Seamless Skin

Living and learning som'more

This is paper artist Debbie Shannon demo'ing for a small group made up of LAFTA (Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Association) members on how to cover book board with paste papers.  I met Debbie a few years ago at Mary Anderson Center for the Arts while renting out studio space.  She was upstairs in the larger loft making marbled paper...just beautiful stuff!!!!  In talking, we discovered that we were both members of LAFTA.  I was still a newbie at the time.

Being a member affords the opportunity to take monthly workshops from other members for free.  They are held in the fiber studio at the University of Louisville.  Yesterday, Debbie taught Paste Paper.  I loved it! But oh, am I saying to myself "no, you cannot take on another interest!!! you'll be inundated with more stuff!!!".  I already have a hard time discarding my garbage...onion skins-I can use these for dyeing; cereal boxes-painting surface, book cover, box making; thick colourful plastic packaging-these can go into an altered quilt...and yall know what I'm talking about...repurposing and recycling can be a massive undertaking and in this heavily consumer society it is endless!!!!!!!!!!

With that said, I do have some extra supplies that I plan to play with this morning once I get to the studio...the paste must be used before it goes bad and four hours was just not enough time to explore this fun release of art making energy...thats the story that I'm running with today!

 
3 samples of paste paper I made.  

Counting Crows

I haven't had much time to be at either place, The Workshop or the Studio.  For a second (a short second) I held the thought to sale my spot in the Benn/Morgan workshop next month at the Crow Barn. I will follow my own advice and not let single moments define my whole reality and future.  I've heard Nikki Giovanni speak several times and she tells a story of a visit somewhere in Central Africa and going to a village and a group of men identify themselves as "warriors" for the village...she asks "what wars have you fought?" and the reply was there hasn't been a war in over 100 years.  Giovanni's point was how can you call yourself warriors if you haven't fought in any wars.  I haven't been feeling like much of an artist of late and began to question the "what" as in what do I call myself doing?  These supplies are just wasted on me, yak, yak, yak...  The upcoming week with Leslie and Claire at the Crow Barn will be an opportunity for my mind to settle back into the processes of making art, (God willing and if the Creek don't rise)

I have a new granddaughter who was born last weekend.  Her name is Anaya which means God Answered.  She has been in ICU since Tuesday morning but the meaning of her name is not lost on her...everything has corrected itself and the last miracle we are waiting on is for her respirations to slow down and the water to clear off her lungs. 

Also, my father had a hospital stay and has transitioned into a nursing home for rehabilitation.  My mother and I have been trading off days to care for my 18 month on grandson, Carter, (named after Carter G. Woodson) big brother to Anaya. 

I'm settling into the head space where I can allow Grace to enter.  Patience is following and I have forgiven myself for not burying myself in art making and accepting this is the season to be and do for my family and accept this as the blessing it is.

With Carter in and out of my lap, I painted this Crow on a 6"x8" scrap of fabric.

Kicking off the year!

Well la ti da, looka here, looka here...this cold fluffy stuff that is so pretty to look at but whose reality is a bit harsh finally found us...the frigid temps wasn't enough, it had to go and snow! Its only a few inches but, still, ya know how I feel about the season that shall not be named. 

But I was not daunted! No, beloved, I managed to keep myself distracted and warm and worked my plan in spite of it all! 

FME Exercises (Shinn) 

VL (Dunnewold, Benn, Morgan)

 
MM (Fritz)  

What I've committed to doing this time around with my outlined curriculum (see previous post) is to stick with the exercises, ride them out so to speak, go a little further with them, versus rushing through them in order to get to the "fun" part.  For example, take the expanded shape exercises (middle image above). Instead of doing 10-20 of them and then moving to the next exercise, I'm going to overlap the exercises and continue to do the previous exercises while moving to the next one.  This will add some "depth" to what I do instead of moving through fast.  Afterall, the purchase of books is a serious investment and it doesn't make sense to keep adding to my shelves without really getting the benefit from them.  I'm even abandoning my approach to keep my books in pristine condition.  Why? For What?  No, this time I'm highlighting, making notes in the margins...really pushing myself to engage with the efforts that each author has made. 

Other happenings this week was finding 4 painted whole cloths that was my first intended series.  I didn't even remember doing them until I saw them and one of them just might become the background for the Audubon piece.  How sweet it is to look at something with new eyes, eh!? 

