BJ Parady Fiber Art Notes

200 posts and I'm out of here...

2010-06-25T10:24:00.003-05:00

Well, only out of Blogger. I've been told that it's better to host one's blog on one's own website (mainly by Alyson B. Stanfield). But then Google went and added the 'latest' filter on it's search engine--which if you click it, allows you to look at the latest time your search term has shown up on the web.

This means, in practical terms, that if I keep my blog on blogger, it will show up on the first page or two of results, but my website won't. If, however, I move the blog to the site--and update it just as frequently--the site will show up early in the results.

I don't have a 'follow' button on the new site, but hope to have one soon. It will be changing in appearance over the next few weeks as I learn word press, and tweak it to what I like. I know that some people actually master word press to the point that their whole websites are really WP based...that may take a while in my case.

Anyhow, mosey over to the new BLOG, bookmark it, and look for my fiber notes there.

wordless Wednesday

2010-06-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Learning difficulties...

2010-06-21T15:08:00.007-05:00

So I decided to take a couple of classes this summer at Fine Line, both in techniques I thought to use to add texture to my pieces. Lately I've been using a lot of different yarns and threads to stitch with; it seemed that the next logical step was turning those into my own trim pieces.

Let me state that any mistakes or failures to follow are of my own doing; both instructors (Heather Winslow and Michele O'Reilly) did a great and enthusiastic job teaching.

The first class was in card weaving (aka tablet weaving). This ancient method of producing narrow decorative but strong narrow bands involves some dexterity and awareness of things like opening the shed (a weaving term I knew but apparently didn't appreciate enough).

Here's the setup, but not in action. There are 16 cards, four holes each, so four threads each. They are strung following a chart. One end of this mess, I mean setup, is fastened to something solid, like a table leg--something that won't move. The other end is fastened to the weaver's waist. You lean back, turn the cards to open the shed, and throw a shuttle of the weft across. The key words in that sentence were, in my case, 'open the shed.'

If you're trying to discern the decorative pattern in this piece, stop. Towards the end I figured out that my problem was I wasn't being careful enough about the shed--some of the threads that should have been under the weft were above it. With practice, I could get there. I'll probably work on this some more, see what I can do with it.

My shoulders and back were a little sore afterwards; but part of that, I think, is because I was tense from the concentration needed to learn a new skill--proficiency breeds relaxation.

The second class was the next night--no recovery time, but that worked out ok. It was on split ply braiding, a technique developed in India, and brought to artists in the west by Peter Collingwood in the 1990's. It is similar to the way fishermen make nets, but also results in decorative braids.

This one I was better at. I even have a finished piece:

It's an about 6 inches long, twisty doodad. The cords were spun out of hand dyed cotton and tencel fibers by our instructor. They were way cool in themselves.

I caught on to this technique must more quickly. Since the class, I have been exploring other patterns. Michele uses them to trim her art clothes among other things--and the fact that you could dye the cord at the same time you dye the fabric for a piece lends itself well to the work I'm currently doing.

So, am I glad I took the classes. Yes. Will I use the techniques? Probably. The one issue I see with both of them is the cooperation of my body--arthritis in the fingers is impeding on my doing either one for very long at a time. As long as I can remember where I left off (or am able to reconstruct it from staring at the unfinished piece), that is not a deal breaker.

But the main lesson is don't be afraid to try new stuff. I have ideas matriculating in my brain just from seeing the class samples...

wordless Wednesday

2010-06-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

stuck in place

2010-06-14T17:41:00.006-05:00

I'm stuck. Well, mired down. Mostly over a couple of big pieces I've been working on...

These are parts of the largest piece I've tried to make in a while...it's a piece I have targeted for submission to Quilt National--which is the reason this is all you'll ever see of it (until after I get my rejection that is). I have the vision, just don't know how I want to realize it. I have 3 or 4 ideas in mind, but if one of them really felt like the right one, I'd probably be doing it instead of staring at the pieces on my wall.

And then there's a piece I'm trying to make about the Gulf Oil Spill...it's coming along, and I want it to be political in the sense of depicting the despair I feel about the situation. But. I'm having trouble making the leap between worrying about composition and value and technique to message. Maybe the message isn't resolved enough in my head yet...

So I putter around doing other things. I'm making small pieces to give Etsy another go--mostly 8x10 pieces that will sell for around $100. I had to move a bunch of stuff in my studio to make way for a repairman, then move it back. I weed. I do household chores.

But always, just at the back of my mind, are the nudging prospects for these two pieces--when will I just jump in and finish them however? Maybe the details don't matter as much as I think they do. Maybe this will be the year I get accepted at QN. Maybe.

In the meantime, I need to watch the stink horns grow under my maple tree.

Random small thoughts

2010-06-11T11:41:00.006-05:00

Over the last couple of days, I've accumulated some random things that don't merit whole blog posts in and of themselves, so I've lumped them together, well, randomly.

At the spring, 2009 (!) IQF show in Chicago, I bought this bag of stuff. I've pretty much been looking for it ever since. There's a guy here today installing a gas log setup in our fireplace, and I had to move things so he could get to the places he needs to get to. There it was. Notice that the wool roving in back is the palette I'm using now--it's been on my mind, tickling it, for some time.

This is the book I currently reading, Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel. I loved the Life of Pi, and this is starting out to be just as good. I bring it up because he's essentially talking about the making of art. For instance,

"A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real." and
"Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark."

Why would I be so careless as to touch a wet paint surface to a finished piece? I have no answer to that question.

And why do I see the coolest compositions from scraps that have no fusible web on them? No way would I put fusible on all these skinny shapes now...have to figure out another way to do it. Sigh.

So that's my life today. Lots of random things, no time in the studio. But time to catch up on paperwork, which is why I'm writing here instead.

wordless Wednesday

2010-06-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

My Quest for Knowledge Continues...

2010-06-07T16:59:00.008-05:00

Back in days of yore, when I was a wee one, one of the methods of reproducing a page involved a thermofax machine. Teachers used them to make transparencies or blackened copies. The invention of the plain paper copier was a big advance, if copies are what you want made.

The thermofax has found a new life with artists, though, both of the fiber and of the tattoo variety. We use them to make stencils that can then be printed with--a version of silk screening. So the old machines (nobody makes them any more) have become rare and expensive. Not necessarily something an individual like moi wants to own. I'd rather use someone else's.

At Jane Dunnewold's workshop last year at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center, this subject came up. One thing led to another, and soon a fund was created for the purpose of buying a thermofax for FL. Several hundred dollars later, and thanks to the aggressive bidding skills of one of the artists' husbands, FL now has a machine in perfect working order. They are offering to make stencils from your images at reasonable prices.

And on Saturday last, Susan Infante (an excellent art cloth and art clothes maker who doesn't have a website) led an introductory workshop. Very fun. I tested the limits of what would and would not work, and came home with a pile of stencils to play with:

Here's some test prints (not necessarily great prints):

And a blurry picture of a print that pushed the limits on detail:

So another notch on the tool box, something else to play with. Progress in being able to grasp what I reach for is being made.

Looking at Roots....

2010-06-03T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois--about 10 miles from my house--is hosting a great exhibit this summer called Steelroots. These large steel sculptures are by the the artist Steve Tobin, and are spread throughout the Conifer Collection.

The first one you see when entering the Arboretum is this one:

It was made by digging up an actual tree root system, and casting it, I think, using a lost wax method. Even though as a trained botanist I had knowledge of the size of the roots of large trees (often almost as big as what's above ground), this piece brings that home. And introduces the concept that these natural shapes can be made into art.

Other pieces are made of steel, some colored white:

You can walk under and through the steel roots:

Some are left unfinished to change in the environment:

Morton seems to have a big commitment to art--they hold a lot of art classes, have a lot of shows. Every summer they have some kind of large pieces that relate to the natural world--last year it was huge versions of various types of animal nests.

The walk through and around these sculptures was quite nice--spotting a new piece in the distance, standing under one to look up at the sky. If you're nearby, go. The pieces are there until the end of January 2011--hmmmm, wonder what they'll look like with snow on them...

wordless Wednesday

2010-06-02T08:48:00.002-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

I am Grasshopper

2010-05-24T16:10:00.005-05:00

because I have much to learn. Sometimes a little sloppiness, a.k.a. unevenness, is ok. Like here:

On this piece, the unevenness looks fine. It adds interest and texture to what will be the background of the finished piece.

But other times the sloppy overcomes the texture, outcompetes for attention. As in:

I know I was in a hurry. The paint may have been too thin. I had been using those makeup wedges to apply the paint to the stamp, but I am out of them and used a brush instead. Did that make a difference? Don't know.

I do know that while I like parts of this piece from a distance, up close it has real issues. There are parts I'll be able to use, but it will only be useful if I learn something from it and don't repeat whatever mistakes I made here.

Sometimes the problem is just poor decision making:

Way too much pink. I might be able to save this piece by overstamping. Not sure it's worth the bother, but who knows down the line.

The lesson here? You don't jump from knowing nothing about a process to being an expert without some pit stops along the way. Sometimes I get lucky and can use the 'mistakes', make them look intentional. Sometimes they get put in the drawer of missed opportunities, waiting for a future salvation.

wordless Wednesday

2010-05-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

thread

2010-05-17T16:31:00.007-05:00

I don't buy a lot of fabric these days--at least commercially printed fabric. I start with white or black fabric, and go from there. So while I maintain a stash of commercial fabrics acquired before I really got into dyeing and painting--just in case someday I need them--I wouldn't spend a lot of time in fabric or quilt stores. Except, they sell thread.

I could dye thread, but so far it seems like too much trouble. Not when there are threads I can buy that do what I want done. Like this one:

It's one of the blendables by Sulky. I love these threads. They come in two weights, 12w and 30w, and unlike some variegated threads, the color changes are gradual and seem to be uneven--you don't end up with stripes. I use them for thread painting and for building satin stitched edges.

But I was having trouble finding them locally, so I went to a store I knew of in Evansville, IN (where I was anyway), SewTech. They sell thread. A lot of thread. And I knew they had the Blendables because that is where I bought this spool, which was nearly empty.

They had other temptations, too. Also by Sulky are these black and nearly black 12w threads--which I want to use for thread painting like this and this by Terry Grant.

I'm really looking forward to trying the nearly black one--I had a treasured dark brown/black thread by Mettler that disappeared from the market that I hope this replaces.

Then there was the stuff on sale:

Note that these are mostly in the same color palette I've been using lately...

Of course the new additions mean that I need more storage as my little drawers are stuffed to the gills:

The moral to all this? Thread has become one of the staple ingredients in my art. I can't--well won't--make or dye it myself, so I need to have it in stock when the muse hits. That's my story, I'm sticking with it.

limiting the palette

2010-05-14T08:00:00.001-05:00

For a variety of reasons, some known, some unknown, I've been working with limited colors lately--the main ones being an acidy spring green, an earthy brown, and a purpley magenta. I do know this is inspired by my seasonal magnetic attraction to the sight of blooming redbuds (Cercis canadensis) on brown hillsides where new leaves are just appearing in the tree tops.

So when I started playing with silk screens and such, I limited my palette to these colors. And it turned out to be a good thing.

The first reason is fairly obvious--all the pieces I'm making go together.

But the best reason is that having one decision controlled--color--I seem to be more free to experiment with other things. I know the color is going to work, so I concentrate on getting the composition right.

But then, of course, value comes into the picture--although the acid green I'm using is light, and the browns are darker, so this isn't a big problem.

These colors, near opposites, work together well--to my eye at least--when there's a lot of green and brown and very little magenta. This may well be because of the inspiration from which I'm drawing these pieces, where the flowers are vastly outnumbered by the other elements of the landscapes, but still manage to dominate. The few pieces I've started where the magenta covers most of the space just look too pink to me--maybe a prejudice against pink? Not sure.

