Well as I've mentioned in the last blog I am preparing to go to Berlin, next Monday the 2nd May to be exact.  I feel a little tense, there is a lot to do in preparation for going away for a month, the anxiety of trying to take care of everything that needs to be done in New York City, and the anxiety of trying to think of everything I need to have with me in Berlin. The list of things whirling around in my head, but then the pleasure of crossing things off my list is fantastic!  The biggest anxiety is trying to find a good temporary home for my sweet, little old lady cat, very difficult and nothing is quite in place yet.

It is a working residency, not a vacation, so I can't just drop everything and run off, I need to be pretty organized.  I bought an ibook so that I can have a computer with all my materials on it, I love that little machine!!!  $265 bucks refurbished, what a bargain!  It doesn't have the same operating system as my imac, but you can save stuff on a USB stick and just transfer archives over, amazing!  I was telling the tech guy that you can sync things up like this, he didn't even know, psyched!!

At the same time I have been diligently knitting my Chinese tiger.  It's such a long, skinny cat that I decided to knit it as one whole piece, without a seam up the middle like I have done in the past with other big cats.  Since the last monster tiger any other tiger looks small in comparism!  By the way, I have updated my Big Cat Gallery to include my last two tigers, check it out!!

http://ruthmarshall.com/pages/knit/bcg0128.html

So I am determined to get up to the armpits of the Chinese tiger and so far this is being accomplished, it will travel with me to Berlin and I will finish it there.  I'm excited to show it to my gallerist Leah Stuhltrager, she invited me to Berlin for the residency so I hope to do her proud and work hard.  I hope to blog while I am in Germany, so I look forward to sharing my time there with you all!!  XXX

P.S.  I almost forgot!!  I got into another summer residency - in Australia!!!  My hometown of Melbourne!!!  I've been trying to get something going there for a couple of years now, so I'm really excited to go home and share this experience with my family!!  So back to NYC for June/July and then August in OZ, very happy about this!  Here is the link - http://www.montsalvat.com.au/

Yes!  Not too long ago on a bleary Sunday evening, the 13th of this month to be exact, I threw tiger #70374 over my bed to view it finished for the first time.  It was one of those awesome moments as an artist when you've spent so much time, blood, sweat, (not too many tears), toiling away and you see the artwork finished and you can't believe you made it.  It's a strange experience, as if in the exact moment it is completed the work has a life of it's own and has wrangled itself away from you to exist for itself.  I've only had that experience once before, it's very peculiar, special occurence.  The next thought I had was, 'is it enough?'  Had I done enough with the knitting to really express what I wanted to about these extraordinary animals?

I didn't like that thought much, so I bundled it away where it is right now waiting for me to press it, ready to be photographed next week.  That will be good as I will be able to assess this knitted tiger, - lashed to a frame as if it will be ready to exhibit, so I look forward to another view of it.

Have been taking a slight break since then, well, a head cold has also forced me to do that, but I'm getting ready to turn around and face my next striped cat, - based on a wild caught tiger from China, circa 1919.

And I'm preparing for my art residency with Dam, Stuhltrager/RS Projects in Berlin for the whole month of May!

I read an amazing book last month called "Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival", by John Vaillant, a true story of a tiger in Far Eastern Russia, god, it is such a good book, if you are looking for something to read about tigers, their history, the terrain and people of this isolated part of Russia with a twist of detective drama and superb writing skills, then this is the book for you!!  I couldn't put it down, and I want to read it again really soon to really absorb all the information.  I would love to go to the land where the Amur Tiger reigns supreme thats for sure!

I had a pot of coffee at midnight, and now I'm wide awake, wandering around the internet wondering what to do, why update my blog of course!!  Duh!

I have been grinding away at the knitting, which means I've slowly been working later and later into the night, which also means I'm getting up later and later, it's 1:30am and I should try and sleep and try and get up earlier, but somehow I don't think that is going to happen.

So Tiger #70374 is now into the final stages, which means I'm up to the head of this massive cat, I hope to keep this marathon going so that it's finished by the end of this week, let's say March 12th for mental preparedness, then off to the photographers and onto the next tiger........

