Posts tagged fabric

Closure and Grace

2

Yvonne in the GardenI have completed Yvonne in the Garden. She was surprisingly easy to do. I’ve reached a point where portraits are not difficult constructions for me. Giving the piece deeper meaning is more difficult, however, than the technical skill required to create a portrait. For Yvonne, after her portrait was completed, I was tasked with putting her in a space that was hers. To anyone familiar with her work, I have hopefully succeeded by drawing on the inspiration of her work. For Yvonne, red was a neutral so it was an obvious choice. She loved hot colors. When I didn’t have enough of the right red, I just supplemented with purple — which I think was actually pretty close to what Yvonne would do. I then freehand drew out her name and flowers and a few stars to give the feeling of her inhabiting one of her own pieces. Since her passing, I think she would be happy existing in a realm of her own imagination.

I currently have two pieces hanging at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, GA through June 17th — both The Canary and The Last Supper. The reception was more fun than I’ve had in ages. I believe I was the only fiber artist in the show, but I had a very warm reception from the other artists and a lot of interest in my subjects. I’m finding that putting clues in my work is definitely a successful way of drawing interest in a piece. The gallery was packed that night, and I was surprised there weren’t more people that approached me regarding my self-portrait, but later in the evening, as the crowd thinned, I had more people recognize me from my work.

And now here we are at summer. I think I counted 10 or 12 pieces that I’ve done in the last year which is double what I usually do. At this point, I’m entering shows — 3 on Sunday and a couple more to come in the next month. I think I’m going to take a breath now and consider my next piece. DD2 came home last night with a very large raven painting that she did in school, and it calls to me. I’ve always loved the grace of ravens.

Channeling My Inner Yvonne

3

Pokey Bolton put out a call a few months ago for an exhibit honoring Yvonne Porcella. I was never personally acquainted with her, but she was the founder and first president of Studio Art Quilt Associates, an organization that has made great strides in advancing the art of the quilt in our culture, from which I have personally benefitted. So I have decided to pay homage to her exquisite life and learn more about her in the process.

She was part of a group of ladies for whom red was a neutral. Such brass. I struggle with hot colors, but I knew that this would be a fun challenge. I also hoped to merge my style with hers, and in the process, learn to further loosen up my creativity. My process of portraiture is largely controlled, but there is something to be said for freeing your mind to accept creative karma into your work. As you’ll see, it helped me immensely in the final design.

I chose a selfie of her from her Facebook photo album. I later realized that it was also the pic being used as the cover for the show, although that was not my original intent in choosing it. No matter. I was only using it for inspiration. My final piece would be markedly different.

I started with the lightest shades. The final piece will be relatively small — 18″ x 26″, so I could fit her face on my small pressing sheet (which at this point is torn and marked but it still works).

Yvonne IP1

This is the 3rd value — you can begin to see the outline of her face take shape.

Yvonne IP2

The 4th value give you shadows.

Yvonne IP3

The 5th gives more.

Yvonne IP4

The 6th value. The lines under her eyes are the shadows of her glasses on her face.

Yvonne IP5

And yes, I’m pushing the envelope with a 7th value.

Yvonne IP6

Her eyes in the picture were of no help. The shadow from her glasses was too great, so I had to redraw them as I thought they would be.

Yvonne IP7

And here are her signature black and white checked glasses.

Yvonne IP8

Then I added the teeth and the mouth.

Yvonne IP9

And then she sat for a while, and I decided that her eyes weren’t commanding enough, so I changed the irises of her eyes to a deeper blue.

Yvonne IP10

Yesterday, I finally had to time to work on her for a while. My original idea was not to have a hat or clothing — just have her face among blooms, but when the time came to cut into fabric, I wasn’t seeing it that way anymore. I changed my mind about the hat and the scarf and shirt, and I decided to have a green background with red, purple, pink, and orange squares covering it in a grid fashion.

Yvonne IP11

And by the way, I didn’t photograph my first attempt at her hat. It was awful. When something is yellow, it is hardly every TRULY yellow. I threw it in my scrap bin and remade it in more orange and brown tones.