And another fresh discovery for this week is observing very little dye wash-out with acid dyes on silk which leads me to the conclusion that most of the dye adhers to the cloth.  Here are the scarves waiting for a 2nd layer of something...I'm thinking of some hand writing, any ideas for me?

Looking at these colours, I must have Spring on my mind :)

 Peace,

And she danced off into the aether!

I'm having fun..trying to squeeze as much out of the days as I can before the season who will not be mentioned sets in.  The last five or so days I've been marinating in the memory of spending time with artist Penny Sisto in her home and studio up in the knobs over in Indiana.  Its gorgeous there this time of year and her home is a meditation all to itself...and when you add in her fun and beautiful spirit it was a retreat and vacation from the concrete and wires and metal of a city steeped in commerce that I call home.

While there Penny showed me how she paints on fabric with wild abandonment and then looks into the fabric to see what emerges...very similiar to what Mystele calls "Gut Art".  The piece below is what came for me and I fell in love with it and trying to discover just who this was going to be.  I had a general idea but it wasn't quite affirmed.  On the ride home I kept looking at it but then decided to fold it up in the weathered "teepee" fabric she had given me for a possible background.  Well, beloveds, when I arrived hom and unfolded the fabric, she was gone.  I've looked all throughout my car and around it...she is gone!  I'll employ the Saint Anthony prayer (been using it for nearly 25 years and I know it works...if its not found after I employ Saint Anthony...IT AIN"T TO BE FOUND!  I have about a dozen small bags to riffle through and I'm hoping she will be in one of them...but as it stands now she has danced off into the aether!

Another big girl fun time was attending the grand-opening of Earthworks at the Carnegie in New Albany, Inidia...Congratulations to Valerie White,Pat DaRif, and Joanne Weiss (doesn't have an online presence) on a well put together exhibit that also heightens awareness to our MotherEarth and her struggles which are really our struggles.  November 7 and December 3 the artists will give a Gallery Talk.  This opening drew some of the art heavy weights out too, sculptorEd Hamilton, scuptor William Duffy, and scholar/artist Bob Douglass.  You have until December 30th to see Earthworks...get there!

Smallview of Mega-Artist Date

 

glue drying in screen, auditioning fabric, gelatin plate in the making, reference books

I ended the week feeling very productive.  I did push it to the limit though but feel it was worth it every second!  I did some brush calligraphy, continued with graffiti and writing on cloth, set up some buckets of soda-ash solutions (one for over-dyes, the other for white cloth), made a gelatin plate, mixed dyes for dye painting, and set up a screen with glue resist, and held steady with 3 hours in the gym.  I increased my time on the reclining bike from 10 minutes to 30 last week.  All which has brought me to today: the hardest thing I'm doing today is rolling in and out of bed.  The humidity has increased which is horrible for me so going out I'm not!

My social highlight of the week was an artists' date with friends, old and new.  Here is Emma, Pat, myself, and Juanita inside the theme hotel 21C.  The theme is 21st century art.  The C in 21C could stand for Cutting Edge and Conceptual also.  The hotel is a series of gallery spaces.  Below we are standing between the elevator interacting with a video tech. exhibit.  When you walk around the corner there is this wall screen/camera that puts you into the image of fallilng cascading letters...the letters bounce off of you or your body acts as a blockage to the letters falling.  This is highly entertaining!!!!!!! and addicting!!!!!!!!!

This is the lobby of the hotel and the 2nd picture below is a projection on the floor in front of the hotel desk of a couple in bed trying to get comfortable.  It is in video format so if you stand there long enough you see them adjusting pillows, checking the clock, tossing, turning.

The man and woman at the desk where just as stoic as the figures above their heads, as if they, too, are figures in the art.

  The art in the hotel is not just compatible or complimentary, the hotel is more gallery space from every nook and cranny, than hotel.  Even the bathrooms provide an ecletic artistic experience with projected video words in the mirror and one way mirrors that allow you to see out in the hall ways of the hotel.

Local artists are represented along with internationally known artists. 

 

digging this white on white embroidery

one of the galleries held a solo exhibit of lithographs by Kara Walker's grotesque antebellum imagery.  This is the 2nd exhibit I've seen of her work. I've read a dissertation turned book on it and I'm sorry to still say, the full meaning escapes me.  For work to be so intense and disturbing, and it is to me, I still can't fully grasp the intent of the artist.

