Dyed Charmeuse
Spent a recent morning acid dyeing lots of half yard pieces of silk charmeuse. Luscious colors! I love charmeuse for the sheen and how it drinks up the color.
After I cherry pick a few spectacular pieces that I can’t part with, the rest will be up for sale during the Brattleboro WestArts Open Studio Tour September 25th-26th. There will also be some beautiful hand dyed cottons, new small mounted work as well as large pieces.
I’ll be part of the Brattleboro West Arts Studio Tour on September 25th-26th and it’s zooming up fast so I’m trying to get more organized. I decided I want to have a group of smaller mounted pieces to sell and have been focusing on creating them and finally figuring out an effective way to mount them.
Here’s one. The mounted size is 8″x10″.
new small work
My solution is to cover foam core (cut to a standard frame size) with low loft batting and black nubbly silk (Thank you Judy Dales for the suggestion). I pull it to the back, try to make neat corners and secure the silk with acid free linen tape.
I then blind stitch the small piece to the front and try not to get blood on it from all the needle stabbings. I procured a curved needle today and hope this will cut down on the bloodshed.
Other ideas?
I spent a whole glorious art day in NYC!
First, Matisse, Picasso, Lee Bontecou and more at MOMA. The Matisse exhibit focuses on just a handful of years in his career and the struggles and changes he went through as an artist during that time. Very interesting to think of someone like Matisse just as stuck and unhappy with a piece as I get.
After just having finished a jigsaw puzzle of Starry Night, seeing it again “in the flesh” was amazing-such intense vibrant one hundred year old blues! I really don’t get, though, the thing of standing next to famous art and getting your picture taken. Like next to a celebrity??
Then hours in Chelsea going from gallery to gallery. A few inspiring, quirky finds but mostly bizarrely overpriced ho-hum work. Some I admit I just don’t get…
Then a walk on the High Line-a railway trestle remade into a wildly designed walkway right in Manhattan. And time to sit and sketch.
view from the High Line
I left exhausted and full to the brim with images and ideas.
Fundamental Change IV is finally finished and photographed and up on my website.
Fundamental Change IV
This went through a lot of tweaking! But after much ripping out and repositioning and resewing-I am happy with the composition. It was a challenge to balance capturing a moment of movement and change, the forces behind that AND keep all the elements visually cohesive.
I also was going for an almost playful cartoony feel. The cilia (spiky, hairy bits) were a joy to design and construct and helped with that goal. They are showing up more and more in my sketches and I think will be incorporated into future pieces.
I welcome feedback!
(photo by Laurie Indenbaum)
I’ve been trying to start each morning with reading a few pages from a terrific book by Danny Gregory (Everyday Matters) called The Creative License and making a daily sketch.
metal garden sculpture made by my amazing daughter-in-law, Bennett
I usually bristle at books like this but Gregory writes with a lovely light encouraging tone that I have found just what I needed to push me to sketch more. The trick for me was to frame it as keeping a sketch journal-daily quick sketches/collages/whatever that are created by really focusing in on whatever happens to be at hand.
my reading glasses
This helps me break the feeling of frozen incompetance that can hit me when faced with a blank page. Though these sketches will not directly show up in my fiber art, I know this process is doing some deep down magic that loosens up my creative juices. It all springs from the same well…
Two years ago, I heard about a program run by the US State Department that selects American art to be hung in US embassies around the world. How cool is that? So I sent in a submission of my work to the curators and was thrilled to be quickly contacted and invited to have my work hung in the Ambassadors residence in Dili, East Timor. Of course, after the first whoop I had to look on a map to find where the heck Dili, East Timor was (it’s near Indonesia). These are the pieces that went on this exotic trip:
Life Goes On II
Touch II
This program also produces a beautiful full color catalog documenting the artwork selected for each location. It’s then offered to embassy visitors.
The Ambassador has returned to the US so my work was delivered home this morning. What a wonderful use of tax dollars! Spread art!
I happily spent a good part of Friday at my friend/artist Kris Mcdermet‘s house acid dyeing eight yards of silk- both crepe de chine and charmeuse. We tend to have a lot to talk about when we’re together but have learned that we’re incapable of simultaneous communication and dyeing without disastrous results. So we schmooze first and then try to focus. Kris is a more careful dyer- following recipes that include exact measurements such as 1/64th of a teaspoon or “dip wet toothpick 2″ into dye powder”.
Newly dyed blues and purples
Not me. I usually try to start with a recipe but it quickly morphs into mixing dye colors with abandon. I got mostly very luscious results though! Our plan is to sell some of this beautiful fabric at our joint upcoming studio tour – a part of the September 25-26 Brattleboro West Arts Studio Tour.
After a week of dithering- yesterday there was Decision and Action! I’m not sure what shifts when that happens. I stop over thinking it so much and get out of my own way.
I gave the green cell barrier a few more couched lines and definition. That still has a little more stitching to go.
Fundamental Change IV- in progress detail
And I had a blast cutting and fusing on the “cilia” hairs. I thought this step would be tedious but I loved playing with the spatial interrelationship between the individual cilia-those tiny negative spaces created. I wanted then to look in motion and I’m pleased with how that turned out.
Fundamental Change IV- in progress detail 2
Today’s a perfect rainy day for listening to podcasts and stitching down all those lovely little” hairs”!
Recently, I’ve been on a roll with this piece and didn’t stop to take process photos till now. Sorry.
Here’s how it looks on my design wall today. It’s about 3/4 finished.
Fundamental Change IV-in process-step 5
Deciding what color and texture to make the line defining the outside edge of the cell was a bear! I auditioned many fabrics over several days. I often feel lots of self-doubt during this kind of process. Maybe I’ll never find the right color. Maybe the original design is too flawed. Maybe I just lost whatever guided my choices in the past. I got discouraged.
Then one day on a whim, I held up this piece of yummy iridescent yellow green silk.
pt-5-detail
Bam! This was it! A totally different colorway than I had been trying. Woo hoo. I was charged up again!
Then came days of trying out lots of ways to attach this silk to create the kind of organic feeling, sinuous line I wanted. I ended up using narrow beautifully fraying strips, wrapped in thread and hand couched down with a reddish perl cotton. Thee will more added to those lines later.
I wanted the blue elements to shift from darker to light and seen to float up, jostling for space and emerging from the gap. It wasn’t easy.
I first filled the space too tightly and had to repeatedly tweak the gradation of color. I’m pretty happy with it now though more may be still added.
I’ve begun to add orange to gold french knots in the center of the blue elements. I discovered (after serveral years of ownership!) that my wonderful Janome 6500 has a french knot stitch! My fingertips are VERY happy not to be pushing needles through many layers of fused fabric.
As one of the Vermont artists invited to be a part of the Bennington Museum’s State of Craft show, I was able to schmooze with the other artists and guests at the crowded opening last night. I’m not a big schmoozer (kinda shy) but I was able to make a few real connections with some other artists that made the trip worthwhile. This show is an attempt to represent and honor the “studio crafts movement” in Vermont.
The piece of mine that the curators selected was “The Spaces Between V”. It was hung against a lovely stone faced wall.
The Spaces Between V at the State of Craft exhibit
There was some amazing work here- fiber, glass, wood, ceramics and mixed media. The full size chaise lounge constructed of welded together quarters is worth the trip alone! I recommend it to anyone within range of southwestern Vermont.