Yvonne IP12

But you see, this is wrong also. It is not the spirit of her at all. So after I woke up this morning, I ripped her off that green. Red is her neutral, so I knew I needed to start with red.

I had the perfect piece, but it wasn’t large enough — which was actually perfect because it forced me to use purple — which is more like what she would have done. I also changed her shirt to a pattern that had warmer colors.

I studied several of her pieces, and decided that free-hand block letters of her name would be perfect in a bright red. Then I added the stars that she often used, and then finished with a few flowers.

I’m going to let it sit for the rest of the day before I decide if I want to add more. The print on the scarf is the right mix and black and white — but the square of the dominoes are making the scarf seem less flowing than a scarf should be. I may have to run to the fabric store for a replacement.

Yvonne IP13

Dealing with the Abyss

1

The Abyss

I have completed my latest piece, The Abyss. Again, I find that I am reluctant to talk about it very much. I wrote an artist’s statement for it which I promptly deleted before I published it. Sometimes, it is best to let the art speak for itself.

This is another abstract piece but entirely my own. It is a figure that has been highly stylized with photo manipulation on the computer. Once I was happy with it, I worked with a fabulous company out in Anthem, AZ, called Studio West. In the past, I’ve printed digital pieces on my little printer and then sewn the pieces together — or more recently, I had a piece printed at Spoonflower. You get what you pay for. The Studio West piece is printed on silk — which I haven’t worked with before — and the small business owners work very closely with the artist to authentically reproduce the image onto fabric in the highest resolution and with the truest color matching. It was a joy to work with them.

Working with silk is interesting. It isn’t like cotton much at all. I had to stabilize it with a Pellon fusible interfacing so it wouldn’t slide all over the place. That requires some wet heat, and I learned that that also helped set the ink, although I still had some come off, so my pressing cloth and my ironing board suffered some ink injuries. I knew that I couldn’t use pins to baste the quilt layers together. Someone told me to baste just the outside, but if something is going to go horribly wrong, it’s going to go wrong on my watch. I had to have more control over it before I’d start running it under the needle. Some people said no to spray basting — others recommended it. I still had some from when I was making the Wash & Wax pieces with Leisa Rich, so I tried a light application. Thankfully, it worked like a dream.

Much faster than my heavily appliquéd pieces and it still gets the point across.

Wash & Wax Media Exposure

0
Wash & Wax: Bubble Bath

Wash & Wax: Bubble Bath

Leisa has written an excellent page on her website about our collaboration, Wash & Wax, (which you can find here) — and she asked me for a link to the SAQA Journal article that I wrote about the collaboration that was published in the Fall 2015 issue. I thought that surely I had the link on my website, but a quick search showed that I had neglected to share it. It’s amazing how life gets in the way.

2015 SAQA Journals are not yet available online to non-members, but with SAQA’s permission, here is our article:

SAQAJournal-Fall2015-web

I also found that I haven’t provided a link to the ArtsATL article written by Gail O’Neill. You can find it over here.

The Space In Between

0

I find myself currently in the space in between. I accomplished so much work in January and February, and I now find that my creative self is requiring a break. I’ve been trying to cajole it into motion with small projects, leafing through pictures, reviewing calls for entry — it’s just not going anywhere right now. And that’s fine. Right now I have house company, and I’m enjoying doing for them. My studio went from looking like a train wreck a couple of weeks ago to a point now where it’s almost sterile. I put away all of the fabric from my last two projects as well as a bunch I got for Christmas. At least this gives me time to finish my taxes.

DrippedLeisa Rich & I decided to make one more piece for the Wash & Wax show exhibiting at Hammond Gallery at Jacksonville State University, thinking that the space was large enough to accommodate another piece. (By the way, we were wrong and ended up deleting a piece from the show for space limitations.) It’s a triptych in all grays — but with blue and green nail polish painted vinyl appliqués on the top. It’s much quieter from the other pieces but is striking on its own. I have a created a page for Dripped here.

While we were in Jacksonville, we had a one-day workshop for the art students. They do not currently have a textile program, but it was mind-blowing to me what these young adults could do with fabric in such a short period of time.