I've managed to find a quick way to make 'silk paper' my own way--just laid the silk roving on fusible webbing, ironed it, then cut it to shape.

And this work is producing some interesting pieces--so far all small. I realize this picture is rather keystoned and dark, but I think it has a lot of promise. I'm even thinking of opening back up my Etsy shop to sell these small pieces...

So far I'm not tired of the palette--maybe because I'm simultaneously working on a large, summer colored piece--but maybe because summer is slow to come in Illinois this year. I think I'll continue on this path for a while.

wordless Wednesday

2010-05-12T07:37:00.001-05:00

more deconstructing

2010-05-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

The playing with/experimenting with/learning deconstructed screen printing continues. To keep things simpler, I'm using just one color of Procion Mx dyes--khaki. That started, I admit, because it was out. But I like it and the way it breaks down.

There were some lousy attempts when I explored what would happen if you just painted the thickened dye on the the back of the screen--rather than screening it through--and letting it dry. The answer? Not good things, in that there was too much goop there and it came off in globs and there was little patterning.

Another thing I have learned is that it is hard to judge what they really look like when you first print pieces--the thickened soda ash can throw you off as to how much dye and texture is there. So you have to wait until they are batched and washed out.

And burlap makes a nice texture to screen into--basically a grid, but an uneven grid, an organic grid. Let's go to the pictures (these are representative of successive pulls on similar screens--IOW, I did two screens the same, hard to tell which print came from which screen):

Pretty cool, huh? I see a lot of potential in these pieces.

These just had scrim scrunched up on the screen:

I'm not sure where all of this leading, but even in the experimental stage I'm getting usable fabric. It's messy, requires some time, but the results are worth it.

Book review for a change

2010-05-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker, I admit, for Amazon's free shipping. The only problem is you have to spend $25 to get it, and sometimes what I need to order isn't that much. So I keep a list of interesting things and when I need to, I order one of them.

Connecting Art to Stitch by Sandra Meech was one such book. I don't remember adding it to my list, but when I needed something, I picked it. And I'm glad I did.

The book contains a lot of kind of standard art exercises--composition, use of line, color--with plenty of examples and suggestions to try. These exercises are useful for a lot of aspiring fiber artists--in my humble opinion, a subject not studied enough.

But this book differs in that a lot of the examples and ideas are geared towards the fiber artist, using the stitch as line. Texture making, emphasizing, filling space, lots of uses for the stitch.

It celebrates the stitch, and proves that fiber art is art, just art with a needle rather than a brush.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

you just never know...

2010-05-03T17:18:00.005-05:00

I surprise myself sometimes.

Months ago I carved a stamp:

I think it was inspired by some sketches I made of palm tree bark (or maybe it was insect tracks in the palm tree trunk). Anyway, I remember not being very impressed with the stamp.

But then the other day I picked it up to modify one of the silk screen prints I had made. And I liked the results:

I like it a lot. I think it's organic and yet interesting, varied enough that the repeats aren't obvious. The piece of fabric I stamped was kind of small, so I'm making a box out of it:

Nor sure why I'm into making boxes these days...but I am. In between paperwork and gardening and cleaning, I'm feeding the muse playing with little boxes.

wordless Wednesday

2010-04-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

new discovery

2010-04-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

I occasionally teach a beginning workshop on silk painting. We use fiber reactive dyes, silk scarves, and Elmer's school glue (the washable kind) as a resist. It's kind of a play date for adults; there are no 'bad' results, and fun is had by all.

Last week when I went to buy the glue for the workshop, I noticed that they are now making washable glue sticks. OK, truth time, turns out that when I got home I discovered I already had one in my glue drawer. Bought it, never used it. But I thought that maybe one could get some cool marks by using it.

I just ran it across the demo scarf, pressing hard in some places, not so hard in others, hoping for a dry brush look. When I painted the dye over the scarf, it looked as if there was some resisting going on, but it was hard to tell. I don't think any of my students ventured to try it.

But they should have. Here is a peek at one result:

I love the way the colors separated out, the white spots, the yellow crackled area. I think I could do something with this. Or you could. I'm sharing the idea because I'd like to see what could be done with it, and I haven't all the time in the world to do everything I think of.

on originalness

2010-04-22T13:37:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine gave me an old copy of Beadwork Magazine because I was interested in a technique in it. But I read through the rest of it, too, and discovered that the beading world is wrestling through some of the same issues of copying/ copywrite/ originality that the art quilt world struggles with. The SAQA group list is currently discussing whether or not an award winning quilt is original; the Quilt Art list just got done with its semiannual discussion of copywrite. My universes collide.

I'm not sure that very many would-be artists set out to copy someone else. They do it because they need to follow a template to learn, or they don't think they can do it on their own--having been convinced somewhere in childhood that they're not 'artistic'. And that's ok at the beginning

But I believe that if you're going to grow as an artist, if you're going to find your own voice, you have to be willing to take that step off the cliff and hope that there's a ledge not too far down that will shelter you until you are ready to make the next step.

In addition, once your artistic voice starts to make itself heard, you may not be able to copy anyone anyway--you'll have to add your own touches, change things up here and there. That's why I left traditional quilting, why I started to believe that maybe I could be an artist after all.

My current inspirations are wispy, organic, hard to describe. If you asked me what inspired a certain piece, I could often only speak in generalities--the work I've been doing in the last couple of weeks was inspired by a hillside of blooming redbuds--but you might have a hard time figuring that out from looking at the work on your own.

So if you're just starting in the artistic life, step away from the safe. Try something on your own. It'll be fine, no matter how it turns out--no lives will be lost here. You'll learn something. And you might surprise yourself.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

prioritizing

2010-04-19T11:50:00.006-05:00

What to do, what to do. I could

unpack from my two day silk paper making workshop with Deb Menz. Or I could

play with the results of said workshop. These need stitching, gluing, applying to journal covers, etc. Or I could

get ready for the two workshops I'm teaching at the Keokuk (Iowa) Art Center this week. Or I could

deconstruct the silk screens I started last week. We did find Gorilla brand duct tape, and I have some new screens to try it on. So far the colored Duck brand seems to be sticking--printing with them will tell the tale.

And of course there's the spring yard work to do--mowing, edging, planting planters.

Since the workshop is fast approaching, that will come first. Then household chores. But what next? I flit, I fly, I dither.

But after this week, there are no deadlines looming. If you need me then, look for me in the studio.

Wordless Wednesday, part deux

2010-04-14T14:08:00.002-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

moving through

2010-04-12T16:11:00.006-05:00

Art doesn't just imitate life. It is life. Sometimes--rarely-- there are glorious moments when everything comes together, as planned, and the art I make looks just like what I envisioned before starting. Other times, it's one thing after another.

Right now, the bump on the road to fame and fortune is duct tape.

Plain, simple, common duct tape. One uses it to tape off a silk screen, so that the ink doesn't seep around the edges. It takes me about 15 minutes to completely tape a screen, which apparently is then supposed to last a long time if you let it cure 24 hours--during the process of silk screening, you use a lot of water and scrub a lot. Mine has been loosening up on the screen as seen above.

I've tried retaping. I've tried letting it set longer before the first use. I've tried a different role of tape--albeit one I already had. Nothing seemed to matter. And when I googled the interwebs looking for a solution, it seemed like I was the only one with this problem. I tweeted. I complained on my fan page.

Why go to all this work? Look what I can do with a silk screen:

And that's from the very first time I tried deconstructed silk screens on my own. I have things I want to do with this process.

One of my 'fans' (that term does sound a little pompous, doesn't it?) suggested colored Duck brand Duct tape from WalMart. The rolls I already had were the same brand, but the traditional silver (from back when duct tape was used for taping ducts). So I bought a colored roll, based on two ideas--maybe the colored one gets more glue, or maybe the glue dries out with time and I needed fresh tape.

I've now taped one screen:

I chose black because even though I liked the bright colors, I figured that if it works out, color would be distracting to the screening process. It's now curing...I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

floundering

2010-04-07T14:58:00.003-05:00

I've been bad about posting. It's mostly from a lack of having something to say. I'm stuck on several pieces, I'm playing with new pieces, thinking about restructuring my website, yadda, yadda, yadda. That said, let's go with an inspiring picture instead of words:

I call it Constable Sky.

More soon, I promise/

learning, always learning

2010-03-29T13:46:00.010-05:00

Far too often, my reach exceeds my grasp. I can picture how I want a piece of cloth to look when I'm finished with it, but can't figure out how to get from here to there. So I find myself exploring new techniques. This time it's deconstructed silk screen printing.

The technique has been covered frequently online; I'm using Rayna Gillman's book, Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth as a starting point.

The process takes some time outs as you have to let the screen dry before you use it, so I've got them sitting on the drying rack until tomorrow.

As usual when learning a process, I can see all kinds of ways to use this--things to try as resists, overprinting other fabrics, etc., etc. Probably I need to get more than two silk screens.

Will this be the technique that solves all my problems? No. Will it solve some of them? Maybe. Does having more techniques in my tool kit open up possibilities or confuse me to point of inaction? I think the former...or maybe I should say I hope it's the former. I can do the inaction thing already.

naming things

2010-03-23T16:26:00.005-05:00

This is what the fabric I use to make art usually looks like when I start, a big white blank canvas. A big part of the design process for me is adding color to this cloth.

But when I'm finished, what do I have? What do I call my medium? I vacillate a lot on this issue. Here are some of my options, along with pros and cons for each:

1. Art Quilt
pro: most people can figure out what I mean by that
con: most people will start talking about their dearly departed grandmother, the quilter. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my pieces are neither for the bed nor traditional in any way.

2. Fiber Art
pro: art made out of fiber--what could be simpler to understand than that?
con: the general public has no idea what that means.

3. Textile Art
pro: at least now it's clear that we're talking about fabric and not basket making.
con: they still don't get it.

4. Textile Paintings
pro: some well known artists (Lisa Call, e.g.) use this term
con: I think it's still kind of ambiguous

5. Art
pro: it's concise
con: could be talking about anything

In the end, if I'm trying to explain my art in the absence of my art, I have to use more than one sentence to get the point across. It helps to have pictures with me at all times...but in practice, I don't always do that. So I work on honing my 'elevator speech', and spread the message as I can. The upside of having to explain my medium in order to help someone understand my art is that frequently they think I invented it all...I tell them I didn't, but if they want to believe it, well, who am I to insist?

my elevator speech:
I make fiber art about the disappearing Midwestern prairie, using white and black fabrics that I dye, paint and discharge, hand and machine stitching, resulting in abstract expressionist wall hangings.

If I can remember it.

If I could turn back time...

2010-03-17T10:41:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I make the wrong choice for a piece. In cases like the one above, when the puckery quilting stitch I was doing turned out to confuse the piece rather than improve it, I could easily undo the stitches and return to the previous state of the piece.

A little time and patience, and I'm left with a pile of threads and an unfinished piece, ready for the next mistake--or improvement--never quite sure which it is going to be.

But some changes are permanent.

I had this piece I snow dyed last year. There was a high contrast level in it that I wasn't too pleased about--I'm usually a low-mid contrast kind of artist. So I tried applying some paint. In my defense, it looked good wet.

The loss of white just deadens the piece. The direction I was thinking of going with it has been blocked, must take a detour. Which probably means it will hang on my wall for another month awaiting a revelation from the muse.

Such is life.

attention must be paid

2010-03-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

A large part of advancing one's artistic abilities is learning and trying new things. Ideas can come from anywhere, from any medium. Sometimes they come from fellow art quilters.

Like this one from Frieda Anderson. I heard her discussing this technique with a couple of people before it sunk in enough that I filed it away in my brain. She marks a line of quilting with a watercolor pencil (sometimes a darker shade than the thread). Then she quilts along it. After that, wet it with a spray bottle and smudge it a little with your finger--if you want. Iron it dry to heat set it.

