RENT

I made this art quilt, RENT, from a photo I took last year in Berlin of  rusted metal which had once been part of the Berlin Wall.    There is poignancy in the detritus of human suffering; it continues to resonate with the inner voices of the people who passed by.  In addition to tweaking the photo and having it printed by Spoonflower, I went in with both embroidery and traditional hooking.  I ripped through the fabric to expose its underlying history (represented by the linen and wool).  Of course it refuses to lie perfectly square - too many stories bursting out!

Suspension "Explainer"

My friend Jim Cahill and I made a sweet MP4 (only 1.5 minutes long) which describes in words and images (plus a little Eric Satie to establish the mood)  the installation.   I cannot upload it to Blogger as the file is too big and I don't have the savvy to shrink it without destroying it.  So PLEASE see it on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1334588432&ref=name

D-Dub

Made this quilt last year for an App Quilt Challenge.    It's an example of my fussy cutting technique.  It was on view at Road to California in 2015 and then went off into the ether never to be seen again!    Thought it was supposed to tour but not a word about another showing.    I'm not particularly worried, just a tad curious...

Visited the new Broad Museum in LA

Bradford:

Murakami:

Deb + Jeff:

Baldessari's Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell

Water is Life - Held over till mid April!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153760925763876.1073742237.57207008875&type=3&pnref=story

 

Texturizers Round 7

We have reached the penultimate round - one more to go.  Again, this is my response to the six pieces I received from the other artists.  And, as usual, I don't feel comfortable posting their work so you can't see how the series are evolving (you could look at their sites to see if they have put up their work -  Cindy McConnell, Carol Nilsen, Barbara James, Jeanne Sission, Priscilla Smith, Connie Tiegel and Lisa Kerpoe).     I over-dyed a piece of cotton on which I'd printed awhile ago.  Then I printed with the gold paints using a couple of different screens.  Next, I appliqued on the vertical strips and the curved ones which I tacked invisibly in place.  No backing on this piece as I'm thinking more about what the final recipient (Carol) might want to do with it and to leave her a lot of options.

Opening at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland

My quilt Gyre #8 is one of about 40 pieces by international artists which were juried into Water is Life.  The show goes to the New England Quilt Museum once in closes in Switzerland and then tours through 2017 all over the US at the Mancuso Quilt shows.  Pleased and proud to be included in such a socially important exhibit.

btw - Gyres are the many mile wide garbage patches which pollute the oceans of the world with plastic debris;  they will not ever break down completely.      Apparently there is not an animal or plant in the seas which does not contain micro beads from these insidious objects we discard!

I ice dyed the ground fabric then melted household plastics and appliqued them in place.

See the whole exhibit at (copy and paste this address):
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153760925763876.1073742237.57207008875&type=3&pnref=story

Dyeing Wool

Spent a couple of hours today creating an array of reds for my hooking project.  Good old fashioned Cushing dyes.  Where it all began for me: Maine roots and childhood packets of dyes.  Nothing simpler, more instantaneous and rewarding.  My only problem was that I didn't have any white wool so, in fact, these are all over-dyes.

Back in Action

Back from a glorious trip to Tasmania, I've recovered from jet lag and am finding time to do a bit in the studio.    Believe it or not I'm actually testing some old school hooking techniques.   Been trying an array of wools, yarns, etc., and various ground fabrics to work into.  Here's a bit with ideas which might apply to a project I have in mind - yea, a quilt.

Off to Tasmania

Here's who I hope to meet...   (Why do they all look like cartoon characters??  Oh, yea, because animators use them as models!)   All marsupials.

Quokka:

Wombat Baby and Adult:

Echidna:

Tasmanian Devil:

The OLD New Year

Remember last New Year's Eve?   The ball descending at Times Square?  My experience is that sometimes those balls fall and slowly dissolve like bubbles into thin air as the year unwinds.  Wishing one and all happiness into 2016 and beyond!!

Texturizers Round 6

Just finished my piece in the round robin series I'm working on with seven other artists.   As usual, I can't show their work, but I can show my response to it.   Lots of crisscrosses and gorgeous grays!

 

Just Finished Another Painting!

As a tapestry weaver and stitcher I am AMAZED how fast painting is - only a week to complete another one (vs. YEARS for a tapestry if the same dimensions).    And so much fun.   This one is layers and layers of acrylics, tissue, string, Angelina, snippets of this and that.   I'm going to do one more in the series as I haven't quite gotten the channels as deep as I want them and their walls as high and gnarly.

 

Painting? Textile? Mixed Media?

I've been experimenting with all sorts of media lately including paint.   Greatly influenced by Mark Bradford's brilliant solo show at the Hammer this fall.  This is a detail shot of a piece I just finished.  Lots more of this to come . . .  Oh, yea, did I mention Silly String?

Lamination: Gray/Mustard

Well, I swore I wasn't ever going to submit anything to the Palos Verdes Art Center's annual juried member show again.   It's a wild conglomeration of donors' artwork of varying quality.  But I had to run the work of a friend over so decided to add my own.   He got two realistic paintings in - lovely work.  The jurors definitely tip towards realism and a recognized medium like paint.  They must have had a few empty spaces on the wall (they hang stacked so there's room for a lot of work!) as they took my piece: neither realistic nor a conventional medium.  It is paper laminated onto hand dyed fabric then stitched and painted with water soluble media.  Maybe they liked the matting!  They've been good to me in the past when I curated a fiber show with over 100 pieces so maybe they are trending back that way.   Who knows . . .

Sirocco on View at Sebastopol Art Center

This piece is on view through early January in northern California in a wonderful large scale juried exhibition.  There are only 3 quilts in the show and I'm proud to have mine among them.   A wide range of fiber techniques including acrylic on paper, hmmmm . . .   Where do we draw the line?  Must we draw the line???

Sirocco is one from my Fierce Winds series.   It is dyed, printed, painted, fussy cut, appliqued, Angelina'd and felted.    Fun!

Image From Avalon

We were on Catalina Island last week and while I certainly could have taken scores of snapshots of the crystalline sky and the azure sea, I instead fell in love with this crazy old vine which has grown to embrace a phone pole.

 

Ore

This is a a piece of joomchi (Korean felted paper) I made several years ago.  Lately I've been reworking some older pieces and with that in mind I "unfelted" the original using only the top layer here.  I then painted, appliqued and embroidered it onto a piece of hand dyed black fabric.  You can see how the undulating surface of the joomchi adds real depth to the work.  I'm calling this one Ore for obvious reasons

 

Texturizers #5

I'm all about hand stitching lately.   I appliqued all kinds of fabulous bits and then did French knots and much else (even a little machine stitching - imagine!).   Again, I don't feel free to post the work I was responding to as it was done by other artists, but I'm loving feeding the threads through the fabric.  There's lots of 3D surface on this piece.

Success!

Well I managed to host the Art Cloth Network's annual meeting in Redondo Beach and open Confluence on the Pier the very same weekend and lived to tell.   The heat has been oppressive for weeks and weeks so I have not been as productive as I like to be, but a cooling tend seems to have attired and I have completed round 4 of the Texturizers series which I am doing with 7 other artists.   Here's my most recent contribution.  Not at all certain where this came from as it is NOTHING like my usual work.  Not an all-over pattern, an almost realistic image.  What's next???!!?

After the Fire

More Pages - still only a working title

These are done except the first two have not yet been burned.