We also headed to the headquarters of the Embroidery Guild of America to see the LAFTA show. Here are just a few shots from the show:

 by Joanne Weiss

And sometimes it all boils down to a sense of humour! This is a bust by Alyce McDonald:

 

 

We ended the outing at the Carnegie Museum of Art and History in New Albany, Indiana where Penny Sisto's newest solo exhibit is hanging.  I'm always so engulfed and interested in her work but this show, a series of portraits of faith/religion, left me feeling mediocre.  Even hearing her give a gallery talk some weeks ago did not tie me into the work beyond a cerebral/academic connection.

I'm looking forward to returning to my workshop next week...it will be my first time doing a gelatin plate and using glue as a resist.

Peace and blessings, immeasurably.

The effectiveness of old dye stock

I pulled out old dye stock and 2 strengths of thickener from the fridge and allowed them to come to room temperature over night for use last Friday the canvas.  Since I didn't feel like bothering with soda soaking I used Afterfix which goes on after the dye is completely dry.  The Afterfix is brushed on dries in about an hour.  It has to completely dry and then the fabric can be washed to remove the Afterfix and the dye remains.  

The dye and thickeners are 9 months old and have not been removed from the fridge since I put them in.  There is no odor to the thickener...seems like I remember reading in Complex Cloth that an amonia smell indicates the thickener is bad. 

I hand-washed the pieces in warm as my hand could stand it water with synthrapol.  I was satisfised with the results and plan to use the remaining dyes for dye-painting.  Here is what I painted today. 

The dye is still wet and will be good and dry when I return to paint on the Afterfix. 

I also tried ink-jet transfers using soft gel medium...the top was on a lighter background and the image was in gray scale.  The image directly above was in colour and the background fabric was darker and I'm thinking the values where too similiar resulting in the lost image.  While I was doing these samples it dawned on me to have my journals either dedicated to "transfers", "embroidery", for example, or either divide up a journal into sections so that I will not have to flip through journals to find (or most often, rediscover) previous samples.  What can I say?  Always slow but sure.

Memorial Day is starting out gray and wet...we are not trekking to the "country" cementary this year but I have fond memories of tradition of going with my Aunts and cousins.  For my mother's family, Memorial Day morphed into remembering the ancestors and not just those who served in the military.  I always used the time to collect family genealogy and stories which I entered into Family Tree Maker, a software program which has since been lost.  Even if I find the back up disc I'm not sure it would even open in the operating systems we have now.  I've thought about re-gathering, rebuilding the information but genealogy is much like quilting for me...enjoyably consuming in time and attention where anything else ceases to exist.  I loved the hunt involved in digging up records (of course much can be done online now) and oral interviews.  Even though I anticipated picking it back up, I don't think I can do it without stressing myself out which would take the pleasure from it.  I don't know if there are any young people in my family who are interested or not...its kinda entertaining to think of the 2nd (3rd?) wave hip-hop generation undertaking genealogy research.(what age demographic is that btw?  15-25).  I think of the first wave being my brother's age in their early 40's now.  The group that was weaned on it.  My 17 year old is writing a paper about the history of hip-hop.  He sees Rap as a sub-genre in Hip-Hop.   He has been struggling with the paper because I can't get it through is thick head that strong research paper goes beyond just citing historians and views of others but should at the heart be his own thoughts, ideas, and impressions of what he has learned, or what he thinks of the thoughts and ideas of others.  When we are talking about it, his self comes through, but he struggles with transfering his spoken words to paper.  At this point I've stopped bumping my head against the wall and I'm leaving him to his own devices and see what transpires between he and his teacher about it.   

Painting Canvas

Don't want to speak too soon but I've got a groove going back in the workshop!!  Whew, I was a worried there for a bit.  This is the beginning of week 3 of getting back on the good foot and I'm putting in 15 hours a week again.  (And week 4 of going to the gym...me and Ibuprophen have become close). 