You end up with a more distinct line that, if the color is carefully chosen, adds more apparent depth to the surface. Cool, huh? She--and I--don't worry about the fastness of the watercolor pencil because our works--like most works of art--will never be washed.

Continuing on the same piece, I wanted some stronger lines on it. I pulled out some silk ribbon I had had for eons, and it needed ironing. Some of it ended up crinkly:

After a few choice words wondering why it did that--and confirming that the package did indeed say silk--I realized I actually preferred the crinkles. So, you know where I'm going with this--of course I couldn't make it crinkle consistently.

But I ended up with enough to do what I wanted. Here's a quick shot of the almost finished piece:

The morals of the story:
1. Pay attention.
2. Seize the moment.

always learning

2010-03-11T19:41:00.007-06:00

I spent the first part of this week at the Siena Center in Racine, WI. I was there for a seminar sponsored by PAQA, and taught by Alyson Stanfield. The subject was marketing, with an emphasis on using social media.

I had expected to spend a good part of my off hours staring at the lake. This is the view I had instead:

Oh, well. At least I learned a lot, came out with plans of action, things to do to improve my online presence, avenues to explore. That's a good thing.

Because the thing is, most artists don't want to do the things you have to do to sell art. They--We--want to make art. Anything we can learn to make it easier to market that art is translatable to more time in the studio.

Did you know that most artists are introverts? That doesn't help the situation. In addition to learning all the other business stuff, we have to overcome that.

Sigh.

But now, thanks to some focused learning at the seminar, I feel the fog is lifting and I know where I want to go. Keep watching this space.

commonalities

2010-03-08T09:36:00.008-06:00

We had a well attended opening Friday night; downtown Decatur really hops on First Fridays. And the show looks great--Sue Powell did an excellent job of hanging it--and of picking the artists for it.

This picture shows the work of four artists--, Leandra Spangler, David Johnson, Peggy Wyman, and me.

What struck me most as I viewed the show for the first time was how well the work went together--palette, visual language, style. There are five distinct voices at work here, but five voices that are able to communicate with each other.

Here Leandra's vessel relates almost perfectly to the blue slashes in two of my pieces--the free form shape of her vessel (for which she first wove a reed basket, then covered with handmade stamped paper and paint) even echoes the free form slashes I cut out of silk.

Again Leandra's vessel brings out the firey orange in my piece on the right, and Ann's framed pieces on the left. Peggy's pine needle objects echo the color and shape of Leandra's piece. David's kimono shaped tapestry on the left connects to all the pieces.

And here again my piece and Leandra's play off of each other.

Sue chose all of us from the internet, without actually seeing any of our work in person. I think she did a marvelous job of picking five very compatible artists. Thanks, Sue.

Breaking news...

2010-03-02T09:39:00.003-06:00

Two news stories of interest to my followers:

1. I have been selected as one of SAQA's Featured Artists of the Month for the month of March. Not sure what it all means, as they're working their way through all the Professional Artist Membership, but maybe new eyes will see my work and like it.

2. Yesterday I delivered my pieces for the show Fibers by 5 at the Madden Arts Center, 125 N Water Street, Decatur, Illinois. The show runs from March 4-30. Gallery hours are M-F 9am-4pm, and Saturday 10am-2pm.

The opening is this Friday night, March 5, from 5-8pm, artists talk at 6:30pm.

The other artists are my friend Ann Miller Titus, David Johnson, Leandra Spangler, and Peggy Wyman. For an article about the show, look here.

So lots of things are happening with my art at the moment. Guess I need to ignore the sunshine and warming temperatures and head for the studio....

my hand stitching obsession

2010-02-26T10:06:00.003-06:00

Lately, much of my work on various pieces in progress has been hand stitching. Big stitches, little stitches. Attaching stitches, enhancing stitches. Contrasting stitches, blending stitches. Heavy thread, skinny thread.

I don't know why. Except that, at least right now, it's the only way to get the look I want.

When I discovered free motion machine stitching, I leapt to it whole-heartedly. Anything to make my visions become reality faster. The stitching was one of my least favorite parts of the process, and this got me through it with minimum effort (discounting the sore shoulders from hunching over my machine)(I know, posture, posture).

But I started noticing that every one of my pieces was heavily stitched, and flattened by that stitching. And so are a lot of other people's pieces in the art quilt/fiber art world. I like the look, but I also grew tired of it.

And once I start machine quilting a piece, I can't stop with big open spaces. I just don't like the look when the little, regular, solid stitches march across my piece here and there.

Hand stitching celebrates the sense of depth resulting from using a layer of batting in the first place. I can be random with my stitches, imperfect with them, space them widely in some spots and narrowly in others. I feel like I have more control.

And hand stitching becomes more meditative. I do it sitting down at my cutting table (partly because I hate to baste), with my piece spread out before me. Today I stitched a small circle of silk to a piece with contrasting thread, going around and around to get the stitch density right. It felt right and good.

I still use my machine for other parts of the process, but for right now, look for me with a needle in my hand.

what to do, what to do

2010-02-19T13:15:00.006-06:00

Once again, my reach exceeds my grasp. I know what I want to do, I can't decide how to do it. Maybe the problem is I don't know the minutiae of what I want to do, just the general outline. Maybe I am too enamored of this particular piece of fabric to just dive in and not worry about the consequences. Maybe there are too many choices. Maybe none of the choices I have tried are the right one. Maybe I'm just dithering for the sake of dithering.

The problem:
I want to use a piece of hand dyed cheesecloth (great texture, some change of feel in the piece when it's there) in front of a piece of disperse transfer dyed polyester. My choices:

1. Sew it on somehow:

b. (Yep, I know I started out numbering--I'm a CarTalk groupie). Use wonder under, of which I have a bunch. Used a piece of parchment paper thanks to a comment on my previous post:

3. Use black misty fuse, of which I don't have very much, again with parchment paper:

This time the problem isn't extra shininess as much as it is you can just see the excess webbing in the spaces between threads of the cheesecloth. The black is definitely better in that the parts of the webbing you see look like black lines, maybe intentional lines. But there are still places that you can see glints on the edges of the threads.

But the stitched parts leave me a little meh, too. There the cheesecloth becomes more of the center of attention than just a part of a unified whole. The version of stitching I like best is done with machine thread but hand stitched--but I wonder if, over time, the parts between the lines of stitching would sag and call attention to themselves.

So, what to do, what to do. I have to consider that my reluctance to jump into any of these alternatives is my inner voice saying 'whoa, none of these is what you want'. But it could just be I'm stuck in dither world.

making lemonade...I hope

2010-02-15T14:39:00.008-06:00

I quilted the last piece of the big dye. It seemed kind of meh. I discharged some barbed wire on it, that helped a little. I decided I wanted birds sitting on the wires, but kind of ghostly birds, more the idea of birds. So I cut some bird shapes out of black Misty Fuse and fused them on:

Kind of what I was looking for, but I disliked the sheen of the fusible--maybe at that point I should have tried to just remove the fusing. I didn't. I just kept plowing on down the row:

Fusible web, meet fake metal foil. In one way I liked them, but they were kind of gaudy. Bold, distracting, shiny. Move on to black paint to dull the surface:

That black line along the left isn't a shadow. It's where the paint bled out onto the surface. Oops.

Next came a pause of a couple of days coming up with other options. One of them, which seems to have won the day, is this:

Don't like it? Cut it out, finish the edges. Actually, this is an improvement. But if I leave it an open space, I'm dependent upon the color of the wall the piece is hanging on. Not a good option. So I added some black scrim:

Nice. But why stop there (btw, my inner voice seems to be strangely silent these days; perhaps she's still on vacation), keep on digging into the hole. I put Paper Solvy behind the hole, and started stitching away with various threads:

I've now removed the paper, and the piece is still wet so it doesn't photograph well. But I think it might work. Still have 6 other birds to do if I go for it, but at the moment I have no idea where this piece is going.

I still retain one of my other options, cutting into several smaller pieces...

too much snow...

2010-02-11T17:22:00.005-06:00

Snow dyeing seems to be the current rage, at least among certain online circles. I was ahead of the curve, trying it last winter, dabbling a little this year. But I'm kind of over it.

And I've been trying to figure out why. My current thinking is that while I like the results, the pieces of cloth that result are fairly complete in and of themselves--I'm not always sure how I can improve them. Stitch them, sure. Cut them up and sew them back together, not so easy.

And there's the fact that much of what happens in the snow dyeing process to produce such attractive cloth is an accident. A happy one, to be sure, but out of the artist's control. Her hand is in it with the color choices and fabric arrangement, but it's mostly happenstance.

Watercolorists take advantage of these happy accidents gladly. I embrace them when I can. But to have the main focus of a piece be the result of serendipity, I just. Can't. Go. There.

So even though there's plenty of snow to be had out my back door, I'm leaving it be this year. I still have hopes of using the pieces I've already made, and the technique is one I'll keep in my repository of techniques. Just not now.

How long did it take to make that?

2010-01-26T13:23:00.004-06:00

That question is one that most fiber artists who sell their work and interact with potential customers come to dislike intensely. Is it asked as a polite way of saying 'why is this piece so $#@% expensive'? Is time spent the only way they can relate to being an artist? Are they just making conversation because they don't know how to ask about composition or technique? Or do they genuinely care about the answer?

One has to be nice to potential customers (unless they're using sticky fingers to feel the work). So I try to answer the question slowly, sounding out what answer they're really looking for.

The piece I just finished (well, finished except for hanging mechanism) shows some of my problems with a straight forward answer.

Below the Dam

1a. Time between white silk and today? 3-4 years, can't quite remember when I dyed the fabric.
`1b. Actual working time, hands on cloth? Maybe 100 hours.

difference--lots of time spent with it on my design wall, deciding what to do next. In this case, most of the time was spent on deciding the quilting.

2. Time the idea first started itching my brain to today? Maybe up to 20 years--every November I drove almost daily across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, IA to Hamilton, IL, and admired the last traces of fall in the bottoms, reflected in the slow moving part of the river.

3. Time spent learning how to translate my vision into actual art? A lifetime.

I haven't priced this piece yet, but must do that soon as it will debut in a show in March. It will probably be near the top of my price range as it has a lot of hand work (=more time). But whatever the price, someone at some show will see it and tsk, tsk, that it is too much for just a 'wall hanging'. Whatever. Plumbers don't give away their work, neither should artists.

making color when there is none

2010-01-21T17:55:00.004-06:00

The world outside my window has been rather bleak lately--several days of low hanging fog, white stuff covering the ground, no sign of the sun. There have been occasional brief glimpses of blue sky or crescent moon, but not enough.

This seems to be causing me to choose bright, summery colors when I dye. The above pieces were snow dyed in several baths, and look like a summery day at the river. I just did some shirts, and they're bright red and orange and yellow.

I'm kind of a willy-nilly dyer, doing what the mood dictates rather than planning ahead. I attended a lecture by Regina Benson the other day, and she works completely differently--knowing what she intends the finished piece of art to look like before she starts her dyeing or discharge process.

I tend to dye with more serendipity--work until I get cloth I love, then decide what the finished piece is going to be--and even that can change along the way.

So while I may tone down the shirts (they're for me; I tend to wear muted colors), the smile this piece puts on my face will keep this fabric the way it is--and it may well become the largest piece I've made in sometime.

Figuring all that out is part of the process for me, the fun part.

moving to the 21st century

2010-01-18T11:39:00.002-06:00

Here's a quick video Ann and I made at our show, discussing the differences in our techniques:

Kind of cheesy, but not bad for a first attempt at utilizing the interwebs, huh?

mulling and musing

2010-01-15T15:24:00.004-06:00

The days are getting longer a minute or two every day. We're in the midst of a January thaw. The world outside my window is pretty much white on white--white ground, white sky.

So what better time to be distracted like Ricochet Rabbit? I bounce around from a great newly discovered blog to wondering why I keep making snow dyed pieces that look too much like '60's tie dye to patiently hand stitching a silk piece. I think of a 1000 things I'd like to try and then worry that what I make looks like 1000 people made it. Nothing is quite right, nothing is altogether wrong.