This is one of the students next to Bryce Lafferty, one of the professors who also curated our exhibit. The student is learning on to draw using one of Leisa’s sewing machines, and Bryce is working on a hand-sewn 3-dimensional piece.

IMG_2318

Another one of the students, perfectly comfortable using the sewing machine as he would a pencil.

IMG_2320

This is Brittany, who I predict is a future fabric stash-er in the making. I spent some time talking with Brittany. She’s incredibly talented. She’s graduating in May, and I hope that she finds the perfect place to grow in her artistic journey after graduation.

IMG_2321

This particular piece is 2-d but organically shaped.

IMG_2322

Hammond Gallery is newly renovated, and it’s a gorgeous gallery space. This is the entry with Entry Point above the guest book.

IMG_0278

The large wall was reserved for Industrial Car Wash. It’s in a completely different composition than how it was presented at Abernathy. It has interchangeable pieces so it can fit different spaces. Given that the wall was a little smaller than the one we used at Abernathy, it is taller and reaches almost floor to ceiling.

IMG_0279

Next to it is Skitter.

IMG_0280

On the other adjoining wall are 6 of the photographs and 6 of the Micro Bubble Series. We actually had 8 of each but felt the wall was too crowded with 2 more rows.

IMG_0281

Next to Skitter and covering the back entrance is Drive Thru Slowly made from actual car wash strips.

IMG_0282

A far corner has Polish on the left, the 2 remaining photographs and 2 remaining Micro Bubbles, and then Leisa and I decided to bring individual pieces of our work for comparison to the collaborative work. Leisa brought Placid which we placed sculpturally on a pedestal (although it can also hang on the wall). I didn’t get a close-up picture of it, but you can find it on Leisa’s website here.

My piece is a self-portrait entitled The Canary. You can read more about it here.

IMG_0283

This is a pic taken during the reception. From the left, Blurred Vision, Agitated, and Bubble Bath.

IMG_0284

This is an awesomely cool panoramic shot of the gallery that Leisa took.

IMG_0285

And this is a side view of Dripped. It was at the far end and couldn’t be stretched into the panoramic. You can see the blue and green nail polish accents a little better in this shot.

IMG_0287

The CanaryAnd as I mentioned before, the other piece that I hurriedly finished in time to be finished for the JSU show was my self-portrait, The Canary.

This one was really tough to photograph, and I’m not sure how well I succeeded. I was considering purchasing an external flash, but now I’m leaning towards using a local photographer that I’ve been introduced to that I think would do a better job of photographing my work. He essentially creates a white box — but a whole room like that, and then shoots through a pinhole. He also knows exactly the angles to set up the lights so that you’ll still see the texture of the surface of the work. I’ve photographed my own work enough to appreciate that the man really knows what he’s talking about.

But now here I am. I went from insanely busy finishing work for the opening at the JSU and preparing for the workshop — to nothing. I am in between. I think I’ll just enjoy it for a while.

Creating the Canary

8

So I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been working on a very personal piece, a self-portrait. I’m a very private person, and I need to remind a few of you of the boundaries here. I write my blog as a teaching tool. This is not intended as a preview into my personal life. If you enjoy reading it, that’s great, but if you know me personally, I don’t intend to answer questions about anything other than process to fellow artists and/or quilters. So please, don’t ask.

My original intention was to make two companion pieces. I intended to make a whole portrait of me (a picture I took of myself with a handy remote control for my camera) and then cut it in half. One piece would be the left half of the realistic me, & the right side would be an artistic interpretation of me inside. The other piece would be the same in reverse. Each piece would focus on two different views of who I am.

But this piece took on a life of its own. It didn’t want to be cut in half, and as I worked on her, she told me what to do.

This is the first flesh value.


This is the second. It’s a full bust and shows my shoulders and a little of my arms.


This is the third value. You can begin to see the outline of my face.


The fourth value shows shadow.


The fifth value.


The sixth value.


My eyes added. Don’t know why I don’t have a pic with the mouth. I used strong colors on the mouth — very red.


I am, by the way, creating these sections on a pressing sheet. In fact, I bought the Holy Cow pressing sheet just for this project.

This is the beginning of the hair.


Second value.


Third value.


Fourth value.


