet to find a local hardware store and make the call. Sucess. So, I think this is the solution. The question is, should I spend the rest of my time painting striped paper yardage? Or work on something else?
There are still issues to solve that might best be solved at home.
It seems to methat there will be sentinels...but how they will appear will depend on the environment I secure. If the walls are dark...as in black..the dark suits would work. If the wall color cannot be changed, something white. Hmmm. I may not be able to decide yet. But the picture of the three options together pleases me, even if the beige one on the right looks like an old fishermen's oilcloth coat and the one in the middle got super pooped on by seagulls! And these are still too fabricy. The sentinels must be very clearly sculptural.
It just seems to me that the sentinels must not compete. They either must be exactly like the triptychs or blend into the wall. Maybe I need to paint some paper, cut into suit pieces and assemble. Hmmm. I see sripes in my future tonight!
Today I did a test set-up of the installation. You can see the final state of the final triptych. It was a lot of painful crawling around on the floor to clip and tape the parts together.
I hung the back to back triptychs from the ceiling. and ranged the suit coats around the room. I will be working on them next...see how it goes. I envision them as sentinels. I'm thinking they will need to blend into the wall
pretty much. So, I will get out the modeling paste and give it a try.
I was able to set up 2 rows of Triptych. In the end there will be a total of at least 5. 
I envision a video inset in one. None of the images seem right to me to hold the video screen, so I may have to do another set or a replacement set.
The daisy-chain of the sleeves will likely not be in the final piece.
Step one, begin to add the leaves. Step 2 : test out more foliage in Photoshop.
Step 3: Add that foliage. Step 4: perfect the blacks, sharpen up the figure, add a bit of color to the suit.
progress and corrections the "final triptych" on. The day was short and the prairie was beautiful. Instead of the treadmill at the rec- center, I went for a lovely long walk in prairie and woods. Hmm, the sleeve is like a giant tube worm about to eat her...
I finished the triptych after lunch today. I've been slow and sleepy today. But, I exercised at the Rec Center and finished the piece. My reward was to go snowshoeing on the prairie!
Alan Isaacson made these snow shoes and loaned them to me for the duration. FUN!!! I like these pointy snowshoes much better than the bearclaw ones I had tried out at the ARC Retreat Center.
Back to work!
First the stripes and then the whitewash. See the difference?
Now the lovely Lisa is at the center either being birthed or returning to the womb. I am undecided about whether to put pattern pices in the background as I have in all the others. Since she is wearing a pattern...perhaps that is enough.
I was having problems with the right hand side and with the placement of the feathers/petals. So, I put an image in photoshop and played around a bit, figuring out the compositional issues.
It ended the day looking like this. 
Nearly done. The lower left needs some value adjustment and the upper right, obviously needs work as do the hanging head-feathers. Getting there.
Probably the best thing about today was the red wine and the nap in the recliner! Nothing like reading in your sleep.
It's not been a bad day, just a slow and sleepy one. I made good progress (and may make more this evening) on the next triptych. 
I figured out how I wanted the inset "Lisa" to be enveloped. But my fingers got tired of being dried out by the pastels. So I went for a delightful sub-zero walk in the sun.
When I got back I remembered that I had planned to film the process. So I went through my tapes from last year and began to put it into the computer so I could see what I have: TOO MUCH!
I kept getting this signal. I stripped out the sound, trashed it, and began again. Got the message over and over. Removed sound over and over. Filed my giant thumb drive ( Which had more room than my internal hard drive) to over flowing and did not get it all on there. Oh well. I hate video editing anyways. I have to decide if I am filming more of the process. Not sure there is much more to be seen, except the emerging Lisa's. Maybe I will just shoot tape of the completed pieces. Stay tuned...I guess.
The first full day at Ragdale, 2009. I perfected the Triptych I did in December. You probably cannot see the difference, but I pumped up the lights and darks. I began the next one with an inset drawing. Much crawling on the floor to do that, but at least I have floor space and many pillows to kneel on. I did not know that my knees could do that! Then I began a picture of the lovely Lisa that will be inset later. She will be sitting atop a suit, newly born, wearing the pattern pieces that will build her own power suit.
It is getting late. I arrived just before dinner. An uneventful drive through surprising ice fog in much of Wisconsin. The trees and bushes were elegantly shrouded in the most delicate frost.
My room is on the first floor of the Barnhouse. It is the handicapper room, which means I have a private bathroom! No tub, but a giant shower. I have a wall of windows looking out on the grounds. I have hung the last completed drawing and across the room, the sheets to begin the next. To my horror, in good light, I realize I have more work to do on the last drawing. Sigh. So it goes.
Tomorrow is soon enough.