Cabin fever? Maybe, although I get out every day--tomorrow I'm even going to Wisconsin to Regina Benson's artist's talk. Mostly, though, I think I'm just stuck in winter doldrums. It should be a good time to catch up on the minutiae of art like sewing on hanging devices or cutting mats. But the interwebs beckon and I heed their siren.

But I have found that the things I think of now, the ideas I mull and dissect, will show themselves in future work. I make art in the present, but it is conceived in the past.

However, I wouldn't turn down a sunny day or 14.

puckering, right or wrong

2010-01-07T15:25:00.005-06:00

The pucker you get from eating an unripe wild plum: bad.

The pucker you get from tart lemonade: good.

The pucker you get unplanned when machine quilting a silk piece: Bad:

Puckers caused by careful placing and tightening of hand stitches on silk: Good:

The truth is, when I started this hand stitching, I didn't even think about puckers--they just kind of happened in the first few stitches. I liked what I saw, so I continued it, thinking I had discovered a great process. Once again, whatever it is about the universe that causes you to suddenly discover everywhere something you just learned existed, happened. I ran across this on the artmixter blog, by Scottish artist Marion Barnett. Great minds and all that.

Sometimes I think I should be reluctant to share how much of what is good about my art is happy accidents. But then I concede that part of the answer is one has to have the eye to notice and exploit the accident to make it into art.

So I continue quilting on two pieces, celebrating the puckers in the hand stitched one, trying to avoid (and sometimes unsewing) them in the machine stitched ones. Both projects are, however, living up to the plan in my brain. That's a good thing.

And that is all.

Fine Line Opening this Friday

2010-01-04T13:22:00.004-06:00

The wait is almost over. Our show at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center opens this Friday night, January 8, with a reception from 5:30-8:00pm. The center is located just off Randall Road in St. Charles, Illinois.

Artwork will remain hanging until February 12, and can be seen during normal business hours at the Center.

Even though Ann and I have played together for years now, it still amazes me how different our work is and yet how well it hangs together. Maybe it's both of us growing up in the Midwest, maybe it's the long interchange of ideas, maybe it's just a coincidence.

Friday night promises to be a cold night, but the opening reception will be warm!

snowed in

2009-12-27T10:59:00.003-06:00

I have come down to the wire, losing my last excuse to postpone the drudgery of art--putting on hanging sleeves, cutting mats, framing pieces. Next week we hang our show at Fine Line (details later in the week, opening 1/8/10).

But we came home from visiting family for Christmas to around 11 inches of new snow. When we got home, the roads hadn't been plowed. They have been this morning, but still it's on the 'you'd be crazy to get out in this' side of the fence as far as driving. I'll give it another day or two--one of the pluses of working from home.

So while I may be snow dyeing (this stuff is unbelievably lightweight), I'll also be knuckling down and doing the boring bits of art making.

Happy Holidays to all.

That is all.

getting it right

2009-12-14T16:38:00.005-06:00

This piece was snow dyed last winter. It seemed to have too much going on with it, so I stamped it with discharge paste. The above picture is how it looked at the end of that post.

But it seemed too busy still, too much a bunch of parts and not enough cohesiveness--an elusive quantity I've come to believe. So, having not much to lose, I threw it in yet another dye bath:

It's getting better. But now I have to decide whether to proceed with a whole cloth piece, or cut it up. And how to deal with these artifacts of the cloth's previous life as a dish towel:

On the one hand, I would like to celebrate this and all the other holes, either making the piece see through, or layering something else behind the hole. But on the other hand, those holes are there because the fabric is weak and strained at those points. Would I be using something that will only deteriorate over time? Or is that time frame so long that it doesn't matter?

Don't know the answer to any of these questions. So the piece hangs on one of my design walls, waiting for its moment to shine.

That is all.

losing it

2009-12-07T10:52:00.004-06:00

This is a brand new tea towel I bought at Woodman's grocery (our current favorite store) the other day. It was white when I bought it, for around $3 for a pack of 2. After prewashing, I was hard put to distinguish them from the old ones I have been collecting at rummage sales. They are very slightly sheer, so they can be influenced by the color behind.

Anywho, I threw this in a dye bath I had going the other day. When it was rinsed and dry, I hung it on my design wall. And promptly saw a raven in the mottling, waiting to be enhanced (stitching? paint? pastels?) and turned into another piece for FAC's 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird show. So using my brilliant techniques of working this morning, I took the piece down to work on the enhancing, beginning with ironing the cloth.

And promptly lost all sense of the raven. I know generally where he was, and I think I even know which way the fabric was hanging. But he's gone. If he was ever really there.

I constantly see things in mottled hand dyed fabrics. It's not something I necessarily want to do; it just happens. Sometimes I go with it and use it, other times I ignore it and leave it for the observant viewer to discover on her own. Sometimes using the accident feels like cheating. Sometimes it doesn't.

The towel is back hanging on the design wall, waiting until I see the raven again. I may have to turn it once in a while--come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure whether he was on the right side or the wrong side of the fabric. Oh, well.

Ruhroh. I just previewed this post, and now I'm seeing a grizzly bear cub. I'm doomed.

That is all.

layers on layers

2009-12-02T10:47:00.007-06:00

This piece has been kicking around my studio since I did the snow dyeing last winter:

It's an old tea towel, with some holes in it (the black spots). Couldn't quite bring myself to do anything to it, probably because I couldn't think of what to do.

Then I read Cynthia St. Charles' blog about printing and overprinting, and it got me to thinking about trying something similar. But different. Not copying, being inspired by.

I took this stamp (which I carved inspired by a cross section of a hedge apple):

and, using Jacquard Discharge Paste, began stamping it:

I first tried some here and there, but I kept needing more--the funky peach color I was getting was weird when rare, nice when common. The current result is this:

Because of variance in the amount of paste I put on the stamp each time, and also in the amount of heat I applied to the paste, there are at least four levels of discharge in the piece. So I already have some layering going on.

The piece is currently drying (I find it best to wash out the excess paste before proceeding). When it's dry, I may add some more layers via paint--but the decision to be made is whether to use the same stamp, or switch to another. And what color to use.

Right now the piece kind of reminds me of diatoms swimming in a primordial sea. But that's just me.

That is all.

When Series Collide, aka Post #150

2009-11-24T10:57:00.006-06:00

I tend to work in a series for several pieces, one leading to the next, with occasional side trips. Sometimes I make a radical leap into another direction, and never look back. Other times I go back where I left off and keep going down the old path.

And sometimes this happens:

Now I was plodding down the path of making some disperse transfer pieces for our Fine Line show in January (details about the opening later). It seemed that what the piece needed was this big blue circle just above center. Suddenly, my new moon series had collided with the disperse one...

Now the problem is that what I call a series isn't necessarily obvious to the dispassionate observer. In my mind, I have several pieces made in the new moon series. The thing is, the only thing they have in common is a large dark circle. Some are small, some are larger. Some are silk, some are linen, some are disperse transfer pieces. So maybe the problem is I'm thinking too linearly--I need to think of my work as more of a web of intersecting threads...

Remember this piece from an entry or two ago?

I realized the other day that I like the backside better:

The difference is subtle, but this version is more painterly or something...more ambiance as it were.

That is all.

happy accidents, taking advantage of

2009-11-18T12:50:00.005-06:00

Before I visited the Shedd Aquarium last March, I didn't know that leafy seahorses (or sea dragons) even existed. Of course, since then, I have encountered them in several articles and TV shows. But they are fascinating to watch.

So when I hung the following transfer piece on the wall, I was predisposed to seeing the leafy seahorse in it:

I'll be the first to admit that he doesn't show up well. Yet. With some thread sketching, he will, maybe along with a fuzzier brother farther down the piece.

But doing this brings to mind a conundrum that keeps occupying my brain. Does taking advantage of happy accidents like this make me less of an artist? In other words, am I cheating? Or is it because of my art training and experience that I recognize such things and take advantage of them? I tend to think it's the latter--although I have been known to be so enthralled with a piece of fabric that I am afraid to do anything to it. One such piece hangs framed on my living room wall--I was unable to move on with it for fear of 'ruining' it.

I try to abide with the Doritos principle I expouse here occasionally (use it--I'll make more). But sometimes it's hard. I get a happy accident that I have no real way of repeating, and I'll be timid about using it. I need to work on that.

And sometimes I get good results by acting deliberately to cause those accidents, as here (sorry for the poor picture:

Here I was using up excess dye while playing with screen printing. I knew I was striving for a landscape here, but it came out better than I expected. Never disregard the things you paint casually--the artist within might be guiding your hand.

That is all.

endings and postponements

2009-11-11T15:50:00.004-06:00

Part of this process called art is knowing when to stop. It's a hard lesson that I learned doing watercolor--things can be going swimmingly, and then you go back into the painting with just one more stroke, and it's over. In watercolor, there's not much going back. At least in fabric, you can often unstitch and recover--but if you're using paints or dyes, not so much. Time to use the only real solution I ever found in watercolor--cropping down to the best picture you can get out of the paper.

But sometimes, you realize just in time and stop yourself--pull back, set the piece aside so you can think about it, wait for another day. That's what I've done with this piece. Ann and I discussed it on Skype (me making her dizzy by swinging the laptop built-in camera around so she could see all the details), came up with some ideas. The next day I tried one of the ideas, kind of liked it, but in the end decided to fold it up and put it away for awhile. It's just not going in a good direction, and I want to think about how to correct the course before I go to far. I think it may be too late for unsewing--cropping may be the only answer. But I need distance and time to decide that.

Distance and time are the only ways I can objectively critique my art. Too soon, and the amount of work I've put into a piece or the adoration I have for a particular piece of cloth cloud my vision. Or sometimes I've tried so hard and failed that I just hate the piece. Given some time, I usually come back around to it, and often I find a way to make it better. Not always, but often enough.

And sometimes I get it right the first time:

That is all.

I get around!

2009-11-06T18:15:00.002-06:00

My work is now being featured on the Jacquard Products gallery, thanks to my work with their discharge paste. I'm quite pleased.

I started discharging with bleach, but found that it was hard to get fabrics that didn't go to orange, and it was difficult to neutralize the fabric after. Discharge paste also works on silk, which bleach destroys.

on not making art....

2009-11-02T17:30:00.003-06:00

Life keeps getting in the way of making art. If it's not fighting off a virus, it's raking leaves. If it's not looking for a comforter that actually fits our bed, it's moving furniture from one room to another. If it's not rewriting a website, it's taking photos for said website.

In the meantime, autumn is drawing to a close here in northern Illinois. The above picture is a couple of weeks old; that tree is now bare. Its leaves are chopped up and mulched. DST has ended, it's already dark at 5:30pm.

None of this means I'm not thinking about art, figuring out what I want to do with some pieces I have started. After the first of the year, I have two shows coming up fairly soon; that means time will have to be spent sewing on sleeves and cutting mats.

But somewhere in the midst of all of this, I'll find a way to make some art--it's what I do. I'm an artist.

That is all.

the wait is over

2009-10-29T08:55:00.003-05:00

After much postponing, dithering, avoiding, I have launched a new version of my website. I think of it as BJ Parady 2.0.

Right now it's quite simple. No Flash, no music. That's a deliberate decision--I want the site to be about the art, not about how well I can--or cannot--write html. The navigation may be a little cluncky, but you can easily get about in the site.

Except for the front page, I went with a white background--again because of the art. It just looks crisper and better against pure white.

At the moment there are only 16 pieces of art on there--at least 12 of which have never been on my site before. In time, I will be adding more older work. But for now it is simply a portfolio of where I am at this moment in time as an artist.

That is all.

doing the mundane...

