These days I’m just sewing every day. It’s dark, it’s cold, and the deadlines are fast approaching. Above you see my palette for drawing with stitch.
Here’s the second of five pieces I’m currently working on. Here it is held together with binder clips (I love binder clips!) so that I can check out the shape before I sew it together. In the detail you can see a dyed silk cocoon in the open space.
And here’s the piece partially assembled. Once finished, it’s off to the photographer!
The work for the Foster White show is coming along. Although the show isn’t until February, I need to have all the work finished by the end of December! I’m on track but it has definitely been a push. Good thing I’m motivated by deadlines. I’ve got two pieces finished, and three in progress. My plan is get in the groove and have time to whip three more small free standing pieces done before the end of the year. Here are shots from the first piece in progress.
piece taking shape
detail with stitching
Flour and potato dextrin resists
Teaching informs my work in multiple ways. First, I get inspired by the students’ enthusiasm. I also usually have some time while the students are working to work. This unstructured time allows me to experiment without an agenda. My prep time also gets me to delve deeper into techniques. I’ll be teaching a workshop on using resists for surface design later this month at Pratt and it’s kept me in the studio, delving away and as a result, influencing the pieces I’m currently working on for the Foster White show in February. It’s kind of a chicken and egg sort of thing.
Three pole wrapped shibori pieces
I’ve been doing a lot more shibori work, dyeing, pole wrapping, discharging and then overdyeing. I’ve also been working with organic resists, flour and potato dextrin. The potato dextrin is tricky, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I tried it a few weeks ago and it worked pretty well. The potato dextrin gives a really interesting, characteristic cracked earth looking effect. So I tried it again last week and it totally failed, and on some pretty big pieces of fabric, too. Instead of drying and cracking, it simply caked over and was white and floury. I decided to go ahead and over dye it anyway, figuring even if I didn’t get the full crackle effect I would get something. And I hated the idea of just washing it all out and starting over. I ended up with some pretty interesting fabric, not exactly what I’d planned, but when does that ever happen?
potato dextrin on velvet
detail of flour and potato dextrin resist
Maquette 1: I decided the center panel was too long and flat.
Although the basic forms often come together quickly for me, there’s lot of time spent fine tuning to get them right. It’s important to work these things out in paper even though I’m sometimes frustrated and want to start working on the final. It feels like I haven’t really started, even though I know that this time is the most important. All the fabrics and stitching won’t matter if the basic form isn’t right. I met with my studio mates for a critique last Thursday and they gave me a much needed push to kick these pieces out a bit. Not to stay in the safety zone of symmetry and the lovely curves I’m so attached to. It’s good advice and I’m taking it but it’s not easy.
Macquette 2: Too symmetrical, center panel too short
Macquette 3: Center panel good, assymetry good, but the bottom of the form is too deep.
Macquette 4: Reduced the depth at the bottom and added an inverse curve. Just right!
I’ve begun working on forms and fabrics for my new series, as yet unnamed. The Artifacts series is my jumping off point, but the work is also being influenced by the work I did for MadArt. The shape of the figure is still coming through in these forms and the wall forms are much larger than those I made last Winter. Nothing is set yet, no decisions are final, and I’m still living in this unsettled place of creation. Forms are almost there, and I’m auditioning fabrics, so progress is being made but I know I’ll be happier once I start putting my hands on pieces that will become the final product. Until then, it’s time cutting out shapes, dyeing fabric, and head scratching.
Auditioning fabrics:
I’ve decided to quilt up two pieces of fabric I printed as part of the series I did for MadArt. (Detail of one above, the full piece to the right. The other piece at the end of this post.) They don’t go with the work I’ve started for the Foster White show but they’ve been calling to me. I don’t think I’ll feel finished with that series until I finish these two pieces.
These pieces are giving me a chance to further explore the unfinished edge. I’m planning on leaving an edge of the dyed batting showing along with the torn edge of the backing. The front is a silk twill which I love to work with. It sews up very nicely and has a lovely sheen. I used spray starch on it to keep it from shifting when I pinned it up and I’m a little worried that with the light color of the fabric the starch will show. I’m liking the way the quilting tames the fabric, and emphasizes the patterning. I’m planning on using much lighter quilting on the figures to contrast with the background, maybe a rayon thread with a sheen to it.
