Collaboration

My nephew Alex Shirwo, an art student in Santa Cruz, California, was here for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we collaborated on this piece. It is textile and paint on board. Fun, fun, fun!

Shroud

At least until a more creative name comes to mind this will be called Shroud. I wove the white piece then buried it in the garden for a few weeks. Once dug up I ripped it up, rusted it, then added heirloom lace from my family's 19th century stash which I also rusted. I put some interesting old bits of metal into it and embroidered it all onto a hessian ground fabric. I'm waiting for my tussah silk to arrive from Thai Silks which I'll stitch the piece to, then off to Kathy's (the best frame shop anywhere!) where Colleen will stretch it.

More 2011 Calendar Images

Here are three more Calendar images. The first is the art quilt Green, Not Green; I figured the opposite of a "green" quilt is an orange one. Below that is a detail of Slag Heap II. It is a heavily collaged mixed media textile which has been dyed, printed and embellished with an array of detritus including rusty metal objects. Last is a bowl made from recycled plastic bags and bubble wrap. Enjoy!

Contemporary Embroidery Workshop at FiberFly Studio

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Harmattan 2

I wasn't planning to make this a follow along project but I am so taken with these colors that I just had to post these photos. I shibori dyed all these (and many more) fabrics in the intense red-oranges. I also dyed the green/blue ground fabric - it's bamboo. I'd done another, cotton, blue/green at the same time in the same dyes and preferred the way the bamboo takes the dye - it has a hand like a cross between really fine German rayon and pima cotton. These photos show the auditioning process during which I decide which to use and in what order. I am pleased with the sequence, after much fussing about, so labeled them in order. As you may notice, my design wall is OUTDOORS. Lucky me, I live in Southern California not far from the ocean, so there are very few days of the year when this is not the perfect place to have it.

Four images from the 2011 Calendar

These are Fractal #1, Red Embroidery, Blue Art Cloth and Big Sur Rusty Bus. I will post a few more in the next week or two.

Harmattan

Harmattan is the name of a hot wind that originates in the Sahara. It is the fourth piece in my Hot Winds series. I dyed all the fabrics then cut and pieced them together and added some stitching in a few places to tie it all together. Because the colors are complementaries, they pulsate suggesting heat rising from the desert floor. This piece is about two feet long and I have already got the new fabrics dyed for a second one about two and a half times the size. I don't usually work over about 40 inches, but I thought this would be stunning LARGE so I'm going to give it a try.

Rag Mama Rag

This is the piece of art cloth I did to meet the regional (Southern California/Hawaii) Surface Design Association Challenge which entailed making anything using one piano damper and one piano hammer. I took the photo after VERY carefully aligning the two items, tweaked like crazy in Photoshop to create three different patterns, and then sent it off to Spoonflower where the fabric was printed. I then dyed the gauzy one and pieced it all together.

BLOG Design

Well, you can see that I've been playing around with the design of the blog. I now have a piece of my art cloth as the border. Wish it could be loaded large enough not to have to tile, but Blogger limits the size of background images to pretty darned small. Oh well! Here's a photo of the whole piece (a couple of yards long).

VOILA!!

Done at last! Here is the finished piece. I decided to go with the black border as it just seemed to make the piece pop. It is called Foehn - part of my Hot Winds series; Santa Anas and Mistral are already finished. The Foehn is a hot southerly wind that blows through the Alps.

New WORKSHOP Contemporary Embroidery

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Step Six

Now that the top itself is finished (the batting is already there because I quilted it in place when I did all that hand stitching), it is time to think about the back and border. I prefer to make all that in one piece bringing the fabric from the back around to create a border on the front. I need to decide what fabric to use. I tried various possibilities from my stash and have included four of the best ones here. My favorite fabric store, The Cotton Shop in Redondo Beach, is going out of business after over 30 years - the mother of the current owner started it ages ago in Hermosa and Haley took it over when she passed away), so I will purchase more of the chosen fabric during their liquidation sale - a very minor tribute to the years of pleasure I have had shopping there. The photos show the ones I'm considering; blog viewers are free to comment about their choice, so let me know what you think. Keep in mind that in these photos the fabric is just folded over two edges of the piece so it is much sloppier than it will be when it is all stitched in place.

DIVERSION

Today I'm posting something entirely different. These are bowls I've made from repurposed plastic bags and bubble wrap. I will be putting together a lesson on how to do them in the next few weeks but for now here are a few for you to enjoy. They are going off to a "new age" gift shop early next week in time for the holiday season. They measure between 5"-8".

