Posts Tagged ‘felted wool’

Glimpses of breath

October 19, 2015

During this past summer, due to other obligations, my artmaking was fairly fallow. Periods of time like that leave me uneasy and both eager to get back to it and anxious that it won’t come easily. Though I wasn’t dyeing and stitching much, my mind was playing with an unformed, vague idea that I wanted to do something about Breath. This connects to my (mostly) daily meditation practice and the role  breath plays. It also fired up my curiousity to understand more about respiration both in us and in plants and how the miraculously efficient and rapid exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place. And this (of course, to me!) lead to thoughts about the interconnectedness of our world.

I get excited about making art when the seeds of an idea are connected on multiple levels like this! I felt a series coming on…and about a month ago, I got to work!

There are several new-to-me materials I knew I wanted to include one being silk organza (lovely but tricky) as well as attempting to sew bombyx silk directly onto fabric and felt. Many mistakes were made! A lot to learn! Here are a few glimpses-close up detail shots-of the workpiece in process on my design wall right now.

glimpse 1

glimpse 1

glimpse 2

glimpse 2

glimpse 3

glimpse 3

 

Hmmm…hard to believe these are all coexisting in the same piece! Hopefully I’ll finish it and post a photo soon.

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Posted in Artwork, Inspiration, Motivation, Process | 4 Comments »

Roots of Rhythm X-Part 3

June 28, 2015

If 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

Roots of Rhythm X-step 6

 

some of the felt elements looking for a home

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

detail

Next time: the whole enchilada done.

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Posted in Artwork, felting, Process | 6 Comments »

Snow and felting

March 10, 2015

A 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

cobweb felt

A closer look for you all that appreciate lovely fiber texture.

cobweb closeup

cobweb closeup

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Smaller mounted felted creation #1

February 13, 2015

About 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

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

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.

 

 

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Posted in Artwork, Dyeing, felting | 1 Comment »