Pepsi has also been diligently working away, sleeping at my feet on the footstool in her cat bed, she's such a good companion, right now she's squeezed in next to me on the chair.  Let's put in a photo of where I was a few days ago..........

You can see how big this beast is by comparing it to my foot, boy did the shoulders take me a long time.  In this pic you can see how I have the left side of the cat done and the forepaw, and I was right in the middle of short rows trying to bring the two sections together.  I must admit I love short rows, they are an outstanding way of shaping and wrapping the stitches makes them almost invisible, but alas I'm not sure they are giving me the desired result I am looking for.  With short rows my stitch count is totally ruined, which makes for pesky decreases which are much more visible.  I was lucky with this cat that where I was doing this shaping I could avoid the black stripes which made things much easier.  However, my next tiger is covered with all sorts of markings around the shoulders which makes it very difficult to predict  and control how the short rows will affect the placement of said markings.  So back to the drawing board, at least for the next cat.  I think I have to knit the forepaws separately and blend in a seam somewhere, is it possible to do this in an invisible and diagonal sort of way?  I guess I'll find out!

Anyway I was in the mood to weave in loose ends today, just as well, 'cos I spent about six hours doing that!  But had the satisfaction of sewing up the seam along the spine, so the whole piece is finally connected and coming together.  Showed a friend on skype tonight, she couldn't believe it, 'are tigers really that big?'  Awesome. 

was a big hit !!  The ladies who came, (there was originally over 30 people signed up which would have been outrageous, but I think the perfect number is 19, and there were walkthrough visitors as well.)

Some ladies already knew something about multi-yarn knitting and charting and just came to visit Wave Hill or see me and my work again, others learnt a little bit about charting and knitting with multiple yarns, but they all went away with a new appreciation for animal conservation!  And half of them found out about the workshop through Vogue Knitting Live! which was great!

Fantastic!  They were all wonderful nice people, and we had a lovely time in the beautiful and warm gallery of Glyndor House.  Two more workshops are planned for the 5th & 13th Feb.  See my news section for links and info.

Before I start up again, a new gallery will be posted from my events link with pics about VKL! , coming soon!

I want to give a shoutout to Trisha, Gabrielle, Astor, Zontee, Liz, David, Julie, Ron & Theresa, Sharon, Candi, Susan, Karin, Alyssa, Hannah, Anna, Ben, Denise, and all the other lovely people I met, 6 pages of listings in my visitors guest book to go through! - thank-you so much for everything.

So............

I kind of like the whole fair, event, conference thing, whether it's an art fair or a yarn fair, people come together and meet and make friends and help each other out.  If you're participating in such things there's a sense that we're all in this together, so you tend to look out for each others back.  It's all warm and cozy and fuzzy, people come together who have this one thing in common and create a temporary community.  At least that's the way I've experienced it, or maybe I've just been blessed with being around the right people in the right place.  The Vogue Knitting Live! event had a very nice mohair warmth to it, (particularly the winning designs in the mohair design contest which was at the tail end of a Vogue fashion show.)

The other thing about events like this is that they create extraordinary opportunites for you to connect with exactly the right people who are in a position to help you with your business or in my case, my art career.  Once you are given this opportunity to showcase what you do, you have to be on your game and make the most of your time there, as you never know who is going to walk up to you next.  So here is a laundry list of fun stuff that came my way this past weekend.  (FYI, this is not really for showing off, it actually will be my list that I will refer to to make sure that I've followed up on everything and I can also get people to look at it if need be, and I won't have to type it all out again!  Plus the people I met from these businesses were so nice, I want to scream about them!)

Future associations with -

-Buffalo Gold Premium Yarns - http://www.buffalogold.net/store/

-Skacel - http://www.skacelknitting.com/

-Knit and Crochet Now - http://knitandcrochetnow.com/

-Bliss magazine - http://www.debbieblissonline.com/

-Lion Brand Yarn -  http://www.lionbrand.com/

-Vogue Knitting - http://www.vogueknitting.com/

more details to come as things firm up.