I have the extreme good fortune to have two studios, one inside my home where I do all my sewing and one outside the home.
Easelstan, a house converted into art studios, is where I do all my dyeing and construction and also store my past projects. There are five artists with studios in the building and we have a great collegial relationship. We do a weekly crit group, rotating among us. I’m the only fiber artist, but I find the feedback of my studiomates across mediums is really helpful.
My studio is in the converted attic space. It’s about 250 square feet but has several challenges. One is the stair well in the center of the space and the other is the sloped walls. Being short, I have a fair amount of usable floor space and when the owners created the studios they brought the walls in to create storage space under the eaves. This is great for storing past projects, tools, and extra materials.
Here’s my studio looking West.
And here the view looking East.
Here’s some of my storage.
Some of the features I love in my studios are a sink and exhaust fan for mixing dyes, skylights, and a view of the mountains to the West.
Although the space is divided up, I do have room for a large work area of two six foot tables put together along their length. I use a sheet of vinyl across them to create a smooth(ish) surface. I also have three other tables that I can move around as needed.
I like to keep my studio pretty tidy. I find I need an uncluttered space to be creative, no collections or decorations to distract me. Here are some of the ways I store my materials.
My home studio is where I do my sewing and also does double duty as a guest room.I have a U shaped work area for sewing and cutting.
I have a design wall that I made using a flannel backed picnic blanket. It’s a little less than ideal but I make it work. The door leads to a small office I share with the family where I can catch up on email, blog, or listen to music.
Again, storage is always an issue. Here are some of my solutions.
I hope you enjoyed the tour! I admit that I cleaned up a bit for company.
I’m participating in Quilting Arts Magazine’s virtual Open Studio. Click on the link below to reach the website of Studios Magazine. And check back in the next few days to see pictures from my studios.
http://www.interweavestore.com/Mixed-Media/Magazines/Studios-Fall-2009.html.?a=qa090928
I was invited to be a part of MadArt, a window art project in Madison Park that opened on September 13th. The project matched artists with local businesses to install art in their windows for three weeks. I asked to be matched with Ann Marie Lingerie, a store that sells high end lingerie, because the body of work I visualized was about the figure, women’s roles, and working with form and transparency.
I was partially inspired for this body of work by obtaining three large-scale, used silk screens from the estate sale of Su Job, a local fiber artist and friend who died of cancer this year. I’d also been wanting to push the limits of how large I could go with my 3-d fiber forms.
I used the technique of break down printing along with my own twist, using freezer paper as a resist for the image area. This technique gave me the soft and abstracted imagery I was looking for. In working with the female form, I used the most convenient model around, myself. I turned photos into silhouettes which I attached temporarily to the silk screens. I wanted to add more texture to the screens and, looking around the studio, was thrilled to find my stash of doilies. Just the thing to add texture and keep the theme of women’s work and roles.
Next hurdle, space to print. I can’t fit an eight foot print space in my studio. So I printed the fabrics outdoors on improvised tables with the help of my studio-mate Pam on a beautiful June day. When we started printing I was surprised to find that, even though I had cleaned the screens of Su’s imagery before starting, her patterns were ghosting through. At first I was upset because I hadn’t planned on that element, but once I relaxed I found that her work added immensely to the texture and density of the designs. I like to think of the fabric as a unintended collaboration with a woman whose work I admired and respected.
Once the fabrics were printed and my installation space was finalized I was able to design the installation and start work on the forms. I designed and worked on the forms using my usual technique (see previous blog post). The challenge was just how big could I go without using additional support. Well, the largest form was my size (approx. 61 inches tall) and was self-supporting. I did end up using some fiberfill stuffing in the bottom of it to help it hold its form.
This year was my third trip to Burning Man, the alternative arts festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. One of the precepts of the event is that there are “no spectators” and I’ve wanted to bring some of my work to share. It is a challenging environment for fiber art, very dusty and windy. My previous attempts to bring my work there have been foiled by the strong winds.
This year my idea was to bring something interactive that could come out when the weather was relatively calm. Thus the creation of the looong piece of fabric. What I found was that there was no “relative calm” to be found on the playa. We took the fabric out twice, each time in the morning before the winds really picked up. And, although we had a good time playing with it on the playa, I still don’t feel that I’ve found the perfect way to bring my art to the playa. Maybe next year!
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