Chroma Rehomed!!

This was a very special week at FiberFly Studios - my giant installation: Chroma (8 panels each 80" x 50")  found a permanent location at School on Wheels in Los Angeles.  With a grant from Elaine Lasnik Broida in support of the move, the pieces left Palos Verdes and are now happily installed in the headquarters of this fabulous nonprofit.  School on Wheels provides school supplies in backpacks and tutoring for thousands of homeless and foster children in Southern California.  The offices are now brightened by the arrival of Chroma.  To see the complete series including details, please go to        https://www.behance.net/gallery/23286415/CHROMA-Series-Jacobs-Ladder-by-Deborah-Weir

Here's the journey from storage to UP:

 

 

Alcatraz #4

Behind barred doors . . . this art quilt is based upon a photo I took at Alcatraz, tweaked in Photoshop, had printed.  Then I painted it to emphasize the contrast between dark and light areas and draw focus to the door panel.  I rusted a non-woven textile and appliqued it to the surface then did lots of hand stitching to highlight areas of the design.

Shroud

This is a piece I made several years ago and which resides at my friends' home in the Pacific Palisades in California. It is a mixed media tapestry which I wove, rusted and buried (and washed!).  I thought they created a lovely arrangement and wanted to share that.

 

FIRE: Santa Rosa

There will be lots of artwork this year in response to the horrible fires and mudslides that we experienced throughout the state of California.  This is my contribution.  I ice dyed the ground fabric then made the streamers which are the debris pushed about by the winds which drove the fires.  There's also underlying hand stitching to give greater depth and movement to the imagery.  I had family members who evacuated twice but, in the end, were safe.  Their community of Santa Rosa will not fully recover for years to come.

 

Abstraction: A Few Photos From My Opening in Mission Viejo, CA

ABSTRACTION

Daylily in Folsom, CA

No, not the prison!!   This is NOT part of that series.  A sweet local gallery.  This is a Northern California juried SAQA exhibit which has toured in Connecticut, too.

ALCATRAZ III

The Alcatraz series, a subset of my recent work on Incarceration, is coming along well.  This piece is printed from a photo of another quilt of mine and then painted, stitched and appliqued to emphasize particular elements.  

 

Alcatraz II

This is the second art quilt created from a photo I took at Alcatraz.  Cracked and rusty drips on walls.  It is printed on canvas which I heavily embroidered - tough on the fingers - and appliqued with hand dyed threads and ripped fabric strips.  It is part of the  Incarceration series.

 

Brown - Needle Lace

Thrilled that I could get all these bits to become a strong, durable 48" fabric panel.  And the piece was just juried into Art Cloth Network's 2017 exhibit to tour for a couple of years.

Encircled/Ensnared

Hand dyed fabric, scads of colorful fabric bits hand stitched over the surface, then the whole covered with hand dyed, somewhat unwoven cheesecloth.  Add French knots and surface stitching galore and there you have it!

 

Receding Figures I and II

RF I is an art quilt, and RF II is an installation and collaboration with my long time woodworker friend Steve Mandell. The pair reference the global refugee crisis, and how lost people are when forced from their homes.  These are tattered figures adrift in a landscape of the unknown: displaced, faceless to most, unsafe and without a place to rest and rejoin a community.    Human identity is deeply tied to place and without its anchor we are untethered.

Because the figures appear to be floating across the terrain we cannot know where they’ve come from, from what tribe, family, not even their age or gender.   We don’t know their aspirations, their strengths, what contributions they may make to the place where they land.