I still have till the end of May (self-imposed timeline) to work with the raw canvas.  Through the Quilting Arts/Interweave site I discovered Alisa Burke and ordered her book, Canvas Remix, and enrolled in her online workshop entitled Graffiti Chic.  The timing to discover her was right on since she focuses on raw canvas.  For a week now I've been painting torn pieces and here is some of the results.  If you want to see a few of them up close, I uploaded some of my faves to Picasa here.

These are torn a little larger than 6"x12".  The first one I showed you I actually completed today...no, really, I'm very satisfied.  Here is what I did to the "moon":

A few months back I took inventory of completed pieces that where exhibit ready and thought "yeah" I can submit to the 4 shows I identified without worry of overlapping...well, today I searched for the forms...I know they are there somewhere...the organization of paper has never been my strong suit.  I considered appealing to Saint Anthony but thought, "no, I'd rather be painting canvas".

  One of the positive reinforcements I received from reading I'd Rather Be In The Studio by A. Stansfield was computer organization of files and folders.  I've got to make time to get the data entered.  One day (3-4 hours) every 2 weeks to get info entered and set up seems reasonable.  By the end of the year I should have everything in that I want in and from there it would be easier to track...right? right. right! 

When I find the forms I promise not to wail (here) about another missed deadline :)

To end this entry on a happier note, here is what I think is the most successful collage I've ever created.  It really isn't "quilted"...the only quilt construction is the red rectangle on the left.  Majority of it is built up from the copper painted canvas.  As far as mounting goes, my thoughts were to paint the stretched canvas off white and attache it, but then yesterday I saw  this on The West Country Buddha blog, and I immediately saw this piece with an attached copper wire for hanging.  As typical for me...I'm gonna sleep on it.

I need your help...

Really, I need suggestions on how to attach this piece of copper.  What would a mixed media artist use to attach this, is the question I posed to myself.  I really don't want to use thread...I thought about copper jewelry wire but I'm not sure how strong it is...would it snap or break?  I thought about stringing the charcoal beads and using them to intertwine throughout the copper circle and it would also secure them down using fishing line. 

 

 

I didn't go with the black lines, instead I pulled the colours at the top into the bottom using thread and then will pull the charcoal into the top with the tiny beads.

I want to make 10 of these before the end of May.  These are small, 6"x12" simple designs and exercises in colour combinations.   I like the size and the design and after flipping through old sketch books I saw several of quick sketches just like it...here is even a postcard I made in 2006 with pretty much the same design.  I called it House of Peace. 

 I'm also still uncertain how I'm going to finish the edges.  the canvas is to stiff and thick to roll back using a facing and I do not want to zig-zag...if I did a satin stitch I would want perfect matching thread for the charcoal and the coppery coloured top half.  What if I mounted it on foamcore and then used heavy weight card stock to cover the edges????  I even thought about mounting them on stretched canvas and either using rice paste glue or Y.E.S. glue or a permanent spray adhesive to attach it to the canvas? 

Since I declared Wednesday that I'm getting back on the good foot and shaking off the funk, I've spent 6.5 hours at my workshop.  I did bring somethings to work on while I'm home just in case I do not make it back tomorrow.  On weekends I have to have flexibility since my guys, youngest son and adorable partner, are out of school and off from work.  But I'll be back at the gym tomorrow and am looking forward to it (I can't remember ever feeling like that before...I use to look forward to jazzercise because my sister and I would stop afterwards and get ice cream that was next door to jazzercise).

Painting Quilts and Politics

I painted two other quilts, one here, before I left the workshop on Monday to return home.  I believe its finished but I did bring a blue bead stew home with me, just in case its not. 

Shortly after the notion popped to paint the quilt, I thought of the Kemshall's title, The Painted Quilt.  This morning as I was having coffee with this quilt, I remembered Denise Furnish, a local artist, who paints on found quilts.  And then there is the High Priestess of painted quilts, Faith Ringgold!  If you happen to know Ms. Ringgold personally, tell her I'm waiting for the serious autobiography of her life!  As I've searched in my library and at Amazon, I've concluded that there is a serious void in autobiographies of women visual artists...where are the Arnold Rampersad's for women visual artists?!

Previous

Current

One of the exercises Laurie Doctor had the class do was writing black on black.  So I applying that to stitching I'm playing with hand-stitching black on black.  The back is acryllc felt.  The center square is a double layer of silk and silk organza that I'm scanned the writing exercise from the calligraphy class onto.  I'm going to try wrapping this around stretcher bars...the size is 14"x14"

My next entry, sometime before Sunday, will be share my impressions of the Form Not Function...so much great work year after year, sure would be nice if a catalog was for sale for this annual show!