At this point, I pinned the sections up on the design board to see if they were working together. I even added a black sarong around my chest (because I’m just not THAT girl).


And then rather than add a solid background, I started cutting out black and white fabrics. Not sure why. I had a lot of them in my stash, small pieces, and I cut them into strips and arranged them by value.


And then I sewed on the flesh section. It was really humbling to see myself bald. I had a friend years ago who shaved her head in solidarity with another woman who lost her hair due to cancer treatments. I had not really thought about it before, but women invest some of their identity in their hair. I don’t know that I could have done the same & shaved it. What would I look like bald? I guess now I have an idea. It’s not as bad as I expected.


At this point in the appliqué, the interfacing underneath causes some wrinkling on the top. It’s a little unsettling, but when I rip it off the back and iron it, it will be flat again.

And then I pinned this piece on the wall and asked my muse what it needed next.

I considered adding a raven on my shoulder. I like ravens, but I didn’t think it would work well with the background. So after thinking about it for a while, I settled on a little yellow canary. She adds a nice punch of color to my shoulder. Canaries are also the birds that miners used take into the mines with them to judge the air quality. As they went about their work in a dangerous place, the bird kept them safe through their life.
This was my first try. Yellow is hard to do. I decided she was too dark.


So here’s my second try — much better. I also added some white highlights in the iris of the eyes.


Then I decided that I wanted her to be wrapped with vines, so I cut 1/4 strips of a green fabric on the bias and ironed them on in waves.


After appliquéing them down, they looked too plain, so I decided to embroider thorns on the vines.


And at this point, it’s just not quite right. The left eye is too plain compared to the right eye. So I added darker fabric and some black embroidery around the left eye. It’s the light side of the face, but it has to balance the right.


Subtle, but I think it makes a difference.

Did I think of Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait with thorns when I did this? At some point, I did. But this is my interpretation. Me and my canary.

She’s basted now and ready for quilting. The deadline for the exhibit I’m entering her in is still over a month away, but I have a lot to get done between now and then. The first week of March, the Wash & Wax exhibit will be hung at Jacksonville State University, and Leisa Rich and I are making 5 more Microbubbles (small framed pieces) and one more large piece — a triptych.

2015 IQA Auction

1

Everyone is getting ready to go to Houston next week, and it makes me sad that I won’t be there. I’ve been there the last two years — but I didn’t have anything new to enter. All of the work I’ve made in the last 18 months has gone into the Wash & Wax exhibit. It was at Abernathy in Sandy Springs, GA through October 18th. Four of the pieces will hang in a private gallery in Buckhead, GA in January. The entire exhibit will show at Hammond Gallery at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, AL in March, and then an abbreviated version of the show will travel to TX in the summer.

Where have I been lately? In the melee of curating Formidable Fibers and finishing up Wash & Wax, I fell and broke my right wrist, which is my dominant hand, on Labor Day. I was given a removable cast and told only to take it off to shower. When the cast came off a couple of weeks ago, the wrist was 80% healed, but I had lost 50% mobility. The good news is that I’ve become fairly ambidextrous. The bad news is that typing really hurts. Even now after some physical therapy. So baby steps.

But since everyone is going to Houston next week, I wanted to share the one piece I did make and send — a piece for the IQA Auction. (I did, by the way, complete this just before breaking my wrist.)

I spent a while contemplating what to do. I was close to completing everything for Wash & Wax, but I had started an entry for a SAQA show whose deadline is October 31. I considered making a complete face, but I didn’t really have time to do it justice. However, they asked for something in our signature style, so I felt as if I should do something along the lines of a portrait. Last year I did a cardinal. Small format work is hard for me.