2009-10-27T15:59:00.002-05:00

Haven't made any art this week. Instead, I've been sitting in front of my laptop, redoing my website. I think of it as version 2.0, a total revamp. Almost from scratch--although I had to go back to the original to jog my memory in regards to html. But I'm back in the swing, should be up in a couple of days--I'll have a big drum roll out here.

I've been rethinking the whole thing--decided I wanted something simpler, more of a portfolio than a catalog of every piece I've ever made. For now it will just have a few of my best pieces. In time, I'll add others.

But it feels good to wipe the slate clean and start anew--maybe it has something to do with the change in seasons. The view out my windows is undergoing its seasonal change--from a completely secluded backyard to one where I can see 13 of my neighbors' houses. This too shall pass.

Everyone talks about spring cleaning. But fall cleaning is a good thing, too.

That is all.

testing, testing

2009-10-23T14:54:00.003-05:00

I have now made several panels for a project I have in mind, using the transfer method I've talked about before in this blog. I found a woven polyester that seems to work nicely at JoAnn's; it's not too shiny and has some substance to it.

So the next step would be adding some stitching to the pieces, probably by machine. But before that, I wanted to do a test sample--for once erring on the side of caution. So I did, and here it is:

It's actually a kind of a repeat image for me, I've done the same thing with hand dyed fabric pieced together, and with watercolor on paper. Each one is slightly different, but I do repeat myself.

That's ok, though. The scientist in me knows that it's better to just change one variable at a time in order to truly have meaningful results. The results here are that yes, I can pretty much stitch this as I'm used to, and thus I'm able to predict what the final piece will look like.

If I don't change my mind along the way. This piece, by the way, is for sale for $75, postage paid, unframed. It measures a little under 11x14 inches.

That is all.

disperse away

2009-10-19T17:16:00.007-05:00

My work (play) with disperse transfer dyes continues.I've been refining my process, trying to make larger pieces with them by tiling and overlapping images. And making more and more papers:

By the way, turns out this is the perfect use for an old vinyl shower curtain. And I've been using the old sheets I started using in a workshop as table protection; they keep looking better and better.

I'm doing this because I don't know of another way to get this kind of look on fabric:

Or this:

There's depth and interest in the images, the hand of the fabric remains the same, the colors are unmuddied. It's my current favorite technique--until the next one enchants me...

That is all.

Change of Pace

2009-10-14T16:03:00.004-05:00

Maybe I'm in an avoidance mode. Avoiding the final big piece of my gall series (final if only because there's only one big piece of the original silk left). But I needed a change of pace.

So back to the transfer dyes I went. One of my goals is to put together enough pieces for a show based only on transfer dyed pieces. To do this, I need more papers--they only make 5-7 prints each on average.

So yesterday I mixed up the thickener--it takes around a day to fully hydrate the powder. This morning I mixed up some dye solutions, and this afternoon I painted papers.

What fun. Not as much fun as doing it with Ann, but fun enough on a dreary cold day. I rolled the dyes on, I brushed them on, I plopped them on with a spoon. The thickener makes them behave kind of like fingerpaint--they move around, hold a line. I got swirls and interesting lines and color blendings. Today I only used yellow, orange, blue, and turquoise. The papers look really promising:

But they need to dry until tomorrow--I've learned the lesson of trying to iron them too soon. Maybe they'll work, maybe they won't. It doesn't matter a lot, because I have enough dye left to play again.

That is all.

repetition with variation

2009-10-08T11:16:00.004-05:00

I've taken a lot of watercolor classes over the years--it's where I've gotten most of my 'art' training. One of the multi-day ones covered a lot about the principles of design, principles that I strive to follow in my fiber work.

One is sometimes called variation/alteration. It boils down to repeating a shape, a line, a color throughout the piece--but never in exactly the same way. The size or length varies, the color shifts a bit, the space between the lines varies. All of these tie the work together at the same time they make it more interesting--interesting meaning engaging the viewer for a longer piece of time.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've added some dark lines to a piece I'm currently working on. As I was stitching the last three lines in place, I suddenly discovered that I had mimicked the underlying yellow shapes perfectly--a pattern of 3,1,5,3,3. The lines look different--the yellow ones are fat and short, the dark teal ones are thin and long, so there is variation but there is also repetition. I had done what I was supposed to do unconsciously.

That's a good thing, I think--it means the concepts I have studied have finally started to take root in my brain.

And in other news, I am going to be a part of a show in Decatur, Illinois, in March 2010--details at a later date. Two groups of which I am a part have new stuff on their websites: Fiber Artists Coalition and the Fiber Art Alliance. Check out the group blog of FAC for insights into how fiber artists work. Sometimes I chafe at having to live with group decisions, but all in all it's good to be involved with like minded artists.

That is all.

can't stop stitching....

2009-10-05T15:52:00.003-05:00

Now that I've hand quilted the whole piece--all 2 square feet of it or so--I'm finding that it isn't enough. That's right, I need more hand stitching. Most of this decision was made for composition reasons, redirecting the way the viewer's eye travels through the piece, repeating some lines, increasing the tonal contrast range. I'm couching on a dark thread:

Just through the process of making art over and over, I have developed some common symbols in my work. These lines, sometimes shorter, sometimes horizontal, appear over and over in recent pieces. They come in groups of threes or fives or one, or sevens--always odd numbers--unevenly spaced, with disparate spaces between the sets. I started it as a mimic of writing, conveying a human touch without using actual letters or words. Let the viewer write the story, whatever inspired me colors my work but not another's interpretation.

So when I knew that darker lines were needed here, I knew where to go--having a practiced vocabulary to draw from made the decision easy.

That is all.

what???

2009-10-01T11:40:00.003-05:00

I came to fiber art via traditional quilting. Made several bed quilts, including a couple of king sized ones. Hand quilted them all--got that hand stitch down to tiny, even lines. Messed up my carpal tunnels doing it, but I got it the 'correct' way.

When I discovered that free motion machine quilting existed, I embraced it enthusiastically. Never looked back. Of course, at the same time, I also started making pieces for the wall, eventually making art (not that there's anything wrong with craft) work. Didn't look back.

But slowly, more rapidly the last few months, I've been drawn back to hand stitches. Admittedly not the teeny even stitches of yore, but the look of hand stitches on the surface has been appearing more and more in my art.

And now, today, there's this:

Not only hand stitches, but they're actually holding 3 layers together, so technically they're quilting stitches. I tried some machine stitching on this piece, hated it and ripped it out. Tried quilting in a straight line, nope. But these random big stitches (we're talking maybe 2 to an inch) are doing the trick. So I'm coming full circle.

Well, almost. I'm sure the quilt police would disagree, but it is three layers held together by thread. A few years ago, not sure I would have thought I would be hand stitching again. But I have to do what the piece needs--listen to the inner artist and jump in.

That is all.

reinventing the wheel

2009-09-30T12:58:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about sheers lately. Or semi-sheers. And the look of them with light behind them--which means an abandonment of batting, maybe even of more than one layer. Not on every piece, but some.

But the problem with this is the seams. Hiding ravelly edges, mainly. There's always techniques like the flat fell seam, or French seam. I've been looking at pojagi, but most of the pictures are full shots, no details of the actual seams. And many of the people using these techniques seem to want to make the seam not noticeable.

I want to celebrate the seam, have it become part of the art and texture of the piece. So I've been playing around with scraps, seeing what I can do--reinventing the wheel because I can't find instructions on building one myself.

This one involves a sheer between two silk pieces, done on the machine with an overcast stitch and a straight stitch--kind of what I think a French seam is, but since I don't know tailoring, don't really know. It's ok. Gets the job done. Need to work on tension (might have had the wrong needle). But meh.

Here's a couple of views of a hand done piece, front and back:

Hastily done, and fairly irregular. I know I could even out the stitching, go after that perfect hand made stitch that mimics machine stitching and confuses the viewer as to the tool used. But even though some may think it sloppy, or a sign of bad construction, I enjoy the unevenness, the obvious hand of the artist, varying the stich, celebrating the seam.

I think I could do something with this.

That is all.

new gallery

2009-09-23T10:44:00.003-05:00

My work has been accepted into the Dempsey Gallery at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles, Illinois.

The gallery changes work three times a year, the pieces I am putting in now will be available for sale until the end of January, 2010.

This is a great art center, with lots of classes--including many fiber oriented ones. I recommend it to anyone in the area.

And they're hosting a two person show with Ann Miller Titus and me in January 2010.

That is all.

it was a very nice moon

2009-09-18T16:22:00.003-05:00

I am working on one of the larger pieces in my new series. It mostly is a whole cloth piece at the moment--that is subject to change. And so it occurred to me to try placing a new moon (i.e. one that is dark colored) on it. I cut one out of my scraps from the big dye in the shape of a circle and let it stew for a couple of days. I like the piece better with it than without it--something I learned from some workshop or book in my past--anyway, it's a good gut check.

But how to fasten it to the background? Fusible web seemed the best choice--silk is so slippery, it's better to have some control over it. So I applied the fusing (not mentioning the brand because it is not the fusing's fault, it's mine).

Then I thought of using some discharge paste to create a thin crescent moon--you know how you can see the mass of the moon from the light of the thin fingernail moon? So I would use the Jacquard discharge paste with a paintbrush.

But first I need to stabilize the silk so I could paint that fine line. So I ironed it on to the shiny side of freezer paper and proceeded. Big OOPS. Apparently, and I probably already knew this and forgot it, the fusing and the waxy side form a permanent bond.

I discovered this too late. I tried soaking the paper off:

But no go. It came out pretty good, maybe I can use it in a future multi-media piece. But I'll have to do another one for this piece. Live and learn.

That is all.

absent on leave

2009-09-15T17:17:00.005-05:00

I have been absent from my studio for going on two weeks. But for a good reason--vacation. Breaks are good, even for self-employed artists. Renewal of the soul, rest of the weary, that sort of thing.

But my brain, while relaxed, still thought in artistic ways. And some of what I saw will show up in later work. It stews in the back of my brain, waiting for the right time to burst out.

Here's some of what stands out:

One of my goals in life is to see the redwoods. Until I manage that trip, these tall pine trees will do. They were an unexpected sight at Lake Itasca State Park, MN.

This is the Mighty Mississippi River in its infancy--yards from where it tumbles out of its official headwaters, Lake Itasca. I walked across it on a bridge made of a single log. Here it is clear, reedy, slow moving, giving no hint to what is downstream. We crossed it several times in the next few days, and by the time it got to the Twin Cities, finally it was beginning to look like the river I came to know so well in Keokuk.

And it was in Stillwater, MN that I became fascinated with this old building:

Don't know how or when, but like every other experience in my life, these things will show up in my art some day. Until then, I've taken tentative steps back into the studio, and soon will be up to full speed.

That is all.

progress through improvisation

2009-08-31T17:02:00.005-05:00

I continue to slog my way through this series of works. It may be counter-intuitive to the non-artist, but not all of art making is fun--some is drudgery, some is frustrating, some is boring. The end result, enjoyable. Some of the process, not so much.

And I constantly have to find ways to work through small issues--issues that loom large at the time, until I remind myself that there are multiple 'right' answers and I need to stop agonizing over them. Like with this piece--I decided early on that I wanted a row of cornstalks, barely visible, across the bottom of this piece. Easy enough to do--practice making them in a continuous stitch so I could do it on the machine, use white thread on top and bottom, stitch away. Done. But then I realized I had no idea how to proceed with the rest of the piece--and once you add batting and a backing, it has to be attached throughout the point. So I did what I usually do. I walked away from it.

After a while, I realized it didn't really matter. As long as I did something, it would be ok. Especially since it would be white on white, and the main focus of the piece is dark green on white. Probably no one but me will notice in the end.

