Last of the 12" x 12" Collages

There are five pieces each made by five different artists in response to a collage each of us made last summer.  This is my textile piece based on the paper collage made by Laurie Bucher.  My other four are here on the blog but back a few months.  It was such a pleasure working on this as I've been crazed working on the 3 textile exhibitions I'm curating at the Palos Verdes Art Center (opening Jan. 18 from 6-8  then up till March 17) and this was a welcome break - away from the computer!

Chroma: Orange is coming along

Modules 2 + 3 are done.

Three Fiber Shows I'm Curating!!

PLEASE COME!!   Email me if you have questions.  More about the silk scarf girls' night out wine/munchies in the gallery workshop to follow - February 28 from 7-9.  Click on the images below to make them big enough to read.   Fierce Winds is my solo art quilt exhibition that was up in Western Maryland all summer.

Painting

At last!  I moved out of my studio annex months ago and got a lovely new washable floor in my office.  The easel has been sitting here for at least 2 months and today I finally put paint to canvas.  This was a piece that I started during the summer and it didn't take long to complete it.  I'd been trying to stay away from mixing fiber with paint but this one has paper and I do want to add some stitching to a new piece.  I see some serious texture in the not too distant future creeping into the paintings.  (Not that it hasn't, but this time more intentionally!)

Sand Mandala

Buddhist  monks have been working on this mandala at the local Palos Verdes Unitarian Church all week.  They will be sweeping it away on Christmas to help us remember not to get too attached to material objects.  But . . . they were taking photos themselves!  Can't blame them - it is gorgeous and done completely from memory.

Juarez

This very graphic piece honors the women working in the American factories in Juarez, Mexico, who have not made it home safely.  The dark, mostly unpaved streets, hold terrors, and scores of women have been raped and murdered.  The black graphic in the background is a stylized map of the city of Juarez near the US border. 

Chroma:Orange

I've just found time to start this next piece in the Chroma series and have completed the texture module.    So much going on as I'm curating three shows which open in January and have been shipping work off to multiple venues.  But it is a pleasure to be working on the Chroma series once again.

Jacob's Ladder Winging Its Way to Minneapolis

A giant crate was built to house the 75" long ladder and carry it safely to its show in Minneapolis at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery.  Opens the second week in January.  Here are some pix to give an idea of the scale of this baby!  Naomi Guttman's poetry, written about the ladder and Jacob's dream, are going to be shown with it and her voice will be recorded reading the poems so any nearby viewer will be able to hear and appreciate them.    btw - a 12' marlin was being crated at the same time; hope they didn't switch them during mailing!!!

Just in the Nick of Time

Got this quilt done today which is just under the wire for having it considered for the 3 part fiber exhibition I'm curating at the Palos Verdes Art Center.  The show, which includes work by many nationally recognized artists, opens January 18 and is up for 2 months.  Many more details to come  . . .   This is called UnderSea Treasures and has some bejeweled elements floating on its surface.

Exhibition Opening

My 6' Jacob's Ladder will be up at the following exhibition.  There is an auditory component too as poet Naomi Guttman has written six short pieces about Jacob's story from the Old Testament and they will be read by her and available for viewers to hear as they look at the ladder.  There are lots of pictures of the ladder under construction which you can see if you scroll back through this blog.

New Work for Confluence

We will be having our first showing of the Confluence exhibition (get more details at http://www.CONFLUENCE.yolasite.com and http://www.FiberFlyWater.posterous.com) at the Palos Verdes Art Center in southern California from January through March 2013, and I'm finishing up some more work for that event.  Here are a couple of newly completed pieces which have yet to go to the framer.  They are called Sea Tangle 2 and 3.  They are mixed contemporary media with embroidery.  The first is about 11" x 14" and the long one is 24" x 10".

Chroma: Orange

In spite of all the deadlines looming (including curating three shows in January!) I have begun the third piece in the Chroma series.    Took advantage of post Halloween sales to grab up all those funky seasonal items which will comprise one of the modules.   I did start the weaving module as the pace of weaving  . . . VERY slow . . . is a nice respite from otherwise hectic times.

More Cool Dyeing

Screen Printing Lesson

Turned my nephew onto using the thermofax machine and screen printing his own design over the holiday weekend.  Here's the result of the screen I made.  Didn't get pix of his which was great.

Another BIG Dye Day

Color transfer from silk to a cotton/rayon blend.  Not sure what to do with this; it sort of stands alone and maybe doesn't need to be cut up and used in anything.  I guess that's a definition of  "art cloth."

New Project

I'm starting a new piece that will be multi-layered.  This is the first round of dyeing and later today I will be over-dyeing these pieces to get the rich depth of color (black!) that I need. 

Chroma:Blue Done at Last!!

Three months to complete this, the second piece in the Chroma series.  YIPPEE!!  I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out which color is next . . .

FiberFlyWATER.posterous.com

I have a created a new blog which will feature all the work I've done in recent years on the topic of WATER.   2013 is the UN Year of Water Cooperation and I want to help get the word out about this important matter.   Children walk for hours to find it instead of going to school, water-borne diseases sicken and kill, while crops die from its lack.  And climate change is just exacerbating this terrible problem.  Not all of the work focuses on the negatives.  Water is also beautiful.   Please take a look and give me feedback, and be grateful every time you turn on the tap!   I'm adding more images all week at www.FiberFlyWATER.posterous.com. 

Reframed

This is a piece that I did some years ago.  It is based on leaf detritus and is heavily beaded onto dyed silk.   It had glass over it and a terrible mat.   I'm so pleased with its new look.

Starting to Come Together

Chroma:Blue is beginning to take on its final form.  Obviously two modules are not yet done, but they are coming along and of course the "connective tissue" is not in place.  I've focused most of my studio time this week on it.