Chroma:Green DONE!

The completion of this piece takes me 14 months and half way through the Chroma series.   In addition to Green I've finished Chroma: Yellow, Chroma: Blue and Chroma: Orange over that period of time.  Up next is Chroma: RED.    I'm still very much enjoying the research which goes into each module of each color and the challenge it is to make them all complex and fun.  They all measure 72" x 45".    Storage is becoming a problem which needs immediate attention!

Taking Another Look

I've been prepping some work for upcoming exhibitions and thought I'd post a bit.

Archeology/Language (detail):

Textiles V:

Tissue Float:

 

Bowl:

How Much Fun Is This??!?!!

Penultimate Module for Chroma: Green

What is greener than chlorophyll!

Another Collage Finished

This is my textile interpretation of Susan Willen's paper collage.  We have all the collages done and framed so we're ready to start setting up some exhibits so EVERYONE can enjoy them.   I'll post the whole show when we have everything photographed.

BANNED!!

In early 2013 I saw an announcement requesting entries for art quilts in an exhibit entitled Light, Hope, Opportunity sponsored by Quilt for Change, a group out of Rhode Island.  Rules were straight-forward: 24” square art quilt on the theme of how insufficient energy sources impact women worldwide.   I knew at once that I wanted to do a piece on the Mexican women working at American maquilladoras in Juarez, Mexico.  These unskilled, minimally paid, mostly young women make products for the American consumer market in well-equipped modern factories.  Hundreds of them, upon leaving work, walk home, often after dark, and have been raped and murdered. There is no safe transit for them, and much of the city is not properly illuminated: no light, little hope, trifling opportunity.

   Though I have done a lot of artwork on global themes – mostly focusing on water    issues – this one especially touched me.  I carefully thought through and designed a    piece I hoped would tell the story in 576 square inches; I named it Juarez.  Pink is a    color I rarely use but here I dyed the background fabric pink and sprayed it in a    splatter pattern with red ink to indicate both female and blood – pretty common    symbols.  I chose to build a cross from some Indian metal chain.  Mexico is a country    in which every city and town has a Catholic church and the cruciform symbol is as    richly complex as one can be; it runs the gamut of love, motherhood, protection to    deceit, violence, male dominance and material wealth.  And MUCH else.  I am not    personally a member of a religion which employs the cross in its symbology, but I   am well aware of its pervasive and varied connotations. 

Onto the pink ground I printed a schematic map of Juarez where it meets the US border, applied the metal cruciform then richly hand embroidered dimensionally across the underlying materials, enhancing and quite graphically depicting the blood and emotional loss which represent the theme of the piece – lack of light and transit in Juarez allowing for horrific crimes against these women.  The artwork is intentionally disturbing, which is appropriate to the theme.

Quilt for Change requested images of the work in progress which I sent, and I was eventually delighted to learn that Juarez had been accepted into their traveling exhibition (2013-2015).  Off the show went in June, 2013, to its grand opening at the Palais des Nations, the United Nations’ headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland.  What a thrill!  Beautiful building, thousands of people walking through, nice display panels but . . . what’s this???  My work was tossed by the UN Cultural Commission at the last minute.  While pictures of bright-eyed Moslem girls in headscarves were fine, a cross on a piece about Mexico is no go.

I realize I’m in GREAT company:  James Joyce, Mark Twain, Marc Chagall, John Steinbeck, Ai Weiwei, etc., etc., all had work banned.  But shame on the UN, an organization I’ve had nothing but respect for up to this point, for shying away from unpleasant truth.  Light?  Hope?  Definitely NO opportunity.

The show will travel to various venues in the US, and I’ve been told Juarez will take its rightful place in the exhibits when it does.  Will it disturb some viewers?  I certainly hope so!

Are We There Yet?

That's the name of this piece which is appropriate as we have been on the road quite a bit this month.  And we are off to France on Monday - Paris and Brittany.  The quilt is a whole cloth piece done with the deconstructed screen printing technique, plus some brush work, then stitched in my recently favorite bird track stitch.

Screen Printing

Spent two exhausting days screen printing with thickened dyes.  A bit of a push since I don't have a proper print/wet studio, but got some interesting results.  This one pleased me so much (and it is on canvas) that I've decided to just have it put on stretcher bars and hung  as it is.  The colors are much richer than the photos demonstrate as it is a foggy June Gloom morning and I just couldn't wait to take the pix.

On the Road and Back

I've been traveling (North Carolina) and will be off again in a week or so for France so there's a frenzy going on at FiberFly Studios during this brief window of being home.    Here are three things I've been working on:

Earth Webs - a contemporary embroidery DONE and off to the framer this weekend

Here's the fourth in the Sea Tangle series.   This is a mixed media piece, sort of a painting on a VERY unusual built ground.   Also  DONE and off to the framer.

And . . . this guy is, at least for now, is named Sunday Best.  When fully clothed he may very well be making an appearance in a book put together by the Australian fabric manufacturing company M+S Textiles as he is comprised largely of their fabrics.  Don't know if I'll be able to get him up and running before my departure date but he's so cute I just couldn't resist posting him.

Collage Project

This piece is part of a small series four of us are working on converting each others' paper collages to textile.  These are my response to Cynthia Catlin's paper collage.  Love her jewel-like reds.   

 

 

 

 

Two More Modules of Chroma:Green are Done

Only three more green modules to go.   Surprising how many cartoon-y characters are green.  And then there's the military use of the ugliest version of the color.  I got freaked out ordering guns, even toy ones, online so there's not a lot here - just enough to tell the story, especially those booties . . .

 

Collage Project

Here are the photos of Laurie Bucher's paper collage and my textile response to.   It is the first of four that I am working on.  It took me about 5 tries to select the right materials to use for the stems and another 6 to come up with the best solution to those big black bars.  And, yea, my orientation is 90 degrees off but it works better for me this way!

 

Chinook Waters

Looks like there might be a new series developing.   Another quilt that celebrates images based on some First Peoples' aesthetic.  This one was done on the embellisher so there is no thread in the applique.

SeaTangle 4

Since SeaTangle 2 sold recently I wanted to add another piece to that series.  -->

The piece is comprised of mixed media elements: paper, textiles, synthetics, which are layered, sculpted, burned, stitched and painted.    They represent the varied forms that occur in our oceans.  Some natural and some left by careless people who thoughtlessly set their detritus adrift.

Haida Waters

Not sure if this is a piece for Confluence (our exhibition about water), for the Quilts on the Wall Challenge called Blues, the start of a new series, or an entirely  independent piece.  We'll see where it fits down the line.   It's an art quilt which took me 3 1/2 full time weeks to complete and is completely hand stitched in the smallest possible stitches to be as invisible as possible so the graphic would be crystal clear. 

Chroma:Green Two New Modules Done

The first is on recycling.  I got to use some of that old bubble wrap and plastic I've been saving plus some of the strange melted objects I've been known to make from glue, Tyvek and other fabulous environmentally unjustifiable things.   The next one speaks for itself - Eat your veggies!!

Tsunami Churn

Four of us have started a new round robin.  We each made a paper collage.  Then we made copies and gave them to each other.  Our task is to make four textile pieces each, one from each collage.  In the end . . . 16 masterpieces!  Here's mine.