Peace,

Impeachment off the table and now single payer healthcare...Sen. Baucus' reasoning made no damn sense!  This is where President Obama needs us to make him accountable as he, himself, requested!"  Healthcare Lobbyist sure know how to spread the "love" in Washington, don't they?  This will have to be a grassroots efforts yall!

Woman disposes; Spirit proposes

And this IS working with a plan!  (Or maybe this IS as much as I can plan?).

Here is the quilt after I finished quilting it.  This is hanging on the 8 feet wide design board.

In writing my observations at this stage I had some definitely-do-different next time ideas but it was the puckering in the green panel that grated my last nerve...so I decided to cut out the red and the yellow for 2 seperate smaller quilts.  I came to this idea quickly as a result of having prior study work with these:

In my last post I wrote about having an interesting background and the piece not being successful as the whole quilt as a focal point.  Yesterday I used one of my spirit images and stamped 3 times in the upper left hand corner in dark blue...made me bounce and then a scene from the book Beloved came to me...child size ghost hand prints on top of a birthday cake...so I stamped a child's hand print in 2 sizes leading to the ghost heads...I was NOT bouncing....all I could see was those turkey drawings made from the imprint of one's hand.  The longer I looked at it the longer it offended me.  I didn't even want to be reminded of this disaster by cutting the piece into postcards.  After some deep breathing and meditating I heard the words "painted quilt".  Immediately got up from the comfy chair went to the cabinet and with not too much deliberation picked up the blue paint...don't believe I did it, do you?  Well let me layout evidence article labelled #1025 before you:

 

Then Sam Gilliam's pieces came to visit me...3 pieces I saw in his retrospective show that where solid colours that encouraged me to explore monochromatic pieces.  I was dancing and singing...I was barrackin'!  Settled down to meditate on it and my cheeks carried the weight of my smile and then from out of nowhere I got up and stuck this scrap that was on the table from another piece and stuck it onto the piece and I thought I was going to have to lay back on the pillow and smoke a cigarette after my heart returned to its regular beat.

 

I love this!  Ilovethis!! I LOVE THIS!!! 

I received such a boost from this piece that I started on the next quilt by writing on fabric.

 

In Studio 3 Once Again

Well I made it!  This is Studio 3 once again.  I had 3 days of dyeing. 

Thursday I just unloaded and mixed my dye stocks and that was enough.  That was five hours of my time.  I did do something different this time.  I used blenders to mix my dye stock which I didn't mind at all.  I can't shake and stir like I use to (and that goes for more than mixing dye stock although I just listened to Celia Cruz singing and I almost hurt maself ;) ).  All 3 blenders came off of Craigslist for little or nothing.  If you've got the patience it is a great place to find odds and ends for art and studio supplies.

 

Two other artists where in the house...their names have lost me at the moment but one from Arizona has a month to work on her printing and painting; the other from Indianapolis works in mixed media and was working on etching in metal and some painting.  The artists tend to visit with one another but in a very unintrusive way. 

On Friday Petra joined me.  She isn't an artist but appreciates what artists do.  She accepted my invite to come and play but declined to use the Reduran to remove the dye from her arm.  She said it made her feel like an artist so she wore it home.  I believe she had a very full day.  But the crazy woman plopped one of these

unidentified berries in her mouth until I admonished her to remove it immediately for fear she would fall over dead under my watch.  Geez, can't take her anywhere!

 

Here are some of the fabrics batching in the heat.  Some of which I left in the containers outside at my workshop when I returned all my supplies today with the help of youngest son who is standing next to his grandmother, aka, my Mama!

 

He was a huge help loading to go and loading and unloading upon return.

 

These are the fabrics I left outside just at the top of the stairs leading into the basement, aka, my workshop.  I will get to them sometime toward the end of the week after I put everything back in its place.

Here is the door leading down into my workshop.  Whenever it is open like this it means it is an invitation for every fly in the neighborhood to come party.  Ummm, I just thought about placing a fly repellant by the door to see if that helps.  That way I will be able to leave the door open sometime. 

 

These, I love a lot!