So now I have two large pieces done, two more in progress, and several small pieces done. Here's a long shot (for details you'll have to wait for the whole portfolio debut):

And I've found a new prairie to walk--at the Dick Young Forest Preserve just outside of Batavia. Big skies, lots of prairie plants--including some new to me--and a nice lake which is supposed to host pelicans and sandhill cranes at certain times of the year. Here's a view of the Constable skies we saw last night:

That is all.

transitions and intermediaries

2009-08-25T15:53:00.004-05:00

This far into the series, there are plenty of scraps and half-started pieces lying around my studio. Sometimes they inspire me...that, and a glimpse of another quilt somewhere that had lots of white space...and thinking about Rosemary Claus-Gray's use of sheers...all that finally percolated up to a piece still in progress, but here's a glimpse of it:

But the only thing it has in common with the rest of the series is the fabric--maybe the use of lines to symbolize grass, but in looks and feel it is very different from the other pieces. Not that this is a bad thing, but I was trying to make a cohesive series....

So I stewed about this for a couple of days. In the meantime, I took some scraps and plaed with them to develop a small piece--notice I in almost full avoidance mode in regards to quilting the large piece, although progress is being made there--that looks partly like this:

In my logic, the white space--and there is more than shows here--represents the absence of prairies. Anyway, while hand stitching on this piece (Yes, hand stitching. No other way to get the look I want), I realized that it could be a transitional piece between the new sheer one and the previous ones. What I need is missing link pieces.

So I can do that. It will all work out after all. No need to panic. And I have a towel handy.

That is all.

ending the misery

2009-08-19T09:13:00.006-05:00

Sometimes you just have to stop. It's the ultimate consequence of the doritos fabric principle--use it, they'll make more--that sometimes you just have to realize that you've dug into a hole so deep there's no way out. And no amount of stenciling or fusing or layering is going to solve the problem.

I realized I was at that point on a piece I'd been having fun with after being away from it for a few days. It. just. didn't. work. The piece I was trying to layer on top ended up looking like what it was--a mask hiding a real problem. So I stepped away from the fabric. Well, first I slashed it once so I wouldn't later weaken and try to work on it again. Since it started out as a large piece, there will be salvageable parts in it. But I needed to move on...

So now I'm working on quilting one of the larger pieces. Except I forgot my plan and fell back into a quilting pattern that works, it just takes a looonnnnggg time to execute. In the end, I'll be glad I did it, but right now I can only work on it a half hour or so at a time. If not for NPR, I wouldn't make it that long. Here's a hint of it:

My circle pattern is morphing somewhat into a cellular wall pattern--I can tell by the fact that some bits don't close up, but instead take advantage of other bits to form a whole.

On another front, I'm close to having tomatoes thanks to this heat. But I had to pick them early to keep the squirrels from claiming them. This is an heirloom variety, and has the weirdest, coolest red color:

It's a red saddened by green--not bright, but it will be interesting to see how they end up. And how they taste.

That is all.

galls continue to grow...

2009-08-10T16:04:00.004-05:00

Work continues apace on the series. The second large piece suddenly became quite smaller a couple of days ago when I realized it looked better cropped. This I did test first by folding off the extra, and then I let it rip...the result:

All the puckers are real, the result of using a fusible web to put the gall shapes on the silk--the galls are made of a translucent silk. I think that the next stage, quilting, will flatten the piece down as I can get it to lie flat with my hands. Hope so, anyway.

I also carved a block with a gall design. This is one of the small pieces resulting from that--I put a piece of silk on top of the block and rubbed with a Shiva paintstick:

The gall in front is also fused translucent silk. The quilting flattened it down, which is part of what makes me think the big one will work out, too.

I also tried doing some shiva stripes (rubbings over my stamps again), but I'm not sure that the color is right--it's too contrasty. Still mulling that over, but here's a peek:

So lots of things are perking along, but nothing's getting done. But progress is being made.

That is all.

living on the edges

2009-08-04T09:39:00.008-05:00

The first big piece of my new series seems to be done, so I set about trying to figure out how to finish the edges--anything but traditional binding. My first choice would be some recycled silk yarn like this:

But this is red. I looked locally and on the intertubes, but either they didn't have greens or you couldn't choose a color. Then I thought to try dyeing it--knew I couldn't get green starting from red, but hoped for a nice neutral:

Meh.

I did get a cool paper towel out of the deal--after I thought I had washed out the yarn enough:

Not sure what to do with that. So off I went to a new--to me--yarn store in nearby Geneva, Illinois, called Wool and Company. Way cool store. I came home with these two balls:

which are different in person--the small ball is less orange, and the big one is green. I cut two lengths of the small ball, and one of the green, and the result is this:

Quite nice, and close to what I was hoping for. And I have enough to use on as many of the other pieces as I want. A good finish to be sure.

That is all.

more galls...

2009-07-29T15:47:00.006-05:00

Although the joys of homeowning have conspired to keep me out of the studio, I am making progress on one of the large pieces of my new series. I knew I wanted to quilt the gall shapes with little cell-like circles, so I did that first:

This piece started life as a sketch:

But how to finish the quilting? I decided to use an old trick, invented by someone in the distant past, tracing paper:

This is the basic plan I decided on--horizontal lines, becoming closer as they got to the center of interest, the galls.

So now that part is done. I think the piece isn't finished yet, though. I am currently thinking of couching down this textured yarn in vertical lines:

I like the way they look, but am not sure how they enhance the overall composition--which I think may be the issue I should be dealing with. Back to hanging on the design wall while I stew over it, I think.

Meanwhile, I've taking photos of recent works that I need to send off to various places, including some entries to shows. In the prepping of these photos, I have found a recent purchase quite useful--Digital Essentials, by Gloria Hansen. I used to bug Gloria with my digital problems, now I can just look them up.

Oh, and I'm now on twitter: @bjparady.

That is all.

the dull bits

2009-07-20T14:53:00.007-05:00

After a fairly productive week last week--I made art!--this week I have to knuckle down to some of the dull bits and pieces of life, both as an artist and as a homeowner (painting, patching, climbing on ladders). I am getting ready to enter some shows again, but this involves doing the necessary photography. Here's the start of that stack:

On the bad side, that's only part of what I need to locate to photograph. On the good side, it's not much harder to shoot a bunch of pieces than it is to set up for one piece.

I'm scurrying right along on the goldenrod gall series (still refining the actual name). Three smaller pieces are probably done:

But part of the reason they're hanging on the wall in front of my ironing space is I'm not sure of that. In fact, the larger of the three has changed a little just since this picture was taken.

I've also started quilting on one of the large pieces. Still in love with discharge paste, especially on hand dyes that have been in multiple baths:

I am using the paste like paint--applying it with a paintbrush in a 'painterly' style. The result is varied, somewhat subtle, and rich in color.

And I have come to accept that I didn't make much art in the last year due to our move--that's ok, I won't be able to enter all the shows I want to enter, but I need to make more art.

Oh, and I joined the twittering masses. Follow me, if you want, at @bjparady.

That is all.

forward and onward

2009-07-13T14:48:00.004-05:00

I think the dyeing process is finally done on the length of silk. Here is the final result:

There's lots of variation, and yet the whole holds together. Since this picture was taken, I have cut three larger pieces out of the whole, and begun work on a medium size piece.

This series, barely begun, has already morphed somewhat. My original concept was more restricted, an exploration of the shapes of goldenrod galls--shapes that always caught my eye during my walks in the restoration prairie at Kibbe Life Science Research Station.But as I looked at one of the bigger pieces hanging on my wall, and as I walked in another prairie yesterday at Morton Arboretum, I realized that what I wanted to capture was the assault on the senses of walking through a prairie in its glory--the grasses taller than your head, the spots of brilliant color, the flitting of butterflies from bloom to bloom, the memory of the past that we, modern men and women, have all but destroyed here in the 'Prairie State' of Illinois.

So what does this mean? That while I expect the shape to show up in the works (here is one of my monotypes exploring this shape:

it won't necessarily be the focus of the series. The focus is the experience, to maybe evoke a sense of what we're losing in the natural world.

On another note, I have made a printing surface for further screen printing. It uses a large scrap of old countertop, covered with two layers of white acrylic felt. This is supposed to provide the proper softness for sharp prints. The future will tell.

That is all.

the big dye

2009-07-01T19:36:00.007-05:00

While driving to and from the Faire, I developed a plan for a new series of work. Somewhere I saw a suggestion that a good group of work to present to a gallery consists of 2-3 large pieces and 7-10 small pieces, all part of a series. So my plan is this:

Chose a theme--done (goldenrod galls, bear with me on this as it will become more clear as the group develops)
Dye a long length of silk to use as the main fabric in the pieces (in progress)
Construct the big pieces first, then the small, maybe including some really small ones that could be matted to 4x6"

So I started the dyeing yesterday:

When I washed out this batch, there was a lot of white space left--apparently one of the colors I used didn't work well with silk. So I tried again with this sneak peek at the result:

I'm not sure if this is what I was going for. I may 'gray' this out some as I had been thinking of duller colors.

But ever since I did the snow dyeing, I've been trying to figure out why that fabric looks different. One of my hypotheses is that it is the result of the dye being still in powder form. So I sprinkled some powder on it. And this happened:

Very cool. And I also like this part:

So over the holiday, I will contemplate whether to go with the colors I have, or dye some more. The thing is, it's not like there's a wrong choice here.

That is all.

getting ready for the Faire...

2009-06-22T16:04:00.005-05:00

My big art event for the summer is this coming weekend--having a booth at the Midsummer Arts Faire in Quincy, Illinois. It's the only one I'm doing this year, mainly because I missed the deadline for some others.

But I've been spending a good deal of time getting things ready for the booth:

These are cotton shirts I dyed. I also dyed silk scarves to sell. And spent time mounting pieces and cutting mats and framing things. Lots of little, non-creative stuff. The results are ready to go:

I don't mind so much the matting and framing. But I find that I sometimes resent the time spent dyeing scarves and shirts--and yet I need to have them to assure that I get my investment in the art fair back. For some reason, people seem to be able to rationalize or justify spending money on something to wear. But not so much something that just hangs on the wall.

Never mind that art nourishes the soul, evokes emotion, soothes the savage beast. This frustrates me, enough that every year I question why I do art fairs. This particular one has an easy side benefit, in that I will see a lot of old friends. But if I have to make stuff I don't want to make in order to be able to display the stuff I do in the off chance that someone will buy my ART-- not my craft--why am I doing it? Sometimes the answer isn't real clear.

That is all.

Process: drudgery and inspiration

2009-06-14T15:20:00.010-05:00

First, the drdugery--getting ready for the Midsummer Arts Faire in a couple of weeks. This involves figuring out how to present a lot of my smaller pieces--in other words, making them look 'like art.' I know, I know, they are 'art', but there's still some resistance to fiber pieces being seen as 'fine art'. I'm doing my part to change that.

So I have these small (4" square) pieces that I want to present. I had been thinking of matting them:

(The shot is more than a little keystoned, but I was in a hurry.) But now I'm leaning towards mounting them on gallery wrapped canvas:

I decided I liked them best on the canvas that was just slightly bigger, painted black. So I went to Dick Blick, bought some and a bottle of artist grade acrylic liquid paint--big improvement over craft paint, only needs one coat--and the result is this currently drying:

The bigger ones are for other, larger pieces. I'm going to put hangers on the back, and am attaching the fiber piece to the canvas with double sided carpet tape. I first tried this a couple of years ago with some pieces that are not for sale, and it's still holding on good. So especially for the small ones, where it would be very hard to sew the piece on, I think this is an acceptable solution.

Now for the inspiration part. I walked today through Sculpture in the Park in nearby St. Charles, Illinois. I think they have this every year. Very cool. Here are a couple of my favorites:

This is C.B. Spine by Todd Willing (I think this is him.) Here's a closeup, love the rust:

And this piece, Nice Pear, by Ray Kobald:

The pear is the classic object for artists to try--but somehow this bronze seems to be a fresh take on the subject.

