What do you do?

When I tell people I'm an artist they assume - like 99.9% of the time - that I paint.  Then I mention that I'm actually a mixed media textile artist, and that's when they mostly go all fuzzy eyed and confused.   I hand them one of my cards and say "please look at my website and blog and all will become clear."    Well, the secret is out:  I do paint!  I've just been playing that card pretty close to the chest.    So here are a couple of my Abstract Expressionist paintings.    I mean, of course I use a lot of paint in my mixed media work, so I guess it's not much of a stretch.  And these paintings are, as anyone giving it a bit of thought can see, TEXTILES, as in CANVAS is a textile.  So it isn't a far leap.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Round Robin

My students from a spring 2013 four session workshop  have now completed (!) a round robin where each of the 6 of us made an 8" square, sent it to the next group member, round and round until everyone had contributed to everyone else's  thread.  This is my last piece in the series.  I used some of the gold lace I bought at Mokuba in Paris years ago.  When I get my strand back next month I'll post the whole series that was inspired by my initial offering.  Can't wait to see all 6 pieces!!

Gyres resolved

I've added a lot to this piece so wanted to post the finished version.

Gyres

I have been moving in a new artistic direction with my interest in water.   I am planning a series about the nine (there is debate about the actual number) gyres - tidal swirls in the world's oceans which collect vast quantities of trash, largely plastics, which take forever to break down.  Some of these are miles across but very tough to measure  precisely because the garbage which comprises them is not photographable from space and they are too huge and move about too much to get a true fix on them from the sea itself.    They are destroying wildlife which comes in contact with them and cause much other damage.  They are quite colorful as the detritus we toss into the seas is often bright packaging.  The gyres above the Equator swirl clockwise and those south of the Equator move in the opposite direction - just like the water going down our drains.   I am experimenting with various techniques to see which best suits the results I'm aiming for.

Chroma:Purple

Here's the first module of Chroma:Purple completed.   All of the pieces in the Chroma series have one pure texture module.   This one is woven then I embellished it with beads I made (love those chopsticks for drying them!) and some stitching.