Thendara's Blog

The odds and ends in the creative  world of Thendara M Kida-Gee.

Life has been a lot about this for the past few months

Talula and our duck Jemima. named after Jemima Puddle duck by Beatrix Potter

Talula and our duck Jemima. named after Jemima Puddle duck by Beatrix Potter

we have been busy here on our little farm on the edge of the Puget Sound. We hatched six duck eggs, who needed assistance in hatching ( a very stressful week I will not get into now!) 

However despite the stress and worry we now have a flock of six ducks and I am trying to return to my artistic  practice. slowly slowly surely surely.

These ducks will be introduced to you in the week to come. if you want more instant duck satisfaction I have been much better at keeping my Instagram up to date so please check that out.

 

My first Resin Tabletop

 

So it began with a little brown wood table from the goodwill. it was the perfect height for a using next to the bath tub to hold your water or soothing tea or a book and a hand towel for those who like to read in the bath as I and my daughter do. It was a nice shape but the surface was a bit rough so a spray paint it would receive to even the surface color and make way for a table top collage.

I spend a lot of time hanging out as well as imagining the edge of the forest. My name Thendara means edge of the forest in Iroquois and having that name must have set something in motion of love and appreciation to the divide between ruled by man and ruled by tree. In between big projects I work on these collage fascinations of the edge of the forest. I just completed the first iteration of a project entitled Through the Threes which is an installation of collages in this theme (see my previous blog post for more images from this project.) This table fits into my Through the Trees theme.

 

Through the Trees

my collage contemplations of this edge fascinate over the interplay of light that exists on this edge, as well as confusion of depth, just how deep is the forest? one can never tell on it's edge one must enter.

my process is not only a visual creation and object at the end all of this but the process itself is a moving meditation, I cut each strip of photograph by hand, I could expedite this in many a mechanical machine but it would take away from the connectedness and the process is really what helps me, cope, breathe deep all those wonderful things that happen of a moving meditation. Making art and calming the mind. All this goodness while also using my own previous creations (photographs, as a photographer I have many) and self recycling - it's the circle of life here in the art studio, sometimes the old art gets eaten and when it does it's thrown back up into something new, something more abstract and generally a hit with kids who get my vision!

I will be using PVA glue and trying to keep everything firmly down, a lot of my collage work I allow for it to have varying heights and pieces that reach through the resin but for this table top I am gonna keep things smooth and flat!

I am creating this project with Art Resin, who have not paid me to use their product but have given me a 32oz sample pack to share what I made with that pack.

I switched to Art resin from another non toxic resin a couple years ago and have found it an easy to use product, I am quite sensitive to chemicals so it is a welcome relief from the insanely toxic resins out there and its price is better then the previous brand I used which was also non toxic but way more expensive.

 

the top of my table which I will cover in collage and then a layer of Resin.

not sure what I would do with a table this size aside from use it as a tea seat whilst in the bath.

Pre Collage cutting up of photographs. piece by piece.

beginning the collage with a little help from my dog Tiggy!

day one of collage complete ! lots of PVA and strips of photographs applied!

collage nearly complete, to trim the edges and add a bit more detail...

Final Trim! I will pick through the pieces and add them back to my scraps box to make an appearance elsewhere.

trim complete, ready for resin!

Now we need to wait until tomorrow take it to the garage, hopefully with some sun to assist. managed to keep all the pieces somewhat flat and looking forward to a nice thick clear coat - no bubbles and a new table.

Garage prepared resin at hand, stir sticks!

The table is prepared for resining! used some spray art to blow off any debris, wearing at hat to keep hair out and still of course a hair finds it's way in, plenty of sticks on hand to fish it out.

I'm trying to not over cover as I don't want to have to sand resin off where its not meant to be afterwards. after mixing letting the resin sit for a few minutes for beginning the pour. I find resining in cold weather much harder to do as the resin moves differently- preferential to the warmer weather resin but what do you do when you live in the Pacific Northwest? wait till summer? Never!