St. Charles seems to have a real appreciation for sculpture. There are several in their downtown area, and permanent ones installed in many of their parks--including this snapper turtle in Mount St. Mary's park:

The show is free and open until the end of summer. If you can, stop by and see it. Oh,and come see me at the Faire in a couple of weeks.

That is all.

Field Trip

2009-06-05T19:56:00.006-05:00

My husband and I took the day off today and went on a field trip to the nearby Morton Arboretum. Arboreta have always been favorites of ours, besides the trees there are usually garden ideas, paths to walk, new flowers to meet. And it's only about 15 miles away from our home. So we became members and can go back for free any time we want.

Along the walks, I found some interesting textures:

Of course, the challenge is how to achieve that in textiles. And here's a landscape shot, showing a nice composition of foreground, midground, background, and of light and dark:

Finding new sources of inspiration is a good thing.

That is all.

vacation over...

2009-05-26T17:49:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm back in the saddle again after a few days away. This picture of Lake Barkley, Kentucky, at around 5:15am one morning last week illustrates the whole vacation--calm, laid back, peaceful. A good break.

But now it's back to making art, getting ready for the Midsummer Arts Faire in Quincy, Illinois, June 26-28. And I have three pieces at the Quad State Art Show, also in Quincy, opening Friday, June 5. And then there's that list of other things I've been meaning to try....

I did carve some rubber stamps and do some sketching and planning while I was sitting on the porch admiring the view. But now to follow through....

That is all.

Fiber Art Alliance Goes Public

2009-05-11T10:42:00.004-05:00

I am pleased, honored, humbled, all of the above to announce my selection as a member of the Fiber Art Alliance. This group of fiber and mixed media artists was recently formed and is now going public with our website.

We are spending this year each making three small pieces using the theme Natural Lines. The first set of these are now posted on the website.

And here is a detail shot of my piece, Trail:Lake Agnes:

This piece has several fabrics I started dyeing in my Jane Dunnewold class. The hint at birch trees seen in this section was the result of a happy accident, and some of this piece can also be seen in my previous post. The appearance of trees inspired my theme for the three pieces, playing on an idea that had been bouncing around in my head for a while.

One of my favorite pasttimes is hiking in new places. This piece is a memory of hiking along the Lake Superior Trail in late September 2002. The colors of turning leaves, the quiet fall of footsteps along a leaf littered forest floor, foggy days--all of these sensual memories remain.

I think the second piece I make will be about walking in national parks in the southwest--the idea isn't yet developed enough to pick a trail. But soon it will be.

In other news, my hammock is now hung in my new yard, so let the moments of Zen begin.

That is all.

printing results

2009-04-26T13:56:00.004-05:00

Ask, and sometimes you shall receive. Here are a couple of prints off of the same screen:

The screen was designed using water soluble Elmer's glue. The glue broke down some as I continued to print with it. I switched colors during the printing without washing out the old ones--I like the serendipity of what results from doing that. The long lines (some white, some dark) are from wrinkles in the padding underneath. Now that I know this setup will work, I'm going to get some cheap white acrylic felt and stretch and staple it to the piece of countertop. And I didn't really care this time as I was mainly testing the process.

And in the top one, you can see where I overlapped one print on top of another. The result of a sudden hard line amongst the softer blends of color is something I like.

So I got some decent pieces out of the test. And I see where I want to go next, which is always a good thing.

That is all.

a place to dye

2009-04-22T15:22:00.005-05:00

I wanted to try screen printing on my own, to see if I could make a space to do it in without making a big mess. My only real choice was a small area in our unfinished basement where the washer and dryer and laundry sink are. Here's the result:

I have the old countertop from our island on top of the washer and dryer. A drying rack on top of a shower curtain to catch the drips while the pieces dry. Thickening paste made. Dyes I want to use. Fabric made to size. Other supplies.

And two silk screens, one with a pattern made with soy wax, and the other with washable glue. Both tend to disintegrate while screening them, at least to some extent. Here's the results:

The result is that there was no big mess. There were a couple of drips onto the plastic below the drying rack. So I think I can pull this off, dyeing and screening in a small space. Is it optimal? No. Is it free? Yes. And that's a big deal.

Meanwhile, here's another picture of my new hero, my pal Buddy. Enjoying the midday sun, not a care in the world. What a way to live in the moment.

That is all.

back to the boneyard

2009-04-13T16:17:00.005-05:00

I'm working on a piece for a new group I'm in (more about that later). My first dilemma was I didn't like the finished piece that was my first attempt. It just came out differently than I expected. It's hanging on my wall, waiting for a spark that will transform it into something I'm willing to put my name on.

So the next dilemma involved two pieces of fabric I liked together. I had started with white cotton and made them into complex cloth in my Jane Dunnewold workshop--and they look good together and I could see a finished piece for this project in them. The dilemma is that generally it's a no-no to show or sell work begun in a workshop. But these pieces had no input from the instructor--she was around, but the designs and steps were all of my own making. So I have convinced myself that it is ok to use them. What would have been the difference if I had made them the next day in my own studio? Maybe that's a rationalization because I really like the piece they've become...

But they needed something else. So it was back to the boneyard--where I found the perfect complement. At first I couldn't remember how it was even made, other than it had been melted at some point. Turns out it was a piece of ribbon sewn together with acrylic felt. I only had a bit of it, but by cutting it judiciously and melting it some more, I made it work. Here's a glimpse (can't show the whole piece yet):

Nice color scheme, huh? Well, in real life it is because of parts you can't see here. But the main point (other than the whole ability to rationalize thing) is that it's nice to have this boneyard to pull from. Of course, that means I never throw anything out...you think moving would have taught me something...

Meanwhile, here's my current inspiration:

What a life. Lounging in the springtime sun, wasting the day away.

That is all.

Water based resist workshop

2009-04-06T09:34:00.006-05:00

I spent three days last week at a Jane Dunnewold workshop on using water based resists (soy wax, washable glue, flour paste). Lots of work and knowledge passed on, and lots of good company. The host organization was a nearby art center, the Fine Line Creative Arts Center. It's an excellent facility, and only about 10 miles from my home.

The processes are messy, and there's never enough room to put your stuff. But the results, although sample sized, are good examples to inspire future 'real' work:

I need to work out a place I can be messy in my house, or else wait until I can do it outside. I'm thinking that won't be anytime soon--this picture was taken out my front door an hour ago:

Does anyone in charge of the weather realize that it's April? The saving grace is that it is currently above freezing, so this will all go away soon.

And as it always seems, some of the most interesting bits are from the cloth I used to pad the surface:

That is all.

It's only fabric...

2009-03-25T11:05:00.003-05:00

I continue to practice what I preach--do what you want to fabric, it's no big deal, they'll make more. Only once in a while do I end up with something unuseable--and even those pieces end up being useful later (if I can find them).

So I had this piece of dark blue corduroy that I had discharged with bleach some time ago. It has an irregular pattern to it in that the wales are different sizes. When I hung it up on the wall the other day, I could see a landscape in it, an abstract one to be sure, but still. But I wasn't entirely happy with the patterning and color.

I have Thiox. I did a test piece to see what would happen and this is what happened:

The orange areas are from bleach; the white/green patch from Thiox. So now I know. I have now discharged the corduroy with both and am moving on in the design of the piece.

And sorry for the big gap in posts. I have been distracted by taxes and paperwork and now by scenes like this in my own yard:

That is all.

the thinking stage

2009-02-26T10:53:00.005-06:00

One of my teachers said that the secret to a good painting is to do these steps:
think
think
think
think
plan
plan
plan
paint

I'm getting quite good at the thinking stage.

These pieces have been hanging on my design wall for several days. And these pieces

have been hanging on my side wall for just as long. (They were snow dyed) (ignore the tv in the middle). Some of the small pieces have had stuff done to them (stitching, layering), but none of them are 'done'. I dither about what to do next on them. The big pieces look so good on their own that I'm at the stage of being afraid to touch them for fear of ruining them. I'll get over that. Eventually.

Meanwhile, what I have been doing are these:

These are 4x4" pieces of polyester that have had disperse dye paintings transferred to them. They have been backed with acrylic felt. I am working on adding details to them, with the intent of matting them with a 2x2 opening, in a 9x9 overall sized mat. I've been needing to make some small pieces to sell, and the other day I saw something similar in a restaurant--small square pieces, framed large, hanging in multiples. I liked the look, and these are small enough that it's not dangerous to play with them--not much initial investment, so if I mess up, no big deal.

And then there are distractions like this:

The snow melting on my deck in the sunlight. I see another strata piece in there, but of course none of the fabrics I'm currently working with would do...

But I expect that I'm on the final 'think' step for most of the pieces. Will move on to the 'plan' steps any moment now...

That is all.

A reason to want snow

2009-02-18T14:22:00.003-06:00

Last week I went to my first PAQA meeting--it's only about a half hour from my house, but somehow I'd either been busy or the weather was awful since I moved here. A good time was had by all.

Karen Hampton came all the way from my in-laws' home town of Evansville, Indiana, to get there. And she brought great things--fabric and shirts she had snowed dyed during their recent storm. One of the shirts came home with me.

I had been reading about snow dyeing online, but hadn't tried it. One useful tutorial is on Bunks' Blog, page down and see the pictures. From what I understood Karen to say, they approach it somewhat differently. Both presoak the fabric in soda ash. The blog writer scoops up snow and squirts liquid Procion MX dye on it. Karen, and I, mixed the dye powder into the snow.

The liquid method is probably a little safer because the only time Procion is really a hazard is when it is in powder form and inhalable. But I don't think you'd get some of the effects I got with the powder.

I laid my still wet fabrics in a shallow plastic tub, then went and scooped up snow in a bowl. I added a small amount of dye powder, and found the best way to mix it in was with my gloved hand. Then I sprinkled the colored snow over the fabrics. I used two different colored large batches of snow, spreading them around randomly. Then I mixed a small bowl of accent color and selectively added it. Next came the hard part, waiting overnight.

By morning the snow was melted, so I washed the fabrics as usual. They came out pretty cool, especially since I had chosen the colors by what I just had little bits left of. Here's a close up:

The haloing of color (the turquoise at the edges of the magenta) is something I haven't seen very often in dyeing--maybe it's the temperature slowing down the reaction, maybe it's the use of undissolved powder, maybe it's the snow. It's a pretty cool effect.

So will this become my primary way of dyeing? Probably not. Will I do it again? For sure. But hopefully I won't be able to play with it again until next winter...

That is all.

what to do, what to do

2009-02-16T15:25:00.006-06:00

Is this or is this not cool? The random patterning, the mix of colors, the hard intersections, the soft transitions. I'm quite fond of this new thing in my life.

One problem. It's plastic. As in cheap, disposable tablecloth plastic. It was the drop cloth I used to make my poured painting. So I've been trying to figure out a way to transfer it to cloth, my substrate of choice.

First try was to replicate something I've done with monoprints before--with them, you can paint on the substrate, let it dry, then put a piece of wet paper on it and run it through a printing press and the paint transfers to the paper. So I tried this:

This shows plastic face up, then wet fabric, rolled with a heavy marble rolling pin (which does work with monotype/paper process). The result:

Nada. In case you can't tell, this is the fabric being peeled up from the plastic. For the record, I tried it the other way around, too, with the plastic on top so more pressure was applied to it. That worked a little better, but not good enough.

So now I'm stuck with this:

Yep, it's hanging there on my rocking chair taunting me. The alternatives I've come up with are:

--learn to sew with plastic
--turn it into a mixed media piece, forget about fiber
--photograph/scan it and print the photos on fabric

Any other ideas? There are sections on this that would make really great fabric, if only...

Sadly, that is all.

transfer prints with disperse dyes

2009-02-13T16:25:00.009-06:00

While I was in Quincy last weekend, Ann and I had a play date making these:

These are regular paper that we painted on using thickened disperse dyes. After the paper is dry, you place it upside down on a polyester fabric and iron it until the dye transfers to the cloth.