I will get to Step Six on the quilt early next week.

Step Five - opinion, please

I did some outline stitching yesterday and here are the results. Because the background is white I like the way the running stitch makes the forms "pop" so I think I'll keep going. But please leave comments with your opinion. Isn't it interesting how a piece of art evolves and begins to assert its own aesthetic without a lot of forethought by the (presumed) puppeteer/artist . . .

Step Four DONE!!

I've been stitching like a woman possessed in every free moment over the last few weeks and have got all the bits securely in place. Now I'm faced with a decision: to outline stitch or not . . . I think the only way to decide is to do a little and see if it adds enough punch to the piece to make it worthwhile to spend the extra time - weeks - to complete a Step 5. I'll post some photos of the area I outline in a few days, and you can let me know your opinion.

stitching

Looks like I've disappeared off the blog but I have been hand stitching away. I was in San Jose, CA, for an Art Cloth Network meeting (check out our new blog at ArtClothNetwork.blogspot.com over the next month or so to see work by some talented fiber artists) and am off to Philadelphia for a wedding over the next five days, so progress has been slower than ideal. But I have stitched about 50% of those gloriously colorful bits in place and will finish the rest when I return so STAY TUNED!

Step 4: Ready to Stitch (maybe)

I am quite satisfied that the piece flows well at this point. I may add a bit here and there, but the applique is essentially done. Now I need to decide how to hold it to the batting and back. Options: machine quilt (I will definitely NOT do this as the stitches would interrupt and distract from the movement of the pattern as they are mechanical, too even and not organic looking); use the embellisher - dry felting machine (this is often the best solution as it is almost invisible and fast - I in fact have already done a bit of this around some of the outer edges to secure a few of the larger pieces, but I don't want to use it on some of the smallest, most delicate pieces as they will start to break down and I want a crisp look); or hand stitch. When in doubt I always choose to quilt by hand, and that is what I will do here. First, I love doing it. Second, there is complete control of the stitches themselves - they can be invisible, evenly placed, of any length, or even complex embroidery stitches, and add a whole new aspect to the design.

Step 4 continued

The first thing you probably notice is that the piece has been flipped 180 degrees. Works better visually at this stage guiding the eye boldly from upper right to lower left but still with visual anchors in the opposite direction. Since we normally read from upper left to lower right, this is a bit edgy which gives the piece energy and warns of the unexpected. The second thing you see is that I have fallen in love with white. This is surprising as black is usually my go-to default - so much for those bold black marks I thought were going to be so prominent! The colors are emerging but need a lot of work to tie together at this point.

The Making of an Art Quilt, continued

Once I've selected a general color palette it's time to prepare bits for use. This requires ironing, a lot of ironing! Some people choose to spray their fabrics' backsides with a sticky substance that allows for adhering and then changing one's mind, and removing, and possibly re-adhering in a different location. I prefer to iron Wonder Under or a similar product onto the back of each piece since it all needs to be ironed anyway, and then I store (with the protective paper on) all the unused pieces from this and former projects for future use. That provides a lot of cool bits which are ready to incorporate at the drop of a hat. The picture shows lots of small pieces I've finished Wonder-Undering. Then Step 4, the cutting and arranging the fabrics onto a ground fabric. In this case, I selected a piece of white canvas as a starting point. (Yes, painters' canvas.) Working from the images I have in mind, I begin to build the composition. This will take days. Here we have the nascent stage.

Early Steps in the Creation of an Art Quilt

Several people who do not work with textiles have asked that I post the steps I use in making an art quilt. I began one yesterday so thought this might be a good opportunity to do that. Here are some ideas about Steps One and Two. First, I conceive of an idea: like water issues, early human communication systems, or a color combo I want to play with. In this case, I was looking at some 2Oth Century abstract expressionist art and decided I wanted to lay down a colorful ground then add strong black marks on top. Some doodles show a couple of ideas for the marks. Then I began to think about the fabrics - Step Two. I have a large stash of cottons I have dyed, screen printed, soy wax batiked, painted, etc, etc., so I began going through those and selecting some in the general colors I have in mind. I also delved into some commercial fabrics I just happen to have (!) which match well with them. That was a day's work.

Painting!

Who'd'a thunk . . . I woke up this morning with a song in my heart (could be the weeks of heavenly autumn weather finally breaking through) and a paint brush in my hand. Have a whole new series in mind which came together as a result of putting that colorful wet stuff on canvas. Has anyone else noticed that canvas is a textile???