 

This is a small isolated section on a small piece.  Reminds me of the tips of spears or arrowheads.

This is a part of the window covering in Studio 1.  I isolated this section with the leaf.  The background is paper.  I find this very calming.

 

 

Ya know, I haven't dyed fabric all year!

I'm excluding the playing I did to see what the iDyes where all about and I'm excluding the painting on fabric.  I mean the get down and dirty, pull out the equipment, and just let go with yards of fabric kinda dyeing.  Well all that is about to change starting tomorrow.   I have a free day over at MACA and I'm going to anty up for an additional day and I'm going!!!!!!!!!!!  Ade went with me this evening to finish loading my auto.  I was going to "FOCUS" this time and not try to squeeze in every single surface design technique known to humankind.  I was almost there until the last hour of packing when I went through that "I'll take this just in case.  I might need that!  Well I can work this in too" and I've over packed...a real clear clue was when I opened the door and my 2 glass jars of thickener (sodium alginate) fell and broke.  If I remember to take a picture of my vehicle before I unload it, I'll make sure to post it here. 

I decided not to dye at my workshop.  The water source and the rinse out methods that I have to use makes it too too labor intensive and uncomfortable.  Plus too much other things are going on in the space and going outside leads back to being too laborous for me to enjoy it. 

Monday and Tuesday I spent time decluttering and replacing items and taking inventory.  Partly in preparation for the Benn/Morgan workshop coming up.  I vascilate between excitement to jitters.  Excitement due to the preparation of having to put a design board together prior to the class and bringing my intent while remaining open to new ideas; jitters due to hoping I can keep up and meet the demands of being in a group setting versus working solo at my own pace.

Yesterday I worked on cutting stencils from file folders as is demonstrated in the book Complex Cloth by Dunnewold.  I used copy-free designs just to practice and will do some more later on tonight if I don't get too tired.  I'm thinking I better try to turn in early though...yeah, better turn in early and not fool around with sharp tools this late at night.

Peace,

 

She Who Holds Tomorrow

It all started with a writing prompt that Crystal gave on magical realism and wondering what I could come up with in fabric.  I sketched out some ideas and although She Who Holds Tomorrow was my less magical, she was the one that began to send me telepathic messages...in the original sketch there are huge vases behind her that she asked for, then I decided to embellish the vases...then she asked to be made in cloth...I said hold up, you'll have to wait. 

Yesterday was her time...it was the 2nd day this week that I couldn't focus...felt tired, mentally blank, so I piddled instead of beginning the third top in the Poetry Series.  Ran the screens on a sample cloth, then made more marks on the cloth with Nsibidi writing using Indian Ink with the fine line writing tool.  Mo came home yesterday from her intro to Pan African Studies class asking about Nsibidi writing. It just so happened that a few months ago I had ordered a book on African writing systems and had read about Nsibidi writing so that was kinda a cool connection.  The writing on cloth became so good to me that I started making up my own marks.  The cloth ended up redeemed because the screen printing I did on it was a bust.  In some spots the drawing fluid wasn't thick enough so the screen filler filled in places that should not have been. 

Then I turned to my first sketch of She Who Holds Tomorrow and did a small exercise of her in Tsunikeo Inks (I know I just butchered that spelling) and prismacolour pencils.  This is just a practice on a piece of fabric that measures 8 inches by 11 inches.   

Grace asked about the drawing fluid and screen filler and whether or not she could use just the polyester mesh screen without a frame by taping the mesh around the edges...since I'm not an "expert" I would say go for it and try it...On Jane Dunnewold's Complex Cloth DVD she fuses tulle between two sheets of iron-on stablizer...she also demo'ed this on an episode of Quilting Arts.  I like the weight that the frame gives me, making the piece feel more stable when pulling over it.

Last night I dreamed that I flew to Accra, Ghana to hear a concert given by the UofL orchestra.  I was with Estella, a long time friend.  After the concert was over the very large group went to sit on the steps of the concert hall to watch a very elaborate parade of floats on water that ran in front of the concert hall...Beyond the water I could see the urban sprawl of Accra with buildings in salmon, yellow, fushia and trolleys and busses and huge long blocks of vegetable and fruit stands.  Estella had a Nikon D40 and I had my camera and we both where taking pictures of the parade and then of the areas beyond the water.  So I'm wondering now if She Who Holds Tomorrow is from Ghana????