 -I also feel like I found my own personal designer!!!  Julie from 'Cocoknits' designs knitwear that I tried on and loved!  Just have to find the time to knit her clothes!  But I really liked how I looked in her original designs, boy do I need a new wardrobe badly, and she is the answer to my prayers!  God bless her!  Great lady too! (Ordered patterns this morning - http://cocoknits.com/.)

- I have to use these alpaca yarns in the future, I almost want to make a whole series of work around them, they were so beautiful, and thank-you to Sharon for all the info about them - http://www.furnacemountainalpacas.com/

-I also want to mention Alyssa Ettinger who had a table next to me.  Her ceramics with embossed knitting textures are to die for and make for a very classy gift idea, and very reasonably priced.  Plus she is a very funny, sarcastic lady and had me in stitches pretty much the whole weekend, go Alyssa!  -  www.alyssaettinger.com

Vogue Knitting Live!- where the mens toilets are converted into womens toilets to accommodate the demand.

Well I wasn't going to blog anything until tomorrow, but I had such a great time at Vogue Knitting Live! that I thought I would write a little about it while streaming the the tennis from my home town of Melbourne, Australia.  Oh no, now I want to write about the tennis!!

OK, so back to knitting........The event at the Hilton Hotel was Vogue Knitting's inaugural event!  Pretty amazing - they did a wonderful job at organizing the whole weekend, and with pre-registered tickets knocking around at the 3,000 mark, it appeared to me that things rolled really smoothly.  With tons of classes, staged fashion shows, panel discussions, guest speakers, the agenda was very full and interesting.

I was involved in the gallery corner of the marketplace where yarn vendors etc took up two floors of space.  I think the gallery was a pleasant surprise for visitors, they didn't expect to see artists of the knitting kind to be there, a smart move by Vogue.  The other artists were Hannah Haworth with her lovable knit animals, Anna Hrachovec with her fantastical world of MochiMochi Land, Alyssa Ettinger's clever ceramics with knitted textures, and Ben Cuevas knitted heart organ.  And then me, seemingly ticking people off with what appeared to be real animal pelts, "What are THEY doing here", people admitted they were thinking, only to be surprised to find out that they were knitted of course!

I gotta say I got a fantastic response from my fellow needle bearers, they got the technique of course, they understood the effort and work involved and because all knitters are smart and responsible people, they really got my message loud and clear.  I must admit I wasn't sure what to expect from this weekend, I come from such a background in the fine art world, but again, the response was great.  I think what I'm getting from what has quickly built up to be a varied audience over the past few months is that people are people, people like animals, they also appreciate a highly crafted creative object, and they are attracted to and appreciate my work.  It doesn't matter whether they know how to knit, or if they are an artist or not, or even if they can't properly recognize an ocelot, doesn't matter, somehow what I'm trying to say filters through.

So I was very touched by one visitor who actually started to cry when she saw my work this weekend.  I've never had that response before, she was embarrassed and kept apologizing, but she said something that put a voice to my greatest fear, gesturing toward my work she said, "One day this may be all we have left."

On that somber and terrifying note, I will say goodnight for now.........

if only to say, Saturday was a mob scene on the marketplace, I actually saw bags of yarn being tossed around in the frenzy.

I know, not since November, eek!!  But after finishing up my MAD residency, it was off to sunny Australia to be with my amazing family, the highlight being spending a week in a big house with them all, 12 people - ages ranging from 1 - 88!  And it was so wonderful to spend that time together and just be a family, we all get along, and we all like each other, how great is that!

And it was just as wonderful to come back to my beloved New York City, hook up with friends, especially my little hairy feline buddy, who is on my lap right now helping out in the office.......... and to begin a brand new residency at the beautiful winter wonderland of Wave Hill.

A cultural center which marvellously services the needs of the local community, I've been blown away by how many members I've met who utilize the 23 acre grounds to browse, visit the cafe and discover the latest artistic endeavour of which I'm a part of!  The winter residency is split into two sessions of artists who are encouraged to work there on their projects, so I am in the beautiful Glyndor Gallery in a lovely room surrounded by my knitted pelts, slogging away on the big male #70374, phew, more about him another time.

