Lulu the dog who rules my life says Happy Holidays!

May your life be bright from Lulu!

Small spaces and bad lighting make for nasty photos!

As a fiber artist who makes large quilts as well as small quilts in a little house with low ceilings I am always and forever trying to figure out how to take decent photos. Just in case those of you who follow my blog haven't noticed I am not a photographer. I have spent much time mulling over how to fix this and I think I have a solution. Today I went shopping for new pillow cases to match the quilts I want pics of, a gallon of Antique White paint, new lamp shades - white of course and tons of day light light bulbs. I had the back ground color on my web site changed to a soft gray today as well. So we will see how this all progresses.

I think a whole lot of artists live in smaller then they need houses as do many other people. I do not have a single room in this house where I can get a 'perfect' quilt on a bed shot. I happen to have a very dark wood book case in my room, so for today I covered it with a sheet, not so great in my opinion. Tomorrow the shelf gets moved and I am so wishing I had a magic wand to move it, well more the books then the shelf.

The room with the blue walls which I rarely ever go in is the lightest room in the house. So one blue wall is going to now be antique white, I will use it to take pictures of my small work. Maybe I can get pics of a red basket that shows the red, or whatever other color my work happens to be. We will see.

Ultimately it does not matter if you live in a great big huge house or a tiny one, we all like to be comfortable where we live and I want my work to be seen for the color it is, cause it can live anywhere.

Happy Holidays
Parker

A bluish wall will become antique white.

Daylight bulb on the left, soft white on the right. I love soft white but it makes for yellow  toned pictures. 

This is a combination of light and it is close to the actual color. 

This is in the same light but much closer to the reality of the color of the quilt. and this is what I am going for  in my pictures.

The ugly brown dresser got painted antique white.

The wall behind the dresser was also painted and a piece of whitish carpet added.

Much better for taking pictures now for a better camera.

Something witty or not?

Of course when I started this blog I thought for sure I would have something witty to share every day, instead what I have found is maybe I am good for 5 or 6 witty sentences a year. Often even though I am working on something new or interesting in terms of fiber art I am so engrossed in the project I forget to share, this coming from some one who also forgets to eat. (speaking of I mean to pay more attention to eating when engrossed in a project so I pop something easy in the oven, only remembering it is there as that slightly burned smell wafts through the air) Or perhaps I can't think about the process I just have to do it. The city scapes quilts are a perfect example. Right now I am working on updating my web site, not my favorite thing, though I find I feel like a real grown up when I do,whatever that means. My book, patterns and angelina fibers are always available from my web site. I gave up etsy, while a great net working tool, I have a mini shopping cart on my web site.

After all the Farmer's Markets this summer I made an executive decision to turn my living room into a gallery. Keep in mind in a normal persons house what I call the living room would be a bedroom and the studio would be a living room, but alas this is not a normal person house. The Parker Snowe Gallery is now open by appointment only.

Right now while the studio happens to be ultra cleaned up I am working on finishing all those projects I never quite get around to because I have to clean up first. Not sure how long this will last but 2 down and several hundred to go. The birds is just one of many.

One finished project for the Montana Audubon Society to raffle.
The birds are from a google search for free appliqué bird patterns. 

Studio, quilting machine space. 

The studio all too organized.

A cleaned off cutting table in the studio.

Perfect place to hang skinny quilts for the evening

Studio space used for an event.

Studio used as gallery space for one event. I've left two of the quilts hanging just so I am not distracted by all that fabric hiding behind them. 

Gallery space

Christmas socks of all sorts.

Gallery space.

New gallery space 

Gallery space in a pinch I can still use it as a living room.

Gallery space.