Not the best picture, but it shows the paper being pulled off the cloth. The color in the paper isn't exactly what you get on the cloth. Here's a better look at a print:

The colors are quite bright, but not real intense in this piece--I think I need a hotter iron. And for some reason, both Ann and I are having some problems getting the blues to print--takes a long time and a lot of heat. I used some black dye that I thus far have been unable to transfer.

Here's another look at a print and the paper that made it:

One of the nice things about this method is that you can get multiple prints from each paper--maybe 9 or 10. Each will usually be a little lighter than the previous one. They do not change the hand of the fabric at all. The only downside is the whole manmade fiber thing, but even that isn't so bad.

Here's a small 'sketch' I made with one of the prints:

In person, it's pretty cool--a little shiny which makes it hard to photograph, but very nice.

That is all.

opening report

2009-02-11T17:12:00.003-06:00

The opening of Ann and my show was a big success, and lots of fun. We had a big turnout, and I even sold three small pieces. As usual, our work--even though it's different in a lot of ways--looked great together:

Two rooms of fiber art. A chance to catch up with old friends. Can't beat that.

And the rest of the weekend was fun, too:

But more about those in another post.

That is all.

Two Roads Show

2009-02-02T15:17:00.003-06:00

My new show, with Ann Miller Titus, is now hanging in the Gray Gallery at Quincy University, Quincy, Illinois. It will hang through the month of February.

If you can, please join us for the opening reception on this coming Sunday, February 8, 2009, from 2-4pm. Both of us plan on being there to greet old friends and talk about our work.

We chose to have a two person show because we think that our work looks good together, and that the presence of both strengthens each. We play well together (in fact we have a 'play date' scheduled for this Saturday afternoon), and work together well. Having a partner in art is a very good thing.

That is all.

contrast and progress

2009-01-28T15:12:00.005-06:00

This is a close up of the shibori'd piece after quilting (I have taken to thinking of quilting as a middle step rather than an ending one). It's kind of a sun/osage orange image. But it didn't quite stand out like I wanted it to. So out came the discharge paste.

Here's the initial result:

Better, but not quite there. I've toned the circle a little with some dye sticks. That picture will come later when the piece is done.

Meantime, I'm taking an abstract art class, learning lots of techniques. One of our projects is to make a piece using the process of an artist. I chose Helen Frankenthaler, because I was intrigued by the fact that she poured paint on unprimed canvas--not that different a process than putting dye on regular fabric. Here is the beginning of my piece:

I also used one of her ideas of starting with the composition of a classical painting--mine is by Van Gogh. The puddling and process of having to move the piece while wet is causing it to stray some from that original notion, but I like where it's going so far. I could see doing this with fabric to make whole cloth pieces. But I can also see that it is something that I should only do outside--it is very messy. But fun. And that's part of the point of doing it,right?

That is all.

rebellion

2009-01-15T10:23:00.005-06:00

I am declaring a rebellion on the white and black (with touches of blue sky) world in which I live. I am consciously avoiding being subtle...well, mostly. The piece still calls the shots. But remember the subtle shibori piece (go to the bottom of the post)? It has had this added to it:

Not bad, huh? Take that, gray world!

I do have to confess that in the last couple of days I have found some color in my exterior world--a tinge of burnt sienna in some willow trees, and glorious gold and rust in some Indian grass sticking out of a snow bank. It's there, just hard to find.

We just survived the longest stretch of snowing days in Chicago history, and have this to show for it:

This is a typical rural style mailbox, usual height. We're thinking of sculpting an igloo over it next.

But in the meantime, if I can't find much color outside, I'll find it in my studio.

That is all.

subtlety

2009-01-10T11:33:00.004-06:00

I have come to accept that my watchword for this season seems to be 'subtle'. Everything I do art wise comes out this way, inviting close inspection to see the details, to 'get' the piece, but from a distance looking well toward the uninteresting side of things.

When I lived in Hancock County, further south than here, I thought that winter was quite subtle, especially on cloudy days. Everything was either some shade of brown or gray. So I craved the rare sunny day with its swash of bright blue, or those first twinges of yellow green in willow trees come February.

Here, in the cold, white north (and I'm not even that far north, there's a whole state and Canada between me and the North Pole), there's not so much subtlety. Just dark brown sticking out of white. I begin to understand fully why the houses in Quebec are brightly colored. The natural parts of the landscape here are either tree colored or they are white.

So I'm thinking I am missing the full range of subtle tones I used to see...and that's coming out in my art. Now I have to figure out a way to maintain that, but make the pieces attractive at a distance, too.

Meantime, here's a view of my unsubtle deck railing a few minutes ago:

That is all.

shibori'd

2009-01-07T15:43:00.009-06:00

So I had this piece of raw silk that had previously been dyed in a couple of baths. Kind of interesting, but not that POW! it could be...I thought I would try out my newly learned trick of shibori and overdye it once again. I decided on horizontal lines of stitching about an inch apart (done without a ruler), with a circle near the upper right. Here is the stitching in progress:

I used red hand quilting thread because I had it and I thought it was strong enough to withstand the pulling force of gathering it up. Here the piece is all gathered up and ready for the dye bath:

I wanted to go with a darker blue. I used vinegar to set the Procion MX dyes, and left it overnight:

Here it is all washed out. In more ways than one.

The detail is subtle, which may be ok. I can think of two reasons for the results I got. It is cold here. Maybe I should have put the dye bath in a warmer place; but I think it was warm enough. The real reason, which I kind of already knew from a previous dyeing experience but had forgotten, is probably the water here. It's kind of hard even though it goes through a softener. I was going to use bottled or filtered water the next time I dyed, and I forgot. It is, however, only fabric; and probably I can do something good with it.

But the shibori stitching took a lot of time, and I'm not sure I like the results much better than if it had been pole wrapped. But what else am I do on a day like this?:

That is all.

hand me downs

2009-01-02T10:19:00.004-06:00

In spite of my efforts to maintain a shabby look to my studio, I keep acquiring things that make it look quite nice. Like this monster:

This began life in Tom's workshop as the base for an entertainment center, back in the days when TV's were gigantic and heavy. It has six large drawers that used to hold cd's and dvd's. It didn't fit in our new family room, and while we found a home for it, it seemed like a waste of a nice piece of furniture.

So now it's down in my studio. I emptied several boxes of fabric into it, found (all too quickly) stuff to set on the top of the surface. And discovered this:

I have more than enough linens to keep me busy for several years. I got them all quite cheaply (especially when you think about the cost of good fabric these days), and they take Procion MX dyes wonderfully.

That is all.

shibori and new techniques

2008-12-21T10:11:00.004-06:00

I've gotten to the point where I don't take many workshops. I've got too many ideas in my head already, and I've enough of a voice as an artist to know that I don't want to corrupt my style. But workshops in techniques are different; they add to my skill set and provide other options for construction of my ideas.

So yesterday I took such a class, in the basics of shibori. The class was held at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles, Illinois; about 10 miles from my new house. Yay. They sponsor a lot of great classes, including many in fiber.

The teacher was Dagmar Klos, a leading expert in natural dyes and well versed in shibori. We worked on a silk scarf, and after sewing the resist lines dyed the scarves in acid dyes. Today after the piece was dry, I was able to take out the threads and see the results:

I did this by drawing a circle on the silk, then stitching across about every 1/4". When the stitching was done, I pulled up the threads and knotted them--it looked kind of like smocking does, but much tighter. The stitching lines run roughly from 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock. If you don't iron the resulting piece, it stays all puckery and cool. I ironed this one, though. The hardest part turns out to be not cutting the fabric when you're taking the threads out. I know, I was warned. But I'm far sighted, that's my excuse.

Here's another circle I did:

The lines on the sides were supposed to go all the way across; only one of them made it. But this circle was made by stitching around the perimeter, gathering that up tightly, then winding thread around the pouf made in the middle. I purposely left some openings in this wrap so there would be some variation in the circle. Anywhere the thread is tight, the dye can't get into the space--more or less. If you look closely you will see a faint blueness to some of the areas, probably because I didn't wrap it tight enough. But I like the imprecise look.

To see some really nice shibori, and what can be done with it, check out Chicago area artist Frank Connet. He makes quite large pieces with some nice shibori included in them.

And expect to see some in my future work. I have lots of ideas percolating up in my brain...Meanwhile, Happy Christmas and Merry New Year.

That is all.

decisions, decisions

2008-12-12T14:37:00.004-06:00

I hate getting stuck on a piece. Somehow it becomes so wonderful in my head that I'm afraid of messing it up...most of my pieces I liked better during the making than after they are done. Not that they are all messed up, just that when in the moment it can go in any direction, when I can take it anywhere I want to take it, I'm more enamored of it. Of course, the side effect of this is that I have no problem with selling my work--most of it anyway. There's a couple of pieces that would have to sell for an unreasonable amount of money for me to part with them.

But how to quilt this piece...lately I've been doing a lot of close quilting, geometric shapes alternating with organic shapes, filling in the space. I'm kind of tired of that. So I just dove into this piece, and started with where I knew I wanted stabilization lines. The rest just grew from that, and once I started, I didn't have problems continuing with it.

Also lately, I've been quilting as a kind of middle step rather than a final step in the process. I've been adding hand work that seems to look better if the thing is already quilted. This particular piece is going to have some raw edge applique on it, too.

I splurged a little lately, too. When I noticed that I had written 100 posts, I wanted to save them and decided to get a book made from them. Blog2Print will go and find your blog posts and put them together for you. The result is either an ebook you can download for $2.99, or a slickly printed paperback book--mine was around $35; it varies with the number of pages. One thing to watch out for is that there are some missing jpg's in mine, I didn't edit it carefully enough.

For a while my go-to guru for jpg questions has been Gloria Hansen. She has been very generous with her help. And now she's put together a great book that answers all the questions--Digital Essentials. Right now it's on sale for 10% off, but it's well worth the investment if you need help preparing pictures of your art for the web, for juried shows, for whatever. She also designs great websites if you're looking for a designer.

Making Do

2008-11-24T16:16:00.005-06:00

When I first unpacked my studio, I quickly realized that I could either take a couple of days to do it, or a couple of months if I fiddled with every little detail. I went with the quick and dirty method of just getting stuff out of the boxes and into some kind of order.

Now as I work, I'm fine tuning the space, making a few minor adjustments, and maybe actually getting rid of some of the stuff.

But as I thought about how to make the space work for me, I bought the current issue of Studios, from the Cloth, Paper Scissors people. There are some really fine spaces in there. But they're full of "perfect" things like just the right antique, or thousands of dollars worth of cabinetry. I'm not in that place, either financially or mentally. I want to make do.

So I'm working with what I have as much as I can. I have spent probably $150 all together, on some new plastic storage boxes and on two sturdy shelving units. And I did have some good bones--a sewing table my husband built for me, as well as a cutting table.

But here are some cobbled together things that cost me nothing and it works:

This started life as a stereo cabinet. Since we didn't need it for that anymore, we put in some extra shelves and now I have a place to store paint and lots of little stuff.

This cheap trunk was one my husband took to college 35 years ago. It now holds rolled up old work of mine. One of the handles is missing, so I tend to set it on end like this. It was sitting right next to my ironing board, and I noticed that it was the perfect place to put my distilled water for my iron, spray bottle, sometimes a pair of scissors.

Last week I finally set up a stereo in the space--using stuff we already had. So now my MP3 player is hooked into a 30 year old amp, chugging away through equally old speakers. There's something kind of cool about all my music being on that itsy thing, and being played through old equipment.

And the table it is sitting on is made by adding a pair of fold up legs to a hollow core door we replaced in our former house--the paint streaks you see on it are because it's where I used to finish furniture. And the wire stand around the stereo? An extra one from previous cabinets.

So I'm making do as best I can. I'm trying not to buy much to make new art; it's working in general, although I am pining for a few things...

If you've read this far, I should mention that Blogger tells me this is my 100th post. Woohoo.