But it has been a really great opportunity to use what I learnt from my experiences at MAD Museum and apply them to Wave Hill.  I was just talking to Martha in marketing today about how people love to meet artists, and you know what - artists love to meet people!  I feel blessed to have left the wonderful environment of MAD and step straight into another one where I am again taken care of so supportingly and to be able to meet visitors who are just as excited and curious and interested in what I'm doing as they were at the museum.  So for another month I will be happily esconced there: tomorrow a coffee get together is planned with our current group of three artists and the gardeners, so I am looking forward to that too.

There is something a little magical about Wave Hill.  It is so quiet there at this time of year, if a visitor happens to follow the signs leading to me sitting in the gallery working it does seem to heighten the visitors experience with a sense of discovery and surprise which I think is kind of special.

Anyway no quietness for me this weekend.  The Hilton Hotel will be alive with knitters atttending the extravaganza of ......

Boy, am I looking forward to participating in that.  I will be in a gallery setting with other artists of the yarn variety in the marketplace arena, I won't say anything else, except to say - stay tuned for some stories & pics!

On Friday 12th Nov, I began tiger #70374 at MAD Museum. Molly McFadden, our fearless caretaker from the Education Department was there to hold my hand as I contemplated the first stitches of this monster cat. Also Dunkin' Donuts supplied the much needed caffeine kick to spirit me through the initial stages of the 3 foot tail!

Finishing the chart for this big guy went very smooth.  I did a couple of things different.  Instead of poking around, coloring in for a couple of hours a day, I spent three instense days at home coloring in for 6 - 8 hours a day.  This helped the process to feel as if it went quicker.  I also completed the full coloring in as I worked my way up the chart.  I usually work over the chart again and again as I complete each color one at a time.  Finishing sections as I went along was a deliberate attempt to cut down on folding and unfolding the chart over and over again, which for this chart, since it is so large, would be a complete pain in the butt.

So I am pretty happy with the chart process this time around.  2 weeks at the museum, (4 days total), one week to relax, (I had other art work to do on the computer, I have 3 grant applications this month alone), and one week to finish up the chart at home, not bad.

Oh, and I was also trying to figure out a different way to do the paws.  I've been experimenting with different frills, the bell frill seemed like a good fit, but using two colors tended to flatten out the nice shape of the bell, so back to the drawing board...........

Hmm, trying to upload an image of me beginning the cast on for the tail at the museum but the image isn't uploading at this time, will try again later!  I did manage to load it onto the MAD Museum blog page, so you can go here to see it if you like

http://www.madblog.org/

Had some fun at the museum last week, pinning 'Renee' up on the wall.  Poor thing is still without ears, pity she couldn't hear, 'cos she was getting a lot of compliments.  It was great to see familiar faces at the museum who had seen her progress over the past month or so react to her finished glory.  Even though I'm still not happy about a number of aspects to her - color, yarn, shape of head, shaping of folds around her legs, the gauge was off.......... etc, etc.  But this keeps me focussed in seeing even more progress in the next tiger, a big, I'm sorry, I mean HUGE male tiger.  So I shrug off  'Renee' and look to the future, the next chart is coming along nicely, with even more experimental knitting excursions to come.

Well here she is!!  The beautiful Renee the tiger.  I just have some finishing up to do on her head and she is sans ears right now, and she needs a good press under the iron but I couldn't wait to share a backyard photo of her with you all! 

This hasn't happened in a while but I had just enough black wool yarn to finish off the major knitting, I mean really just a few feet left, usually I am stranded needing a few feet of yarn, so that was very fortunate.  So off to Lionbrand for another ball so I can make her ears, and also to pick up yarn for my next tiger!!  He is going to be a much larger male, and also like Renee, a zoo specimen.  I have begun the chart and will be working on that at MAD museum this week!

And of course I will be lugging Renee to the museum as well so that she can get some recognition of her beauty.  I hope I have done a good job trying to interpret her into a textile.

I tried out some new ideas for her leg flaps and head, which I am not entirely happy with yet, but I learnt some things and will incorporate my learning curve into the next pelt, and also try out some other new ideas.  Still figuring out how to add some dimension to the head without interrupting the markings, which is really tricky.  And while I was at AMNH last week studying my next tiger I noticed something very interesting, which I will share when I next blog about male tiger #70374!!.............

to be continued......................