Monday, December 22, 2014

Last Formulators Piece

This is the sixth and last in the round robin series I've been involved in.  The goal was to make a response to the FORM of each of the generated pieces in ANY fiber medium and technique.  This one is in response to a piece done by Susan Willen a year ago!  They are all to be framed at 12" square.   It's been a blast to do.  If you have an opportunity to participate in a round robin say YES!




Friday, December 5, 2014

Gyre 9


This is a large piece of ice-dyed fabric that will become the background for another Gyre quilt (images from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch).  Ice-dying is done by resting a scrunched up piece of white soda soaked fabric on a screen, dumping a big bag of ice chips onto it, and then sprinkling lots of dye powder over it all.  After 24 hours, the ice is melted and the dye has formed serendipitous patterns in the fabric. 






Tektites


Tektites are tiny colored glass particles which naturally occur in the universe and are tossed en masse during extraterrestrial collisions.  Debris fields of tektites have been found on most of the earth’s continents.  This piece is made up of hand-dyed silks and then beaded with scores of tiny glass beads which mimic a debris field.  It is framed in wood just as the glass bits would find their way into a natural resting place on earth.

 






Coalescence III is a fine art textile made by blending the edges of various cotton fabrics using a dry felting machine called an embellisher which tears up the edges of each piece thus intermingling threads to merge the colors.  There is almost no stitching used for the technique.  A large object, comprised of many elements, whirling through space, might appear from a distance to have its surface details melded together in just such a way.








Wednesday, November 19, 2014

D-Dub APP Quilt

Some of us here in Southern California were invited to make an APP Quilt which represents aspects of our personalities.  The idea is that if you push the button you learn more about me.  Color, texture, movement and that fabulous technique I invented using the embellisher - dry felting machine - which requires NO thread.  The technique is durable and excellent for blending one fabric into the next - no hard edges within the design; I do like innovating!  I put it all on an edgy urban ground fabric onto which I printed more to complement the commercial design.   D-Dub will be on display at Road To California, the large quilt show in Ontario CA, which is on in late January. 





Kites Landing

These are two of three kites in a series I made decades ago and which have been on the wall at my friends' house.  They are now retired (yea, both the kites and the friends)!







Saturday, November 8, 2014

My piece WALKABOUT is on view


                                                  

                                                      Come by if you're in the hood!
                        Go into the library and ask for the key to get you into the gallery.


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Laminations


I used matte medium to laminate printed paper to antique linen.  I then scraped some of the paper away revealing the fabric underneath and used water soluble media to color the pieces.


  Tossed:
 


Behind Bars:





Wanderlust

  
I used water-based paints on silk to create the background and then applied ink and stitching.



The Stars


This is my contribution to round five of the Formulators round robin.  Guess who the stars are.



Sunday, October 26, 2014

Galactic Dance #3

I created this is a richly dyed, printed, painted surface that I finished with water soluble media.  I made the needle lace X's on water soluble material which I washed away after the stitching was done (I added a bit of paint to the X's to complement the ground fabric).  I finished it with some invisible quilting stitches.





Sparks!

Bruce Hoffman rejected Sparks last year when he juried the Art Cloth Network's annual challenge.  Boo on him.   I love the piece and just sold it!!  Silk, two layers dyed simultaneously with the same fold pattern.  They look very different as they are completely different kinds of silk.   I added embroidery and a light sprinkling of foil for sparkle.  Hope it's happy in its new home.




Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Roiling Waters

Roiling Waters displays the chaos in the oceans' gyres (garbage patches).  Upcycled plastics and a panel of bubble-wrap are some of the items found adrift in our seas.




Dissolution (Rhomboid)

Dissolution is a reconfiguration of seven of my former quilts - recycled!







Night Ride

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Honolulu looking out on Waikiki Beach.   It's 2 AM on a moon-lit night and there are scores of surfers enjoying the ride.





Juarez

My quilt Juarez, which was banned at the United Nations, was on exhibit at Oasis in Palm Springs, October 2 - 4.  It is part of Solar Sister, a touring exhibition on the topic of energy's impact on women's lives.  The underlying image is a map of the border between Juarez and El Paso.  The piece honors the women who work in the well-lit American factories who walk home in the dark.  Many face rape and even murder in the unlit streets of the Sonoran Desert.   

 



Finding White


Finding White is a small quilt which is being donated to the silent auction for the international charity, Women Like Us; a very worthwhile cause.




Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Cogs

"Cogs" is a finalist in the Infinity Art Gallery's online Fiber Arts Exhibit 2014.  Here is the link:              http://www.infinityartgallery.com/fiber-arts-2014/gallery/
I painted this 18" X 18" piece of home dec fabric then screen printed and hand stitched french knots.



Penultimate Module of Chroma: Brown

Burlap feed bags and rust




Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Formulators #4

This is the fourth piece in the Formulators round robin.  The bean-like form occurs in all of the 3 preceding pieces in this series.  I hand-dyed the ground fabrics and hand stitched them in place.


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Fiber Fuber

Well, I went to pick up two of my fiber pieces at Peggy Zask's South Bay Contemporary Art Gallery today after they were up for a month and found that NO ONE on staff had corrected these wall tags!  This is why we FIBER/textile artists need to keep showing our work everywhere we can so no one walks by this silliness and thinks it's okay.    I doubt anyone would have allowed a tag to stay if paint was spelled PANTS on it.