I finally decided that I could do a set of eyes peeking through a slot in a door — rather like the woman peeking through Amy Pond’s reality in Doctor Who. This is the first two skin values.

seen1

This is the third. Still hard to see without the irises of the eyes for reference.

seen2

Four and five give enough definition, but he still looks rather like a zombie.

seen3

The last value gives you the exaggerated curve of the questioning eyebrows.

seen4

And finally, the eyes. For inspiration, I used a picture I took of my husband soon after we were married. I even managed to match his eye color fairly well.

seen5

And here he is peeking through the door.

seen6

I changed how I did this face — subtly, but I like how it turned out. I usually don’t start any part of the eyes until the end. In this instance, I filled in the whites of the eyeballs in the beginning when I laid down the other lightest values in the face. It makes then recede a little bit more.

seen7

So if you get a chance, stop by the Auction Booth at IQA while you’re in Houston next week and make a bid on one of the fabulous pieces they’ll have. And if someone would snap a quick pic of mine on the wall with the other work and then email it to me, I’d be very grateful.

The Best of Intentions

0

One of the last pieces that Leisa and I planned for our collaboration was a piece that we planned to cut into 12 smaller pieces that we would then frame and sell individually. I planned it to be a size that would split easily into 12 pieces and would fit in the size frame we chose with some extra to pull around to the back.

The best of intentions. So in my notes, I’ve been referring to this piece as Abstract-Mini’s.

I started with the red. I shared this on my Facebook to give a taste of what the new piece would be like.

abstract7_1

And here is all the red laid out. I put on the grays only if they fell within the color areas I was working on.

abstract7_2

Then I added yellow. Should have really done it first. Tucked it under the red.

abstract7_3

And here are the blues — with a little bit of orange up in the right-hand corner.

abstract7_4

Then I had to go back to the store because I didn’t have nearly enough gray. I had promised Leisa the appliqué of this last week, and so I was really pressed for time. When I came home to wash it (because I always wash my fabric before I use it), I realized my washing machine had died. It was full of soaking wet towels. The engine still worked, but a belt had broken so the tub couldn’t spin out all the water.

So I triaged all the towels across my deck. Unlike in other countries, hanging laundry in the yard is largely frowned upon here. It is certainly against my HOA rules, but I didn’t have a lot of choices.

And for my new fabrics, I set them to boil in my extra large ceramic pot on the stove. Boiling is actually better for getting out excess dye, and while I had it going, I rewashed all my new reds, too. (One of them had crocked onto some of the gray fabric all ready.)

By early Sunday, it was all cut out. I pinned it on my design wall and took a pic.

abstract7_5

It’s much calmer than the other pieces. There isn’t as much darkness, and the grays give a lighter feeling of the soapiness in the car wash. I liked it, but I started to see that it wasn’t going to cut up well at all.

I did tell Leisa about my concern and told her that I’d leave her with the final decision. We set a meeting for today.

This morning, I had some time and decided that the dots in the pattern of the gray fabrics didn’t add enough texture, so I started randomly cutting out bubbles and adding them. I think it looks better. (The color is also better overall since it’s daylight in my studio at the time I took the pic versus nighttime in the pic above.)

abstract7_6

We met at Starbuck’s, and she agreed — this wouldn’t cut up well into 12 pieces. Each of the 12 pieces needs to have a lot of detail. The scale of this is wrong for that. This will, however, still be a wonderful piece in its entirety. I have changed its temporary name to abstract #7.

And now Leisa has it to work her embroidery magic on. I also gave her #5. It’s done except for a sleeve on the back. She wants to spend a couple of weeks hand-stitching on that one.

The planned abstract #7 will now become #8. It will be digitally printed onto fabric, and I will share more on that piece at a later time. We both agreed that we love that inspirational piece too much to not include it in the show.

I still have to do 12 mini’s, though. I am planning to cut them more organically using the fabrics that I used in #7.

So I’m behind — and yet ahead.

My new washing machine comes tomorrow. When I picked it out, I told the salesman, it has to be a top loader, it has to accept high sudsing detergent (which any quilter that uses synthrapol knows — and which means no High Efficiency), and the basket has to be big because I do a lot of laundry. There were two choices. I went with the Whirlpool. I suspect that the next time I have to buy a washing machine, I won’t have a choice but to buy an HE. Let’s hope they’ve worked out the problems with them by then.

I’m also working on an article about the collaboration for the SAQA Journal. Leisa and I talked about the draft today, and this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours rephotographing three of the pieces in my studio on a white background. It took me a couple of hours to get the pics where I felt like they would be good enough. I understand why people pay a professional photographer. One shot can take a really long time.