After pouring I use my torch and skewers (those disposable ones for shish kababs, cause I am out of toothpicks!) to pop the last of the air bubbles that haven't settled out ( I can get very anal retentive during this phase.)

Coming tomorrow final images ...

I'll be back... 

When it's raining all resin stays tacky longer, brought the table inside the house to avoid some of that moisture and help things firm up, all good!
 

I hope you enjoyed my project and thank you for checking out my work, if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch!

Through the Trees now residing in South Lake Union

These are some of the pieces included in my storefront, which should you be in South Lake Union, come take a gander! the location is on the eastern side of Thomas nearBoren in Seattle, Wa.
"Through the trees" is a fascination the edge of the forest, where the interplay of light and shade as well as a choice of stepping in or out of nature, a choice I find the most Narnian I will have in this life.
this project is created from collage that I typically create in between projects, an apparatus of artistic self soothing and meditation as I cut each strip of photograph individually by hand - this process calms and allows space for other projects to come to mind. I hope you can swing by and check out how it all fits in the city scape of Seattle.
Thanks to Shunpike Arts and the Storefronts program for the opportunity to present the first iteration of Through the Trees.

Welcome to the other side of the Sound

Shifting life from East of the Puget Sound to West of the puget sound has been a big deal for me and my family this year. We left our home in North Seattle for the past eight years to live more deliberately. To farm our own vegetables for food to be in the outdoors more then the indoors, to be out of city life.

I feel like a recovering city liver. My fascination with cities spanned many years and many cities, a love affair or series of love affairs with cities. An escape from the city of Buffalo at age 18 was not too soon enough for me, grown up with ridiculous snow every year and the ridiculous necessity for life to function as normal through said ridiculous snow. The affair was between mostly I andSan Francisco and London then an escape to Seattle where initially things felt more spacious a city wild balance I could handle, but living here the wild began t want more space in my life- to consume me to the point of a city being visited vs the woods being visited and the city always what I would return to...Seattle has grown up since I have been visiting - our relationship beginning back in 1997 when my parents moved here ending my long term relationship with the city of Buffalo as the home which would ever be returned to over and over. Seattle certainly is a different kettle of fish since I met it back then, in the 90's.

It is thriving and providing all the things people look to for a city to do. Having acquired autoimmune diseases since arriving in America- and battling through living as healthfully as possible, food as medicine it was just a question of time before the desire to grow food came into play...after over a year of searching we finally found a place to grow food, grow ourselves and indeed create! The creations can get larger as work space has improved - dedicated space to work with both messier/stinkier projects as well as the none so.

I look forward to sharing this journey but mostly, firstly, living it!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respectfully staying dry, mostly as I approach 40....

The rainy season has come and we are making up for all that dry of the past couple years.

I wait for a seasonal clearance to get back to northern state farm (photographed above by Tim Gee.) while it's wet and dark I look to the projects that have sat uncompleted and try to re find their voices to get them into completion.

The summer was easy the creative flow kept me awake at night, now we with the dark I struggle to want to be awake beyond the days tasks, thinking is much more a strength then doing.

If I could just hibernate a week I feel like I could be a new person, maybe one not so close to 40 years of age .... nearly a month left before the number devours me for a year...

whatever 40 means as a reference or a marker I don't intend to honor it as any more or less then any other year...

but it's coming and despite what I decide the world will still say you are 40...

how does it feel...

the same as five the same as ten- twenty five and thirty one...

it all has felt the same just maybe I became something more of something else as the year progressed.

I don't know what it means, that I could have lived over half my life at this point if I live the length of life my grandparents lived, that I hope I have lived healthier so I am not yet halfway, or that the vampire will come bite mebefore I become too feeble bodied to fully enjoy eternal life.

what does it mean? it means I may have to make some darker then usual art, and then forget about it and get on living....