 

Knocked out by Joy

Fridays are typically set aside to spend with my man since he is off from work that day but after Thursday's class with Juanita Yeager at the Carnegie in New Albany, Indiana I was over the top eager to return to my workshop and get down and dirty with what I had learned...a quicker and more comfortable method of dye painting that I had previously been introduced to by Hollis Chatelain last year in Berea.

The armless spirit women I did in class (not sure why I drew them.  I didn't overthink or think much about it at all, but just started drawing them out of the blue):

This image is prior to washing out the rice paste that the dye is mixed into.  The 2nd yard was started on Thursday with stamping the numbers but the class ended before I could do the background.  This could have easily been a week long class but in grand Juanita style, she always manages to give lots of info and instruction when needed into any amount of time spent and Thursday was no exception!

The 3rd piece I started from scratch on my own but will wait to share it after its completed.

Meanwhile I'm truly digging these numbers and the blending of the background. 

Oh, but prior to getting to my workshop I took my mother to see Juanita's solo exhibit Friday morning and when I left my workshop in the evening, (I changed clothes first but still had blue hands), I picked up a friend and returned to the Carnegie for the artist's reception! 31, no make that 31! gorgeous quilts!!  Most of them produced since her move to Missouri...and her quilts hang sooooo beautifully...I prolly should have taken the finishing class over again.  I could kick myself for not taking pictures at the reception.  The Carnegie holds the best receptions with delicious food and a live jazz band.  The exhibit is up til July so if you're not from this area and plan on passing through...put it on your agenda to stop and if you're in the region, its worth the cost of gas (no really it is) to make a planned trip to see the show.

Today will be spent resting and refueling and doing what I'm suppose to do health-wise and recovering from so much Joy! peace...

 

 

 

 

5

I was really sleeping good having decided last night that today would be a day of rest and then the maintenance guy came in to repair the kitchen faucet and the ceiling fan.  I didn't hear the doorbell and was startled by him calling out rather loud "maintenance".  I had drifted off to sleep while watching a film based on Howard Zinn's autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train on LinkTV.  Zinn's background was such a ordinary one that I wonder how many "zinn" like people we come across in daily life that get dismissed because they are "too crazy, too radical, too weird, too fill-in-the-blank".  Today I'm feeling that warm and hopeful feeling knowing that there are people devoting their full time pursuits to crafting legal, spiritual, political responses to debaseful events and attacks on our humanity, people such as Senator Keith Ellison, Prof. Charles Olgletree, Rev. George Regas, all of whom I've seen on TV in the last 24 hours.

Here are the last of the fabrics I dyed a few weeks ago:

The colour is eggplant and the fabric is unironed...I seldom iron my fabrics until I'm ready to use them...just not a task I can redeem enough to make me want to be proactive about it.

Here is one of the three 10"x10" quilts.  The image is scanned so the sides are cut off and I've not put a binding on it yet...I think I'll put a dark green binding on it.

I used the circular attachment to quilt it.   

6

The last of the fabrics that I dyed weeks ago is soaking.  I thought I had distinguished the fabrics that I had pre-soaked in soda ash from the ones I didn't but the evidence proved contrary...so I still don't know if adding the soda ash before or after the dye really makes any difference in the amount of dye absorbed...what I really want to understand and apply is colour that vibrates!  What really makes colour vibrate...not jarring but smooth and rhythmic?  And can it be done or how to achieve it using 1, 2, or 3 hues...I know this much, that value is the key.  But how can it just pulsates off the wall???

In an earlier post I mentioned doing postcards for the remainder of the year but that hasn't happened...instead, I'm looking at previous dyed/painted fabrics to see if I can cut them up, what would go together, etc.  I have such a difficult time cutting up my dyed fabrics where 3-4 colours form abstract movement across the length of the piece...I just want to quilt it as is...no cutting.  And its even harder when the pieces are patterned...for example, I love these fabrics below and I'm going to take a leap and combine them in 10"x10" quilts...

 

The top one on the left I groove with the most and I thought about just quilting it with low contrast thread and love it as is...but since matters of love are never that straight forward, I thought I'd torture myself by trying to put all 3 fabrics in one piece.  That is my mission today.