“The plant is the dream of the seed.” Australian Aboriginal saying.
This quote has inspired me in the past…
Seed Dreaming I
…and is inspiring me again. Large seed shapes are taking root in my studio!
New Seed
Stay tuned.
Archive for the ‘felting’ Category
Dreaming seeds return
December 16, 201517 Artists – 3 Days
December 1, 201517 ARTISTS – 3 DAYS
December 4-6
Brattleboro West Arts 2015 Holiday Show and Sale
118 Elliot St, Brattleboro, Vermont
Friday 5:00-8:00, Saturday and Sunday 10:00-5:00
If you’re close by this weekend, please come and say hello! There will be a rich variety of creations by my artist friends at Brattleboro West Arts and also many of my smaller (more affordable) works priced at over 20% off! They are each mounted on silk wrapped canvas stretchers and ready to hang. I will also have several giclee prints for sale.
Consider giving art.
Roots of Rhythm VIII
Roots of Rhythm X-Part 3
June 28, 2015If you’re late to this party, here’s Part 1 and Part 2.
Now that the lower left and upper right cellular sections were mostly complete, I needed make some choices about how to use the large space between them where I wanted to somehow show a flow happening. This took time-with lots of ideas tried and rejected. This is the stage in the process where a lot of self doubt creeps in. I had a pile of felted “elements” which I had separately stitched to add shape and sculptural lines . I knew I wanted to incorporate them but there were endless possibilities as to how. I considered color, balance and line as well as the abstract “story” in my head of what moment of change/transformation was happening. After weeks (really!), I found a direction, I was happy with.
Roots of Rhythm X-step 6
some of the felt elements looking for a home
Lines were couched to carve the space into flowing sections. I had known all along that including the blue felt was critical, but wasn’t happy till I stumbled on the “ladder” possibility.
This now defined the basic structure of the space so I was more sure of myself and confident I was moving in the right direction. It was then much clearer to see how to show movement and flow with stitching,the felt pieces and some lovingly placed french knots.
detail
Next time: the whole enchilada done.
Snow and felting
March 10, 2015A good combo. Instead of whining about the below zero unrelenting cold, I made some cobweb felt using various fibers; merino and wensleydale (curly!) embellished with bombyx silk and bamboo silk for lustrous shimmery lines. Here drying by the woodstove. Extra credit if you spotted the bird at the feeder.
I’ll go back to whining now while it’s all drying.
cobweb felt
A closer look for you all that appreciate lovely fiber texture.
cobweb closeup
Small Mounted Felted Creation #4
February 24, 2015Biome IV
This piece is a bit different. Instead of sewing felt onto a silk background, I constructed this entirely of felt. As I’ve said before, felt is a dream to sew-both by machine and hand.
This piece is 11.5″ square and is mounted onto a 14″ x 14″ x 1.5″” black gallery wrapped stretched canvas. This will appear on my website soon and is offered for $450 with free shipping. Let me know if you’re interested!
Biome IV
Zoomed in:
Biome IV detail
Small Mounted Felted Creation #3
February 21, 2015Roots of Rhythm IX
While using the Roots of Rhythm underlying composition, I explored including blue vertical elements.
This piece is 11.5″ square and is mounted onto a 14″ x 14″ x 1.5″” black gallery wrapped stretched canvas. This will appear on my website soon and is offered for $450 with free shipping. Let me know if you’re interested!
Roots of Rhythm IX
Zoomed in:
Roots of Rhythm IX detail
Small mounted felted creation #2
February 17, 2015Roots of Rhythm VIII
I continued to explore the Roots of Rhythm motif with this one but skewed the orientation to a diagonal and included a section of 3D elements.
This piece is 11.5″ square and is mounted onto a 14″ x 14″ x 1.5″” black gallery wrapped stretched canvas. This will appear on my website soon and will be offered for $450 with free shipping. Let me know if you’re interested!
Roots of Rhythm VIII
And here’s a close up:
Roots of Rhythm VIII -detail
Smaller mounted felted creation #1
February 13, 2015About 6 weeks ago, I wrote that I was exploring new felting techniques and had decided to focus on creating smaller work using all that newly dyed felted wool and silk. I’m very glad I went this route. Working small allows me to try out new compositional ideas or extend older ones. Each finished piece ended up about 11-12″ square and was then mounted onto a 14″ x 14″ x 1.5″” black gallery wrapped stretched canvas. I created four pieces using felt and silk from the same dye baths- in colors I had chosen because I felt they’d work sensationally together. Having a restricted pallette freed me up to really concentrate on texture and composition.
These new pieces will appear on my website soon. They will each be offered for $450 with free shipping. Let me know if you’re interested in owning one!
I’m going to introduce each of these pieces one by one in a series of posts.
#1 Roots Of Rhythm VII
Roots of Rhythm VII
This zoomed in detail may give you a better sense of why I’m in love with working with the rich textures possible when wool and silk have a serious felting relationship!
Roots of Rhythm VII- detail
For several years, I worked on a series called Roots of Rhythm-the title borrowed from a Paul Simon lyric which worked for me on many different levels:
“These are the roots of rhythm and the roots of rhythm remain.”
This new piece further explores cellular structures dancing with various forces and rhythms.
Felting Frenzy
December 31, 2014For the past month, I’ve been slowly and joyfully working through an online surface design felting class
taught by Fiona Duthie.
My own felting methods have mostly developed based on slow, disorganized experimentation resulting in some satisfying successes and a few too many disasters. I’ve learned SO much from this course! Techniques are well organized, fully explained and some are brilliant. I never would have stumbled upon them myself. So many new ways to create delicious texture with silk! I highly recommend if you want to further explore the endless possibilities of felting.
So I’ve been inspired to felt up a storm trying out these new techniques and combining them with my old stand bys. I used lots of different fibers and techniques-cobweb, craters, cords and more- and yesterday, finally, after weeks of holidays and illness, I got to spend the day with fellow fiber artist, Kris, dropping it all into dyepots. Lovely results. I’m planning to be working on a series of smaller (12″ x12″) mounted pieces that will not only be more affordable for folks but will give me lots of opportunity to play with felt/silk compositions. Be looking for bits of these babies in upcoming work!
pile of newly dyed felt
Cultivating Connections II
November 25, 2014My newest piece continues my exploration of combining various raised felted textures with richly shimmery silk charmeuse. The original seeds for this composition were images of purkinje cells-some of the largest neurons in our brains. They have fantastic branching dendrites.
Maybe my fascination with how these tiny connections in our brains basically enable us to do or think anything has to do with my growing awareness that my own aging brain’s connections aren’t always so reliable!
Cultivating Connections II
31″ x 44″ (approx.)
Zooming in:
Cultivating Connections II detail 1
Cultivating Connections II detail 2
Karen Kamenetzky Fiber Art 