Studio Frenzy

0

Last week, I finished cutting the 4th abstract in the Car Wash series that I’m working on with Leisa Rich.

Like my other pieces, I approached it with the intent of cutting it out in color order starting with the yellows, then the purples, then the blues — but as I went on, the entire thing became unwieldy. Breaking it down into meaningful pieces became really hard. I became best friends with my colored highlighters — and I bought more of them. I rued the day that I had drafted this thing. I think I may have pulled some hair out.

I ended up with all of my fabrics on the cutting board and the master pattern on top of the piece I was constructing.

This was my first picture.

abstract4_1

I started working on the blues at the bottom, then adding in the grays.

abstract4_2

Then I started working on the top but was coming to the realization that the only way I could approach this monster was to finish whole sections as I came to them.

abstract4_3

This is just insanity. I did realize that  I was almost out of that medium gray and I was going to need more. I was very pragmatic about it, though. I put all of the gray that I did have along the outer edges. Then I planned a search mission to the fabric store and luckily found something in the same color and value. It has a lot more texture, but I think that that’s fine.

abstract4_4

Here, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally, everything is done but the part in the very middle. At this point, I highlighted that section in the middle on my pattern so I’d know where I was. I kept getting lost.

abstract4_5

And here it is before I gave it to Leisa — a quick shot on my wall before I whisked it away. She is embroidering it. So many edges.

abstract4_6

On my new time keeping app, I can easily see how much time I’ve spent doing something. I spent 39 1/2 hours cutting this out. Holy cow.

So my next piece is going to be much simpler. It has to be. I have at least 4 more large pieces to do for the show and I want to have them completed by the end of May.

Since I handed this last abstract piece off to Leisa, I’ve been working on the abstract piece that will cover the largest wall in the gallery. It will be made up of a lot of smaller pieces that will be hung individually.  Leisa is making the tops of these pieces — and she gave me a bunch to work on. I pillowcase turned them — no easy feat — topstitched them, and am now adding some quilting. They’re meant to be very textural on the wall so they aren’t heavy with quilting. I’ll share some pics later.

I also wanted to share this picture of my daughter in the Dominican Republic. She went after Christmas on a mission trip with her school and her father.

camera

 

I let her take my camera — my DSLR Canon T3i. I was looking forward to seeing all of the pictures of the DR, but alas, the only pictures I will see are the ones they took with their cell phones. This is the last known sighting of my camera — it was stolen at the airport on her return trip home.

It made me very sad, but I have all ready replaced it. The camera body came last week — and I’m waiting on the lens. It should be here today or tomorrow. Instead of the 18-55mm kit lens, this time I opted for the “nifty fifty” — the prime 50mm lens. It has no image stabilization or zoom — but it’s “faster glass” with an f-stop of 1.8 compare to the f-stop of 3.5-5.6 on the kit lens. It’s a less expensive lens, but I’m told that it’s a far superior lens. Can’t wait for it to get here!

 

Working From Photographs

0

This morning, I was spending a few minutes on Facebook, and Dorte Jensen, who was accepted in SAQA as a JAM member at the same time I was, posted a picture of a piece she made of Lincoln to the Art Quilts page. Given the recent discussion of the use of historical photographs in your artwork, I couldn’t help but think that comparing her picture of Lincoln to mine makes my argument all too clear — that the use of a photograph as inspiration does not mean that the artist is merely copying the photograph. Obviously, there is immense skill in drafting a pattern from any photograph and rendering it in your own style.

Although the inspirational photograph for her piece is slightly different than the one I used, it is obvious that our styles are completely different.

This is Dorte’s piece.

Dorte_Lincoln

And this is mine.

Lincoln

If our pieces were merely copies, they would look almost identical.  Clearly they do not. They each have their own spirit and life and attributes that make each one special.

Dorte has also recently made a piece of Ben Franklin that is marvelous. I hope you enjoy her website.

As portraitists, it is inevitable that we will turn to historical photographs if we want our work to be marketable. The skill with which they are rendered are no less than if we were to use one of our own photographs. As long as the copyright is clear, they are a wonderful source of inspiration.

Go to Top